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| My original illustration for this story |
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| And this just in after I published -- an update! |
Quoting from the King James Bible, Jesus warned when his disciples asked what should be the signs of his coming and of the end of the world that there would be, inter alia, "earthquakes in divers (many) places AND UPON THE SEA DISTRESS OF NATIONS."
Certainly, we have seen a great deal of "distress of nations" along the various world seas, including but not limited to the 2003 tsunami that violently struck many Asian nations, many Florida hurricanes; Hurricane Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast and nearly destroying New Orleans in 2005.
Now our prayers need to be with the projected one third of the United States that is said to be at potential risk from the lethal combination of Hurricane Sandy colliding with a cold front that could bring extreme rain, snow, and flooding to the eastern 1/3 of our country, even posing a potential threat to the Great Lakes region of which my part of the country is classified.
The storms are expected to threaten Massachusetts starting tonight, Sunday, October 27, 2012. One of our most diligent contributors to our discussion board is Springfield, Massachusetts resident Susanna. She and her husband faced tornado hazards a year or two ago. Now they are probably occupied with preparations for this potential regional disaster.
We need to pray, be prepared to extend necessary support and relief supplies for those in this affected area. We also must soberly consider it as a grave "sign of the time." Just maybe, atheist scoffing not withstanding, God is trying to send us a message -- e.g, 'WAKE UP'!
May the Lord help us all, especially those in these gravely affected areas. I pray that the storm will turn back to sea or lose intensity. However, we must always remember that God has the big picture and we the little ones and our most constant prayers should be "Come quickly, Lord Jesus" and "thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done . . ."
Stay tuned!
P.S. AND THIS JUST IN: TSUNAMI WARNING ISSUED FOR SOUTHERN ALASKA -- VIOLENT EARTHQUAKES OFF THE WESTERN CANADA COAST -- TSUNAMI WARNING EXTENDS TO WASHINGTON AND OREGON COASTS!
322 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 322 of 322http://globalrumblings.blogspot.com/2012/11/powerful-64-mag-earthquake-gulf-of.html
"Today’s earthquake is the latest in a series of powerful quakes that has seen the planet reeling from increased seismicity activity, from Guatemala to Myanmar. Clearly, a season of planetary geological change is upon us."
http://globalrumblings.blogspot.com/2012/11/cleveland-volcano-alaska-ash-cloud.html
Christina, I post what I can wherever I can. It is up to others to do the same.
Yes, as someone posted, the Catholic bashers are showing up again. What else is new? Anyone who knows the history of the New Age movement knows that Catholics were attacked early on. Check out Crux Ansata: by H. G. Wells, written during WWII.
Read at Wikipedia.org about the book,The Shape of Things To Come, also written by Wells, published in 1933, at Wikipedia.org. Wells passed through Fabian circles.
While doing some checking, I came across a chapter which gave the early history of the New Age movement from the political perspective.
Final Warning: A History of the New World Order
Illuminism and the Master Plan for world domination
by: David Allen Rivera, 1994, http://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=FinalWarning&C=5.1
This is quite a long, researched document. Since I've not read it all, I can only say what I've read looks straightforward. It appears that all sections of the book are on line. It should give readers a rather rather detailed history of the political end of the New Age movement.
A revised version of the book dated 2004 appears at 2004 revision of David Allen Rivera's book 'Final - Detoxorcist.com
www.detoxorcist.com/.../david-rivera-final-warning.... - United Kingdom
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
Most people spend too much time guessing how the pieces fit together rather than working to see what has already been written. The book is 478 pages long.
To Anon of 8.13pm: Thank you for quoting Canon law 98 stating that the church regards canon law as overriding local civil law in certain circumstances. That is consistent with its covering up of child abuse in recent years, which is illegal under local jurisdictions, and it could in principle be used by Rome as its own justification for another kidnapping of a clandestinely baptized child, just like Mortara.
"Canon Laws 868 of Article 2 has nothing to do with baptism. It's about departure from an religious institute... What on earth are you talking about?"
The link you provided refers to 686, not 868. Here you are:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P2X.HTM
868 and 98 do not explicitly refer to forcible removal of clandestinely baptized children from non-Catholic homes, but provide the Vatican with self-justification for it.
Good morning,
I am sick, as in "sick in bed" since Saturday morning when I awoke with a painful sore throat. I canceled all Saturday appointments, did not make it to Church on Sunday for same reason, and all yesterday. I am summoned for jury duty today and am up so I can call the Jury Commissioner. It is clear I can go no where until this condition abates. My physician called in a prescription for the painful cough yesterday, but it's not doing much to relieve that condition. Anyway, sorry for the lack of updating, I have probably been coming down with this for awhile and it's just now catching up with me.
Pray for me!
Constance
Good morning,
I am sick, as in "sick in bed" since Saturday morning when I awoke with a painful sore throat. I canceled all Saturday appointments, did not make it to Church on Sunday for same reason, and all yesterday. I am summoned for jury duty today and am up so I can call the Jury Commissioner. It is clear I can go no where until this condition abates. My physician called in a prescription for the painful cough yesterday, but it's not doing much to relieve that condition. Anyway, sorry for the lack of updating, I have probably been coming down with this for awhile and it's just now catching up with me.
Pray for me!
Constance
Lord, please touch and heal the painful throat and cough in Constance. Father, bring her up out of the sickbed and back on her feet that she may continue to do the work You have called her to. Strengthen and Guide by Your Spirit to keep her encouraged and couraged to fight the good fight. In Jesus' Mighty Name. Amen.
Constance, get some oreganooil and take a couple of drops inwater twoor three times a day, tastes awful but works against germs and viruses. you can make oregano tea from cooking herbs if you have any.
poster of that link to the book thank you, I am going to read it now.
everyone, here is the latest crackpot idea that is motivating people with power and influence.
http://www.helium.com/items/2103481-how-some-transhumans-plan-to-rule-the-world
Dear Constance,
I am sorry to hear that you are not well. I will certainly pray for you that you will be well soon.
Anon@12:34 a.m.
I think Constance said, that in the New Age one will be allowed to have a religion, but not practise it if it discriminates against others.
This discrimination being based on whatever the state defines it to be.
For example, religious adoption agencies that do not permit certain kinds of adoptions such as to unmarried couples, or to homosexual couples will be shut down.
The HSS mandate is the U.S. uses the same language. Whatever a person does outside of a place of worship is not considered religious, so a Bible publisher is not religious, a Kosher butcher is not religious, a religious order that produces jams and sells them to make a living is not religious.
The same applies to schools, hospitals etc.
This kind of reasoning would shut everybody down.
I am glad that lawsuits are challenging this.
Savvy
Anon@5:29 a.m.
"868 and 98 do not explicitly refer to forcible removal of clandestinely baptized children from non-Catholic homes, but provide the Vatican with self-justification for it."
No it does not. It does not even mention non-Catholic homes or children.
You are reading your own views and interpreting things based on them.
Maybe you could contact this canon lawyer. who can help you out with things you do not understand. This is his blog.
http://canonlawblog.blogspot.ca/
Let's be honest shall we?
Dear Constance,
I hope you get well soon. You are in my prayers.
Savvy
And only Canon 96 deals with baptism. Canon 98 refers to the exercise of rights of parents, or guardians.
"Let's be honest shall we?"
By all means. I do not need to contact a canon lawyer to understand the English language. Here are quotes pasted unchanged from the Vatican website, on canon law at
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM
98.2: "A minor, in the exercise of his or her rights, remains subject to the authority of parents or guardians except in those matters in which minors are exempted from their authority by divine law or canon law. In what pertains to the appointment of guardians and their authority, the prescripts of civil law are to be observed unless canon law provides otherwise or unless in certain cases the diocesan bishop, for a just cause, has decided to provide for the matter through the appointment of another guardian."
868.2: "An infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of the parents."
I asserted that these canon laws taken together in gave the Roman Catholic church self-justification for another Mortara case even today, if it dared. You dispute that. Let's see. Canon Law 868.2 has the implication that, if the Catholic maid of a Jewish family secretly baptizes their gravely ill young son, the baptism is valid. Suppose now he recovers, and the maid tells the church hierarchy (but not the family) what she did when he is still just six years old, a minor under the age of responsibility (97.2). This reaches the ears of the Pope, who decides it is a just cause to appoint a guardian for him who is a senior hierarch, with whom the boy will live in Vatican City. 98.2 states that that is acceptable under Canon Law regardless of the jurisdiction under which the boy had lived: just as I said it did.
Constance, you have my respect even more as a trooper. Today I listened to your show. That you went on even as your throat was in such bad shape says a lot about your stamina and sense of responsibility.
Anon@ 7:18 p.m.
You brought up this in the context of the post-war in France. So let's take a look at the facts.
Italian journalist Andrea Torneili was able to track down the original document in the ] in the Centre National des Archives de l'Eglise de France.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2005/01/1946-Vatican-Document-On-Jewish-Children-Take-Two.aspx
The instructions said that if institutions (
not families
) wanted to take those children who had been entrusted to the Church, each case had to be examined individually. Some such institutions may have been trying to take the children to Palestine, to help populate the new Jewish homeland.
Indeed, there was special concern about baptized children. In some cases, their parents had requested baptism, perhaps because they thought that would best protect the children. In those cases, the Church would breach its obligation to the parents if it turned the children over to the wrong organization. In other cases, when Catholic rescuers had baptized Jewish children without consent of the Jewish parents, the Church was still concerned about turning the children over to organizations that were not associated with the children's family.
As for the rest of the children, the instructions provided: "also those children who were not baptized and who no longer have living relatives, having been entrusted to the Church, which has taken them under its care, as long as they are not able to decide for themselves, they cannot be abandoned by the Church or delivered to parties
who have no right to them
." There were very few facilities fit for children in Palestine or war-torn Europe.
