Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Great Lighthouse CD on Shroud of Turin




The Passion of Christ In Light of the Holy Shroud of Turin

Fr. Francis Peffley



The Holy Shroud of Turin was called the greatest relic in Christendom by Pope John Paul II. In fact, the Shroud is the most studied scientific object in the entire world. Fr. Peffley presents new and detailed scientific and medical evidence for the authenticity of the Holy Shroud. This presentation brings greater clarity as to the depth of the agony of our Lord's sorrowful Passion, which he voluntarily took on for love of us.



And, at: http://friendsforjesus.com/viewtopic.php?t=4545&sid=b467c60a38e1aa310724c04eb783dd6a



The talk is given by a Priest who has studied a lot of the scientific research and findings of the Shroud.



The cloth is long and is the size of those commonly used at that time for covering a table...also they could tell because of the fine-ness of the linen, which is much nicer than the things usually used to bury people in at that time.



Also, along one side of it there are some kind of markings, oil stains, etc. left behind from people having eaten on this cloth. It was common at that time that the people being served would sit on just one side of the table and they would be served from the front. Something in Jewish practice made it such that food was not to be passed behind people, only in front of them. The stains are possibly from people dipping bread in oil, etc. just like today.



It is a beautiful talk, get this CD if you can! It is called



The Passion Of Christ in Light of the Holy Shroud of Turin.



By Fr. Francis Peffley



Lighthouse Catholic Media.



_________________



For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.



1Cor.11:26

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Pope tells infertile couple to shun 'arrogant' IVF treatment



Pope tells infertile couple to shun 'arrogant' IVF treatment as sex between husband and wife is the 'only acceptable' way to conceive

By Emma Reynolds


Last updated at 5:47 PM on 25th February

The Pope told scientists and fertility experts that matrimony was the 'only place worthy of the call to existence of a new human being' The Pope today urged infertile couples to shun IVF and insisted that sex between a husband and wife was the only acceptable way of conceiving. Pope Benedict XVI said artificial methods of getting pregnant were simply 'arrogance' as he spoke at the end of a three-day Vatican conference on infertility in Rome. He told scientists and fertility experts that matrimony was the 'only place worthy of the call to existence of a new human being'. The Pope reiterated the Church's stance against artificial procreation, telling infertile couples they should refrain from trying to conceive through any method other than conjugal relations. 'The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, doesn't consist in a "product", but in its link to the conjugal act, an expression of the love of the spouses of their union, not only biological but also spiritual,' Benedict said.

He told the specialists in his audience to resist 'the fascination of the technology of artificial fertility', warning against 'easy income, or even worse, the arrogance of taking the place of the Creator'. Conjugal: Benedict said procreation should be linked to love both biologically and spiritually He suggested that this was the attitude that underlies the field of artificial procreation. Sperm or egg donation and methods such as in vitro fertilization are banned for members of the Catholic church. The emphasis on science and 'the logic of profit seem today to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation', the Pope said. But he added that the Church encourages medical research into infertility.


Read more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106392/Pope-Benedict-XVI-tells-infertile-couple-shun-arrogant-IVF-treatment-sex-husband-wife-acceptable-way-conceive.html#ixzz1nWs6ACWh


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Pope calls for silence against Internet noise



January 25, 2012 10:53AM


People "frequently bombarded" with information on internet

Vatican's own news website receives 8-10,000 hits a day


ALSO.Google Chrome enters mobile browser war .... Catholic leader Pope Benedict XVI has called for restraint on the internet, but admitted social media can be useful. Picture: File Photo Source: AP



POPE Benedict XVI has hailed the benefits of silent reflection and encouraged people to stop being "bombarded" by information from the Internet,

But the pontiff says social networks could still be useful modes of communication.

"People today are frequently bombarded with answers to questions they have never asked and to needs of which they were unaware," the pope said in his now-traditional yearly message on the Vatican and social comunications.



"It is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of ecosystem that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds," said the pope, while also defending responsible Internet communication.



