Three different cameras capture the attack on the Pope

New exclusive video of attack on Pope Benedict XVI at Christmas Eve Mass

It looks to me like the security guard was on the woman immediately. But when he tried to pull her away, because she had already grabbed B16’s chasuble,  down they wen;t along with Cardinal Etchegaray who grabbed the pontiff in an effort to help but was also pulled down.

Next Post

Woman tackles Pope at midnight mass

Why Did the Catholic Church DROP the Commandment about Idolatry?

My confessor told me to memorize the Ten Commandments, last week, as an aid to confession. Of course I know them but as a Protestant I never actually memorized them by number and the Catholic Practice of being able to say something like “It is a sin against the sixth commandment” would leave me totally in the dark. Which one was the sixth commandment? Was that the one against adultery or lying? I would have to get out my Bible and try to figure it out. But then I would still be confused because the list differs between Protestants and Catholics. So, I thought I really must memorize the Catholic list. And I did. I don’t think it was part of my penance…but either way I have done it.

Then I started wondering why our lists differ in the first place. I wondered if the Catholic Church used the Jewish list and the Protestants made a point of listing the commandment against idolatry in order to use it against the Catholic Church. And that does seem to be exactly the case regarding the accusation about the Catholic Church dropping the commandment against idolatry . But there was more info on this issue so I want to pass it on to you.

This article is from Fish Eaters. An excellent Catholic Defender website. I recommend a visti. I have edited their article below in a few places but it is for the most part their excellent explanation.

Q. Why Did the Catholic Church DROP the Command about Idolatry?

A. Some Protestants accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped one of the 10 Commandments. “You’re idolators! You worship statues! And because you do, your Church dropped the commandment against graven images!”

The truth, of course, is that the Catholic Church did not and could not change the Ten Commandments. Latin Catholics and Protestants simply list them differently. There are 16 verses in Ex. 20 to fit into Ten Commandments. The Scripture itself does not neatly categorize the verses as pertaining to this or that commandment.

It is incredible that such a pernicious lie could be so easily spread and believed, especially since the truth could easily be determined by just looking into the matter. But the rumor lives. Now, below are the ways in which Protestants and Roman Catholics enumerate the Commandments:

Most common Protestant listing:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy

Honour thy father and thy mother

Thou shalt not kill

Thou shalt not commit adultery

Thou shalt not steal

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour

Thou shalt not covet

Latin Catholic listing:

Thou shalt not have other gods besides Me

Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain

Remember to keep holy the Lord’s day

Honor thy father and thy mother

Thou shalt not murder

Thou shalt not commit adultery

Thou shalt not steal

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods

So what the heck? What did happen to the commandment about graven images in the Catholic listing? Did the Church just “drop” a commandment? Um, no. The Old Testament was around long before the time of the Apostles, and the Decalogue, which is found in three different places in the Bible (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21), has not been changed by the Catholic Church. Chapter and verse divisions are a medieval invention, however, and numbering systems of the Ten Words (Commandments), the manner in which they are grouped, and the “short-hand” used for them, vary among various religious groups. Exodus 20 is the version most often referred to when one speaks of the Ten Commandments, so it will be our reference point here. Here’s how the relevant portion of Exodus 20 reads:

Exodus 20

2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

13 Thou shalt not kill. 1

14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.

15 Thou shalt not steal.

16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

So we have 16 verses and Ten Commandments (this we know because of Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 4:13 which speak of the “Ten Words” of God). How to group these verses and Commands? Differences are interesting. I tried to put the table in my post but it did not work. Please see the table on
<a href="Fish Eaters.”>Fish Eaters
When the Commandments are listed, they are often listed in short-hand form. verses 8, 9, 10 and 11 concerning the Sabbath become simply “Remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy.”

Because Latin Catholics group 3, 4, 5 and 6 together as all pertaining to the concept “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” we are accused of having “dropped” the commandment against idols (Despite the fact that the Jewish method also groups all four of the verses “worship God alone. Why aren’t the Jews therefore, also accused of dropping the commandment against idolatry?)

That Eastern Catholics list the Commandments differently never enters the equation for people who think this way; they are just looking for any evidence against the Catholic Church, and that’s that (I hope it doesn’t bother them that Jews would accuse them of totally forgetting the First Commandment, or that Latin Catholics could accuse some Protestants of skipping lightly over the commandments against lust. And why don’t the Protestants who have a problem with our numbering system go after the Lutherans for the dropping a commandment?).