The document made clear that these instructions related solely to
institutions
, most likely Jewish humanitarian organizations wanting to relocate orphaned children to Jewish homes after the war:
"Things would be different if the children were requested by their relatives."
This qualification changes the entire meaning of the instructions; these instructions did
not relate to children being sought by their parents or other relatives.
These Vatican instructions regarding the return of Jewish children were prompted by a meeting between the Pope and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog of Palestine in March 1946.
The Palestine Post (March 31, 1946) reported that Rabbi Herzog "told of his audience with the Pope, who had received him on a Sunday early in March. Their conversation...was mainly on the subject of the 8,000 Jewish children in Poland, France, Belgium and Holland who were [being] brought up in monasteries and by Christian families. He had the Vatican's promise of help to bring those children back into the Jewish fold."
The Pope must have come through on that promise, because Rabbi Herzog continued to praise his conduct toward the Jewish community throughout the Pope's life. As Dr. Leon Kubowitzky, of the World Jewish Congress, said in 1964: "I can state now that I hardly know of a single case where Catholic institutions refused to return Jewish children."
Jewish historian Michael Tagliacozzo, a leading authority on (and survivor of) the 1943 Nazi roundup of Roman Jews, wrote in the Italian newspaper Avvenire: "Pius XII kidnapper of children? But let us be done with such foolishness!"
Tagliacozzo confirmed that Jewish children were "returned to their parents as soon as possible."
"I asserted that these canon laws taken together in gave the Roman Catholic church self-justification for another Mortara case even today, if it dared. You dispute that."
Yes, because have assumptions, not documented evidence.
OK 8.28pm, what 'assumptions' am I making in my explanation at 7.18pm of how those articles of canon law could be used by the Vatican today to self-justify another kidnapping in identical circumstances to Mortara? That was my claim and there is my explanation.
Anon 4:43,
You seem confused about the definitions of capability and intent. You take rules that were written under the most extreme of circumstances, you remove them from that context, and deposit them in a scenario that does not currently exist in order to paint the picture you desire. I am far more worried about systems that are ACTUALLY stealing children and indoctrinating them.
Anon@9.13am,
I take it you have changed the subject to indulge in guesswork regarding my motivation because you cannot refute my argument.
"You take rules that were written under the most extreme of circumstances"
That's your view of canon law, on baptism (868) and episcopal authority (98)?
I too am worried about child stealing within secular jurisdictions today. I am no longer worried that the Vatican would pull another kidnap, mainly because it dare not. (Has it shown contrition over Mortara's kidnap?)
Round 9642(in this blog)of Catholic Law and Grace that is Greater than all our sin pitted against each other once again......
Because of the length of my comment, I'm breaking it into three parts.
Part 1
I can't stay off the topic of the New Age movement, no matter how much interest has dropped off among the general population. Ignoring the topic is even more serious than concentrating on the communist ideology which leads to political planning and achievement of those goals. It is even more serious than ignoring whether a Democrat or Republican party exists. It is even more important than following all of the possible topics brought up by conservative media people.
Granted almost all people never give the above a second thought. More important in their life is whether there is enough money around to take care of their needs and wants on a day to day basis whether the money comes from the government or their own work history. More important for them is whether a family member can be trusted or keep providing love and support. More important to them is whether the sports team they follow is winning. More important is whether the grass is cut or any other day to day matter. This fills their day and leaves no time for matters they have no interest in.
People who give the political situation a thought like talking points because they can appear knowledgeable based on trusting the information of someone they emotionally like.
Minute distractions which require little thought are a staple of conversations. They are the political or cultural topic of the day. They serve a good purpose as they allow people to bond into a community that shares the same level of information without giving it much thought. Here we can even add those people who bond because of their religious belief. I would still call it minutia because there are so many divisions in those communities that basically there is little all Christians or all Jews agree on. Go Bulls. Go Redskins. Obama is so bad. Romney is so bad. Do you know what's happening in NYC now? Have you heard about Walmart and the unions? We all need a sense of community. There can't be a community of hermits.
People in the general population who stop at the above levels of information are generally good people with lots of distractions to fill their time.
(continued)
Part 2 continued
Moving on, there are specialists at all levels of political planning and cultural change. They focus and work together, planning and bringing about the goals of the New Age movement. They support each other's view of what is good, thinking alike, or, as is said, they breathe together. They have a huge network of organizational support systems that doesn't depend on individuals in the general population as they can manipulate around any opposition. Individuals in the general population who like New Age ideas just follow without being leaders in the movement or without awareness of what the movement involves. Are you starting to understand how the New Age movement works?
People in opposition to the current picture like to slap a label on a group and say they have the entire picture of what is going on behind the scenes. Then they can say they "know." Here we have the minute distractions on a much larger scale.
We are living in a New Age world of individuals and organizations planning our lives. Someone said that support for Obama centered around abortion, Obamacare and homosexual marriage. Who has taken the time to understand that these things trace back to New Age planning?
Part 3
Put a limiting label on it - progressive, communist, socialist, Alinsky thinking, Democrat, internationalist, humanist, pagan, occult, Antichrist, or anything else, and it still is the New Age movement. The history, the organizations, the patterns of thinking, the ongoing planning, the individuals are all there to be examined by those few individuals who are willing to take the time out of their day to day lives to see what is affecting their day to day lives.
If there was some way to set up a network of individuals who work together who have done so, even on the smallest level, I would be jumping for joy to be part of it. I keep looking. I've found many individuals who claim to be leaders of such a set up, but then they are moving off on an agenda of their own, are just New Age sources of disinformation or want to be the big fish in a small pond. Because there is no such grouping, over the years I've seen huge numbers of people burn out.
Comments anyone? Or am I just speaking into the wind?
while support for abortion and homosexuality in our time has had such success because of New Age planning,these are problems that have in some places taken over cultures in the past and were part of their traditions. these are things in themselves.
Support for Obama did NOT depend on this,rather, he catered to them to get votes, and unfortunately is probably willing to deliver though bills regarding these don't normally come across his desk.
Obama care which already makes it illegal to refuse insurance because of preexisting conditions and in 2014 will have the govt. pay if you can't afford insurance,and in its present form is crippled because of the insurance industry fighting, is a major draw. So is party loyalty.
if you oppose abortion, but realize financial problems are a motive for it, you are going to vote for whoever will help(or pretend to)with the financial problems.
The separate issues you mention as distractions from the NAM are often part of it, and need not be distractions.
Christine, if you aren't the perfect example of a blog troll, I don't know how else to describe one. Are you paid to disrupt this blog or are you doing it doing it out of the generosity of your New Age heart?
http://beforeitsnews.com/space/2012/11/nasa-announces-largest-near-earth-destined-asteroid-to-date-197-feet-2449296.html
16,000 to at most 20,000 miles from us in Feb.15 would obliterate acity if Earth's gravity pulls it in. NASA still unsure if it will hit or not.
"That's your view of canon law, on baptism (868) and episcopal authority (98)?"
No it's your view of reading something else and connecting it to something else, based on your imagination.
You connected it to a false article on post-war France, and were proven wrong.
You're behind the times Christine, that asteroid was detected last February and by May its orbit had been tracked with sufficient accuracy to be certain that it will miss us. I agree that 3 earth radii away is a relatively close shave though - with the equivalent of a 3 megaton nuke. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_DA14
The website you quote might better be named "AFTER it's news". Now, before you say that the Wikipedia entry is written by someone who wants to keep the truth quiet, please find that NASA report to which your source refers.
Physicist
C, let me know when I can come out from under my bed. I've taken the computer under there with me.
You write about such scary stuff.
Anon@3.53pm,
Let's be honest shall we? I started this by saying at 6.34pm some way up the thread that "Hitler is cited as a Catholic because he was baptized as one. That was enough, just 38 years earlier, for the Pope to order a Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, to be forcibly and permanently kidnapped from his parents in Bologna after their Catholic maid told a local priest that she had clandestinely baptized him when he was seriously ill. The same church regulations which called for that were still in force throughout Hitler's lifetime. Rome wants it both ways."
And, at 7.18pm next day I showed it, from Canon Laws 98 and 868, and nobody has yet disputed my reasoning. Yes the French document proved to be a disputed diversion, but you are doing your utmost to add another diversion from this unsavoury fact.
Anon@3:53 pm.
THE MORTARA CASE
by Martin Barrack
It is charged, always without context, that Pope Pius IX during his 1846-1878 papacy removed a Jewish child from his family. However, the context makes it clear that the continued attacks can only be an attempt to persecute the Catholic Church by proxy.
Edgardo Mortara’s Jewish parents lived in Bologna in what was then the Papal States, a Catholic nation whose sovereign territory included much of present-day Italy.
The Papal States had two well-known laws. The first prohibited Jewish parents from hiring Catholic servants to raise their children.
Pope Benedict XIV had written on February 28, 1747:
Since this may happen, that a child of Hebrew parentage be found by some Christian to be close to death, he will certainly perform a deed which I think is praiseworthy and pleasing to God, if he furnishes the child with eternal salvation by the purifying water.
The Papal States intended this law against hiring Catholic servants to protect Jewish families.
With no Catholic nannies around to baptize their children, Jewish parents could keep their families intact.
The second law required that if a gravely ill Jewish child was baptized and then recovered, he could not be raised by his parents unless they became Catholic. The Catholic faith is serious.
Once a child is baptized, the Church is responsible to do all it can to protect his immortal soul by assuring that he is raised Catholic.
Edgardo Mortara’s parents, ignoring the law, hired a Catholic teen-age girl as a nanny. When Edgardo fell ill at age 17 months, the nanny prayed for the child and baptized him.
Five years later, after she told her parish priest that Edgardo was not being raised Catholic, Papal States police on June 24, 1858 enforced the law and brought Edgardo to Rome.
Eight days later his parents arrived in Rome where they stayed for a month and pled for his return. Edgardo, then six years old, met with his parents every day but never showed any desire to rejoin them, as he himself later attested.