"Attention should be paid to the various types of websites, applications and social networks which can help people today to find time for reflection and authentic questioning,'' the pope said.





"In concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible, profound thoughts can be communicated," the 84-year-old pope said in an apparent reference to the micro-blogging site Twitter.



But he added this was true only "as long as those taking part in the conversation do not neglect to cultivate their own inner lives."



The Pope's speech comes as the Vatican reveals its news website is getting between 8000 and 10,000 hits a day with peaks of up to 16,000 hits over Christmas.



The website, which brings together all the Vatican's official communications and news from the Catholic Church around the world, was launched in June.



The data was announced by archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications at a Vatican press conference.



Celli said the average time visitors spent on the site in English, Italian and Spanish was around two minutes, which he said showed that those consulting it were not doing so "by mistake" but were reading some of its continent.



Almost a third of visitors - 27 percent - were from the United States, followed by browsers from Italy, Germany and Spain.



There were also many visitors from Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.



Celli said most the visits to the website were through social media networks - with 65 percent from Facebook and 30 percent from Twitter.



Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/pope-calls-for-silence-against-internet-noise/story-e6frfro0-1226253184682#ixzz1lpnxxGz5

Monday, February 6, 2012

Integral satellite disproves dark matter origin for mystery radiation


Taken from: http://www.physorg.com/news167493073.html


....
July 22, 2009 Integral satellite disproves dark matter origin for mystery radiationEnlarge

The left-hand panel shows the glow of 511 keV gamma rays coming from the annihilation of electrons by their antimatter counterparts, the positrons. The map shows the entire sky, with the galactic centre at the middle. The emission can be seen extending towards the right-hand side of the map. The right-hand panel shows the distribution of hard low mass X-ray binary stars. This stellar population has a distribution that matches the extent of the 511 keV map. Credits: ESA/ Integral/ MPE (G. Weidenspointner et al.)
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers working with data from ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory has disproved theories that some form of dark matter explains mysterious radiation in the Milky Way.
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That this exists has been known since the 1970s, and several theories have been proposed to explain it. Integral’s unprecedented spectral and spatial resolution showed that it strongly peaks towards the centre of the Galaxy, with an asymmetry along the Galactic disc.
Several researchers have invoked a variety of dark matter to explain Integral’s observations. Dark matter is thought to exist throughout the Universe - undetectable matter that differs from the normal material that makes up stars, planets and us. It is also believed to be present within and around the , in the form of a halo.
The recent study has found that the ‘positrons’ fuelling the radiation are not produced from dark matter but from an entirely different, and much less mysterious, source: massive stars explode and leave behind radioactive elements that decay into lighter particles, including positrons, the antimatter counterparts of electrons.
Integral
Enlarge

This is an artist’s impression of ESA’s orbiting gamma-ray observatory, Integral. Credits: ESA
The reasoning behind the original hypothesis was that positrons, being electrically charged, would be affected by magnetic fields and thus would not be able to travel far. As the radiation was observed in places that did not match the known distribution of stars, dark matter was invoked as an alternative for the origin of the positrons. But the recent finding by a team of astronomers led by Richard Lingenfelter at the University of California at San Diego, proves otherwise. The astronomers show that the positrons formed by radioactive decay of elements left behind after explosions of are, in fact, able to travel great distances, with many leaving the thin Galactic disc.
Taking this into account, dark matter is no longer required to explain what Integral saw. A better understanding of how positrons behave has explained the mysterious radiation in our Galaxy.
More information:
Reference publication

Monday, January 23, 2012

Shroud of Turin not a medieval fake, Italian scientists say


Published: Thursday, December 22, 2011, 6:25 PM     Updated: Thursday, December 22, 2011, 6:53 PM
Shroud of Turin.jpgA close-up photographic negative of the Shroud of Turin, which some believe is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.