Bottom line:

*chapter and verse numbering in the Bible came about in the Middle Ages

* the Catholic Church (which includes Eastern Catholics, too) has two different numbering systems for the Commandments given, one agreeing with the most common Protestant enumeration;

* the Latin Church’s numbering is the most common in the Catholic Church and is the one referred to by Protestants who, ignoring Eastern Catholic Churches, accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped a Commandment;

* no Commandment has been dropped, in any case, but the Latin Church’s shorthand for the Commandments looks different than the typical Protestant version because of how the Commandments are grouped;

* everyone knows how to find Exodus 20 in the Bible, anyway — even us stupid Latin Catholics; and

* we don’t care how they are grouped together; we only care that they are understood and obeyed — not because we are under the Old Testament Moral and Ceremonial Law with its legalism and non-salvific ritual (we aren’t!), but because we are to obey God as children of the New Covenant, whose moral law includes the Two Great Commandments (to love God and to love our neighbor) which surpass the Decalogue, and whose Sacraments surpass empty ritual, being media of grace.

Footnote: 1 The Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate (the official Scripture of the Church), and the original Douay-Reims phrase the Fifth Word as “Thou shalt not murder”; later Douay-Reims versions, such as the Challoner, and the King James Bible, etc., phrase it as “Thou shalt not kill.” “Thou shalt not murder,” however, is the original intent and the meaning of the earliest texts. Catholics, of course, have 2,000 years of Church teaching and the Magisterium to interpret Scripture, and the meaning of the Fifth Commandment is that one is not to take innocent life. It doesn’t entail pacifism, ignoring the needs of self-defense and justice, worrying about squashing bugs, etc.

Church Heirarchy

Q. I am a member of the true church of Christ. The Church of Christ. We are made up of tens of thousands of congregations world wide, each of which are completely independent from and yet one with the others,

BFHU: Do you believe this is good or attractive when Jesus said, “that all of them may be one?” Jn 17:21 Independent from is not one with the others. A married couple who act completely independently from each other are not unified or one with each other.

Q. …and with a structure according to the Scriptures.

BFHU:We also are organized according to the Scriptures Where is the Heirarchy in Scripture? but are not confined to them since our organization began and evolved for 400 years before the NT was canonized. Popes and Bishops in the Early Church
Q. We are able to speak the same things and be of the same mind because the New Testament is our only authority. We do not use creed books or “church traditions”.

BFHU:“Church Traditions” I will say again are NOT the mere tradtions of men, but the very teaching of the apostles received from Christ. You have no way of actually KNOWING that you are of the same mind as the authors of the NT because Protestantism came along 1500 years after Christ. You are only of the same mind as your own mind or the mind of your pastor or some other Protestant teacher you trust. But Protestant theology is unhinged from many of the ancient teachings of Apostolic Christianity and the only authority, ultimately is yourself. Every Protestant is his own pope. That is why it is NOT ONE as desired by Christ in John 17 but fractured into thousands of denominations.

We do not follow the Law of Moses. Jesus is the head, and there is only one head.

BFHU: We totally agree that Jesus is the head of His body the Church.

Q. As the Scriptures commands us to speak as the oracles of God, we speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent.

BFHU:This is a delusion, because you believe in the doctrine of sola scriptura and yet it is nowhere to be found in the pages of scripture. It is a tradition of men and therefore condemned by St. Paul.

Celibacy: Doesn’t this Contradict “the husband of one wife?”

Q. How could Paul command in 1 Tim. 3: 1-2 that a Bishop must be the husband of one wife, and for the Apostles to have handed down a tradition that teaches that priests and Bishops do not have to be married, or worse, are forbidden to be?!

BFHU: I can see how you read the passage as commanding marriage but that is simply your interpretation. It could also be interpreted as “no more than one wife”. We know that priests and bishops were as first drawn from the married men. But Jesus gave the leaders of His Church the authority to bind and loose and even at the very birth of the Church celibacy began to be practiced even by the married. Why Celibacy? Priests and bishops were needed. The Church did not have the leisure to await the next generation before ordaining priests and bishops. So these were first taken from among the married. But they gave up conjugal rights. Jewish priests had to abstain from sex before offering sacrifice which was infrequent for any one priest. But the Christian priests offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice every day so celibacy became the norm.Why Can’t Catholic Priests Get Married?

