"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
The next time someone tells you that “Religion is the cause of all the war in the world”, I’d invite you to point them at the statistics below which compare the atrocities perpetrated by theists to atheists.
To be clear, this in no way excuses the abuse of religion as an excuse to perpetrate evil, but hopefully it should provide a little bit of perspective…
This is one of my new favourite websites, The Catholic Gentleman:
This last month has been barmy. I’ve been to Seattle, San Francisco, Palm Beach, as well as a Cursillo retreat. Life has been far to busy, to put it mildly. As such, I’ve kinda dropped the ball on Halloween…
Several of my friends have been sharing Why we don’t celebrate Halloween posts on Facebook. I had planned to write a blog post explaining why I celebrate Halloween, but all I’ve managed to do is post a couple of comments on one such blog.
So, rather than let this holiday pass unmentioned, I thought I would provide a few links to a few websites which offer the other side of the debate:
One essential difference which divides Catholics and many Protestants is the question of faith and works in salvation. The disagreement began at the Reformation. In fact, the “material principle” of the Reformation was that we are saved “Sola Fide”, by “Faith Alone” and that works have no place in our justification whatsoever.
This subject often comes up when speaking with Protestants. I think most Catholics have had the experience at one point or another of being told by a Protestant that Catholicism doesn’t preach the Gospel, teaching instead that we have to earn our salvation. St. Paul’s epistles to the Romans and Galatians are often cited during such an exchange.
When this has happened to me in the past, I tend not to dwell too long upon the person’s interpretation of Paul’s epistles. I usually simply point out that in those letters St. Paul is contrasting faith in Christ with the works of the Mosaic Law. I turn then to the Epistle of James, since it presents a bit of a problem if someone wishes to say we’re saved by faith alone…
Trent Horn’s new book Answering Atheism has finally been released. I’ve posted two of his videos so far (Video #1|Video #2) and I will posting the remaining ones over the coming weeks:
During the Middle Ages, books were so precious that books started to be inscribed with excommunications, much like those of the Ecumenical Councils, against those who either stole or failed to return to their owner. Here’s an example I recently found:
This book belongs to St. Mary of Robert’s Bridge; whosoever shall steal it or sell it, or alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him be anathema maranatha, Amen.
I should definitely start doing this when I lend out books…
A little bit of John Piper…