. . . and not metaphorical ones, either! How can a smart guy be this dumb? Oh, right. . . religion.
Those who say that Catholics are okay with science should recall that the Catholic Church accepts the existence of a historical Adam and Eve as the literal ancestors of all of us, decreed that God tweaked evolution by giving us a soul, and asserted the existence of demons (Francis himself believes in demons and angels, and of course the Church maintains a stable of exorcists, including one in the Vatican). Now we hear that the Boss Catholic, Pope Francis, believe in guardian angels as well.
Pope Francis said on Thursday that guardian angels exist and people who listen to their advice are less likely to make the wrong decisions.
“The doctrine on angels is not fantasist. No, it’s reality,” the pope said during his daily mass in the small chapel in his residence at the Vatican.
“According to church tradition we all have an angel with us, who protects us and helps us understand things,” he said in a message to mark the Feast of the Guardian Angels, celebrated by Catholics on 2 October.
The message that humans are helped along in life by an otherworldly guardian was in contrast to former pope Benedict’s insistence in 2012 that angels did not sing at the birth of Christ – news that devastated many a carol singer and earned him the epithet “killjoy pope”.
Francis asked: “How often have we heard ‘I should do this, I should not do this, that’s not right, be careful …’. So often! It is the voice of our travelling companion.” The pope advised sceptics to ask themselves: “How is my relationship with my guardian angel? Do I listen to him? Do I say good morning to him? Do I ask him to watch over me when I sleep?
“No one journeys alone and no one should think that they are alone,” he said.
I would really, really like to hear what Catholic Andrew Sullivan says about this pronouncement. After all, he took me to task for saying that anybody in history ever thought the Genesis story was meant literally. Now we have Sullivan’s Boss, his Pope, telling him that angels are real. Come on Andrew, do you have the guts to say that the Pope is full of it?
At any rate, do remember things like this the next time some Catholic, or the National Center for Science Education, tells you that religions like Catholicism are perfectly compatible with science.
Oh, but he has such regular shoes!
The angels stole his red ones.
Once you start believing in angels, it’s all downhill after that. Look at the case of Jimmy Stewart. After Clarence convinced him he was his guardian angel, it was only a few years until Stewart began conversing with a pooka named Harvey.
“Clarence”
I see these stories as harmful, because it makes god seem only concerned with first-world problems; it magnifies our self-absorption.
It is also kind of amazing that supposedly sane adults can easily see that Harvey is whimsical fiction while simultaneously believing that angels are real.
I’d rather have a guardian pooka!
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PS. Is it a coincidence Garfield’s teddy is called Pookie? I think not!
I think the movies that convey ‘Angel Evidence’ are useful. Wether a ghost or a villain with supernatural powers or a Jedi Knight, movies hermetically seal the evidence. Viewers can only take away hope.
Angel Evidence, since it only exists in fiction, does create the illusion of hope, but it also creates dissonance and that is a good thing.
Horton did hear a who. The story is written that way. Religious people think Horton had faith without evidence. He did not. He had evidence, just none that he could initially show to others.
So if anyone thinks they will see Patrick Swayze coming out of a closet, then they’ve got a pocket full of kryptonite and too much religion on the brain.
Just to ease yourself into it, Andrew, you can start with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who believes in the devil and demonic possession.
I also saw, when I looked up Barber’s piece on ‘historical’ myths re Jerry’s article todaý, that Scalia Says Constitution Permits Court To ‘Favor Religion Over Non-Religion’:
““There’s nothing wrong with that. It is in the best of American traditions, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I think we have to fight that tendency of the secularists to impose it on all of us through the Constitution.””
““It’s a long, uphill fight to get back to original orthodoxy. We have two ‘originalists’ on the Supreme Court,” Scalia said, referring to Thomas. “That’s something. But I feel like Frodo … We’ll get clobbered in the end, but it’s worth it.””
…and I’m sure that Scalia thinks that the government can constitutionally favor angel-believing religion over non-angel-believing religion. That’s ’cause he’s an “originalist”.
Scalia needs to be careful talking about originalism, as none of the major founders was a Catholic, that I can recall.
The fact that one of the world’s most powerful leaders believes in angels is troubling and frankly a little more numinous than I thought Francis would admit to publicly. I thought he was more savvy thn that. Perhaps the new holy see isn’t that different from ol’ Joey Ratz after all.