Edgardo remained in Rome and was educated under the personal protection of Pope Pius IX, always free to return to his parents. At age 17 he went to Bologna to spend a month with his parents, but decided to return to Rome and become a Catholic priest.
In 1870, the Risorgimento, a Masonic-inspired movement to unify Italy and break the temporal power of the Catholic Church, brought Piedmontese troops to Rome. They hurried to the convent where they imagined that Mortara, then age 19, was being held captive, but were surprised to hear him say that he not only intended to become a priest but also to take religious vows with the Lateran Canon Regulars.
Father Mortara, reconciled with his parents, became a devout scholar, and preached throughout Europe in nine languages. He passed into eternity in 1940 at age 88.
Pope Pius IX promoted true freedom for Rome’s Jews. At his order, the gates of Rome’s Jewish ghetto were taken down. He deployed patrols in the area to protect the Jews from those who were incensed by their emancipation. Father Mortara was one of the first witnesses to give testimony in favor of Pius IX’s beatification.
During most of her history, the Catholic Church held a Pauline, patristic and Thomistic view of baptism, by which it most likely would have handled the Mortara case in a way more charitable to the parents and which would have still granted the young boy the freedom to become a priest.
However, Mr. and Mrs. Mortara chose to violate the Papal States law during a time when the Church saw baptism through the lens of a very strict late-medieval view of baptism.
The nominalism of the schoolmen had by that time degraded theology into a web of legalistic relations comparable to the Torah legal system.
Today the Church has recovered her earlier view of baptism. This is deep theological water. God chooses to work through His sacraments, but He is not limited by them. This leads to a paradox:
http://www.secondexodus.com/html/jewishcatholicdialogue/mortara.htm
The above was directed to Anon@4:08 p.m.
So, 4.22pm, because the Mortara parents broke the local law and hired a Catholic maid (how shocking!) it is OK to steal their child from them when she baptizes him?
Yes or No please, I've had enough smokescreen (aka incense).
Mortara showed no desire to return to his parents when? Not the night he was kidnapped or the weeks afterwards, I'll bet.
Anon@4:51 p.m.
Mortara's parents broke the law when they clearly knew what it stood for and why.
I do not think it's okay to steal their child.
But for Catholics sacraments have meaning, and the parents knew it.
"Mortara showed no desire to return to his parents when? Not the night he was kidnapped or the weeks afterwards, I'll bet"
It says, eight days later.
This was a conflict that should have been handled differently.
re: The Big Picture parts 1.2 & 3
_Duly noted
Dorothy, you're not wrong.
But you'd be more right if you simply trusted
in God and let Him do his work.
Jesus is the Messiah. Full stop.
Like Job it doesn't yet appear what's really
going on until you wait.
Wait on the Lord.
How else could all those African slaves have
kept this faith ?
But they did.
Boy did they ever.
Have you heard the praise ?
Hallelujah !
You bet it should have been handled differently. The Roman Catholic church should not have kidnapped him as you have agreed. Who knows what threats had been made to him if he showed any desire in front of his parents to go home, given that he was not going to be allowed to?
"But for Catholics sacraments have meaning, and the parents knew it"
They didn't ask their maid to baptize their child, did they? Your diversion into the Mortara's breaking of a silly law when the real issue is clerical KIDNAPPING is deplorable.
Has the Vatican showed contrition for this action?
Paul, I'll take your word that you truly believe in something though other than your words I've seen little proof of that.
I don't believe in just trusting in God any more than I believe in just trusting the government or you. You can follow your own version of the Bible which consists of two words, "Trust God" and I'll follow mine which give much better advice.
I refuse to sit in front of a steamroller saying "I just trust God will take care of me."
Your advice sounds noble and spiritual on the surface, but it only leads to allowing evil people, such as Jew haters, to assume control if God decides not to step in to protect people who could do something to make the world a better place and don't.
Can I add you to the category of a big bag of wind when I talk about speaking to the wind?
"Has the Vatican showed contrition for this action?"
Given that all Jewish children according to Rabbi Herzog and Michael Tagliacozzo, were returned to their family members in WW2, I would say Yes.
Yes, they did not ask the Nanny to baptize their child, but a devout Christian would still have prayed for a non-Chrsitian child in danger of death, without asking anybody else.
This would be done even today. Sacraments are said to carry grace with them.
To prevent this senario, there were laws against hiring one.
I agree the kidnapping was wrong.
"On February 15, 2013, DA14 will pass no closer than 0.000181 AU (27,100 km; 16,800 mi) from the center-point of the Earth,[9] which is no closer to the Earth's surface than 3.2 Earth radii.[4] The nominal pass will be 0.00023 AU (34,000 km; 21,000 mi) from the center-point of the Earth.[9] This is potentially closer than satellites in geosynchronous orbit. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_DA14
This confirms what the article said, and http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/EarthRadius.html
says the Earth's radius is 3963.19 miles. So the distance from the urface is 17,037 miles. That being inside geosynchronoussatellite orbit,it is in range of being pulled in by Earth's gravity.
this is still a definite possibility. If nothing else it could hit some satellites we depend on for communications a lot.
Dear Anon 5:31, Perhaps your god is way to small to be trusted (no higher than mere human intellect). Paul's God (the Lord of old and new testaments) is way to big to be denied (except by those in denial....)
Christine, you wrote that the Wikipedia ref "confirms what the article said". That is false. The Wikipedia piece stated that this body definitely will not hit the earth. The article said that it remained a risk, and you repeated in your first post about it above that NASA was still unsure whether it would hit.
You also wrote: "the distance from the [s]urface is 17,037 miles. That being inside geosynchronous satellite orbit,it is in range of being pulled in by Earth's gravity. "
There is no magic boundary at geosynchronous orbital height, such that below it a body feels the earth's gravity and above it it does not. The force of gravity between the bodies is governed by the inverse square law at all distances: double the distance between their centres, and the force falls by a factor of four. And so on. This was the main ingredient of the calculation used to predict whether the thing will hit us, based on its location and velocity when first detected.
Physicist
while the wikipedia article stated it would not hit, it stated the same things about the asteroid the other article gave as reasons it could hit. I quoted the specific part that was confirming it.
NASA was always divided on the matter.
The wiki article gives no reason why such an orbit could not be dragged off course being that close to Earth, and THAT is the issue.
Anonymous 5:50
New Age kind of thinkers think in terms of "your God" and "my God." We monotheists believe in the concept one God.
Christine,
The only thing that matters about that object is whether it hits the earth or not. You endorsed a website saying it might. I gave you the (fully referenced) Wikipedia article showing that it won't. Your words about agreement between the websites were misleading. Nobody cares if the websites agree about where the thing was first seen in the sky or how big it is.
NASA divided on the issue? Let's have your evidence for that, and I mean interviews with different NASA people saying unreconcilable things, not conflicting reports from trash websites that are unattributed and probably about seventh-hand.
"The wiki article gives no reason why such an orbit could not be dragged off course being that close to Earth, and THAT is the issue."
The Wikipedia article was about that specific body. It was not a primer on celestial mechanics to expound the inverse square law of gravity, which applies to everything. Your phrase "dragged off course" shows your confusion: its 'course' is what NASA calculated using the inverse square law of gravity for its interaction with the earth. It's not a straight line.
Physicist
for Anon 7:08 pm
And your point is...??? Maybe you have a small faith or maybe a small god. Either way you should explore which applies.
Anonymous 7:34
My point is that you no longer think like a monotheist, if you ever did. You easily jump into a New Age mode of thinking without a second thought, possibly not even realizing you are doing it.
It's easy for people to fall into New Age thinking if they don't know what it is. That's how there is a changeover in a culture.
Now I'm sure you will feel good just quietly staying in a non-thinking mode. It's so much easier to say, "God will take care of me and everyone else. There will be no more wars, no more liars, thieves, adulterers to worry about today. And if these kind of things exist, I'm sure there is a good reason for all of it." I'm sure you can't see this, but it doesn't help those murdered, those starving, those being lied to this evening. After all, you don't have to do anything but trust. Easy enough.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the murder (initially couched as suicide) of an IHOP-KC student by another IHOP student. "Truthspeaker" has been keeping up with the story:
http://truthspeaker.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/media-and-sheriffs-department-looking-for-information-in-deaton-case/
And, BTW, yes, I do think this New Age in origin.
I've posted an article on the 'roots' of Mike Bickle's IHOP-KC:
http://notunlikelee.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/the-sandy-foundation-of-the-international-house-of-prayer-ihop/
to physicist - oh,shut up. and I forgot I was going to ignore you. The non hitting is assuming it stays on course. It might not. And if its nickle-iron, that might make it a tad amenable to the magnetic field,eh?
they don't even know what it is made of. I suggest we stop preening and arguing and start praying.
BTW NASA says that not all NEOs are even known yet and a major impact someday is inevitable. Likely it will blindside us, like that thing that came in close and wasn't noticed till it was in process of missing us a year or two ago.
Dear Anon 7:53 pm
I trust, with my sleeves rolled up and my heart and mind engaged (like you would know or care)as God would have me do, to get in the battle of right against wrong-good against evil...not perfectly but my weakness is made perfect in God's Strength.
The difference between us may be that I have, by faith, let God address and pardon my own sinfulness first in my need for His Forgiveness (the Cross of the Savior Jesus the Christ) and am therefore enabled to trust beyond my own self into the realm of where things in this world do get changed--in the Power and Presence of God. Not some talking head, armchair, new age, head in the clouds, pretender activist, or an only logical and passionless observer with an agenda for people, but actively engaged in the close at hand "jerusalem" and on out into "samaria" even uttermost places, where my own human suffering and need is and has taught me who is really my neighbor. You included.
