My theological summation of this thread is as followed: I don't know whose arrogance is more repugnant Joe3 for pretending to be the voice of his generation or Beast for pretending to know who gets through the Pearly Gates. There's a place in Hell for both you.... maybe.
I think it's really funny that you can attach arrogance to commentary on a a thread by someone who is trying to patiently explain Catholic doctrine, when the purpose of the thread was to discuss the secularization of univeristies that were founded for a religious mission. It's astounding you can cast negativity on the explanation of cathlic doctrine, which some of the negative posters on here chose this thread to reject.
For many alumni, the fact that St. John's was a CAtholic University was an important part of our decision to attend the university and the continued decline in Catholic enrollment is disconcerting. As you are likely aware, FH and the BOT is very aware of this fact, and are actively taking steps to try to reverse this trend. IMO it is not enough, and we will see how it unfolds.
I still respect you and everyone else here as part of the SJU family, and good for your generation for embracing the Catholic mission in years past at SJU. The thing is, as your generation gets older and older, the ideals go with it...they begin to die out. You can't try to force feed old ideas to a new progressive more intellectual generation. The bus has simply left years ago...colleges are not going back to the days when people went to church every Sunday because the culture and population is changing. I understand your nostalgia, but despite the common belief that "back in my day everything was better", some things need to happen i.e. secularization. It's time to pass the baton to the new generation...we are approaching that age where it's our turn at bat now. I was at the reason rally in DC and an estimated 20,000 yes twenty thousand people showed up...overwhelmingly consisting of people under 30. By the way that was in torrential downpours and cold muggy weather. Look around on the internet...it seems that the norm is secularism already.
Ahhh, so now I know what I am dealing with - someone who is a dyed in the wool atheist who is trying to promote an atheist movement in the United States. Good luck with that. It's much easier to understand you when you reveal just how much of a doctrine you are spouting. If you could string together an intelligent argument disproving God based on science, I might be interested in hearing it. However, you are quite incapable, not by your own lack iof intellect and preparedness, but because it is not possible to prove or disprove God irrefutably merely by science.
There is nothing in science now or ever that is not in harmony with God. Can science explain everything? No.
Sceince is limited by known facts, and the conclusions made are done so basedon available evidence and tools to measure and examine.
There is nothing in science that can explain how identical twins separated at birth name their children or pets the exact same names, or the times when a twin has become aware that his sibling has died at the moment of death. It cannot explain how people that are brain dead by an EEG somehow regain consciousness and resume normal activity.
More definitively science appears to be broken when it comes to issues like dark matter (an unknown form makes up most of the matter of the universe.) This matter is not predicted by the standard physics models. The so-called "Theory of Everything" does not predict and does not understand what this substance is.
The law of gravity appears to be seriously broken. Experiments by Saxl and Allais found that Foucault pendulums veer off in strange directions during solar eclipses. Interplanetary NASA satellites are showing persistent errors in trajectory. Neither of these is explained or predicted by the standard theory of gravity known as Einstein's General Relativity.
The Cold Fusion phenomenon violates physics as we understand it, and yet it has been duplicated in various forms in over 500 laboratories around the world. Recent studies by the Electric Power Research Institute, a large non-profit research organization funded by the nation's power companies, found that Cold Fusion works. A recent Navy study also verified the reality of Cold Fusion, and the original MIT study which supposedly disproved Cold Fusion has been found to have doctored its data. Present day physics has no explanation for how it works, but it does work.
Under certain conditions, billions of electrons can "stick together" in close proximity, despite the law of electromagnetism that like charges repel. Charge clusters are small, one millionth of a meter in diameter, and are composed of tens or hundreds of billions of electrons. They should fly apart at enormous speed, but they do not. This indicates that our laws of electromagnetism are missing something important.
The speed of light, once thought unbreakable, has been exceeded in several recent experiments. Our notion of what is possible in terms of propagation speed has been changing as a result. Certain phenomena, such as solar disturbances on the sun which take more than eight minutes to be visible on the earth, are registered instantaneously on the acupuncture points of instrumented subjects. Acupuncture points apparently respond to solar events by some other force which travels through space at a much higher speed than light.
This covers just a few of the more glaring anomalies in the "hard sciences." Evidence has also accumulated in the laboratory that many paranormal effects are real, and can be verified and studied scientifically. Among these are the following: ESP, which has been proven but not explained by science. Psychokinesis = Even over distances of thousands of miles, the behavior of certain machines, called REGs for Random Event Generators, have been altered by the intention, or the psychic force of a distant person. The odds that these effects are real, and not due to chance, is now measured in billions to one. In other words, this phenomenon is real.
So despite atheist clamoring for prooft positive that there is God, or he simply cannot exist, or that the supernatural is just not possible, falls far short of being conclusive evidence.
I have often clallenged those who have rejected the Christian faith, that if the reusrrection can be aboslutely proven not to have occurred, then I would have to reject Christianity. I will similarly offer to someone as yourself, that if the resurrection could be proven, would you accept Christianity? I would offer you the same question.