Q. You mentioned several Catholic doctrines that supposedly do not have refutations.

BFHU: I never said there are no refutation for Catholic Doctrines. Protestants, athiests etc. try to refute Catholic doctrine all the time.

Q. The whole notion that the Catholic Church is handing down oral teaching that is parallel to the Bible and comes directly from the Apostles is false.

BFHU:Why? Do you have scripture to support this opinion?

Q. The early church quoted the scriptures to support the authority of what they said. So much so that we can reproduce the entire New Testament from their writings alone, save for about eleven verses.

BFHU: And this proves that Catholic oral teaching is not in line with scripture? How so?

Q. 1 Tim. 4: 1-3 where Paul warns of some who would depart from the faith, forbid to marry and command to abstain from meats.

BFHU:The Catholic Church does not forbid anyone to marry. All are free to choose marriage if that is what they believe is God’s will for their vocation. If a man chooses to become a priest he may not marry after his ordination. Does our culture forbid anyone from being a physician? No. But not just anyone can set up a medical practice. They must meet certain criteria. So it is with the priesthood. This line of reasoning to condemn the Catholic Church and a celibate priesthood is ridiculous. Besides our practice aligns with Scripture:

Matthew 19:12
For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Q. The question I would like to point out to you is, were these early church leaders quoting these scriptures in their letters back and forth to one another openly and saving these letters for posterity, while, in the back rooms, passing on the oral tradition that we can’t eat meat on Friday and priests and Bishops cannot marry???

BFHU: You misunderstand because of lack of knowledge of the Catholic Faith. Both not eating meat on Fridays and priestly celibacy are merely disciplines they are not on the same level at all as dogma or doctrine or scripture. They are rules of the Church that can be changed when necessary. We are no longer required to abstain from meat on Fridays and there are some rites in the Catholic Church that still ordain married men. And it is theoretically possible that the rule could change and all rites could ordain married men. But in general, we prefer to imitate Christ in this matter and ordain to the priesthood, “eunuchs for the Kingdom of God”.

Q. Is it possible to reconcile these facts, or to continue to believe that the Catholic religion has not tried to make laws for God or taught an oral tradition that can not possibly be from the Apostles, or the early church leaders???

BFHU:Where does Scripture say that the leaders of the Church are bound only to the rules of the Apostles? Where does the scripture teach sola scriptura? These are traditions of men. I challenge you to prove otherwise.

Q. More specifically, regarding some of the other doctrines you mentioned. The scriptures plainly say that Joseph took Mary to Himself but did not “know her” until after she gave birth to her firstborn Son. (Matt. 1: 18-25). I am not inferring anything here; rather the scripture clearly implies that he did eventually know her.

BFHU:I understand why you interpret this this way. But it is not imperative to always interpret “until” the way you are. Because Scripture does NOT actually affirm that Joseph “knew Mary”. This is merely a later Protestant interpretation.
What Did the Reformers believe about the Perpetual Virginity of Mary?

Mary Ever Virgin

I Sam 15:35 Samuel did not see Saul again until</strong> the day of his death;

2 Samuel 6:23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children until the day of her death.

Did Samuel see Saul after his death? Or did Michal have children after her death? Scripture is not so uniform in its use of “until” as Protestants might think so using it to prove that Joseph knew Mary is futile.

Why Do Catholics Take Communion Every Week?

Q. Where does it say in the Bible that you have to take communion every week?

A. It does not say anything about the frequency of communion in the Bible. Jesus only says, “as often as you do this” That is why there is such diversity in

Sola-Scriptura-Christendom. Some churches offer communion four times a year (every quarter), some once a month and others every Sunday or every day. For instance the Catholic Church offers the Mass and communion every day in nearly all of her churches around the world and sometimes more than once a day in large metro areas. But a Catholic is only required to receive communion once a year, preferably around Easter.

CCC 2042 The third precept “You shall receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least during the Easter season”) guarantees as a minimum the reception of the Lord’s Body and Blood in connection with the Paschal feasts, the origin and center of the Christian liturgy”

The reason for the once a year requirement is not b/c it is thought to be optimal but because in some cultures people would not ever receive communion out of an exaggerated sense of their unworthiness. Therefore, the Church made the once a year requirement.

