faith formation : The World Gone Bonkers Explained - Fr. Mark Goring, CC

 Another great sermon from Fr. Goring.

Amazing World: Glass Batteries-- Dr. Goodenough

 Possible big breakthrough in battery technology, by  John B. Goodenough, inventor of the lithium battery.

Change of Name : The Catholic Pelican Blog

We are changing our name from the "Christian Sparrow" to "The Catholic Pelican Blog". We didn't know that the Christian Sparrow was already a popular name for many blogs. So it became hard for friends to find us on a search engine.

Hopefully this will be better.

Apologetics: 4. You talk of universal persuasion. Men used to believe that the world was flat!

A sufficient reason for that error is evident, viz., lack of data, and the fact that men followed their senses, which seemed to say that the earth was flat.

That was not a judgment of the pure reason. The senses supplied no immediate manifestations that there might be a God as they indicated that the world might be flat.

The cases are not parallel, and the transition from a judgment based upon the senses to one based upon pure reason is not valid. In any case, the scientific and metaphysical proofs justify belief in God quite independently of this psychological reason. They would be valid supposing that only one man in a million believed in God's existence. This latter supposition, however, will never be verified, for the common rational judgment of the vast majority will always intuitively perceive this truth.

Apologetics: 3. I, as a rationalist, ask, "Who created your uncreated clock-maker?"

 That is not a rational question.

I say that the universe is obviously created, and that what is created supposes a Creator who is uncreated, or the problem goes on forever, the whole endless chain of dependent beings as unable to explain itself as each of its links.

It is rational to argue to an uncreated clock-maker. It is not rational to ask, "Who created this uncreated clock-maker?" God was not created. If He were, He would be a creature and would have a creator. His creator would then be God, and not He Himself. God always existed. He never began, and will never cease to be. He is eternal.

Apologetics: 2. What is this evidence for God's existence, apart from the Bible?

 

There are many indications, the chief of which I shall give you very briefly:

• The first is from causality.
  The universe, limited in all its details, could not be its own cause. It could no more come together with all its regulating laws than the San Francisco Harbor Bridge could just happen, or a clock could assemble itself and keep perfect time without a clock-maker. On the same principle, if there were no God, there would be no you to dispute His existence.
  
  
• A second indication is drawn from the universal reasoning, or if you wish, intuition of men.
  The universal judgment of mankind can no more be wrong on this vital point than the intuition of an infant that food must be conveyed to the mouth. The stamp of God\'s handiwork is so clearly impressed upon creation, and, above all, upon man, that all nations instinctively believe that there is a God.
  
  The truth is in possession. Men do not have to persuade themselves that there is a God. They have to try to persuade themselves that there is no God. And no one yet, who has attained to such a temporary persuasion, has been able to find a valid reason for it. Men do not grow into the idea of a God; they endeavor to grow out of it.
  
  

Apologetics: 1. Please give me evidence that God exists. I have never had any such evidence. And don't use the Bible, because I don't accept it.

What do you mean by evidence?

Some people think that evidence must be seen and touched, as an animal sees a patch of grass and eats it. But men are not mere animals.

They have reason, and can appreciate intellectual evidence. For example, the evidence of beauty in music or in painting is perceived by man's mind, not by his senses. An animal could hear the same sounds, or see the same colors, without being impressed by their harmony and proportion. Apart from the Bible altogether, reason can detect sufficient evidence to guarantee the existence of God.