I also read a piece about Scalia’s comments this morning. I rolled my eyes so hard I thought, for a second, that my head might just twist off my shoulders.
Scalia favors swearing on the constitution to uphold the bible instead of swearing on the bible to uphold the constitution. (As though the bible should ever be part of the oath of office for a government official in the first damned place.)
And now I find out that he thinks every catholic believes that the devil is “a real person” (rolling eyes again) and he believes in angels.
The Supreme Court is at least one ninth ridiculous mook.
“we all have an angel with us, who protects us ”
Well, they’re not doing a very good job for some of us.
Why would an omnipotent, omniscient god need other sentient beings to help him?
the population of the earth has gotten dratically larger since any point previously in history? has the population of angles exploded equally? do some angels have more than one person? some people more than one angel? what if angels stop reproducing and people continue, the other way around. are there angels sittin around and waiting to get assigned to guard someone. so silly
Quantum Gravity Treatment of the Angel Density Problem
http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume7/v7i3/angels-7-3.htm
Why was Gabriel always deliberately or affectedly playful and teasing?
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I think angels are more likely to be massless. Even still, if they had 10^-34 kg/angel, they might as well be indistinguishable from some un-theorized supersymmetric gauge boson hypothetically labeled GGY2L. For that matter why not call all electrons (whose mass we still have no fundamental theory for) angels. Of course, the functionality of leptons is infinitely superior to angels – who have attribute of ‘fallen’ or ‘not-fallen’.
Brilliant!
Now for the experiment: how many can dance on the head of a pin?
Science and religion, together at last.
42.
yup, 42’s always the answer
joe,
The population of angles depends very much on the object under consideration. You probably know about triangles which need three angles to keep them in shape. Then there’s quadrangles, which for some reason, need one more angle. We will not speak of fallen angles, lest one be summoned into our realm.
What may really blow your mind is the circle. It can be considered to have an infinite number of angles. If that isn’t enough, there’s always the sphere, which needs an infinite number of circles to cover its surface.
For a completely different kind of silliness, guardian angels are not so much required for each person, but rather to protect each soul. We have it on good authority that a new person is created at conception and that is the moment when a soul gets attached. However, what happens when subsequently, the zygote separates in two and becomes twins. Does each one get one-half of a soul and its accompanying angel or is one of them left with none? Do chimeras end up with two?
Enquiring minds, etc.
My angel must have been taking a coffee break when I ran over a nail last Monday. Surely, helping to avoid a flat is standard guardian angeling.
Any rookie Catholic theogian would remind you that maybe your guardian angel gave you the flat to save you from the car accident that would have surely befallen you had you remained on the road during the time you were getting the flat repaired.
“According to church tradition we all have an angel with us, who protects us and helps us understand things,”
At last we have a clear explanation of how Hitler managed to survive the bomb plot of July 22nd 1944, and to escape unscathed from several previous assassination attempts. God obviously wanted the Fuhrer to live long enough to complete his divine mission.
“God obviously wanted the Fuhrer to live long enough to complete his divine mission.”
Omni-benevolence.
I don’t know why it’s surprising that the leader of the Catholic church is an orthodox catholic. It would be crazy to think he believed other than what church doctrine taught. How is the fact that he believes in angels (Of course he does. He’s the Pope) any kind of news?
Because he could have said they were metaphorical angels, as the Church is starting to do with hell. Popes hedge all the time. And thank you for telling me I shouldn’t have posted it.
Have you posted on this belief in metaphorical hell before? I wasn’t aware of this and thought official doctrine still says it is real. If it’s a metaphor, what in the world is the point of adhering to the rituals?
Crazy? Why? More than one Pope has said things that clearly indicate a belief that is not per church doctrine. And they change what church doctrine means, interpretation, and there have been changes to church doctrine.
I try to remind myself that belief in weird, seemingly crazy things doesn’t make a person stupid, just irrational, ignorant, deluded or human.
Still. Angels. That’s… wow. Angels. Biting my tongue.
You forgot “lying to facilitate the aquisition or maintenance of power and or wealth.”
My guardian angel has breath that smells like tuna.
Same here. She also pukes on the carpet.
It must be hard to tuna him out.
+100 pun points
The Pope just says what the Catholic church has always said:
“Who are the angels?