The Shroud of Turin, revered by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, was unlikely the work of medieval forgers but rather was instead caused by an unexplainable “flash of light,” according to a group of Italian scientists.
Researchers from Italy’s National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development spent five years attempting to replicate the shroud’s markings. They have concluded only something akin to ultraviolet lasers - far beyond the capability of medieval forgers - could have created the markings, Independent Online reported.
"It is obvious that a serious scientific work cannot prove any supernatural action. We have shown that the most advanced technology available today is unable to replicate all the characteristics of the shroud image," lead researcher Paolo Di Lazzaro told MSNBC. "As a consequence, we may argue it appears unlikely a forger may have done this image with technologies available in the Middle Ages or earlier. The probability the shroud is a medieval fake is really low. In this sense, the shroud image is still a scientific challenge."
Previous investigation has determined the markings could not have come from pigments or dyes, according to ABC News. Last year, the History Channel aired a special in which it revealed a 3D image of the face on the shroud constructed from the markings left in the cloth.
"The double image (front and back) of a scourged and crucified man, barely visible on the linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin has many physical and chemical characteristics that are so particular that the staining which is identical in all its facets, would be impossible to obtain today in a laboratory," La Stampa reported. "This inability to repeat (and therefore falsify) the image on the Shroud makes it impossible to formulate a reliable hypothesis on how the impression was made.”
However, Joe Nickell, of the New York-based Center for Inquiry, countered that
Di Lazzaro and his colleagues started out with the assumption a miracle took place and ignored findings by past researchers. "Making the assumption of a miracle is a really, really, really, really, really big assumption," Nickell told MSNBC. "That it's done in the name of science is just astonishing."
The recent findings out of Italy were also criticized by Tom Chivers of the Daily Telegraph. He insisted the 14-foot long linen is a medieval forgery. He based his skepticism mainly on independent Carbon-14 testing sanctioned by the church, which estimated the linen was made between 1260 and 1390.
But some have disputed those findings and argued the shroud is between 1,300 to 3,000 years old. Pollen and plant images on the linen showed it originated in the area around Jerusalem prior the eighth century, the Long Island Press reported.
While the Shroud of Turin is owned by the Vatican, the Catholic Church has never taken an official position on its authenticity.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI’s “Masterpiece” Address on Logical Positivism




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We need no strategy, Benedict said at the Konzerthaus, to relaunch the Church. “Rather, it is a question of setting aside mere strategy and seeking total transparency, not bracketing or ignoring anything from the truth of our present situation, but living the faith fully here and now in the utterly sober light of day, appropriating it completely, and stripping away from it anything that only seems to belong to faith, but in truth is mere convention or habit”.

