Augustine

or the "Fourth Cup"?

... including those that allow a place for evolution... as long as these do not deny the existence of God and that all things find their origin in God?

Genesis is concerned with the religious question of the why of creation and Science is concerned with the question of what is observable and the how of creation? Even that it is possible that God may have created the universe over eons and that some evolution might have occurred in the creatures made?

John Hagee? Why can Hagee insult nearly 80 million US Catholics comprising a quarter of the US population with statements such as the Catholic Church is “the Great Whore” and a “false cult system.”? But all you ever hear about is Obama's pastor Wright? Will no one stand up and ask for this to be denounced?

"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

60On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

Jesus always clarified a Parable but He never gave a different meaning to this statement. He simply said it. Did He really mean what He said?

"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

60On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

Jesus always clarified a Parable but He never gave a different meaning to this statement. He simply said it. Did He really mean what He said here?

April Fools' Day or Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week?

This is where Religion and Philosophy come together. Just looking for your interpretations and ideas. Think on this one.

A serious question here. No joke or insult intended. If Sunni and Shi'a are both Moslem why go to the extent of killing each other? I understand the basic schism was due to sunna holding to the Qur'an and tradition as it applied to choosing a successor to Mohammed when he died (c.632) and some of these traditions were not codified in the Qur'an, but is that a reason to kill?

Pope Benedict XVI “sincerely regrets” offending Muslims with his reference to an obscure medieval text that characterizes some of the teachings of Islam’s founder as “evil and inhuman,” the Vatican said Saturday.

**An Iraqi insurgent group threatened the Vatican with a suicide attack over the pope’s remarks on Islam, according to a statement posted Saturday on the Web.

**“We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life,” said the message posted in the name of the Mujahedeen Army on a Web site frequently used by militant groups. The message’s authenticity could not be independently verified. The statement was addressed to “you dog of Rome” and threatens to “shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home.”

**In West Bank attacks on churches, Palestinians used guns, firebombs and lighter fluid, leaving church doors charred and walls scorched by flames and pocked with bullet holes. Nobody was reported injured. Two Catholic churches, an Anglican one and a Greek Orthodox one were hit. A Greek Orthodox church was also attacked in Gaza City.

A group calling itself “Lions of Monotheism” told The Associated Press by phone that the attacks were a protest against the pope’s remarks on Islam.**

In a broader talk rejecting any religious motivation for violence, Benedict cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman,” particularly “his command to spread by the sword the faith.”

The pontiff did not endorse that description, but he did not question it, and his words set off a firestorm of protests across the Muslim world.

1. Morocco recalled its ambassador to the Vatican on Saturday to protest the pope’s “offensive” remarks, and Afghanistan demanded the pope apologize.

2. Turkey cast some doubt on whether Benedict could proceed with a planned visit in November in what would be the pontiff’s first trip to a Muslim nation.

3. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted the pope apologize to the Muslim world, saying he had spoken “not like a man of religion but like a usual politician.”

Asked if Muslim anger would affect the pope’s trip to Istanbul, where he hopes to meet with Orthodox leaders headquartered there, Erdogan replied, “I wouldn’t know.”

4. The grand sheik of Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque, the Sunni Arab world’s most powerful institution, condemned the pope’s remarks as “reflecting ignorance.”

5. The Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah and Lebanon’s top Sunni Muslim religious authority also denounced the pope’s comments.

Benedict quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

“The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the pope said. “He said, I quote, ’Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”’