The angels are purely spiritual creatures, incorporeal, invisible, immortal, and personal beings endowed with intelligence and will. They ceaselessly contemplate God face-to-face and they glorify him. They serve him and are his messengers in the accomplishment of his saving mission to all.
In what way are angels present in the life of the Church?
The Church joins with the angels in adoring God, invokes their assistance and commemorates some in her liturgy.
‘Beside each believer stands an angel as a protector and shepherd leading him to life.’ (Saint Basil the Great)”
Source: Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§60+61
By the way, the belief in angels is an essential part of Islamic theism too, because according to it, Muhammad received the divine messages and commands written down in the Quran from an angel called Gabriel. This is certainly a childish fairy tale, but you’ll have difficulty finding a Muslim who doesn’t believe in its literal truth. All Islamic theologians sell it as a literally true story.
So if angels have free will, what exactly was the point of creating humans? Why make mundane, physical people, when angels have all the same mental and spiritual qualities as humans, but are also nicely immaterial?
You really can’t run purely spiritual, incorporeal, invisible, immortal, and personal beings through the damnation wringer like you can with humans, can you? I thought we got free will so we could be held responsible for our sins – the angels got a free ride into heaven and they still get free will.
Heavan sounds really interesting too, what with all the ceaseless contemplation and glorification of God face-to-face – forever.
You seem to be forgetting Lucifer and His cohort of fallen angels that rebelled against God. For this sin/act of freewill, they were consigned to Hell and eternal torment. Of course only some sects tell the story this way. Islam has Lucifer/Satan appealing His sentence of eternal torture and God grants it but only until the Last Day, Nice Guy that He is.
“The doctrine on angels is not fantasist. No, it’s reality,”
Initially I thought this was wordplay – yes the doctrine is real, but what it describes is fantastic.
But no, the doctrine is not metaphor – there’s an actual angelic presence. Therefore some important questions:
How do we measure this? Are these angels corporeal? If not, how is information transferred? If we get bad advice, can we sue? Should people who heed this advice, and which then results in damage to another, be held responsible? Or should we assume the bad advice was actually coming from a demon? If I follow the demon’s advice rather than the angel’s, should I assume the demon “beat up”, or otherwise assaulted, the angel and should I take legal action in defense of my angel? How can we tell the difference between angels and demons? What are the telltale signs (an actual tail perhaps) for which I should be on the lookout?
How can statements about angels as real things not lead to these kinds of practical questions, and not also illustrate the absurdity of the entire enterprise?
Tinkerbell, you have a disciple whose not below the age 10.
I was brought up catholic, and remember vividly the special prayer dedicated to our guardian angels that my siblings and I had to recite every night before being put to bed. There was a small picture of said angel hanging above each one for our beds. As a child I remember being torn between my gratefulness that I had a personalized guardian making sure I was safe, but also being completely freaked out that this angel never left me alone and watched my every move. Talk about messing with a child’s head!!!
Did the angels look different from one another?
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Only when viewed from different angles.
b&
That’s right. If I remember correctly all angels look the same, but out of the many categories of angels only the top category (archangels) have names and are “individulized” (i.e. Michael, Raphael, Gabriel. Amazing that I still remember some of this stuff after several decades!
No. It was the same image. And I think it is still widely used to this date. Similar to this one:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Guardian_Angel_1900.jpg/640px-Guardian_Angel_1900.jpg
That should have been a giveaway! I’d certainly expect my GA to look different from my sister’s …
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I can see why you’d be freaked out. She looks like she’s just about to steal those kids’ lunch money. Certainly not the most comforting image I’ve ever seen.
Not a she!. Apparently most angels are genderless, but usually refered to as male.
As a child, raised as a Catholic, it took me some time to grok that. The conflation of angels and fairies atop Christmas trees only added to my confusion.
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I didn’t understand this until Alan Rickman explained his lack of genitalia in the movie Dogma.
‼️
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They must mean genderless in an androgynous David Bowie in the Ziggy Stardust years way. I mean look at that Farrah Fawcett meets Ric Flair hair-do. That angel could’ve been a roadie for Poison. Religions are just so damn weird.
When I was a kid, my mother explained “Angels are like clowns–neither male nor female.”
That angel looks excessively corporeal. What’s its BMI?
It’s also an hexapod, not a tetrapod. With no obvious mammalian properties, to boot…very likely an insectoid impostor, assuming it’s even terrestrial in origin.