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The Pope’s Sept. 22 speech to the Bundestag, Germany’s national parliament, became the latest candidate for “best speech of his papacy.” Addressing German lawmakers, but really speaking to Western culture generally, Benedict took on logical positivism -- the view that only empirical science counts as real knowledge, and that all moral claims are subjective. Secular media outlets, even those which were otherwise critical, raved about the speech. Der Spiegel called it “courageous” and “brilliant,” while Bild quoted a prominent lawmaker hailing it as a “masterpiece.” Even Die Welt grudgingly allowed that it was “not completely without cunning.” (In a further indication that Benedict got through, the left-wing London Guardian published a lengthy commentary on the speech, encouraging secular environmentalists to see past their stereotypes of the pope as “a prissy and repressed German professor”.) Armin Schwibach gave this assessment of the Pope’s visit to Germany in: THE BENEDICT REVOLUTION http://benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527207&p=251 ROME, Sept. 26 (kath.net/as) – There is no doubt that the German trip of Pope Benedict XVI was a historic event. What the Pope said and did is like a red-hot stone thrown into a murky pool that is incapable of heating up, of boiling, of being stirred up. But the stone is so hot that even in the scummy water it continues to burn. However, the slimy pool needs to be cleaned so that the light of the new-old glow of faith that the Pope proclaims may reach the core and work the desired renewal. Of course, the Pope’s words do not apply only to Germany. The Pope always speaks to the universal Church. But in a secularized country, his words take on a special relevance, especially when they are addressed to a Church that must internally fight its own self-inflicted secularization. Beyond the Pope’s words, inspiration and teaching which we can take away, it became clearer during the visit that there was a great distance between the truth of the faith that the Pope preached and the reality of the Church that surrounded him – like the dubious ‘democracy drill’ that preceded the Prayer Vigil with the youth in Freiburg on Saturday evening, or the way people received communion at Mass the next day. The difference between the Pope’s celebration of the Eucharist and how others do it was never so clearly demonstrated as during those four days. It also quickly became clear what Benedict XVI thinks of the so-often cited ‘dialog process’ before the visit – namely, nothing. One of the most-used words before the visit, ‘dialog’ never once came from the lips of the Pope during the visit. This in a country where the Church has programmed a ‘dialog process’ lasting till 2015, a process conceived in terms of mundane structures, following the usual worldly schemata. Instead, Benedict XVI upheld the ‘unequal exchange’ between God and man, for which the Church thanks the Lord. The emphasis was on that ‘unequal’ exchange. The Pope stressed the need for a ‘de-mundanization’ of the Church as a condition for any real ‘change’ – not just putting fresh paint on rotten wood to give the appearance of something ‘new’. In other words, change must have to do with substance, which cannot result from elaborate maneuvers, because “the fundamental motive for change is the apostolic mission of the disciples and the Church herself”. The Church, in other words, “must constantly rededicate herself to her mission”, the Pope said in his last address on Sunday at the Freiburger Konzerthaus. This message “is built, first of all, on personal experience”, “finds expression in relationships”, and spreads a universal message. But through the demands and constraints of the world, Benedict admonished, “this witness is constantly obscured, the relationships are alienated, and the message is relativised”. And that is why the Church needs urgently to set herself apart from her surroundings, to make herself ‘unworldly’. That is why one must not be so concerned with the external image of the Church but rather, to draw from the mystery of the Church, from the depths of her communion with Christ. This is not something that is readily at one’s disposal, and it can never be the subject of ‘dialog’. At Olympic Stadium, the Pope said in his homily, that if one only looks at the outward form of the Church, then the Church would “appear as merely one of the many organizations within a democratic society, whose criteria and laws are then applied to the task of evaluating and dealing with such a complex entity as the Church”. Then, “the Church is no longer a source of joy,” and “dissatisfaction and discontent begin to spread, when people’s superficial and mistaken notions of Church, their dream Church, fail to materialize”. Result: Goodbye, dialog process! In other words: To use the dialog process as the leading point to start renewing the life of the Church means placing the horse before the cart. Because Church members must first turn to God, if only to thank him for having called them to his Church. The Pope’s words in Berlin, in Freiburg to the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZDK), and finally to the entire Church, at the Konzerthaus, set a milestone: Now it will no longer be possible to hide behind commissions, committees and dialog groups. Like Christ, his Vicar poses the decisive question that cannot be answered ‘structurally”: Do you love Christ? Do you love his Church, which is his mystical Body? Benedict XVI urges that we must seriously consider the indispensable ‘scandal’ of Christianity in order to “discover the right form of detachment from the world, to move resolutely away from the Church’s worldliness”. It does not mean rejecting nor disavowing the world, but with the true freedom that Christians have, one does away with the bar of conventional ballasts in order to communicate Christian vitality and witness authentically. That does not mean withdrawing from the world, but its opposite. We need no strategy, Benedict said at the Konzerthaus, to relaunch the Church. “Rather, it is a question of setting aside mere strategy and seeking total transparency, not bracketing or ignoring anything from the truth of our present situation, but living the faith fully here and now in the utterly sober light of day, appropriating it completely, and stripping away from it anything that only seems to belong to faith, but in truth is mere convention or habit”. The Benedict Revolution has entered a new and even more expressive phase. The Pope wants radicality, passion and a return to the primordial Rock of the faith, because only from this faith can everything else follow. He demands ‘total honesty’ which exposes everything that is relative and eliminates it by kindling ‘the torch of unvarnished faith’. Only through such untarnished faith do we recover the primacy of God, which is not a result but a foundation. “It is above all the primacy of God that we must recover in our world and our life, because it is this primacy that allows us to find the truth about who we are, and it is in knowing and following the will of God that we find our true good,” Benedict XVI said in Ancona last Sept. 11. In Germany, Benedict XVI showed that he is a prophet. His admonitions and instructions immediately bring to mind his great and saintly predecessor Gregory VII, through whose reforms a once ailing Church achieved a new flowering and sanctity. One must hope that the revolutionary storm that Benedict XVI has sought to spark off will not be stifled in the banality of everyday. It would be convenient for many if they could simply check off the visit of the German Pope as nothing more than a ‘show’ that is over and done with, and that one can now go on with business as usual’. One must hope that there is some terrain which has absorbed the words of the Pope like a dry sponge so that it can become fruitful again. One must hope that this terrain will continue to be tended by the shepherd and that it will not be forgotten by the Pope. [????] At the same time, it will be more difficult for many to remain indifferent to Benedict’s words. The ‘small relative’ that is his faithful flock in Germany is called to forge ahead cum et sub Petro (with and under Peter) and to implement the teachings of the Pope in the German Church. The testament and legacy of Benedict XVI is the possibility to go forward with him on the firm foundations of faith and make him the starting point for authentic renewal. Everything else would be banal palaver in a Church that has the mission to announce ‘the scandal of the Cross’ but which has succumbed to the illusion that it is attractive to surrender to the world and to sell the truth short. One can say, “The games are over”: Either the German Church follows the Pope, or it consolidates an already existing de facto schism. The Pope’s testament is the absolute challenge that will determine the future of the German Church.


