Miracles

People claim miracles don't exist because there's an explanation behind them.

Google defines it as:
A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is considered to be divine.

According to Google's definition for "inexplicable" is: Unable to be explained or accounted for.

My question is- who can claim to be able to explain or account for every single one of of the world's natural and scientific laws?

a miracle is defined by Webster's dictionary as: an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. I'll leave you to deconstruct that one, or any definition for "miracle" that your find, yourself.

Miracles that turn out to have a scientific explanation behind it does not make it any less of a miracle. God runs this world on His natural and scientific laws. He created them. Everything runs according to them. It must be consistent, His laws are never violated because that defeats the whole purpose. It would make no sense for God, in my human understanding, to come up with this unimaginable complex algorithm for His creation and then violate it.

"A miracle is said to be contrary to nature when the effect produced is contrary to the natural course of things...Again, the term contrary to nature does not mean "unnatural" in the sense of producing discord and confusion. The forces of nature differ in power and are in constant interaction. This produces interferences and counteractions of forces. This is true of mechanical, chemical, and biological forces. So, also, at every moment of the day I interfere with and counteract natural forces about me. I study the properties of natural forces with a view to obtain conscious control by intelligent counteractions of one force against another. Intelligent counteraction marks progress in chemistry, in physics — e.g., steam locomotion, aviation — and in the prescriptions of the physician. Man controls nature, nay, can live only by the counteraction of natural forces. Though all this goes on around us, we never speak of natural forces violated. These forces are still working after their kind, and no force is destroyed, nor is any law broken, nor does confusion result. The introduction of human will may bring about a displacement of the physical forces, but no infraction of physical processes." (source: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10338a.htm disclaimer: I have found one assertion expressed on this website with which I disagree. but this, to me, is logically sound.)

- science needs to catch up with religion
- there is a reason for everything
- when I was around 6, I never got a pearl necklace to magically appear in my drawer even though I prayed for one because either a) it was unnatural or b) God decided to not intelligently inter/counteract with forces of nature for our collective and/or individual good (for the categorical imperative.).


(note: you need to figure out for yourself, what YOUR venial sins are- renders your entering into a state of mortal sin practically impossible :] )

Saints.

Lemoney Snicket

"Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it."
— Lemony Snicket (The Wide Window)

Incidentally...

1) contraception:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

2) homosexual tendencies:
http://www.couragerc.net/Sower_07_10_Newton.pdf

did Satan get tempted? Mystery, like Sophie's World floating on a turtle's back? What does it say in the Bible about Satan's fall? connected to a paragraph in the above. innate.

taking lives into your hands that's abortion and the use of contraception. do you know what difference that unborn child would have made to the world, to you?

anti abortion, anti contraception, anti war. pro wholesome marriages and families, pro natural family planning, pro just war. divorce- later

R: Isn't it utterly selfish to opt baby-daddy out of your kid's life? doesn't your kid need and deserve a a father? P: surrogate motherhood isn't a good deed. M: maybe you would have been fertile if you hadn't been on the pill.


Say No to death metal.
(including thrash and black)

How Hindus are different from Christians in that they are: pantheists, animists and polytheists > paganism.

3 things you should not believe too quickly:
1) you're alone
2) it's too late
3) it doesn't make a difference

Homosexuality

"Few Americans hate the Catholic Church,. but millions hate what they think is the Catholic Church". --Bishop Fulton Sheen. excerpt from the CCC:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Pope's new book: Light of the World

"the escaped soundbite made it very clear that when no new life is possible - in the case of male, homosexual prostitutes - if a man thinks to himself, "I should wear a condom," it means that his MORAL SENSE is beginning to awake. It is the first step toward distancing himself, asking questions - which should, it is to be hoped, lead to FURTHER moral thought, ending with, "I shouldn't be doing this at all""

"http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101121/ap_on_sc/pope_condoms_reaction
They're already claiming papal blessing for mass condom distributions.
There needs to be a strongly worded Vatican statement that clarifies:
1. Sodomy is gravely wrong, without or without a condom. Sodomy with a condom may arguably be less depraved than sodomy with a condom but it is still depraved. One might hope, however, that by seeking to engage in less depraved sexual acts the male prostitute is taking a step toward turning entirely away from sodomy.

2. The Church does not support the distribution of condoms for any purpose. Any such distribution would likely facilitate disordered sexual acts such as contracepted heterosexual sex and sodomy."


source, and excerpt here: http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2010/11/excerpt-pope-benedict-xvi-discusses-condoms-and-the-spread-of-hiv.html

The use of condoms by non-catholics has never been prohibited in the first place!
Person: "i think catholic prostitutes should be allowed to use condoms."
well, if they're prostitutes, then they cannot be Catholic can they.