…that, and the appendages on the back superficially appear to be wings for flying, but have nowhere near the surface area necessary to support an humanoid body of the apparent dimensions. Something very fishy — or not — is going on here….
b&
What do guardian angels do while a priest rapes a little boy? Do their two angels just play pinochle until it’s over?
Ever heard the phrase “blow, Gabriel, blow?”
no, no: they protect the priest from being caught.
How naive you are! The guardian angel gets very cross with the priest, but when the priest goes to confession everything is all better.
I have a guardian angel? Great! Where is he? I’m going to sue the bastard for malpractice
Sure, there’s a guardian angel. He hangs out just above your right shoulder. But Francis failed to mention the guardian devil who hangs out over your left shoulder. Why?
My evidence? A bajillion movies and cartoons. A bajillion can’t be wrong.
This explains why the left-handed (oh which I am one) are inherently evil.
“Sinister.”
verily so
My lovely atheist angel has protect me since I was born against all kinds of religions.
Atheist angels only protect you as long as you don’t believe in them.
Hmm. This certainly implies that specific angels are assigned to specific people on a one-to-one basis, though I suppose one-angel-to-several-people can’t be ruled out.
But what about demons? Are they on roving commission and wreak mischief wherever they can, or, like angels, do they have specific assignments? The answer has obvious implications for the relative numbers and power of angels vs demons.
So ineffably dumb on every conceivable level. And the explanation of our inner dialogs- “don’t do that,” “do this,” “be careful” is that our guardian angel is doing half the talking? I’m laughing and crying simultaneously.
Ricky weighs in: https://twitter.com/rickygervais/status/518053421812051968
Wow. Somebody had to say it.
…and people actually buy this bullshit about Christianity being monotheistic….
b&
It’s monthesistic the same way that the United Way is a single charity
Yes, or the Faith of the Seven. Father, Warrior, Smith, Mother, Maiden, Crone, and The Stranger are seven faces of the same godhead. Seven hells, it’s an easy game to play … !
Some Hindus, notoriously polytheistic, like to pretend that the diverse gods are all but avatars of Brahma, somehow making Hinduism some sort of monotheism….
People have always had difficulty with simple counting. Religion seems to make the task even more prone to failure.
b&
Is the Pope speaking metaphorically? Perhaps, as with many other words, there is a special meaning of the word “metaphorically” to be used specifically in religious contexts.
Now you’re getting it. The problem with most atheists is they tend to take words like metaphorically literally.
🙂
There is no way a grown, experienced man “believes” in angels and “knows” they are “real” in the sense that you and I might construe those concepts.
Willfully asserting a completely unsupported, irrational position is not believing. Blotting out what your reason and senses tell you and repeating your assertions is not believing.
This is deception.
Trusting in what you’ve been told when you don’t know any better, hoping things will turn out as wished, trusting that night follows day, etc. these are what non-delusional mean by that word. The Pope does know better, he’s sophisticated enough to separate reality and wishful thinking and he’s aware that what he is saying does not comport with what he actually knows.
This is why it’s called a Papal Bull …
I would like to think you’re right and that the pope knows he’s pandering to the non-intellectual base — but I fear what the accumulated effect of many years of reading theology and being surrounded by simple-minded ideas and people might do. Imagine the horror of the guy being serious. I can.
Guardian angels. This is your brain on religion. .. sunny side up.
This is your brain on religion. .. sunny side up.
…and it sure as pope bearshit stinks ain’t over easy….
b&
It’s really odd…strange, to think how religious culture warps and weaves against the human intellect. I am constantly astonished when papists, or baptists, or Calvinists talk unblinking into the microphone of history and tell us they think its all real. There is something special about the human mind. I don’t have any idea what it is, but its kind of frightening.
The pope must have at least some awareness of the several million children who die every year before their fifth birthday, but in the end how can we be surprised with a superstition that elevates ones hopes and wishes and desires over perceptual reality.
So Francis you seem to be saying that those twenty children murdered in that Newtown Connecticut classroom a few years ago had guardian angels protecting them. Can you imagine that! Well I guess you certainly can, after all that’s the business your in, imagining.
Of course he is — that lets God recycle guardian angels, so he doesn’t have to produce so many.
