Quote from: SpiritusSanctus

I'm only saying that if it were a fact, God would specifically reveal it in some way.

This is a presumption we are in no position to make.

As for V2, the VAST majority of the world totally disagrees with you that anything negative has been proved about V2.  Where does that leave us?

Quote from: SpiritusSanctus

Raoul, Matthew and I have already shown you that it has NEVER been proven that we do not currently have a Pope. To belieive it is a fact is ridiculous. That doesn't mean it is wrong to be a sedevacantist, but it's a matter of opinion. As of right now, I think that if God really prefered people to take the sede stance He would reveal it in some way. In the mean time, as long as you are a Traditional Catholic whose number one goal in life is to obtain Heaven, it hardly makes a difference whether or not you think Benedict is Pope.

Actually it is proven that Vatican II is not Catholic and the reason is the 4 Marks of the Church are missing from Vatican II.  These marks were put there so the world would recognize the True Church.  Therefore if B16 is a Pope, he is a pope of a man made religion, not the Catholic church.  

You all prove daily that Vatican II, is not Catholic, because none of you attend its service, none of you put your children in their schools.  You don't support it, by giving alms to the support of the Church, one of the precepts of the Church.  So, I ask you all tell me, who is B16 the pope of?

If you say he is the pope of Tradition, that is a laugh and a half.    

Quote from: SpiritusSanctus

I don't believe my stance is a fact because only God knows for sure. But there is no proof to determine that either side is clearly right or wrong.

Don't let him con you into conceding this. It's not like the two positions are both credible. Sede-ism is pure speculation based on opinion and emotion. All rational evidence points to the fact we have a Pope. He's luring you into a slippery slope. Pretty soon he'll have you admitting that denying the h0Ɩ0cαųst and denying a man landed on the moon are just as reasonable as not doing so.

Stevus = But we are free to presume God would leave His Church headless for half a century.

I think John Salza mops up sedevacantism with his attack on the Dimond's here:

http://www.scripturecatholic.com/feature-articles/Feature_-_Salza's_rebuttal_of_Dimond_on_sedevacantism_(2).pdf

The fruits of SV are scandal after scandal after scandal; from the queer beginnings of the CMRI to the absurd behavior of Fr. Cekada and Bishop Sanborn, to the many ridiculous wanna be popes, the Huttons of the movement, the endless conspiracy theories.. ad nauseum. Truly sedevacantism is the flip side of the same coin of the novus ordo.


Another good anti-Sede piece is Fr. Boulet's:

http://www.sspx.ca/Communicantes/Dec2004/Is_That_Chair_Vacant.htm

It is my opinion that Obama is not president (although he is obviously acting like he is), as he is not eligible to hold the office.  I believe this because I have seen evidence that makes me doubt/deny his eligibility.  Thus it is an opinion that I hold based upon various facts.  While it is true that the vast majority of men disagree with me, that alone does not make my thoughts on the matter ridiculous.  It just means many have not seen the evidence I have, or, if they have seen it, they have not drawn the same conclusion I have drawn.  

Update, March 2011: It’s been nearly three years since we published this article, and Obama's birth certificate is still the subject of much discussion, and still the subject of our fact-checking efforts.

This article was published in June 2008 and has been the most widely read PolitiFact article in our history.

Claims about Obama's birth continued to circulate, so a year later, on July 1, 2009, we published "Obama's birth certificate: Final chapter. This time we mean it!" It explored whether a White House spokesman lied when he claimed Obama's birth certificate is actually posted on the Web  and whether a bill in Congress would protect Obama from having to release his birth certificate .

We’ve also created a category -- Obama birth certificate -- so you can review all our fact-checks in one place.

Here's our original story as published in June 2008:

It started as a whisper, a trickle of nagging doubt.

"As a concerned citizen, I'm wondering if there isn't something fishy going on with the Obama certificate."

"I have serious doubts about the purported 'birth certificate' you were sent."

"Something doesn't smell right."

Soon, e-mails and blog posts were flying. As the pace quickened, the tone sharpened.

"You should be apologizing ... for your misinformation regarding BO bogus birth certificate, that you claimed was genuine!"

At full throttle, the accusations are explosive and unrelenting, the writers emboldened by the anonymity and reach of the Internet.

And you can't help but ask: How do you prove something to people who come to the facts believing, out of fear or hatred or maybe just partisanship, that they're being tricked?

 

• • •
Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate is a docuмent PolitiFact.com had sought for months. Countless chain e-mails, seeking to paint him as a secret Muslim, speculated that his full name included Muhammed (or Mohammed). Some said he is not an American citizen.

