Was Jesus God?

Quote: FrGamble

I imagine you would be inclined to pray with the sisters and if they asked you if you would like to be baptized I don't think many would turn it down.

Did you even read about this? Most of
the people they baptized had no idea
what was going on. The nuns tricked
them into going along with it.

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Also let's not forget we are talking about eternal life here.

No we're not, we're talking about magic
words hocus pocus nonsense. We're
talking about the Church thinking that
it's still the Middle Ages and just saying
words has power, like a witch cursing someone
or a priest saving them by just uttering a
few words. It's silliness personified. You're
a smart man, you should know better.

And it matters what I think as the guardian
of my grandpa, and what he thinks, as far
as the rights of a third party is concerned who
wants to interfere with some religious blather.
This is what's so dangerous about you people,
you literally think god has given you rights
you don't have. Thankfully, because of your
flagrant abuse of such power, the fangs of
the Church have been removed and it's now
in it's death throes. Can't happen soon enough.

Quote: Evenbob

Did you even read about this? Most of
the people they baptized had no idea
what was going on. The nuns tricked
them into going along with it.

Let me get this straight. These nuns pick up a homeless man laying in the gutter getting ready to die, then lovingly care for him and then they trick him into getting baptized against his will? Why would you say that? Are you just upset these people would like to be baptized? Those who asked to be baptized knew exactly what was going on - love communicates truth. Do you really think these people would deny these dear sisters or reject the gift of baptism from people who help them for the first time live and die with dignity?

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It's silliness personified. You're
a smart man, you should know better.

Didn't we establish already that words are the most powerful thing we have. They can cause great irreparable harm or they can cause lasting joy. They make marriages, oaths, relationships, they communicate truth and tell lies. They cause wars and the end wars. If you think that words of love at the end of someone's life is not powerful and a real blessing you need to think again about this. Words make things real.

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And it matters what I think as the guardian
of my grandpa, and what he thinks, as far
as the rights of a third party is concerned who
wants to interfere with some religious blather.

You are absolutely right. Let's review what we are really talking about here. People utterly abandoned and hopeless. They have no families or friends they were literally picked up off the trash heaps and brought in to a home to be fed and cared for. If one of the family members cared enough to go look for them on the trash heap and heard that they were with Mother Teresa they could certainly find them and come to take them home. I fail to see how it is an abuse of power to save people forgotten and mistreated by the world and love on them. To teach them that the reason they do this is because they are reflecting the love of Jesus Christ, who became poor to show the world that all people have dignity and are loved by the Heavenly Father. That this same Lord Jesus wants you to know deeply how loved you are as a child of God and has provided a sacramental experience of water and the Holy Spirit to help us feel and know that we are born again in His love and promised eternal life. A man or woman receiving sweet loving care from a dear sister who has eaten for the first time in probably a month will receive this message very powerfully I imagine and desire baptism. Please tell me how this wrong?

Quote: FrGamble

Let me get this straight. These nuns pick up a homeless man laying in the gutter getting ready to die, then lovingly care for him and then they trick him into getting baptized against his will?

That's exactly what the doctors and workers
report. The dying person is asked some
meaningless question like, do you want to
go to some place nice? They take the yes
answer to mean they're giving permission
to be baptized. The person has no idea
what's going on, he doesn't know he's
being tricked.

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Didn't we establish already that words are the most powerful thing we have.

We established that words by themselves
have no power at all. A witch can't sit in
her cave and cast spells with her words,
anymore than you can turn wafer and
wine into flesh and blood by just mumbling
a eucharistic prayer over them. Saying
alakazam! over them would have the exact
same effect. Middle Ages magical nonsense.

Quote: Evenbob

That's exactly what the doctors and workers
report.

Some few doctors and workers may report this. The vast majority do not. Also would you rather accept the third person testimony of a bystander, often with an agenda, or the first person testimonies of the sisters themselves and those who are being lovingly cared for. Why is it that you despise any third person testimony or hearsay when it supports the faith or the good sisters but bite hook line and sinker upon a few people who think they see something they want to see but have no evidence or first person experience of it?

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We established that words by themselves
have no power at all.

Actually we have established the exact opposite. Words by themselves have the power to love or hate, destroy or build.