When I was little, I was told that I had a guardian angel protecting me and I believed it. When my parents told me not to play near the road, I said, in all sincerity, “My guardian angel will protect me.” My parents were horrified and said, “It doesn’t work that way.” I was confused. Then how DOES it work?
When my nieces were toddlers, they attended a Baptist Sunday school, where they were told that they would come alive again after they died. They thought that it meant that it would happen right away and insisted that if they got hit by a car they would come right back to life. Teaching kids this crap could actually be dangerous.
like watching cartoons where Sylvester the Cat pops right back up after being run over by the lawn mower
Minus a swath of back hair, of course. Only to grow back in the very next scene.
Exactly🐱
It is deeply sad to think that Francis, the leader of millions of human beings, will not accept reality. He lives in fantasy and his followers accept this. Only reality can provide the basis for improving the lot of mankind.
“The doctrine on angels is not fantasist. No, it’s reality,”
Hey, Mr Gould! I’ve got a quick question about this NOMA thing…
It’s real fantasy.
Remember, this is coming out of the same people who wax on endlessly over the many many ways God may or may not be said to “exist.”
” The pope advised sceptics to ask themselves: “How is my relationship with my guardian angel? Do I listen to him? Do I say good morning to him? Do I ask him to watch over me when I sleep?
As I recall some studies have been done in which subjects were asked to pretend they had an imaginary friend — iirc the 19th century inventor of the elevator was selected — and “talk” to him at regular designated intervals throughout the day. At the end of the study a high proportion of subjects reported that they started “sensing” or feeling the presence of Mr. Otis. When you go through the motions and behave as if you believe, your brain will start to play tricks on you.
Of course, the researchers can’t technically rule out a real ghost. But let’s be honest. Which is more than the pope is being here — intellectually. I can grant him sincerity. It comes from the recognition that when it comes to religion and believing in implausible things for epistemically dubious reasons, it’s usually in for a penny, in for a pound. Why the hell not?
The whole thing is childish. Guardian Angels in particular seem to feed into the needy, narcissistic, nervous and nostalgic temper of the sensitive special snowflakes of modern society. I’m sure there will be a Precious Moments figurine of this pope coming out any day now.
I guess if they fell down an empty elevator shaft,it would be “Mr Otis regrets…”
Let’s all get our guardian angels together and fight ’em!
That’ll create a new sub-group: pit angels.
So there’s three types of beings who are capable of watching young girls being raped and butchered and do nothing: God, fucked up people, and now angels.
If heaven and the beings living there can watch this and do nothing, I sure as hell don’t wanna go there or have anything to do with them sick fucks.
Oh, so that’s what this is about:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/insane-pope-babbling-about-angels-2014100391306
SAGE Open (declaration: I work for SAGE) has just published an article by four academics and professionals working in disaster management examining how belief in guardian angels or spirits correlates with perception of risk. Extract from the conclusion:
“However, cause and effect are complicated and unclear. In some cases, beliefs are associated with an increase in risk-taking behavior, but this was not the dominant theme. The stronger correlation was that people who believe in guardian spirits are more likely to be risk averse, particularly if they are female or have children. It may be that people who view the world in a riskier way are more inclined to have a belief in personal guardian spirits.”
The full open access article is at http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/4/3/2158244014549741
“The Pope believes in angels!”
Well he’s supposed to, isn’t he?
In other news, bears…
🙂
bears are catholic and the pope shits in the woods
If an angel is massless how could they tell you anything. If they don’t have a voice box, the larynx, lungs, etc all communication must be by sign language.
That’s me stuffed!
ah.. that’s right, it’s all inside your head.
woooo
No joke: for reasons of decorum, Catholics are (sadly) discouraged from giving names to their guardian angel buddies — because it would be totally disrespectful to give a name to the entity that ostensibly watches you take every poop you’ll ever take in your entire life.
Then I shall give my guardian angel a fake-Indian name: Watches-Poop-Splash-In-Pisswater. Kinda has a ring to it, doncha think?
b&
It seems to me that life must unfold according to the dictates of our guardian angels. They must constantly manipulate us to combat the wills of other guardian angels. I wonder how this jives with the Catholic position on free will.
The ones in countries with sectarian violence seem particularly inept at performing their duties. Just what are the angels guarding ISIS members supposed to be doing?
Keep up the good work, Jerry. How do you find time to run your website and still teach and do research?
