The Catholic Message Board

If you can find it, one old book by an author that has fallen out of favor is "The Third Day" by Sir Arnold Lunn. I first heard of it from a mention by CS Lewis. He was an agnostic who got into an exchange of letters with Ronald Knox, listing his objections to Christianity, which were late...

It's not impressive so much as it is a sign of a complete lack of focus. As I get older, I am finding it more and more difficult to fully concentrate on what I am reading; my mind starts to wander. I bring a book to lunch, and I might get 10 minutes of reading in before my mind starts to wander and ...

Let me put it this way: I don't think many people interpret those lines the way you suggested

Sorry - thought you were taking aim at my reading abilities. But, in fairness, aim could be rightfully taken at them. No, it just seemed that, as long ago as you first posted this, you would be further along, but it seems you haven't devoted much time to it yet. It is a very difficult book to get i...

No, you just aren't understanding basic English grammar

p.falk wrote: ↑Thu Mar 12, 2026 11:03 am

Doom wrote: ↑Wed Mar 11, 2026 8:50 pm Isn't the windmill incident in the first chapter? It sounds like you haven't gotten that far in it.

Would that bother you?

As I said, it is a difficult book to read

Isn't the windmill incident in the first chapter? It sounds like you haven't gotten that far in it.

"If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they listen if a man should rise from the dead."

This is why miracles are rare; most people do not actually believe them or change their lives as a result of one.

My first question was basically: Are all things alive? My second question was: Does God make everything holy, and if so what does holy mean anymore? Okay, I see the problem is that you are being rather literal "You give life to all things" means "everything alive was given its life b...

Yes, that is exactly what I was wondering. I do not understand the question. God is "the creator of all things visible and invisible."

I've read most of the short stories, and that does not ring a bell

I don't think Islam is an authentic Abrahamic religion What I do find interesting is the avalanche of apostasy from Islam that is currently happening. According to polls taken by Western firms, only 40% of people in Iran identify as Muslim. And of the 60% who say they are not Muslim, most say they o...

There is a line from Animal House .... ah, yes .... Forget it, he's rolling. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? I think the funniest line from that scene is the conclusion, "I think this situation absolutely requires that a really futile and stupid gesture be done on someone's p...

Okay, as I read it, it is a statement of sola fide written in the style of the ecumenical councils defining a dogma?

It is a good pastiche I guess, especially if you wrote it in Latin and then translated it, but I don't think it is actually "funny"

The argument the bishops are making is bizarre and completely incoherent, and does not conform to the practice of any other country in the Western world. I think the main reason they are so aggressively in favor of open borders and lax enforcement of the law is that the majority of illegal immigrant...

It is a very difficult book to read

Nothing can fix the NAB. I will never understand the blind hatred so many have for it. But the description is wrong; both the Old and New Testaments are revised, and the notes are completely new as well. It really is an entirely new text, which is why it has a different name. And that article is re...

...seeing someone in 2026 walking around in boots, stirrups, a 10-gallon hat, dressed as a cowboy with a six-shooter on his hip and speaking in cliched cowboy talk. It is inherently ridiculous. ... Nope. You just hang out in the wrong places. Try the Wind River country when the cattle are being mov...

The novel is a comedy, but if you expect the jokes to come rapid fire for the entire novel as it does in the early chapters, you will be disappointed. The novel alternates between comedy and tragedy in nearly equal measure. And yes, that is an authentic quotation, and Cervantes names both the author...

The degree to which Cervantes was genuinely critical of chivalry, rather than merely making fun of the cliches of chivalric literature, is debated. In the first chapter, when describing Don Quixote's library, several real books are mentioned, which Cervantes himself had read. Cervantes quotes from a...