What I think you mean to say is that words cannot have effects on things. They obviously have a powerful effect on human beings and have and continue to change the course of human history. If they have this effect on us and what we do and how we think why would you not think that words would have some effect on things?

Quote: FrGamble

Some few doctors and workers may report this. The vast majority do not.

Those that have are adamant about it,
and have been reporting it for decades.
Stick your head in the sand all you want,
it's a fact people were tricked into being
baptized on a regular basis at all of Teresa's
clinics.

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Words by themselves have the power to love or hate, destroy or build.

But they don't have stand alone power, they
have to be heard and processed by another
person. The wafer and the wine that you're
saying magic words over have no idea what
you're doing. You claim that they actually
turn into flesh and blood, it's not just the people
there thinking they do. The same with prayer.
It's been proven over and over in the last 125
years that prayer groups, praying for sick people
in the hospital, has zero effect on them getting
better. That's because the words have no power
of their own, and there is no god waiting to jump
into action just because you want something.

Quote: Evenbob

Those that have are adamant about it,

So these few are to be believed because they are adamant about it? This does not make a fact you know. I'm amazed you continue to make up your mind based on so few but adamant witnesses. One book or one seminar verses thousands. One ex-priest from a different era with poor formation vs an active priest and the witness of thousands. A few observing doctors and nurses with an ax to grind vs. the testimony of those many, many who are baptized, the sisters themselves, and thousands of other doctors, nurses, and volunteers from around the world.

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But they don't have stand alone power, they
have to be heard and processed by another
person.

I know what you are getting at, but this statement is not true either. Think positively about someone and speak words of blessing to them by yourself and see if your opinion and attitude about that person does not change over time.

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That's because the words have no power
of their own, and there is no god waiting to jump
into action just because you want something.

This is where you run aground. There is power in words on their own and you should stop saying there is not. However, words having power to on their own change reality such as bread and wine into something entirely different is a whole new level of power. That is why the words don't have any power on their own without God to do such things. There is a God who loves us so much that He has promised, established Himself, and even given us the words to use so that His power and love will be made really and truly present for us.

Quote: FrGamble

So these few are to be believed because they are adamant about it?

It's who's saying it that matters. Indian
doctors who worked in the clinics,
former nuns and clinic staff. And the
fact they've been saying it for a very
long time. This is the Church MO,
isn't it? They invented forced conversion
by any means possible. Then they would
send the Inquisition thugs around a couple
years later to see if the forcibly converted
had stayed converted. Woe to them if they
had not.

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I know what you are getting at, but this statement is not true either. Think positively about someone and speak words of blessing to them by yourself and see if your opinion and attitude about that person does not change over time.

You make my point for me. The words
you say have no power at all, it's your
personal interpretation of them that
changes your opinion and attitude.
Say the same words about someone
else, in private, and the will have no
effect on them at all because the words
have no stand alone power of their own.
Just like your eucharist prayer has zero
effect on the wafer and wine.




This is where you run aground. There is power in words on their own and you should stop saying there is not. However, words having power to on their own change reality such as bread and wine into something entirely different is a whole new level of power. That is why the words don't have any power on their own without God to do such things. There is a God who loves us so much that He has promised, established Himself, and even given us the words to use so that His power and love will be made really and truly present for us.

So a few Indian doctors who observed in the clinics say this and they are to be believed over those who actually received the care from the sisters and the sisters themselves because they have been saying it for a long time? I think the sisters have been saying the opposite for a long time too. I also think that these allegations don't seem to keep surfacing. I have heard of no new complaints against Mother Teresa's sisters who continue to take the poorest of the poor and those who are dying in the streets and lovingly bathe, clothe, feed, nurse, and heal them.

Oh and by the way check out the new Eucharistic Miracle in Poland if you continue to doubt the power of words in the Eucharistic Prayer.
Miracle Approved

Quote: FrGamble

Oh and by the way check out the new Eucharistic Miracle in Poland if you continue to doubt the power of words in the Eucharistic Prayer.
Miracle Approved

The ways this could have been faked are
literally endless. You see that, right?

People can trick science all the time. However, I ask you to run your scenarios of someone faking it by the evidence and the scientific discovery and see if you can come up with a viable alternative.