New York Post : "Polish" Death Camps and more

We were talking about what Hoyle said, which included the word "approximately". You said that he'd have to know precisely the exact details involved to be able to correctly make his statement.


I asked the number of times ex cathedra has been invoked in all of history. It is seven.


Please fix the link so that it doesn't just take me back to this page in a new tab.

The word "approximately" was never used in reference to Hoyle in this thread. Not once.


Which proves that the Pope can and has made decisions on his own. I would think such decisions can be considered "arbitrary".


oops, I am not infallible (dammit).
Here's the fixed link
vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html

Whoops, appears I had it right the first time. The word was "estimates", in which case it was still wrong to say that he needed such detailed and precise knowledge to make it.


It also shows with quite reasonable certainty that he refrains from doing so quite often - in most cases, in fact, completely and altogether.


Great, now to address:
Sentence 1 of the same paragraph:


Also, your quote was doctored. It replaced "official documents" with "acts", implying anything that a Pope might say or do. Official documents, are recognized exercises of ex cathedra. Also- well, easier just to show:



Not sure where you got the quote from, but it surely wasn't vatican.va or you doctored it yourself. Which would be a silly thing to do for someone intending to provide a link, as it would rely upon the reader being too lazy to follow it and see for themselves.

So, back to your original statement: further shown: the Pope does have to invoke ex cathedra to change official Catholic dogma and beliefs, and he will overwhelmingly tend to refrain from doing so.

Wudda, shudda. That's speculation. I'm not speculating. You were doubing about de fact ex cathedra statements. I provided a proof they occurred.

Yes, the certainty is reasonable, but not absolute (hence there is no certainty) for the future, but I dunno what's gonna happen in the future. Do you?

Still, it's funny how your logic works: something did happen a few times therefore there is a reasonable certainty it will never happen again. May as well say that if I had flu only 2 times in my life it is reasonable to expect I will never have flu again. Strange logic indeed.

And I don't know why your posts have the tendency towards futurism :)

I wrote about the shape and condition of the RC religion today and the truth still stands - the pope can and has made arbitrary decisions. Unless you look at the concept of time in a very relaxed way, it is not reasonable to expect that the pope's personal declarations will had been unsaid in the past. Popes said what they did and there is an absolute certainty they will not unsay those words.


Quoted from memory, so yes, there are differences, but not in the message. Thanks, for providing the correct quote which proves that the pope reserved the right to use his personal view as a binding resolution.

Although I am disappointed how disingenuous your words are when you know I was right and yet you decide to play little language tricks. In fact, if you even attempted an honest debate you would have provided the quote yourself before I paraphrased it.

So, it wasn't speculation when you said that "the Pope", referring back, would 'not refrain from doing so'? What was it, then?


Except that I never claimed that it was impossible that a Pope would exercise ex cathedra ever again. Merely showed how it was exercised so rarely, and in almost all cases not exercised at all, as to eliminate the notion that it is practiced with no restraint on the Pope's part.


Your original quote said that the Pope "will not refrain" from using ex cathedra. That sounds like predicting the future to me, and pretty heavy at that. Especially how history shows it to be overwhelmingly wrong and misleading by an outright ridiculous majority of cases.


I see.
Paraphrasings are usually not put in full quotation marks, for future reference.


Right about what? I pointed out two things wrong with your posts originally: your incorrect interpretation of the word "estimate", and the use of the words "will not refrain from doing so" (the bolded, obviously) when referring to the Pope's use of ex cathedra. Never once did I say that the Pope cannot change Catholic teaching, nor that it had never been done before. Though, on that note, 98% of Popes in history never did.

You could have simply acknowledged that you were wrong about what you said of Hoyle's quote and/or amended it to replace all adjectives meaning anything like 'precisely' 'or 'exactly' with words like 'vaguely' and 'basic', and also replaced 'will not refrain' to 'will almost always refrain from, and in 98% of cases always refrain from' in the other quote, but no... this is the internet... admitting to having said something not absolutely true is a sign of weakness... let's spend three or more posts on the definiton of words like 'estimate', instead!


Yes, if I knew which quote it was.
You, on the other hand, would have done better to go five seconds out of your way to make sure you quoted appropriately (i.e. copy and paste), if you were going to go ahead and provide a link anyway. I assume that you meant to provide a real link and not one to the forums, the latter being a simple mistake. Because, and speaking of language tricks, you lose credibility by getting it wrong when you have the correct version open in the next tab right in front of you; quote doctoring is frowned upon in journalism, let alone debates that are not one-sided. In short: you accuse me of dishonesty regarding your own quote where there not only was but could be none, after I assumed simple laziness on your part where dishonesty was quite plausible, and I'm the one not attempting an honest debate?

I'm a nice fella, so I'll give you a brief intro to the word "would" by means of and example:

Whan I lived in Poland I would never miss a good game of bridge.

It's not speculation. It's a fact. I spent a lot time playing bridge.


When something happens, albeit infrequently, then the notion that it is practiced is diminished, but not eliminated.


Again, I will politely refer you to the English verb usage. (notice that even though I am actually doing it now I have used the auxiliary "will")


No, not usually. You got me on a spelling technicality.


The word has a few meanings. I referred you to the entry in Webster's.


Or you could have refrained from taking a pot shot when you know very well that some aspects of the Catholic dogma are a result of the pope's personal interpretation. Not to mention the 4 Books of the New Testament and various letters of the fathers of Christianity.

Heck, one Jesus Christ, a son of man, arbitrarily defined not only the Catholic but all Christian religions. The rest is interpretations, better or worse. The man practically created them.

As for Hoyle, to make a statement like that one has to be either an all-knowing creature, or a fraud. His is one of those statements that will be quoted by some but the statement is in fact devoid of real significance. Even if we assume the the word "estimate" means only what you would like it to mean, you still have to know a whole lot about EVERYTHING that exists to make his statement count.


Doctoring something up and hiding the original is quite different than paraphrasing and providing the source. I would not called the latter dishonesty.

Too bad you didn't actually use that word.


Won't... will not. That is speculation.


Unless the notion that it will be practiced in the future by the one specific person to which we are referring, Pope Benedict XVI, is ascertained, you're still wrong, and what you just said is irrelevant.



wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Please tell me which one exactly of the above you were referring to in this case.


I'm not sure I understand this, because if I do, then you are saying that it was a Pope that personally chose the four Gospels, wrote most of the Catholic faith, and defined every aspect of the Catholic Faith except Jesus Christ. Please be clear.


Whether or not this statement counts is irrelevant to whether you were wrong in stating that an estimate of the probability of a certain occurance requires complete and total, thorough knowledge of all factors involved is correct. It is not, I could estimate that the tree outside my window weighs five kilos without being dishonest or knowing anything at all about the average density of apple trees, it just wouldn't be as good an estimate as most other people's.

Back to Hoyle's estimate I did not say that it counted for anything, only that you were incorrect. Not to mention that, even if he were spot-on and knew everything about such, it would still be irrelevant. Probability does not work that way.


Neither did I. I simply noted the irony in your calling me dishonest.

The point is that this is logically impossible to answer how everything started from nothing. There is nothing from nothing and this is scientific axiom. This is why I don't understand people who say that there is no God and cannot provide any alternative concept.