Where is your faith placed and in whom? Faith without works is dead, says the Bible. As James of the New Testament recorded...I show you my faith by my works...not the other way around because the faith has to come first. Works without faith, in the real Powerhouse-God Himself-the One True God in Three Persons, is an empty exercise to trick the ego into thinking that the huge questions and answers about justice and injustice in the world are achieved in mere human thought and endeavor. For these near 6000 years of earth existence have proven for time and eternity, that mankind cannot fix himself. That is the pitiful, new age-old pagan, nutshell and every neurosis and every pride that is mankind's undoing is found right there...faith in his own pitiful self.
Anonymous 1:03, if I didn't have faith that God existed, provided moral guidelines for us to live by and expected us to do what we could to live up to them, I probably wouldn't care what I did or what happened to other members of the communities I am part of. Publicly patting myself on the back, telling others how holy I am isn't what I'm told to do because in the scheme of things I don't know how holy I am in God's eyes.
You don't need me to tell you to follow whatever you are told by your clergy to do. Your understanding of whatever denomination you follow is between you and your leadership. It has nothing to do with understanding what the New Age is bringing about unless they know what it is and how to face it. Based on my experience, most fall back on some generalizations rather than learning what is going on.
Back to watching how the world around us operates, read this article which shows how the New Age homosexual community planned and worked to bring about their goals which will be destructive to all of us. The conservative pro-family movement blew the opportunity in four states to protect the community. Gentle, delicate souls that they are, a lot of them probably figured praying and trusting was enough. How much damage will be done to individuals who were taken in will result. I just read a stomach turning article that detailed the specifics of the pedophilia supporters who operate at very high levels in the government in a European country. I could never post the article here to wake people up. The gentle souls would protest that such ugliness could be brought before their eyes. That is also part of the New Age homosexual network. Mass Resistance is an organization that takes a real world stand against the homosexual agenda. Their eyes are wide open, but they need a large network of allies to fight the other network of homosexual agenda supporters.
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen2/12d/ssm_analysis_111312/index.html
"to physicist - oh,shut up. and I forgot I was going to ignore you. The non hitting is assuming it stays on course. It might not. And if its nickle-iron, that might make it a tad amenable to the magnetic field,eh?"
How many times are you going to say you will ignore me and then respond to my criticism Christine? It happens every time you talk nonsense about science and I point it out.
NASA has calculated its course, based on where it is and its velocity, using the inverse square law of attraction of gravity to take account of the earth and other bodies (Sun, Jupiter) whose gravitational influence is significant enough to be relevant in determining whether it will hit us or not. That is how its course is calculated. Unless it hits something else so small we have not seen it, which changes its course, then it will continue on its present course - which misses us. Unless you are talking about the interior of the atomic nucleus, physics has proved able to predict courses using only two forces, gravity and electromagnetism. It is easy to calculate the effect of the earth's magnetic field on a body that is ferromagnetic, and the effect is negligible compared to that of gravity. It has not been forgotten as you seem to assume.
Do you understand now?
Physicist
Dear Anon 2:03 pm,
Well, you missed it--by a mile.
I am not getting or giving a pat on my own back. If you read carefully you would see that I acknowledge God as Holy-not me. It is Him in me, ruling in me, that was by humble invitation that He afforded Himself to me, where any good at all comes from. This is surrender on my part, not what can be drummed up by myself, as if that could ever be good enough out of mine or any other human life.
Yes, we are moral creatures, but whose morality are we operating by is the question. It is Christ in me, then revealed in my everyday life, not without more struggle and surrender, but bowed to His Word to love and obey Him, that is enabled to do good works. I have no power whatsoever to perform good deeds apart from faith in Him, Whose Spirit moves me.
Not clergy, Not denomination, not outward force, or any human will, but the Power of God in Christ Jesus--the Only Good there is in the world-the universe for that matter!
You are not viewing my life personally and I do not see yours either. No matter....It can seem all words, until we are before Holy God Alone to Whom we will all answer that proves out in the end. I am hidden with Christ in God so my testimony is His Righteous Blood.
Will yours?
Excuse me..to the conversation above---the ending question was meant to be...will your testimony stand?
What I have: "Tracheo-thoracic bronchitis." Nasty stuff. I've been on anti-biotics since Tuesday when I saw the doctor. Still running a mild fever, but am feeling much better now.
I am deeply concerned about events in the Middle East, not to mention Washington, D.C.
Sarah Leslie will do my radio program tonight as I still don't have much of a voice and painful coughs.
Constance
What I have: "Tracheo-thoracic bronchitis." Nasty stuff. I've been on anti-biotics since Tuesday when I saw the doctor. Still running a mild fever, but am feeling much better now.
I am deeply concerned about events in the Middle East, not to mention Washington, D.C.
Sarah Leslie will do my radio program tonight as I still don't have much of a voice and painful coughs.
Constance
Anonymous 10:52
I am not one who buys into the "see how holy I am because I acknowledge God is above all things." You are not in any way unique in these thoughts. Maybe we can have something in common if you share what you have rolled up your shirtsleeves to do. There are many avenues to use that put thoughts such as yours into practical use. Otherwise, they are just self-serving pats on your own back.
Anon@5:15 p.m.
So you are saying it was OK for the Jewish parents to knowingly break the law but wrong for the Vatican authorities to enforce it......even though it had originally been enacted to protect the Jews in view of the Church's strict interpretation of Baptism at that time ?
According to Edwardo Mortara's own testimony, he was not kidnapped or stolen, but the case had to be investigated.
Dear Anon 12:28
It is not for my benefit to tell what I "do" as far as good works go, but will share that I am very privileged to minister free of charge to the care of hurting people who cannot easily afford chiropractic care in ministering body work for their aid and comfort. That particular field is overfull of new age philosophy, that I handily reject, that I may be used for the Sake of the Gospel. I love volunteer work in other areas of need as well.
It is my privilege to minister the Gospel of God's Free Grace found only in the Lord Jesus, by not just sharing the Word of God to them but also finding, yes with that, practical ways for the Love of God to reach them as it did me.
Can I verify these to you? No. God knows, so am satisfied, and have no desire to promote anything other than the Truth and Mercy that saved me has with it, allowed as privilege, gifts of service to be used in His name. It is all at once humbling and exhilarating to the soul. That said.......
It is truly not about me or you, but God's story...
My relationship with Jesus is the Crown Jewel of all of living-with Eternal benefit. Doubting Thomas said falling at His Feet--"my Lord and my God"--this is not a new age concept---this is what new age or old religion, cannot produce--right standing with God or men, head and heart bowed to One Greater. Religion with it's "works righteousness agenda" plus the trend toward new age mind bending to fit a humanistic program is an enemy of our souls.
But---available to anyone who turns to reach back to Jesus, (He is not a religion or creed-but Very God) Who first reached out to us with nail-scarred Hands, Who came from Eternity before time, is the beautiful opportunity to find lost and hopeless selves-(is that not how this whole world is?)-found safe in the Forgiveness and Love of God.
What the world needs now is Love sweet Love alright as new age music would sing---but the Cross of Christ Jesus is the One and Only place where sin and it's shame can be forever put away. That is worth singing about! No new age or old pagan thinking can even remotely touch that.
I would love it if you and I had that in common...............
"So you are saying it was OK for the Jewish parents to knowingly break the law but wrong for the Vatican authorities to enforce it[?]"
When you refer to "breaking the law" you mean the law about Jews not employing Catholics in the Papal States. We'll come to that later. But when, further in the same sentence, you talk about the Vatican authorities enforcing "it" you actually mean a different law, ie the Canon Law (which was Civil Law in the Papal States) about the treatment of baptized babies. Do you realise how misleading that shift is? It is as if you are saying that the Mortaras broke the law so they got what they deserved when Edgardo was taken from them.
"According to Edwardo Mortara's own testimony, he was not kidnapped or stolen"
Would you give a reference please?
Even if he said that, I doubt that it was a statement given at the actual time of the kidnapping, in contrast to his parents' testimony. Remember also that he was a 6-year-old child at the time.
Also, I asked whether the Vatican had shown contrition for kidnapping Mortara and you (presumably) responded: "Given that all Jewish children according to Rabbi Herzog and Michael Tagliacozzo, were returned to their family members in WW2, I would say Yes."
Would the author of this response please explain how that action demonstrates contrition for kidnapping Mortara, please?
Anonymous 1:58, so to get past the religious poetry, do you warn others in the chiropractic field about the New Age connection to their occupation? Do you tell them of the connection between the chiropractic field and what is found in the Lucis Trust writings on this? Do you tell them about the anti-Christian bias in the work they are doing?
It's good that you can bring comfort to the lives of others by way of Christianity, but warning them about their futures is also good.
"Would you give a reference please?"
http://www.ewtn.com/library/issues/ZMORTARA.HTM
You still do not seem to get it. Whether, you like it or not, this was a part of civil law. His parents chose to break it.
An Evangelical nurse in the UK was fired for praying for a patient because it was against hospital regulations.
You might call this a silly law, but respect is a two way street, esp, in sensitive issues like religion.
I brought up WW2 because a different course of action was taken in situations that involved baptized non-Catholics.
PS As for the law in the Papal States forbidding Jews from employing Catholics: the main reason for that law is obviously pride. And just because a law exists does not mean it is a good law, does it? Let's do a quick comparison with the God-given Law of Moses, under which kidnapping was a capital offence but you could employ whoever you liked (Jew or gentile) in your household.
The Papal States were governed directly under Catholic Canon Law, an unordered accumulation of centuries of edicts that it was rationalised only in 1917. Nobody really knew what the law was - a deeply unjust situation. In Rome under direct papal rule the Jews had to live in a ghetto and for many centuries wear a star when outside it. That reminds me of something.
Anon 2:19, Yes, I have these talks with folks. Not very many listening. I am not popular.
As for poetry, (these are not my words)----Let God be True and every man a liar. Romans 3:3
How's that for poetry???............
