Your thoughts on punishment or rehabilitation and whether there are any truly bad people

You’re off in La-La Land again. We were talking about whether mental illness appeared before the “fall” or not. If mental illness is present in animals, then you can’t claim mental illness is the result of the “fall.” Likewise, if previous hominins committed murder, you can’t claim human violence is the result of the “fall.”

This isn’t how humans are commonly defined. The whole idea of physical humans vs. metaphysical humans is an abomination that has been used to justify the worst sorts of racism and genocide in human history. There never were any sub-humans living alongside a literal Adam & Eve. Human is human. Period. End of sentence.

The entire problem you have is an a priori commitment to the idea of the “rational soul.”

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This would be true only if you think that there is not a qualitative difference between previous hominds and homo sapiens. Can you prove that? I’m afraid you cannot. You are free to hold that opinion but you certainly cannot claim it as a fact. Or better yet, you may call it fact, there is freedom of speech, but don’t expect it not to be refuted. And my claim was about actual humans, not animals. I consider theological/metaphysical humans to be different qualitatively as well as quantitatively from the rest of the animal kingdom, so the fact that mental illness was present in lower animals is neither here nor there.

Again, you keep making theological claims disguising them as scientific. Which is an extremely arrogant behaviour. The notion that the soul doesn’t exist and that there is no qualitative difference between humans and other animals and previous hominids is not a scientific claim by any stretch of the imagination (even among current neuroscientists there is not an absolute consensus regarding the nature of the human mind), so it would be kind of you not to treat your own personal theological idea (which you can legitimately hold as a personal opinion) as a scientific fact.

Well you see Jesus clearly taught about the soul and the Church has taught about the soul for 2000 years as well. So yes, i have a priori committment to that. Shocking, i know.

As organized and premeditated violence has been documented for our closest relatives the chimpanzees, and violence among humans is in evidence pervasively in history and prehistorical archeology, it may not be provable, but seems very doubtful to me, that there was ever a time free of human violence.

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I’m beginning to question your reading comprehension. Where did I make either of those claims? I’ll wait.

What I said was fact backed up by the history of colonialism: The notion that some people are subhuman has been used to justify racism and genocide throughout the modern era, at least.

Where have I denied the existence of the soul? I’ll wait.

Your a priori commitment is to a specific Thomistic view of the soul, and everything else flows from that. Newsflash: There are other opinions about the soul, and it’s not a stretch to say Aquinas was a genius, but he got that one wrong.

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And yet the teaching is that there was a time before the fall when human beings lived in a state of holiness. We can’t prove that scientifically but it’s also not something that goes against scientific fact. I’m not sure yet whether I prefer Craig’s view or Kemps’s view Adam & Eve: A Survey of Models for Catholics but they are both compatible with science and orthodox teaching so I don’t see why I should believe in heterodox ideas which contradict 2000 years of Christianity.

Tell me about your view, then. If I remember correctly you said you don’t believe in the intermediate state and you believe that humans cease to exist between death and final resurrection. Again, my memory could fail me so correct me if I’m wrong, please.

But I don’t see how there is a place for the soul in any meaningful sense, within your framework. If your theory (again; correct me if I’m not remembering correctly*) is right the difference between human beings and previous hominids as well as dogs and other animals would be only quantitative and not qualitative (on top of being at odds with what has been taught for 2000 years -it was certainly not an invention of Aquinas- about the intermediate state).

What were his errors? Let’s be specific.

*Edit: yes I was remembering right , it took me a while to find it as I didn’t remember the topic exactly Primary and Secondary Causes, God through (not vs) Nature, and Gaps are scraps. (Aristotle and Aquinas and Cosmological arguments) - #144 by Jay313

That’s not how “we” define humans, it’s how you[1] define humans.

Your definition isn’t binding on anyone else, so any argument based on it fails immediately.


  1. And probably others also. But definitely nowhere near enough people to qualify as “we”. ↩︎

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It’s how Christians usually define humans. Certainly not just me. Saying that it’s just my way of defining humans is blatantly false. Plain and simple.

And Christians believe that they are made in God’s image and endowed with rational soul. The only “Christian” denomination which doesn’t believe in the survival of the soul after physical death is the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to my knowledge (if there are others then I don’t know), but I don’t consider them Christians as they deny the divinity of our Lord (on top of countless other errors they profess).

He doesn’t need to. It’s your claim that there is a “qualitative (nor merely quantitative) difference between humans and animals”, so it’s your responsibility to provide proof or evidence.

Why not? I fully expect it not to be refuted. I expect it to be naysaid, objected to, waffled about, and dismissed - but not refuted, because (as the previous sentences demonstrate) you don’t do refutations, you only demand them from others.

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I’m a Christian so I claim that, yes. I cannot give irrefutable proof because the soul is not a matter of scientific inquiry, even if more and more neuroscientists are abandoning materialism (one example https://quantum-neuroscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/The-Spiritual-Brain.pdf among many, I have recently finished reading that book), I believe in the soul because it’s what the Church has taught from the beginning, and when I read a Christian who doesn’t believe in the soul I just point him out that he is in error (the alternative would be believing that Christianity has taught falsehoods on spiritual matters for 2000 years), simple. An atheist or a materialist is another thing entirely.

I said it was how you define humans.
I didn’t say it was how just you define humans.

Understand first and criticise second. Not the other way around.

I really don’t care what you consider to be the defining characteristics of Christians. You’re not the Archbishop of Canterbury or one of the popes.

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Lol.

I’m not but what I said it’s true, and not because I’m the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Basically all Christian denominations, ancient and young, believe in the soul. And it’s also a fact that it’s a teaching that goes way back to the early Church.