Q. I believe that we should take communion, but that is not the thing that is growing you closer to GOD. It should be about digging deeper into his word and learning more about him.

A. Catholics believe that ,just like we eat food to nourish our physical bodies, we receive communion to nourish and keep our soul strong enough to keep pursuing God and resist the temptations and deceptions of Our Enemy. The Eucharist is spiritual nourishment. The stronger our soul is the more likely it is to dig deeper in His word and learn more about him.

Q. Taking communion once a month or whatever then, it should not matter because we are still obeying him by doing it.

A. So taking communion once a month is fine but you deprive your soul of spiritual food. I go to mass every day because my soul needs all the help it can get.:-) Jesus did say, John 6:53 Jesus said to them, “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.”

We go to Church every week in obedience to The Commandment to “Keep the Sabbath Holy”

What is Catholic Tradition?

Q. It seems strange to me that you would reject the Scriptures as our soul authority today, but you still try to establish the Catholic doctrines with it, demonstrating that you recognize its authority over their tradition.

BFHU: The Scriptures are authoritative but so is Catholic TRADITION because both spring from the same SOURCE: Jesus Christ’s teaching to the Apostles.

BFHU:I and most apologists cite scripture to demonstrate Catholic doctrine not because we think it is more authoritative than what Jesus Himself taught the Apostles, otherwise known as oral TRADITION, but because we know it is the only authority Protestants will consider. So we try to answer your questions and accusations using what we can find in Scripture. But don’t get the idea that our doctrines are based on such flimsy evidence. We don’t derive our beliefs like Protestants. Protestants look into scripture and then decide to formulate doctrines, unless they have received without criticism Catholic doctrine like the Trinity, Virgin Birth etc.

Our beliefs, existed before anything was ever written down. The Bible is derived from the ORAL TEACHINGS of Jesus to His Apostles and the Apostles to us.

That is why the Bible does not contradict anything Catholics believe. Both the NT and Catholic teaching originated with Jesus.

Q. You seem to understand the fact that if their Traditions contradict the Bible then they cannot be true.

BFHU: Yes

Q. Unless you believe such contradiction indicates that the Bible is untrue!

BFHU: NO!

Q. I trust that you would agree that if the Bible had real (rather than merely alleged) contradictions we would not accept it as The Word of God.

BFHU: No. It is an article of Faith that Scripture is the infallible Word of God.

Q. Why not apply this very simple and rational principle to the Catholic Traditions as well? Those Traditions contradict not only the Bible, but one another as well!

BFHU:There are no Traditions that contradict the Bible or each other. They only contradict a Protestant INTERPRETATION the Bible. That is the difference. It is very amusing to me that so many Protestants claim to have an infallible interpretation of Sacred Scripture and thus able to critique Catholic Tradition.
.
Q. You believe, for instance, that Christ promised that His holy Spirit would guide all Christians in a direct and miraculous way.

BFHU:No, I don’t. There are some Protestant denominations that teach they are able to be led infallibly by the Holy Spirit and cite for proof of this where Jesus says,

“John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Q. You go so far as to claim that we all believe that. This is an erroneous assumption. I don’t believe that, and I am not alone.

BFHU: Yeah me neither…

Q. If the Catholic theologians really did use flawless exegesis they would have noticed that Jesus was not speaking to the Apostles successors when He said those things in the upper room, rather, He was speaking directly to His Apostles only.

BFHU: Exactly! You are the first Protestant I have heard say that. And therefore the promise was only given to the Apostles and their successors..the Bishops of the Catholic Church.

Q. Where do they get the notion that the Apostles successors were being spoken to in that room?

BFHU: We don’t have that notion. The successors were ordained as “faithful men able to teach” and empowered by the Holy Spirit in a way that is exclusive to our Bishops and not even had by a priest, let alone the laity.

Q. We must hold to what we know His apostles taught. The Apostles were guided into all truth, and they commanded Christians in general to earnestly contend for the faith once and for all time delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

BFHU: We totally agree. And that Truth is what is contained in Scripture and Tradition.

Q. Paul commanded that if any man, even one of the Apostles themselves, or even an angel from heaven were to preach any thing that contradicted that faith once delivered, they were to be accursed (Gal. 1: 6-8)!