I asked you for a reference to Mortara saying that he was not kidnapped or stolen. The statement of his to which you have linked on EWTN does not say that. It says only of the incident that "the Holy Father... charged Feletti to separate me from my family. This took place, with the aid of civil authorities, that is, the officers of the Inquisition, on June 24, 1858."
He is silent on whether he went voluntarily. He then says that when he was permitted to see his parents 8 days later he had no desire to go back. Now, he was never going to be permitted to go back. How do we know that he was not threatened with punishment if he showed his parents any desire to go back? Remember, we we talking about the Inquisition here. And have you heard of Stockholm syndrome? How much more likely that a 6-year-old will crumble than an adult?
Above all, Mortara's statement was made made many years later, in circumstances in which he had a great deal invested in his identity as a Catholic priest. But his parents maintained consistently that he was kidnapped from the moment it happened.
The gay marriage thing from that link "This past summer Barack Obama announced his support for gay marriage. In Maryland, where blacks have been a large anti-gay marriage constituency, this had a terrible effect on many black churches. Almost immediately many either stopped dealing with the issue and some even switched to supporting it."
Frankly I am more appalled by this than by the vote. What the heathen and nominals do, what the laws are has no bearing on how Christians should conduct themselves. It really doesn't matter how marriage is defined as long as YOU DO NOT PERSONALLY PARTICIPATE IN THIS SKUBALA.
But these churches reactions show they are less about Jesus and more about being Black if they dump the issue because a Black prez is for this.
But I guess this is what you get when Church is a social institution, instead of members considering themselves as outside society, only provisonally citizens of anything except The Kingdom of Heaven. We should be salt and light, flavoring and changing the meal, not changed by it.
Anon@2:35 p.m.
No the main reason was not pride. It was to prevent a senario from taking place.
Baptism, obviously does not mean the same thing to you. For example when Protestants become Catholic, if they have already been baptized, they do not have to be re-baptized, because it's considered valid.
The Papal states had a mixture of both state and civil laws.
And you can certainly come up with all the conclusions you want, but I have a life to live. Have a nice day.
I meant a mixture of both canon and civil laws.
"No the main reason was not pride. It was to prevent a s[c]enario [such as Mortara's] from taking place."
The fact is that the Jews kept themselves better educated than the Catholic peasants who comprised the poor in the Papal States, and it was to the advantage of both for Jews to be able to hire Catholic servants. Labour wanted, salary offered... But Rome made the practice illegal. I suggest that this was a matter of Catholic pride in regard to their attitude to the Jews. If you think it was to prevent the Mortara scenario, why did not Rome permit such employ but instruct lay Catholics not to baptize Jewish or other non-Catholic children in any circumstance?
Re: "The fact is that the Jews kept themselves better educated than the Catholic peasants who comprised the poor in the Papal States, and it was to the advantage of both for Jews to be able to hire Catholic servants."
Excuse me, first of all, where is your documentation that this was the case?
Secondly, the law against hiring Catholic servants - whether you happen approve of it or not - was enacted precisely to protect the Jews.
The Mortara family who, for the sake of their own convenience, decided to deliberately flout the law in hiring a Catholic nanny for their child had no legitimate cause for complaint when it was discovered that the nanny had baptised Edgardo believing him to be in danger of death..
Edgardo Mortara said so himself in his own testimony on the occasion of the beatification of Pope Pius IX.
The following is taken from that testimony:
§1652: Name of the witness.
My name was Edgardo Levi-Mortara in lay life, and Pio Maria in religious life. I was born in Bologna to Salomone and Marianna Padovani on August 27, 1851. At age 13, I entered as an aspirant in the Canons Regular of St. Peter in Chains; I was admitted to novitiate on October 6, 1866, at St. Agnes Outside the Walls. I pronounced simple vows in that basilica on November 17, 1867. I later made my solemn profession in the parish of Nova Cella [Neuzelle] in the Austrian Tyrol, near Bressanone, on December 31, 1871. I have taught sacred and profane science both in Italy and abroad, but I have especially dedicated myself to preaching in various languages.
§1653: Witness was born to a Jewish family and was baptized by a Catholic servant when he was in danger of death.
I was born to Jewish parents. At the age of about sixteen months, I was taken by a serious illness—neuritis—which had severely reduced my strength. The doctor, who is now dead, I believe, classified my case as "most serious." When the maid, Anna Morisi, a good Christian girl of 16 or 18 years, whom my parents retained in their service despite the laws of the Pontifical State at the time, heard about the danger, she decided to baptize me. In the moment when my mother had left me alone in the cradle, she came up with a bit of water and baptized me by sprinkling, pronouncing the sacramental formula. After this act, my mother arrived without knowing anything about it. All of these details are laid out in the documents annexed to the Process [for the removal of Mortara from his family] held in Bologna in 1859 by Father Gaetano Feletti, who was president of the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition of Bologna, before the annexation of Romagna into the kingdom of Italy.
cont...
§1654: Witness was brought to the Servant of God on June 24, 1858.
The facts were kept absolutely secret by Morisi, who was surprised by my rapid recovery. Six years later, one of my younger brothers, named Aristide, fell gravely ill. When Morisi was asked by a friend to baptize the child "in extremis," she refused to do so, giving as a reason the fact that I had lived on after Baptism, and thus the secret was revealed. When the news of my baptism became known to the ordinary ecclesiastical authority, this body determined that the case was too serious to be in their competence and referred it directly to the Roman Curia. Thus as a result of the process (and I don't know of another), the Holy Father, through a Roman congregation, charged Feletti to separate me from my family. This took place, with the aid of civil authorities, that is, the officers of the Inquisition, on June 24, 1858. The officers took me to Rome and presented me to His Holiness Pius IX, who received me with great kindness and declared himself my adoptive father, which he really was, even taking care of my education and securing my future. He entrusted me to Canon Enrico Sarra, rector of the Institute of Neophytes at St. Mary of the Mountains, directed by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart.
§1655: After a few days, the remaining Baptismal ceremonies were completed, omitting the infusion of water.
A few days after my arrival in Rome, I received religious instruction, and the Baptismal ceremonies were completed by Cardinal Ferretti, nephew of His Holiness. This led some into a historical error: that I had been baptized in Rome after my separation from the family—as narrated by De Cesare in one of his works.
§1656: The parents made a great effort to have their child again.
Eight days later, my parents presented themselves to the Institute of Neophytes to initiate the complex procedures to get me back in the family. As they had complete freedom to see me and talk with me, they remained in Rome for a month, coming every day to visit me. Needless to say, they tried every means to get me back—caresses, tears, pleas and promises. Despite all this, I never showed the slightest desire to return to my family, a fact which I do not understand myself, except by looking at the power of supernatural grace.
At this point, I will tell a story that shows the power of this grace. After serving Mass in Alatri for Canon Vincenzo Sarra (in whose home I was staying), upon returning to the sacristry with the priest, my parents suddenly appeared at the door. Instead of throwing myself in their arms, as would have been natural, I retreated, quite surprised, hiding under the priest's chasuble. Because of this event, the people of Alatri were incensed at my parents, and the bishop thought it best to host me in his palace for eight days and also to avoid abduction by my parents. They became convinced of the uselessness of their efforts and thought it more prudent to return to Bologna.
§1657: On December 8, 1858, the witness went to the school of St. Peter in Chains.
The Holy Father Pius IX, as I heard him say, wanted to entrust me to the Jesuits, placing me in the school for the nobility, but after considering the case better, put me into the school of St. Peter in Chains on the Esquiline hill, directed by the Lateran Canons Regular, so as not to give the secular press an excuse for controversy. I was taken there by Rector Sarra on December 8, 1858. I was then presented to His Holiness for the Christmas festivities, as was always done afterward, since it was my duty to give the most filial thanks to the Pontiff for the gifts that he regularly sent me, and for the many open signs of paternal benevolence.
cont...
§1658: The Servant of God showed great care for the witness.
Every month he sent a Pontifical employee to bring the sum of thirty scudos for my upkeep. He always showed me the most fatherly demonstrations of affection, wise and very useful lessons, and, blessing me tenderly, he often told me that I had cost him many pains and tears. When he met me in a hallway, he called to me. Like a good father he also played with me, hiding me under his big red cloak and then jokingly asking where the boy was. Then he would remove the cloak and show me to those nearby, "There he is!"
§1659: The enemies of the Church spread many calumnies.
In the meantime, in the media in Europe, and you could say throughout the world, a great uproar was raised over the abduction of the Mortara boy, which became as famous as the "rape of the Sabine women." In small groups, villages and cafes no one talked about anything else, and finally in Royal Theater of Paris, a tragedy was staged, entitled "Le petit Mortara." The Jewish community of Alessandria (Piedmont) appealed to all the synagogues of the world and organized a real campaign against the Pope and the Roman Church, consulting the political powers and asking them to intervene and protest diplomatically. In fact, protests were sent; the violent and passionate controversy that united all the enemies of the Papacy and the Roman Church lasted six months.....read more.....
http://www.ewtn.com/library/issues/ZMORTARA.HTM
"Why did not Rome permit such employ but instruct lay Catholics not to baptize Jewish or other non-Catholic children in any circumstance?"
In case you do not know, Catholics were obliged to baptize someone in danger of death. This is exactly why such a law was put in place.
Baptism does not require a priest.
Dear 5.26pm,
Universal Jewish literacy throughout Europe is a matter of record, for the study of Torah; likewise large scale peasant illiteracy throughout 19th century Italy, which was a pre-industrial agrarian society in which primary education was not institutionalised before the Risorgimento.
"the law against hiring Catholic servants - whether you happen approve of it or not - was enacted precisely to protect the Jews."
How do you know?
It had the effect of preventing Catholics from working for Jews, which Rome would have regarded as humiliating and which I regard as a more plausible explanation, for reasons which follow. But it stopped an arrangement of mutual benefit in which one side offers a salary in return for labor, and the other side offers labor in return for a salary. If you think it was to prevent the Mortara scenario, why did not Rome permit such employ but instruct lay Catholics not to baptize Jewish or other non-Catholic children in any circumstance?
