Open Forum

Questions Covered:

• 02:45 - I recently heard an answer you gave about giving false information to an automated machine and whether that was lying. You then made an offhanded point about it being ok to say false things to animals because you aren’t damaging their belief system. But Pavlovian conditioning trains an animal to connect 2 otherwise unrelated stimuli (in the original experiment the sound of a bell and being fed) and at some point, the idea is to give the one stimulus without the other. Can this be said to be forming a false belief in the animal and therefore essentially damaging their belief system. Is this kind of conditioning wrong? Is the conditioning itself wrong for establishing a false belief (that stimulus A and stimulus B are connected) OR would the subsequent use of stimulus A while intentionally withholding stimulus B be wrong? Does “damaging a belief system” require linguistic communication (either spoken or written word)? Does the apparent cognitive ability of the subject make a difference (say a mouse vs a dog)? Would it matter if the subject was human and would developmental stage matter (a baby, a toddler, an older child)? If it is lying, is it grave matter? Again, does the subject’s species or level of cognitive (or physical) development matter? 
• 11:54 - Why is the Didache not in the Bible? 
• 15:16 - Why isn’t 1 Clement in the Bible? It was in the Codex Alexandrinus and listed as canon in the Apostolic Constitutions. There’s also a theory (which I find a bit thin) that Clement wrote Hebrews. 
• 22:12 - What of discussing what are essentially the sins of youth in a humorous way? While one is telling tales of youth, not consciously thinking of the things as sin while recounting. Is this recounting a sinful in itself? It is, after all, making light of sin. 
• 32:07 - If time travel gets invented, and I travel to the day before my baptism, do I need to get baptized again? 
• 34:26 - Why doesn’t the Mass contain all of the Bible, even when adding together both daily and weekend cycles? Why are entire books left out (like Judith)? 
• 36:43 - Does the Eucharist in the Orthodox Church contain the Real Presence? And do we genuflect to show our belief and respect to Our Lord? 
• 39:25 - Is God bound by the priest’s prayers for transubstantiation? 
• 40: 14 – Why did the early church sometimes refer to the pope as a successor of Paul? 
• 42:41 - What would have happened to Mary if John had not taken her into his home when Jesus died?Or, if in that time period, where a widow had only one child and that child was crucified, would the widow’s family and village have taken care of her? Or would she have been basically exiled because her child was crucified? It’s something that has come to mind when meditating on the Crucifixion & I would love to know. 
• 44:43 - Did the writer of Genesis (in your opinion) mean for the creation account to be taken literally (as in creationism) or symbolically? and the reasons for it 
• 48:42 - Is Baptism of Desire, and Baptism of Blood more than a theological supposition (like Limbo)? 
• 51:12 - Which argument for God’s existence do you find most compelling?