 

As a fact-checking news Web site, we went to extensive lengths to sort out the truth. We got a copy of his 1992 marriage certificate from the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics. His driver's license record from the Illinois Secretary of State's office. His registration and disciplinary record with the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Not to mention all of his property records.

Not one of these docuмents shows a Muhammed (or Mohammed) in Obama's name. They all read "Barack H. Obama" or "Barack Hussein Obama."

The ultimate docuмent we sought was Obama's birth certificate. Unlike the other docuмents, Hawaii birth certificates aren't public record. Only family members can request copies, so when the campaign declined to give us one, we were stalled.

On June 13, 2008, Obama's campaign finally released a copy, while launching a fact-check Web site of its own, Fightthesmears.com. The site is a direct response to allegations about Obama that won't go away: He's Muslim. He took the oath of office on a Koran. He refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. PolitiFact has researched all of these accusations and none of them are true.

When the birth certificate arrived from the Obama campaign it confirmed his name as the other docuмents already showed it. Still, we took an extra step: We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real.

"It's a valid Hawaii state birth certificate," spokesman Janice Okubo told us.

Then the firestorm started.

• Where is the embossed seal and the registrar's signature?

• Comparing it to other Hawaii birth certificates, the color shade is different.

• Isn't the date stamp bleeding through the back of the docuмent "June 2007?" (Odd since it was supposedly released in June 2008.)

• There's no crease from being folded and mailed.

• It's clearly Photoshopped and a wholesale fraud.

 

• • •
At PolitiFact.com, we're all about original sources. We don't take anyone at their word or take the reporting of other media organizations as proof. We go to the heart of the story, the source of the truth — original, corroborating docuмents.

When the official docuмents were questioned, we went looking for more answers. We circled back to the Department of Health, had a newsroom colleague bring in her own Hawaii birth certificate to see if it looks the same (it's identical). But every answer triggered more questions.

And soon enough, after going to every length possible to confirm the birth certificate's authenticity, you start asking, what is reasonable here?

Because if this docuмent is forged, then they all are.

If this docuмent is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud. They have done it with conspiring officials at the Hawaii Department of Health, the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Illinois Secretary of State's office, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois and many other government agencies.

Sounds like a Vince Flynn novel.

 

• • •
Peter Goelz knows a little something about conspiracy theorists.

He was managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board in 1996 when TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, killing 230 people. While the NTSB's investigation found no evidence of sabotage or terrorism, the Internet was stocked with insistent accusations.

"We were right at the beginning of this Internet lunacy," Goelz said in an interview with PolitiFact. "And there were a variety of crackpot Web sites and Web commentators that generated all sorts of rumors. The principle one was that TWA in fact was shot down by an errant Navy missile in ... a live-fire exercise off the Hamptons."

Nine miles off Long Island, in the middle of summer. And then a full-scale coverup by the Navy and all the sailors involved.

"I am sure that we spent another $10-million, perhaps $20-million, out of a $50-million investigation, to just knock down and put to bed these kinds of rumors, these insidious rumors," Goelz said. "We felt like we had to answer every question because it was such a public and dreadful and confounding event."

Goelz, who is now a communications consultant in Washington, D.C., says the Internet has given a platform to anyone to say anything. And a way to find others who want to hear it.

"Online, they can be almost anything," he said. "They can be the crusading investigators that they always wanted to be."

 

• • •
The Hawaii Department of Health receives about a dozen e-mail inquiries a day about Obama's birth certificate, spokesman Okubo said.

"I guess the big issue that's being raised is the lack of an embossed seal and a signature," Okubo said, pointing out that in Hawaii, both those things are on the back of the docuмent. "Because they scanned the front … you wouldn't see those things."

Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and it is identical to the Obama one we received.

And about the copy we e-mailed her for verification? "When we looked at that image you guys sent us, our registrar, he thought he could see pieces of the embossed image through it."

Still, she acknowledges: "I don't know that it's possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents."

 

• • •
And there's the rub. It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world's biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything's possible.

But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what's reasonable has to take over.

There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact's conclusion that the candidate's name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn't authentic.

And that's true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.

The fruits of SV are scandal after scandal after scandal; from the queer beginnings of the CMRI to the absurd behavior of Fr. Cekada and Bishop Sanborn, to the many ridiculous wanna be popes, the Huttons of the movement, the endless conspiracy theories.. ad nauseum. Truly sedevacantism is the flip side of the same coin of the novus ordo.