"The Mortara family who, for the sake of their own convenience, decided to deliberately flout the law in hiring a Catholic nanny for their child had no legitimate cause for complaint when it was discovered that the nanny had baptised Edgardo believing him to be in danger of death."
I am disgusted by that statement. Your attitude is that the Mortaras had it coming and richly deserved to lose their son. But they didn't ask their maid to baptize him, did they? God regards kidnapping as a capital offence in the only situation in which He gave the law - Mosaic Law. In contrast you were permitted to hire Jewish or gentile labor.
As for your quote from Mortara, it was linked to earlier and I critiqued it at 3.08pm. Kindly take the trouble to read a thread before jumping in.
Me: "Why did not Rome permit such employ but instruct lay Catholics not to baptize Jewish or other non-Catholic children in any circumstance?"
You: "In case you do not know, Catholics were obliged to baptize someone in danger of death. This is exactly why such a law was put in place."
Yes I do know that. But in case you do not know, the Pope had absolute power in the Papal States and could easily have altered that for employees of non-Catholics.
To whoever is posting Mortara's statement: he says only of his kidnapping that "the Holy Father... charged Feletti to separate me from my family. This took place, with the aid of civil authorities, that is, the officers of the Inquisition, on June 24, 1858."
He is silent on whether he went voluntarily. He then says that when he was permitted to see his parents 8 days later he had no desire to go back. Now, he was never going to be permitted to go back. How do we know that he was not threatened with punishment if he showed his parents any desire to go back? We we talking about the Inquisition here. And have you heard of Stockholm syndrome? How much more likely that a 6-year-old will crumble than an adult?
Furthermore, Mortara's statement was made many years later, in circumstances in which he had a great deal invested in his identity as a Catholic priest. But his parents maintained consistently that he was kidnapped from the moment it happened.
"But in case you do not know, the Pope had absolute power in the Papal States and could easily have altered that for employees of non-Catholics."
There are some things that cannot be altered. Sacraments work objectively, not just subjectively.
The Pope could not create a new sun in the sky.
Mosaic law not have regulations on baptism. You are talking about something else.
"How do we know that he was not threatened with punishment if he showed his parents any desire to go back?"
We do not know this. What we do know is this.
1. Catholics were obliged to baptize someone in danger of death.
2. The baptized person could be raised Catholic.
Laws were put in place to prevent this.
What nonsense are you talking, 5.53pm? Yes of course sacraments work objectively, but whether to administer them or not is something that the Catholic church has pronounced upon in great detail. If its purpose in refusing Catholics to be servants of Jews is to prevent them clandestinely baptizing seriously ill Jewish infants, it could just have permitted servants but told them not to baptize. The sacramental effect would be exactly the same, would it not?
Anon@6:03 p.m.
Sacraments do not work if they are not administered the right way.
Catholics at that point in time, were obliged to baptize someone in danger of death.
This is why the laws were put in place.
The Pope is not above the sacraments. For example, if he insisted that we substitute coke for wine at communion. Every priest MUST defy him.
"Catholics at that point in time, were obliged to baptize someone in danger of death."
They were obliged to because Rome told them to. But Rome could equally well tell them not to in certain circumstances. As I pointed out at 6.03pm the sacramental effect would be exactly the same. ("If its purpose in refusing Catholics to be servants of Jews is to prevent them clandestinely baptizing seriously ill Jewish infants, it could just have permitted servants but told them not to baptize.") So tell me how Rome is unfree to alter this regulation.
"So tell me how Rome is unfree to alter this regulation."
The same way that they are not free to change the nature of sacraments. i.e. the form and matter.
Stop being deliberately obtuse, 6.47pm. Nobody but you is talking about trying to change the nature of the sacraments. We are talking about when to administer them to whom. The sacramental effects are identical of
(a) banning Catholics from being servants of Jews
(b) permitting it but banning them from baptizing in that household in any circumstance.
So, if the sacramental effects of (a) and (b) are identical, why did Rome opt for (a) when (b) would have been to mutual advantage of Catholics and Jews if one wanted to offer labor for money and the other wanted to receive labor for money?
And let's not forget the real issue: kidnapping.
Constance,
May I recommend taking some pro-biotics with your anti-biotics. That is, if you're not taking any currently. I take them prophylactically.
Sounds like you've got some nasty stuff!
Anon@6:53 p.m.
This issue has nothing do to with labour laws.
Even today, I could baptize someone I perceive to be in danger of death.
The difference would be that the person would not be told to be raised Catholic, or in case of a minor, against their parents wishes.
Theology at that point in time, did not take the same position it does today.
The position today is that God works through his sacraments, but is not bound by it.
I think both sides were wrong. One for breaking a law, when they knew what it stood for.
The other for ove-reacting, and not seeking parental permission.
And as for pride, your the one with British pride.
I am assuming that your the same person from the UK that posts here.
It was this pride that caused you to colonialize and enslave the Africans, starve the Irish, sleep with the Brahmins when other Indians suffered, because everybody else is an illiterate peasant, and nobody is more civilized than you.
People might be face value nice, but nobody I have met actually likes you.
Try Being less British and more Christian.
In the Mortara case, at the time the church under the leadership of the Pope probably did think that they were saving the child's soul.
There are a few other thoughts that come to mind. It is pretty obvious that church leaders saw the child as a trophy. He was treated in a very special manner, not put in circumstances that were similar to the majority of Italian Catholic children at the time. The case was getting a lot of attention, not only in Italy, but throughout the world. Even now not only Catholics, but Christians in general, act as if conversions were a sporting contest where every conversion is a case of another win for the team.
Another point needs to be made. There is a COMMANDMENT which reads Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. The relationship between parents and children is such a special relationship that a commandment was given for it. Commandments supersede man developed rituals. By encouraging and allowing a child to ignore the necessity of keeping the commandment, the church at the time was complicit in downgrading obedience to God's laws.
Given the political circumstances at the time, the case appears to be more political than spiritual so all Catholicism should not be judged by it. All humans and organizations are capable of error. If they weren't, there would be no need for the Bible.
"Even today, I could baptize someone I perceive to be in danger of death. The difference would be that the person would not be told to be raised Catholic, or in case of a minor, against their parents wishes. Theology at that point in time, did not take the same position it does today."
Indeed, and it has changed because of the response to the Mortara kidnapping. We agree that God does not change, so was the Vatican's theology wrong before or after the change?
"I think both sides were wrong. One for breaking a law, when they knew what it stood for."
There is no moral equivalence. One is a minor matter of employment law for a reason that is disputed above; the other is kidnapping.
"And as for pride, your the one with British pride. I am assuming that your the same person from the UK that posts here."
Assume away; I am Anon. I am certainly aware that there is more than one Brit posting here. None has expressed any pride here and I am most impressed that you know what is in the minds of Anons on subjects they have never written about.
"It was this pride that caused you to colonialize and enslave the Africans, starve the Irish, sleep with the Brahmins when other Indians suffered, because everybody else is an illiterate peasant, and nobody is more civilized than you. People might be face value nice, but nobody I have met actually likes you."
I take it you have diverted into a critique of the country you guess I am from because you are not doing well over Mortara.
To the Brit-crit - Being disliked is perhaps a problem of success, as the USA has discovered since World War 2 - not that I intend (or wish) to criticize it.
Look at the appalling mortality figures for the thousand-year war between Hindus and Muslims in (greater) India. Pax Britannica had its merits. Read Lawrence James' History of the British Empire, written out of the tension between the fact that the British Empire was won and maintained by force or its threat, and the good it did in bringing peace and an infrastructure. James is a more intelligent read than older triumphalist histories or ageing 1960s leftwing grumblers. He ends with a quote from Nelson Mandela praising the British Empire.
A. Brit
"We agree that God does not change, so was the Vatican's theology wrong before or after the change?"
Development is not change. And the theology today is closer to the early church.
"There is no moral equivalence. One is a minor matter of employment the other is kidnapping"
One is a matter of breaking a law, not employment.
I know you are trying to look at his through modern laws. It's just not going to work.
A Brit,
I am aware there were both pros and cons. Positive and negative. My jab was at the self-righteous crowd here, something condemned in the Bible too.
Anon@12:39 a.m.
Thank you for that well thought out analysis.
Me: "We agree that God does not change, so was the Vatican's theology wrong before or after the change?"
You: "Development is not change."
Funny, it would give rise to a changed outcome in a Mortara-like situation.
"I know you are trying to look at his through modern laws. It's just not going to work."
Work for whom? They employed, contrary to local law, a Catholic maid who clandestinely baptized their son knowing that it would be against their wishes. Too many Catholics here are writing as if the Mortaras are outlaws who therefore deserve whatever they got next. They had their child abducted, a moral crime in an altogether different league.
I note that you never criticize the Catholic maid for engaging in an illegal arrangement.
What I'm trying to do is look at it through God's eyes. Not being God, I don't claim to do that perfectly, but I do have a guide - Mosaic Law, a legal code written by God whose moral components remain exemplary guidance today. Kidnapping is a horror punishable by death. Nothing about the circumcized state of a baby would justify it. I know the analogy is not exact, but it has genuine relevance.
Physicist,
Given the nature of this discussion, you will be better equipped to answer. With all variables considered, what would be a acceptable margin of error for calculating the path of such a object? I can see how such may approach closer than anticipated. However, to close a distance of tens of thousands of miles without a unforeseen force acting upon it, seems reaching at best.
"Funny, it would give rise to a changed outcome in a Mortara-like situation."
The change was in the people, and their application of the teaching.
Christianity is based on changing people, not institutions.