So- if we all have invisible beings guiding, protecting, and helping us, what’s going on when that tree limb DOES fall on you; when that alley you chose to take a short cut through turns out to be gang territory? And, what’s going on in all of the instances when you DIDN’T hear a little, inner voice say, “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you” before you made a decision that led to harm? Was the G-A asleep? On lunch break? I can hear one complaining, “I was supposed to guide and protect this guy, but the BIG BOSS had plans that included him burning up in that house fire.” What UTTER garbage and nonsense!
The UK parody site “The Daily Mash” is also impressed by this news, and has an article about the Vatican putting His Holiness on medication:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/insane-pope-babbling-about-angels-2014100391306
Just what Catholics need; another imaginary friend to talk too! Sheesh !
Here is why the Pope believes in angels.
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones,* for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. Matthew 18:10
I am amused at your blog’s Anti-Catholic sentiments. The Catholic church has done and continues to good.
The evil priests who engaged in abusing children cannot undo the good the Church has done. This church has done more in improving the the lot of the poor, needy, physically and spiritually sick than all the worlds governments and other religions put together.
Sadly there are those who think it funny to say pedophilia when they say the word Catholic.
Child abusers in societies are found in every religion and come in all sizes, shades and colors.
These angels mentioned earlier have witnessed the abuses and will testify against the immoral things done against humanity by immoral and unjust people.
That’ll come in very handy. Where can we contact them to take a sworn statement?
Really? Why would an omniscient God need his own creations to testify to anything? Unless, you’re suggesting they’re going to testify to secular institutions here in reality…
“The Catholic church has done and continues to good. The evil priests who engaged in abusing children cannot undo the good the Church has done.”
But that isn’t the only evil that the RCC has done or continues to do. And it’s not a matter of undoing the good, but rather that the price is too high. Amongst others, Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry forcefully argued that the RCC is, on balance, *not* a force for good.
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PS. Video.
PPS. “Child abusers in societies are found in every religion and come in all sizes, shades and colors.”
Well, yes. But can we not expect more of priests? Else (to quote Fry in another context), “Then what are you for?”
I haven’t seen it mentioned here yet, but apparently the RCC is also busy Beautifying a nun from the ’20s this weekend. Yeah, their theology is sophisticated.
I think the word you meant is ‘beatifying’ (as I’m sure you know). There is absolutely no point in beautifying a nun since nobody is in a position to appreciate it. Her. Whatever. 😉
Alas, nobody remembered to send that particular memo to the priests….
b&
Have I ever mentioned how annoying auto-spell can be?
And I thought you were just being facetious 😉
Ordinarily that would be a good guess with me, but this time it was genuinely not intentional.
My question is what we’re these billions of angels doing for all this time throughout history when the population of the earth was orders of magnitude smaller than it is now?
They were watching over the passenger pigeons, Carolina parakeets, aurochs, and bluebucks.
And that is why birds crash headlong into windows today…
I think we have the beginnings of a new religion here.
The Bible has very rare moments pointing to reality.
Acts 23v8,” The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits ” ,well said by them, unfortunately it is only a set up for the apologist to give his punchline Acts 23v8, ” but the Pharisees acknowledge them all ”
Mark 11v18, ” Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection ”
Lukw 20v27, ” Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection ”
But these comments are said in an attempt to have them refuted by an appeal to authority – from Jesus – Luke 20v35 ” In the resurrection from the dead…and they can no longer die for they are like the angels”
Acts 17v18 has Paul meet a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who dispute with him and say, ” What is this Babbler trying to say ?”
Pity Acts doesn’t quote the Epicurean paradox
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” — ‘
The same could be said of angels, why do they achieve virtually nothing, do they not exist ?
It is propaganda spin to miss out key bits of information. Did the authors of the Bible texts deliberately miss out information that would have shown Babble ideas to be nunsense ?
Since Epicure is a variety of potato I think the other epicurean paradox is how come no Old World priest predicted the existence of potatoes in the Americas and how come no angel flew a few seed spuds over to Europe a few millennium earlier? The theory of the existence of angels has had its chips.
Sadducees? Is that like Father Guido Sadducees?
Thanks for that link. I’d never heard of Father Guido Sarducci. I watched his skit,”5 minute university” which was funny & “How to Pay for Your Sins” – Life is a job – on Youtube ‘1980 – Comedy Routine’
You can call your Guardian Angel but you never get an anseraphim.