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.... St. Augustine: ‘[Jesus] is closer to me than I am to myself’... He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority.”
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.... it seems to me Benedict XVI decided he would be wasting his time at their meeting trying to knock sense into the heads of obstinate bishops who very likely agree with all or most of the radical reforms urged by their ‘dialog partners’. So he would use his visit to Germany, as he did, to address the faithful directly – and show them how radically different his approach was to renewal of the Church from that which most of their bishops shared with the dissidents! This was already evident from the homily at the Mass in Olympic Stadium, and he built it up over the next three days until the climactic and truly dramatic crescendo of his exposition on the last day in Freiburg. Gentle Benedict shows how one can provide high drama when needed, even without histrionics or theatrical actions. ... in Freiburg ... Benedict XVI did not relent in criticizing harshly the functioning not just of the German Church but of the entire Catholic Church. He proposed ‘a change’ in terms of a ‘continual conversion’ because “it is time to courageously give up what is worldly in the Church”. A Church, he goes on, that settles down in the world, becomes ‘self-satisfied’ and adapts to the standards of the world, giving “greater weight to organization and institutionalization”. She must, on the contrary, “detach herself from her tendency towards worldliness’, otherwise, her witness is obscured, her relationships are alienated, and her message is relativised. Nothing to do with a fresh coat of paint – it needs a ‘correction’ so she can resume the right course. This agenda of Benedict XVI is known, but he has not made it so explicit before. Of course, ‘the decline in religious practice’ is part of it, just as ‘the distance taken by a notable part of the baptized’. But the Pope also responded to the principal protest movement within the Church, Wir sind Kirche. Very much present in Germany, it advocates reforms that are anti-dogmatic and democratic. Playing on their name and turning it around, Benedict XVI said ‘We all are the Church’. Which is to say, everyone who has been baptized ‘and’ the clergy. .... “Liberated from material and political burdens and privileges... The Church can be truly open to the world... not in order to win men for an institution with its own claims to power, but to lead them to themselves by leading them to him of whom each person can say with St. Augustine: ‘He is closer to me than I am to myself’... He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority.” .... This trip was predicted to be difficult, but it was a success. The third visit of Benedict XVI to his native land was supposed to be a dialectical festival of uncommon vigor. But this Pope with his reserved demeanour deflected all arrows without difficulty, throwing critics and opponents alike off their game.