" but I do have a guide - Mosaic Law, a legal code written by God whose moral components remain exemplary guidance today. Kidnapping is a horror punishable by death. Nothing about the circumcized state of a baby would justify it. I know the analogy is not exact, but it has genuine relevance."
You are under the mistaken impression that canon law is the Catholic equivalent of the Mosaic law. It's not.
I personally find that whole situation to be wacky.
But, in the end the boy ended up reconciling with his parents.
Judaism no longer stones people, so maybe God has changed, or you want us to return to stoning people.
Anon 10:57 A.M.
Re: I note that you never criticize the Catholic maid for engaging in an illegal arrangement.
This is a very good point. And the fact that the maid was also in violation of the law by working for a Jewish family explains why she kept the clandestine baptism of the Jewish child a secret for so long. If she did not know that she was breaking the law by working as a nanny for a Jewish family, why would she have kept the holy thing that she had done a secret???
That said, there is more to the article entitled "The Mortara Case" posted by a previous commenter which addresses how the Church's view of Baptism has changed.
During most of her history, the Catholic Church held a Pauline, patristic and Thomistic view of baptism, by which it most likely would have handled the Mortara case in a way more charitable to the parents and which would have still granted the young boy the freedom to become a priest.
However, Mr. and Mrs. Mortara chose to violate the Papal States law during a time when the Church saw baptism through the lens of a very strict late-medieval view of baptism. nominalism of the schoolmen had by that time degraded theology into a web of legalistic relations comparable to the Torah legal system.
Today the Church has recovered her earlier view of baptism. This is deep theological water. God chooses to work through His sacraments, but He is not limited by them. This leads to a paradox: It is theologically correct to say that baptism is necessary for salvation, but not theologically correct to say that without baptism there is no salvation. St. Paul reminds us that God told Moses, Rom 9:15 “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy.”
We can see evidence of this change through a recent attack on the reputation of Pope Pius XII. On December 28, 2004 the liberal Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera published a bizarre claim by Alberto Melloni that in 1946 Pius XII had sent explicit instructions to Archbishop Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII), his nuncio in France, ordering him not to return Jewish children to their parents if the children had been baptized while being sheltered by Catholic families or institutions during the Holocaust. Since there was no evidence that had occurred, the article alleged that Archbishop Roncalli had ignored Pius XII’s “stone-hearted instructions.” Mere months after Dan Rather ended his long CBS News career by airing a forged-document attack on President George W. Bush, the New York Times, without verifying the information, on January 9, 2005, published its own article, “Saving Jewish Children: But at What Cost?” to repeat the false charge.
There were four strong reasons to doubt the authenticity of that supposed papal letter. (1) It was not signed. (2) It was not on Vatican letterhead. (3) The words used were not typical for Vatican directives. (4) And the purported letter from one Italian (Pacelli) to another (Roncalli) was in French.
On January 11, 2005, the Milan newspaper Il Giornale published Andrea Tornielli’s response on its front page. Tornielli found the original document and compared it with the French version published by Il Corriere della Sera and the Times. The original had been three pages in length, and the pages had been attached in the archive, but the French version had translated only the first page as if it were the entire document. The memo makes it clear that if Jewish children—whether baptized or not— were reclaimed by family members, these childrenwere to be reunited with their Jewish families. In the same issue of Il Giornale, Matteo Napolitano castigated Melloni for his erroneous and misleading use of the memo........
http://www.secondexodus.com/html/jewishcatholicdialogue/mortara.htm
Susanna: To go further into this would involve, so long as I am concerned, the issue of paedobaptism vs believers' baptism, and I don't think this is the place for it.
JD,
With modern computers you can use the law of gravity between the object of interest, and all of the planets (inc Earth) and the sun so as to calculate the course of the object, provided that you know several things. Those things are: where it is and what direction it is travelling, and how fast. Given those, you can then determine its course to as much accuracy as you want, just by letting the computer run longer.
So how do we get those things? As soon as the object is seen you know it is on a straight line from earth to where you see it shining faintly. You don't know how far away along that line it is, and you don't know what direction it is moving in, or how fast. but if you keep observing it and getting more data, those things can be calculated too. The longer you observe it, the more accurate those estimates become.
Eventually you have the errors from both sources so small that you can be sure it won't hit the earth (supposing that it won't!)
Physicist
Physicist,
Thanks for answering my question and even expanding on my thoughts better than I was able. The variables I intended would include mass, momentum, and material of the body. Given that gravitational forces are going to be a calculated constant and would only vary given the nature of other data. An example being the difference gravity would have on a mass weighing 5 ton moving at x rate of speed versus a mass weighing 20 ton moving at the same rate of x.
Given that this is the crux of Christine's postulation, I was more curious how one might account for what could be unknowable data and what variances that might allow? I assume NASA to have enough experience dealing with situations like this to "get it in the ballpark". However given that one variable can only be estimated, how big is the ballpark?
JD,
Provided that its mass is so much smaller than the earth's that you can assume its course is affected by the earth's gravity but not vice-versa, then you don't need to know its exact mass. Here's how to see why.
Imagine standing on an asteroid and sawing a bit off. That bit is going to stay right next to where you sawed it off from - meaning that, relative to the earth, it follows exactly the same course as the main piece of the asteroid. This is true however big the bit you sawed off. So mass is irrelevant for orbital purposes. (Not if it hits!)
Physicist
Anonymous 12:41 P.M.
Re: Susanna: To go further into this would involve, so long as I am concerned, the issue of paedobaptism vs believers' baptism, and I don't think this is the place for it.
I agree. It is a Catholic vs. Protestant issue and each has its own arguments in favor of its position according to its own respective rule of faith.
I will say, however, that Protestant water baptism is recognized as a valid baptism by the Catholic Church, and if a Protestant who had received water baptism were to become a Catholic, the Catholic Church would not require that person to be re-baptised.
Therefore, if I understand you correctly, the issue you are referring to would not be an issue of the validity of Catholic and non-Catholic Christian baptism. It would be the issue having to do with what age a person should be baptised.
"if I understand you correctly, the issue you are referring to would not be an issue of the validity of Catholic and non-Catholic Christian baptism. It would be the issue having to do with what age a person should be baptised."
1-word answer: Yes. I gladly affirm that if someone comes to faith and is baptized in the Catholic church and then becomes a protestant then that person is already validly baptized.
Deeper issue: Validity of baptism depends on the person's state of mind. Baptize a militant pagan and it is not a valid baptism. What is a baby's state of mind?
A person can be validly baptized once only in his or her life. If you believe you have been validly baptized then you should not subsequently join a denomination that would insist on its own ceremony of baptism before accepting you. I deplore 'renewal' ceremonies of dunking.
FFS, even when Dorothy tries to share important information anonymously she gets trolled here. Yes, Frank and Paul, I am talking about you.
Constance - take a look at Frank's posts earlier on this thread. They merit deleting I think.
"Deeper issue: Validity of baptism depends on the person's state of mind. Baptize a militant pagan and it is not a valid baptism. What is a baby's state of mind?"
Adults who get baptized in the Catholic church, have to go through a process of study and prayer, to make sure they are truly ready. It's called RCIA.
It's true that a baby does not know what is going on, but why rob a child of grace and admission into the kingdom of God.
We interpret, "being born again" as water baptism.
This is the beginning stage.
"It's true that a baby does not know what is going on, but why rob a child of grace and admission into the kingdom of God."
You are making the assumption that valid baptism depends (on earth) only on the actions of the baptizer, and not on the state of mind of the one baptized. But that is evidently untrue, as the case of a forcibly baptized militant pagan serves to show. Can babies repent?
Moreover, babies born to Christians are sanctified by their parents' faith - 1 Corinthians 7:14.
Anon@7:46.
No, I am saying that the sacraments work objectively. The grace received does depend on the extent to which the person receiving it is receptive to it.
With baptism there is an infusion of grace, grace is what enables a child being raised in the faith to understand his or her need for God.
In Colossians 2:11-12 Paul alludes to infant baptism when he tells us that Baptism has replaced circumcision. Circumcision took place on the eighth day after birth (Genesis 17:12).
We know that early Christians baptized their infants on the eighth day after birth because the third Council of Carthage decreed in the year 252, "that baptism of children need not be deferred until the eighth day after birth as some maintained, but might be administered as soon as possible" (Cyprian, Epistle 64 (59), 2).
Modern day objections can be traced to Thomas Munzer.
In 1521, he deduced from his private interpretation of the Bible that Baptism should not be administered to infants but only to adults after conversion and a personal commitment to Christ.
Martin Luther denounced him and he was expelled from Wittenberg.
Anon@2.21pm,
You either are or are not validly baptized in God's eyes. A militant pagan held under the water while a committed believer pronounces the words is not going to be baptized in God's eyes. Why? Because he doesn't believe. If, years later, he comes to faith, he must go under the water again. Babies don't make a choice of faith, do they?
"In Colossians 2:11-12 Paul alludes to infant baptism when he tells us that Baptism has replaced circumcision. Circumcision took place on the eighth day after birth"
Colossians 2:12 speaks not of baptism as a NT analogue of circumcision, but of sanctification as a spiritual circumcision achieved through baptism and faith. Please read it carefully. The passage is principally about sanctification. Comparisons are useful in establishing large-scale points but the fine details do not necessarily carry over.
"We know that early Christians baptized their infants on the eighth day after birth because the third Council of Carthage decreed in the year 252, "that baptism of children need not be deferred until the eighth day after birth"
Wow, and you think that proves it is apostolic practice? There's a difference of two centuries. Is our church practice identical to that of 1812?
"Modern day objections can be traced to Thomas Munzer. In 1521, he deduced from his private interpretation of the Bible that Baptism should not be administered to infants but only to adults after conversion and a personal commitment to Christ"
"Private interpretation" just means somebody else's interpretation. If it's nonsense then knock it down by exegetical arguments from the sharpest churchmen holding your own view, not by sneer. It is perfectly possible to be a lone Christian and to be correct against the entire religious establishment of the day. Look at Christ.
