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What does Simon mean? and did "Peter" replace "Simon"?
I recently heard a terrible argument arguing that Simon means “grain of sand” and that when Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, he was changing this grain of sand into a Rock. Obviously, as you might guess, this argument came from someone who thinks that Peter was the first pope. There are two significant problems…
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The Editor-in-chief of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano said it, so it must be true
The Editor-in-chief of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano has claimed that President Barack Husein Obama “is not a pro-abortion president.” (link) If this is where Benedict XVI is getting his information about the American president (and I’m sure folks will assure me that the pope has other sources than the Vatican newspaper), then it would…
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"We Have Apostolic Tradition"- The Unofficial Catholic Apologist Commentary #10
To a certain extent I’m treading on Mr. James Swan’s toes in posting this episode to the “We Have Apostolic Tradition” series. Mr. Swan had noticed that Roman Catholic apologists often let us know how crucial it is to have an infallible magisterium and church Tradition in order to interpret the Bible correctly. With so…
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Patrick Madrid Turtles
One may recall that Patrick Madrid has a web forum called Speak your Mind Apologetics Forum. He uses the URL “SurprisedByTruth” for his web site. I noted with little surprise that he had recently decided to stop my friend who uses the nick “Algo” from speaking his mind and surprising the Roman Catholics in that…
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Limited Atonement – Response to OneTrueChurch
In the following video, I respond to a video from “OneTrueChurch” on the topic of Calvinism and Limited Atonement (link). OneTrueChurch calls (in the title of his video) Calvinism a “Heresy” although he does not explain why he thinks that, and picks on Limited Atonement as key to the whole issue of Calvinism (much to…
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Bellisario Providing Example of Mistakes to Avoid
How not to argue for Roman Catholicism – an example from Mr. Matthew Bellisario (link). Here are a few tips to avoid Mr. Bellisario’s mistakes (with a video presentation of the 10 points below): 10) If you’re going to cite statistics, don’t cite statistics that actually show Roman Catholic sexual abuse at about twice the…
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Avoiding Landmines in Roman Catholic Apologetics
Introduction One branch of Apologetics deals with responses to the challenges to the faith brought by Catholicism. Since one apologist for Catholicism has recently posted a list of unsound arguments that are sometimes used by those defending Catholicism, I thought I’d post a similar list that at least identifies some areas of caution for Reformed…
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Veneration of Mary Debate with William Albrecht (aka GNRHead)
This is a debate that was conducted on 25 April 2009 between TurretinFan and William Albrecht (aka GNRHead) on the topic of the Veneration of Mary and its Biblical Support (or lack thereof). http://www.youtube.com/p/D865CBCDF669817D&hl=en&fs=1 At some later point I would like to provide some further comments on this debate. For now, however, here it is…
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Debates This Weekend
I’m scheduled to debate issues having to do with veneration of Mary and the Bible with Mr. William Albrecht (noon Pacific time on Saturday). It will not be available live, but we hope to post the debate as an mp3 or the like afterward. Also, by the end of Sunday I should post my conclusion…
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Reginald di Piperno Misses the Point
Apparently Reginald di Piperno (a pseudonym – like my own) has missed the point (link). Reginald seems to have mistakenly concluded that I imagine the Roman Catholic position to be that individual bishops (other than the bishop of Rome) are infallible. Of course that’s not what I think or what my previous post suggested (link…