Was Patrick Ever Catholic?

True, but saying something is “really flesh and blood” is a special case. These are physical things by definition.

You are correct, I can see how that might be confusing. I would say however that flesh and blood are not physical things by definition but by convention. It is by convention that when we say flesh and blood we do not mean the metaphysical substance of flesh and blood.

Really, I can’t believe a physicists just said this. A field is a real thing that is part of the physical world. A thought is a real thing that is part of the physical world (collection of synapse firings). Name a real thing that is not part of the physical world?

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What is the metaphysical substance of flesh and blood?

The quintessential example is morality - many philosophers (even secular ones) are moral realists. From its name, you can guess that they hold the ontological reality of morals. Most (probably all) Christians are not materialist, and would claim that things can be real but is non-physical (e.g. souls). Secular philosophers that hold to Cartesian dualism would claim that minds are non-physical but real.

What do you mean by this question? The metaphysical substance of flesh and blood are the metaphysical parts of flesh and blood. If you axiomatically do not hold that flesh and blood have metaphysical components, this is ill defined for you.

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C’mon @PdotdQ, you have to give Patrick’s nuns some slack. How would it be possible to teach 7 year olds about substance theory? :grinning: I imagine you need to be at least in middle school to have a real understanding of such metaphysical concepts. In a way, they were probably more faithful to Catholic teaching by telling the kids that the host was “really” the body and blood of Jesus, even if it scared Patrick.

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Indoctrination begins with children. If you can get children to believe something, you have them believing for life. All religions do it. I find it morally repugnant.

It is not a theory, it is barely an hypothesis.

I don’t know why you are being abrasive and pedantic about this. This is “theory” in the philosophical sense, the way the word is used in “ontological theory” or “epistemological theory” or “critical theory” or “gender theory” which means a body of work. This is not a scientific concept so the word hypothesis is ill-defined for it.

By the way,

Is not even true. Whether fields are ontologically real and physical, or real but not physical, or not real but physical depends on what one thinks is real and what is part of the physical world. Indeed, it has been debated for years.

Other objects with similar ontologies in physics include the Fock/Hilbert space and the fibers of the principal-G-bundle of standard model physics. In many cases, it is extremely difficult for physics to separate real and non-real as well as physical and non-physical things. At its core the demarcation comes from personal beliefs instead of anything from physics.

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okay. This I accept. Thank you.

I cannot judge another man’s thoughts. Was he ever Catholic? I would say “yes”; however, that does not answer the question if he was ever a Christian. Patrick is still a nice guy. He never had the chance to accept baptism through his own free will. His parent’s forced it on the child who had a clean slate for a brain. He did not even know what the water was. Therefore, he was never born (spiritually).

Not following this discussion, but I have to toss this in:

I object to the premise of questioning a person’s beliefs. If Patrick says he was Catholic, then I think I have to accept this was his belief, unless he says otherwise.

Likewise, I accept the @Charles_Miller is sincere in his beliefs as a Southern Baptist, and @PdotdQ is a current sincere Catholic. We might disagree with someone’s beliefs, but I don’t think we should question anyone’s sincerity without some other good justification (ie: suspicion of trolling?).

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The only thing that bothers me is that the Catholic Church databases still have me down as a Catholic. Because I was baptisted in St. Rocco’s Church within one month of my birth in 1958. Then I got First Holy Communion in 1965, followed by Confirmation in 1972, followed by Marriage in 1983. Never went to church, never gave a dime.
But the Catholic Church closest to my present address keeps sending me offering envelopes which I promptly discard.

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Catholicism is a set of beliefs. If one professes in not believing a certain subset of it (the ones called de fide beliefs - or those essential to the faith), they are not Catholic. This is just definitional.

If someone believes Jesus rose from the dead, I won’t question that they actually believe that statement. However, if they profess to not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then they are by definition not Catholic. Note that nowhere in that assertion do I state that I do not belief that this person actually “not believe that Jesus rose from the dead”. Patrick did profess that he used to believe transubstantiation is a physical change in the host, in contrary to de fide beliefs.

To be clear, one does not need to know or even agree with everything the Church says to be considered Catholic. But one is required to believe the subset known as de fide beliefs.

This is why I disagree with current Church practice of having very young Children undertook the sacrament of Confirmation. Confirmation is supposed to be undertaken later in life, and the question is essentially: “Now that you know the doctrines of the Church, do you still want to be Catholic?” Similarly, in the past baptism is undertaken late in life, when the person in question is already familiar with the doctrines.

Further, my original question:

Might be read as being confrontational, but really its more incredulity. I’m just surprised that someone who grew up Catholic did not learn the doctrine of transubstantiation. Since he believes that Catholics believe these things:

Which he has professed before: Several States Investigating the Catholic Church - #30 by Patrick, I was wondering what other strawmen of Catholicism and Christianity in general he believes in. This was why I originally asked that question.

You cannot be Catholic but not Christian.

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It is possible to be Christian without being Catholic. As I said, how can a baby be baptized and understand his faith?. He/she has a blank mind whereas an adult has the free will to reject the Holy Gospel. When I was baptized at age eleven, I had the free will to accept Christ. As far as pastors getting married, it is quite natural to get married. The Catholic violates a persons right to marry, a perfectly natural thing. How can a blank slate accept Jesus? He has no idea what our Lord represents or what his mission was.

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Priests in Roman Catholic church are not forced to celibacy (yeah, sure, you kinda have to be a celibate to be a priest, but you don’t have to become a priest), they are simply called (or chose, depends on how you look at it) to it. Even in Orthodox churches, where priests are allowed to marry, there are quite a few priests (or, rather, monastics) who chose to be celibate.

And, for those people who want to be smartasses and make a comment about the sex scandal, I meant that they should be and most of them are celibate.

Only Roman Deacons are supposed to get married. If the wife dies, then the church must give the Deacon permission to remarry. The Orthodox and Byzantine allow their priest to marry.

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You’re ignoring my point: no one is forced to be celibate. You just don’t have to enter clergy and you’re good to go.

This agrees with what I said. What I have problems with is the inverse:

Which was what you asserted before

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