.... For more, see:



Friday, January 13, 2012

Einsteinian 'Dogma' Under Threat

Scientists Say E=MC2 Might Be Wrong, Say Neutrinos Are Faster Than Light


Albert Einstein Using Chalkboard

Scientists can be as dogmatic about some of their a priori scientific laws as they claim religious people are about their beliefs. It is often very much a ‘faith’ thing, with a fanatical assent demanded to a supposedly established law or scientific dogma that may later get brushed aside. All ‘intelligent’ people are expected to conform to that law, or suffer being labelled ‘flat earthers’, or the like. Atheistic physicist Stephen Hawking, considered to be this generation’s Albert Einstein, has lately been lamenting his greatest mistake, the “Black Hole Paradox”. But what if Black Holes don’t actually exist?


For now the dogma of all dogmas, Einstein’s equation of relativity (which pop star Mariah Carey has used as an album title), has been seriously called into question and may well end up being dumped. As Gavin Ardley wrote, in his Aquinas and Kant, in highly theoretical science, with the passing of time, “one Procrustean bed is replaced by another Procrustean bed”.

Anyway, here is the latest on Einstein:

Physicists working at CERN believe they may have discovered neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. If the discovery is validated it would mean Albert Einstein’s special theory of relatively marked as E-MC2 would be incorrect. Einstein states in his theory that nothing is able to travel faster than light.

Adrian Cho at Wired didn’t sugar coat the discovery, claiming:

”If it’s true, it will mark the biggest discovery in physics in the past half-century.”

The reason the discovery is so significant is that the modern world of physics is based around the notion that light travels at the fastest possible speed in the universe.

Tests are being duplicated to prove the assertion correct with a CERN spokesman noting: “The feeling that most people have is this can’t be right, this can’t be real.”



Read more:

http://w.po.st/share/entry/redir?publisherKey=Inquisitr.com-607&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inquisitr.com%2F144267%2Fscientists-say-emc2-might-be-wrong-say-neutrinos-are-faster-than-light%2F&title=Scientists


 
Now,
 
Self-Contradictory Philosophy



[Taken from Gavin Ardley's book, "Aquinas And Kant"]


…


Enough has been said to show the character of a well-developed ‘humanistic’ theory of morals. It is the culmination of the movement stemming from Protagoras: man is the measure of all things. We have discussed this subject of ethics at some length because of its intrinsic importance. Such humanistic doctrines are very widely held today in some form or another.

We will now go on to show that this elaborate structure is built upon sand. Its foundation is a concealed Procrustean bed, and when this is brought to light the whole structure collapses.


Critique of Logical Positivism



Let us turn back to the starting point of logical positivism, to the foundation on which all this structure rests. This is the principle that ‘a proposition has no meaning unless it can be empirically verified’. (In the light of Stevenson’s emendations this is now to be understood as ‘no factual meaning’. The proposition may yet have an emotive meaning, to use Stevenson’s own language).



Now when any general proposition is put forward, a good plan is to apply it to itself and observe the result. In so many cases when this is done the proposed principle shows itself to be self-contradictory, as for example: ‘Everything is doubtful’. On its own criterion this is doubtful, so that universal scepticism cannot be asserted without denying itself (cf. Descartes). (It should be noted that the principles of the philosophia perennis do not annihilate themselves in this way. On the contrary, the assert themselves in the very act of being denied, so that far from being inherently self-contradictory, they are inherently self-assertive).



When we introvert the basic principle of logical positivism we find it to be a proposition which is inherently self-contradictory. For such a proposition as ‘a proposition has no meaning unless it can be empirically verified’ is not itself susceptible of empirical verification, and therefore, by its own criterion, it is meaningless.



All the logical positivist is doing is to express his private determination to admit only empirically verifiable propositions. No reason is given for this. It is evidently founded on nothing more substantial than prejudice and emotion. The basic proposition in fact, Stevenson’s own phrase, has only an emotive meaning. Its purpose is to persuade subtly to pursue a certain line of thought.



….