Then don’t demand proofs from others.

The possibility that it might be you and others who are in error doesn’t seem to occur to you.

Didn’t you say you used to be an atheist?

Expectation confirmed.

So you focus on belief in Jesus’s divinity rather than on following Jesus’s words.

Got it.

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And right there is the pin-point, all-too-accurate indictment of most of the white, U.S. evangelical community over the last few decades.

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I follow Jesus words because He is God incarnate. Which against is what has been taught from the earliest times of the Church. What Jesus teaches is normative because He is God in the flesh, not because He is some enlightened human being. And in the New Testament itself it’s written very clearly that if Jesus didn’t resurrect our faith would he worthless, so with your “got it” you are not discovering anything new. Jesus teaching are normative because He is God in the flesh, not because He said some really nice things.

Yes, I have been an atheist (I have grown up in a Catholic family, but it was just nominally Catholic: then I drifted away from the faith, then the Lord got me back; and not just me but also the rest of my families, but that would be too long a story, let’s just say that some events happened that made that possible)

I don’t believe that the Holy Spirits has allowed the Church to lead people astray for 2000 years, no. Can I absolutely prove that? No, obviously, otherwise there would be no need for faith. But as a Christian believing what the Church has always taught from the beginning and not deciding what Scripture actually means completely on my own, thinking that I know better than 2000 years of Christians, doctors of the faith and martyrs seems quite reasonable. Others think they know better and what can I say? Good for them.

For most of that 2000 years, the church was fine with slavery. So do you think we are wrong to disapprove of slavery now only in the last couple centuries (if even that for some) - since for the vast majority of church history the Spirit (according to you) allowed for that?

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I’ve never said that everything the Church did was correct, I said that the Holy Spirit hasn’t allowed her to dogmatically teach falsehoods on matters of faith for 2000 years, for that would against Jesus’ own words (regarding the Holy Spirit that would have led us to all truth and that the gates of Hell wouldn’t have prevailed ).

I simply stay with the early Christians who, until the 16th century, have never thought that they were the final interpreters of the Scriptures and have always believed that the final and authoritative intepretation belonged to the Church.

And what you said about slavery is far too simplistic.

What you actually find in history is a long and uneven history in which popes repeatedly condemned enslaving particular peoples, condemned the slave trade, and insisted that masters treat slaves with justice and humanity. Paul III in 1537 said indigenous peoples must not be deprived of liberty or property or reduced to slavery. Gregory XVI in 1839 condemned the slave trade and said no one should dare reduce anyone to slavery. Leo XIII went further still, calling slavery contrary to what God and nature intended. Just to make a few examples.

So to say that the Church has nearly always approved slavery is historically incorrect. The Church was condemning slavery long before it was abolished.

“In no uncertain terms, the Church’s magisterium upholds the respect due to every human being. The Catholic Church therefore repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political “doctrine of discovery”. Numerous and repeated statements by the Church and the Popes uphold the rights of indigenous peoples. For example, in the 1537 Bull Sublimis Deus, Pope Paul III wrote, “We define and declare [ … ] that [, .. ] the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the Christian faith; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect”. “

“In the presence of so much suffering, the condition of slavery, in which a considerable part of the great human family has been sunk in squalor and affliction now for many centuries, is deeply to be deplored; for the system is one which is wholly opposed to that which was originally ordained by God and by nature. The Supreme Author of all things so decreed that man should exercise a sort of royal dominion over beasts and cattle and fish and fowl, but never that men should exercise a like dominion over their fellow men.”

Also in 1435 Sicut Dudum Pope Eugene IV - January 13, 1435 - Papal Encyclicals

“Some of these people were already baptized; others were even at times tricked and deceived by the promise of Baptism, having been made a promise of safety that was not kept. They have deprived the natives of the property, or turned it to their own use, and have subjected some of the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery, sold them to other persons, and committed other various illicit and evil deeds against them, because of which very many of those remaining on said islands, and condemning such slavery, have remained involved in their former errors, having drawn back their intention to receive Baptism, thus offending the majesty of God, putting their souls in danger, and causing no little harm to the Christian religion.”

“And no less do We order and command all and each of the faithful of each sex, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands, and made captives since the time of their capture, and who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free, and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of money. If this is not done when the fifteen days have passed, they incur the sentence of excommunication by the act itself, from which they cannot be absolved, except at the point of death, even by the Holy See, or by any Spanish bishop, or by the aforementioned Ferdinand, unless they have first given freedom to these captive persons and restored their goods.”

Q.E.D.

Then “believing that Christianity has taught falsehoods on spiritual matters for 2000 years” should be a valid alternative.

Do you believe that the Holy Spirit has allowed Islam to lead people astray for 1400 years, Judaism for 2000 years, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism for 2500 years and Hinduism for 3500 years?

It’s written in the Bible itself that if Jesus didn’t resurrect our faith is worthless. So Q.E.D indeed. If we are just dust in the wind then I couldn’t care less about the teaching of a “human all too human” cit. Jewish rabbi from 2000 years ago.

I care about His teaching because He is the Lord and Creator through which all things were created, and in Him all things hold together.

And because I find the testimony of the apostles worthy of faith.

I mean, if I were still an atheist yes (even though when I became one I’ve never really studied the Scriptures and the historicism of Christianity, so I more or less rejected a caricature of what I thought was Christianity), but for a Christian is certainly more problematic to have that opinion.

I believe that there are some elements of truth and holiness in many religions but I also believe that the fullness of truth was revealed in Jesus Christ.

Filed under ‘I don’t want to think about that’.