Thursday, May 14, 2009

Wikipedia: good and bad

I love Wikipedia. You can find anything you want to know about popes, church councils, saints, sacraments, church history and more. It is a great resource. But be warned, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, and often times Catholic articles are infiltrated by anti-Catholics and atheists. I find this practice not only annoying, but academically dishonest.

Atheists are usually most obvious when reading about saints and miracles. For example, an article might state that a saint performed a particular miracle. Evidence exists for the miracle, it is well documented and no counter evidence is presented in history. However, anti-Catholics will add words which are meant to show doubt or disbelief. The article might say a saint walked over hot coals but was saved from being burned. Anti-Catholics will edit this article and make it say "if you are to believe church historians, ........" This is an actual example. Why would you sew doubt concerning the author of the information. I don't see this happening in any other articles. It would never say, if you believe nutritionists, apples are full of vitamins. Another practice is to use the word "allegedly". They will say Padre Pio "allegedly" bore the wounds of Christ. Even though we have scientific proof that Padre Pio was a stigmatic, and this is documented by doctors, these anti-Catholics still add the word "allegedly". This is academically dishonest. You do not add words to express your own point of view. I do not say "the weather in Florida is ALLEGEDLY 30 degree Celsius". I just state it as a fact.

Do not be disturbed. Atheists are wrong about God, and therefore their philosophy and logic will be self-contradictory. They will refuse to believe something, even if it fits their model for evidence, so long as it does not conform to what they WANT to see. For example, they may say they will only believe in things which are scientifically verified. Well, if you show them a miracle which is scientifically verified, and which shows that God exists and that there really are saints, they will refuse to believe it. Why? Not because it didn't fit their criteria, but rather because it did not fit their DESIRES. This is thoroughly unscientific. It seem the atheists are really guilty of the charges they make against believers.

Let us say a special prayer as we do during the Easter Vigil for the conversion of non-believers, so that they may find the truth and beauty of Christ's Church.

2 comments:

  1. I can hear you saying this - your voice is in my head. Disturbing.. allegedly disturbing, I mean.

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  2. "Evidence exists for the miracle, it is well documented and no counter evidence is presented in history. However, anti-Catholics will add words which are meant to show doubt or disbelief. The article might say a saint walked over hot coals but was saved from being burned."

    FFS, okay aside from the fact that "fire-walking" is a well-established parlor trick, let's just grant for a second that the miracle in question is, I don't know, turning water into wine.

    Eyewitness testimony is not "scientific" evidence - even when everyone agrees that's what they say. We have freaking LAWS of physics. Show me water into wine under proper experimental conditions, and I'll give you a "miracle." Otherwise, why don't stfu and deal with words like "alleged" to describe things that are not physically possible, OK?

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