There is not a single unambiguous reference to an infant getting baptized in the NT. (Household baptisms are highly ambiguous and could refer merely to those servants of the chief of the house who were convinced at the time.) That doesn't disprove paedobaptism, but I would hope this total absence causes advocates of the practice to desist from adopting an "it's obvious, stupid" tone.
"A militant pagan held under the water while a committed believer pronounces the words is not going to be baptized in God's eyes.
You are missing the point that no adult would come forth to be baptized, unless they truly wanted too.
"It is perfectly possible to be a lone Christian and to be correct against the entire religious establishment of the day. Look at Christ."
Jesus did not go up against the entire religious establishment. He went up against hypocrisy.
I am tried of every "new" church claiming the previous one was wrong on doctrine. This is exactly the source of division and breakups.
And it continues with the liberals today arguing that their interpretations are inspired by God.
"Is our church practice identical to that of 1812?"
No, but the nature of the sacraments is the same in Orthodox/Catholic churches. It has not changed.
And infant baptism goes back to the earliest documented evidence we have.
We have no record of early Christian writers condemning infant Baptism.
However, much is written in support of it.
"The passage is principally about sanctification. Comparisons are useful in establishing large-scale points but the fine details do not necessarily carry over."
This is your interpretation.
The Holy Spirit is the dispenser of grace.
At Baptism there is an infusion of grace. If the grace a baby receives at Baptism is nourished (in a Christian atmosphere) it grows; if not, it dies.
The saving grace of God enables us to hear and accept the Gospel, not only as adults but also as children hearing it for the first time.
That babies can benefit spiritually is clearly indicated in Luke 18:15-16: "Now they were bringing even infants to Him that He might touch them. And when the disciples saw it they rebuked them.
But Jesus called them to Him saying, 'Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.'" Mark finishes the story in his account, "And He took them in His arms and blessed them, laying His hands upon them" (Mark 10:16).
Me: "A militant pagan held under the water while a committed believer pronounces the words is not going to be baptized in God's eyes.
You: "You are missing the point that no adult would come forth to be baptized, unless they truly wanted too."
I deliberately spoke of a coerced situation, rather like the Saxons faced when Charlemagne defeated them: Be baptized or die. How many of those baptisms do you think were sincere? How many do you think God accepted, ie if the guy fell under a horse next day, would he end up in heaven or hell?
Me: "It is perfectly possible to be a lone Christian and to be correct against the entire religious establishment of the day. Look at Christ."
You: "Jesus did not go up against the entire religious establishment..."
Do you know what "Sanhedrin" means?
You: "And infant baptism goes back to the earliest documented evidence we have."
The earliest documented evidence is the New Testament (Acts and letters) in which there is not a single example of an infant being baptized.
Me: "The passage is principally about sanctification. Comparisons are useful in establishing large-scale points but the fine details do not necessarily carry over."
You: "This is your interpretation."
Sure. And yours is your interpretation. fee l free to tell me it is also your denomination's interpretation if you wish, but this is a discussion between you and me.
"I deliberately spoke of a coerced situation, rather like the Saxons faced when Charlemagne defeated them: Be baptized or die. How many of those baptisms do you think were sincere?
Okay, I do not think those baptisms were sincere.
"Do you know what "Sanhedrin" means?"
"The earliest documented evidence is the New Testament (Acts and letters) in which there is not a single example of an infant being baptized."
Neither are there any specific examples of the elderly being baptized, or teenagers, or little children.
Instead we read about men (Acts 2:41; 8:35) women (Acts 16:14-15), and entire households being baptized (Acts 10:24,47-48; 16:14-15; 16:30-33; 1 Co. 1:16).
In Matthew 28:19 He says, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit . . .." Before He ascended, the Lord of the Church commanded us to baptize "all nations," a phrase the Church has always understood to mean "everyone." Matthew 25:31-32 also uses the phrase "all nations"
in this way. All nations are to be baptized, regardless of race, color, sex, age, class, or education. Jesus makes no exceptions. He doesn't say, "Baptize all nations except . . .."
"the Lord of the Church commanded us to baptize "all nations," a phrase the Church has always understood to mean "everyone."... All nations are to be baptized, regardless of race, color, sex, age, class, or education."
Or faith?
According to that you would approve of Charlemagne's ultimatum to the pagan Saxons he had defeated - "Be baptized or die". He thereby reduced Christianity to the same view of conversion that the quran tells Muslims to take.
"we read about men (Acts 2:41; 8:35) women (Acts 16:14-15), and entire households being baptized (Acts 10:24,47-48; 16:14-15; 16:30-33; 1 Co. 1:16)."
Men and women who came to faith. "Household baptism" is an ambiguous phrase that could refer simply to those members of a household who came to faith when the good news reached that house. People in the NT decided fairly promptly, so those who wished to join the church would naturally be baptized all at the same time. (Incidentally, 'household' is an extended concept that means more than family, and includes servants.) It is poor practice to base doctrine on ambiguous verses.
You clearly know what Jesus meant. It was not a threat.
"It is poor practice to base doctrine on ambiguous verses."
It is a poor practise to argue from silence. We clearly know from scripture that infants can benefit spiritually.
I will take the historic church's teachings on this important issue.
If everybody else's interpretations were wrong, what makes you think yours is right now?
Me: "It is poor practice to base doctrine on ambiguous verses."
You: "It is a poor practise to argue from silence."
I'm not. I'm arguing from the fact that every named baptism in the NT was of someone who professed faith. Babies can't do that.
"We clearly know from scripture that infants can benefit spiritually."
From being baptized, you mean. Which scriptures? How can you distinguish any such effect from the sanctification due to their parents' faith (1 Cor 7:14) and parents' subsequent godly influence?
"I will take the historic church's teachings on this important issue. If everybody else's interpretations were wrong, what makes you think yours is right now?"
Let's just argue it out 1:1 from the scriptures, shall we? If your church is right then its historic tradition ought to be able to provide you with crushing arguments without resort to rhetorical tricks such as hinting (falsely) that I am the only one to hold a contrary view. The scriptures record a tradition, you realise - that of the apostolic church.
In Luke 18:15 says, "Now they were bringing even infants to him" (Greek, Prosepheron de auto kai ta brepha). The Greek word brepha means "infants"—children who are quite unable to approach Christ on their own and who could not possibly make a conscious decision to "accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior." And that is precisely the problem.
But notice what Jesus said: "to such as these [referring to the infants and children who had been brought to him by their mothers] belongs the kingdom of heaven."
The Lord did not require them to make a conscious decision. He says that they are precisely the kind of people who can come to him and receive the kingdom.
If Jesus said "let them come unto me," who are we to say "no," and withhold baptism from them?
it is always assumed that the children of Christian homes are already Christians, that they have already been "baptized into Christ" (Rom. 6:3).
If infant baptism were not the rule, then we should have references to the children of Christian parents joining the Church only after they had come to the age of reason, and there are no such records in the Bible.
Anon@3.10pm,
If you are using Luke 18 to try to justify paedobaptism then you must be running short of arguments! Notice that Jesus specifically DID NOT BAPTIZE those children - He simply laid hands on them.
"it is always assumed that the children of Christian homes are already Christians"
Assumed by whom? And at what age - one day old? One month old? One year old? Et cetera...
"If infant baptism were not the rule, then we should have references to the children of Christian parents joining the Church only after they had come to the age of reason, and there are no such records in the Bible."
Um, weren't you the one who was criticizing arguments from silence?
Um, weren't you the one who was criticizing arguments from silence?
Okay, either way, there is not evidence for your claims either.
"Assumed by whom? And at what age - one day old? One month old? One year old? Et cetera..."
Entire households being baptized will include parents and their children, regardless of age.
I am using luke 18 to justify that infants can benefit spiritually, even if they cannot make a conscious decision, Is this what your argument was in the first place about state of mind.
"Entire households being baptized will include parents and their children, regardless of age."
That is your assertion but can you prove it from scripture? The phrase "household baptism" in the NT could perfectly well refer merely to those members of a household who came to faith when the good news reached that house. People in the NT decided fairly promptly, so those who wished to join the church would naturally be baptized all at the same time. ('Household' is an extended concept that means more than family, and includes servants.) I explained all that above; there's no point in going round in circles.
"I am using Luke 18 to justify that infants can benefit spiritually, even if they cannot make a conscious decision"
Sure they can. They benefit spiritually if their parents love them more, too. But they didn't make a conscious decision in that passage, and Jesus didn't baptize them - note the correlation. He simply laid hands on them and blessed them.
You cannot prove from scripture that children of Christian parents were only baptized after they reached a certain age either, so looks like this discussion is not going anywhere.
BTW, there is also a different between original sin and actual sin. Since infants do not commit actual sin, baptism washes away original sin, hence "unless you are born again with water and spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven"
Adults who are baptized are cleansed of both original and actual sin.
Peter explained what happens at baptism when he said, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
But he did not restrict this teaching to adults. He added, "For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him" (2:39).
We also read: "Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16).
These commands are universal, not restricted to adults.
Further, these commands make clear the necessary connection between baptism and salvation, a
connection explicitly stated in 1 Peter 3:21: "Baptism . . . now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
You said it yourself, 9.38pm, when quoting St Peter - "Repent and be baptized!" In that order, according to Peter. When children are old enough to repent then they are old enough to be baptized.
The promise that Peter went on to mention is a reference to the Holy Spirit, and would have been understood to refer to such prophetic passages as Isaiah 44:3 and Ezekiel 36:27. The relation between water baptism and Spirit baptism is a separate and large issue that need not be contended here.
I agree that baptism is a usual part of being saved ('salvation'). The thief on the cross was an exception. but I have no fear for the fate of babies born to Christians who die unbaptized, because Paul says that they are sanctified by their parents' faith (1 Cor 7:14).
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