BFHU: Agreed.

A Website worth visiting.

The Journey to the Messiah

Integrity of the New Testament Documents

This post is from the blog: Vivificat!

Folks, I was reading this article published today in Time Magazine online, entitled, The Burial Box of Jesus’ Brother: A Case Against Fraud, because the controversy has been around for a while and of course, because of the significance of the artifact were the claims to its authenticity be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, the introductory paragraph disappointed me, although I am already used to this case of disappointment coming from the so-called mainstream experts. Check it out:

The world of biblical archaeology was stirred in 2002 by the unveiling of a limestone burial box with the Aramaic inscription Yaakov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua (“James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”). Allegedly dating to an era contemporaneous with Christ, the names were a tantalizing collation of potentially great significance: James was indeed the name of a New Testament personage known as the brother of Jesus, both ostensibly the sons of Joseph the carpenter, husband of Mary. If its dates were genuine, the burial box — or ossuary — could well be circumstantial evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, a tenet supported only by gospels and scripture written, at the earliest, a generation after his crucifixion and, of course, by the faith of hundreds of millions through 2,000 years.

What are the unspoken assumptions here? One, that the New Testament is not a reliable source to prove the objective historicity of Jesus of Nazareth and two, that all we have is that meager evidence supplemented by the ultimately insubstantial faith of millions. Hence, the need for external evidence such as this ossuary to substantiate – or not – the story.

Those who cling to these assumptions probably willfully or unwittingly ignore the fact that, if they were to apply the same standard of suspicion and doubt other documents received from antiquity and recognized as recording true history, they would not stand either. The following table illustrates and compares the antiquity and amount of New Testament manuscripts with that of other documents from antiquity commonly accepted as “historical.” Particular attention is paid to the time elapsed between the historical facts they record to the time they were set in writing (Source: The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict ).

To see the table comparing the evidence for the New Testament manuscripts versus the scanty evidence for such antiquities that everyone accepts freely such as the histories by Homer, Heredotus, etc. Click Evidence for the Integrity of the New Testament Documents

Why Can’t the Wronged Spouse Remarry?

Q. What about the wronged spouse ? If one commits adultery? Then what?

What about people who’s spouse divorces them, and it is beyond their control? If my spouse commits adultery and then divorces me, where I have no choice, then am I condemned to a chaste unmarried life forever?

A. This is exactly why Jesus’ disciples said,“

“If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.” Mt. 19:10

But, you could seek a declaration of annulment. If that was granted then you could then marry. Many marriages performed in our culture are invalid because we are all influenced by our culture and go into marriage with out the necessary commitments for a valid sacramental marriage. If a declaration of annulment was not granted then a faithful Catholic would obediently live a celibate life until perhaps the unfaithful mate died. Then you would be free to marry. The Catholic Christian life does not include a promise of a happy marriage. Marriage is a sacrament to enable us to live our vocation and accept in all docility suffering as a purifying fire in our lives. Living “a chaste unmarried life forever” is preparation for our unmarried state in Heaven. It is a sacrifice for sure but it is not a condemnation. It is an opportunity to live for God and not for self which we are all called to do. Most of us go through life thinking we are living for God until we bump into something like this where we actually have to make a concrete choice to live for God and take up our cross and follow Christ (Who never married) or turn from Him and seek our own pleasure and happiness.

^{Matt 19:3} And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” ⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” ⁸ He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who married a divorced woman, commits adultery.”
¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.” ¹¹ But he said to them, “Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. ¹² For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.”

Q. Divorce in these passages are a verb in which one of the spouses carry out the divorce. It prohibits one person from divorcing another. It seems clear that the passages condemn the one who initiates the divorce, not the innocent spouse that never wanted a divorce in the first place

A. Where? Humanly speaking it does seem unfair for the wronged spouse not to mention the chaos caused in the lives of children of divorce and remarriage. But there is nothing in the passage that limits remarriage to the spouse who initiates the divorce or commits adultery. The Christian life is a life of obedience and self-giving. This is opposed to our culture that tells us if it feels good do it. The sin of Adam and Eve was precisely in deciding that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil gave them the right to decide for themselves what was Good and what was Evil. They could ignore God.

Our culture is the ripened fruit of their choice.