Angels seem to be some kind of non-sexual species directly created by God as individuals, correct me if I'm wrong. (A superfluous addition if ever there was one)

Do angels have breasts and genitalia? If so why and for whose benefit? Moreover how do you know and why do you believe your sources? Men have nipples because they are mammals and all mammals have nipples. That same logic does not seem to apply to angels who have no evolutionary inheritance. They have never needed nipples, breasts, penises or clitorises (same thing as a penis but less plumbing) All mammals have a penis or clitoris, even nuns, how's that for a redundant organ, it knocks the appendix into a cocked hat.

They have none, and cease with the base speculations.

Base speculations? That is one of the most pompous and thoroughly obscene messages I have ever seen. I will never, ever, under any circumstances stop asking questions. I am expressing my right to do so, to question all assumptions, never to take "because it is" as an answer to anything. Also I am upholding the greatest freedom of expression any man can have, the right to poke fun at religion. If we ever lose that right (again) free speech is worthless.

Martin

We don't have evolutionary inheritance either. God made Adam from the dust of the ground, and from him He made Eve. We only share similar features because God used a similar design.

The really sad thing about this story is that people still willingly believe it. This makes me really pessimistic about the future of the planet we live on, full of people prepared to believe any idea they grow up with.

Where is the evidence of good design in people? We have hundreds of features that are quite unsuitable to our current lifestyle, just look at our spines and our appetites for fatty and sugary foods for a start. If we have been designed by an all wise God he must think suffering is good for us.

+ Why do you think you have a need to know?

+ If it were explained to you, would you understand?

+ And... how could you understand something beyond your intellect?

I have a need to know. Why I do not know. Why do you need to doubt it?

If it was explained to me I would understand. If it was told to me and it was not the truth I probably would understand better than the person who told me.

I cannot understand things beyond my intellect. I do not tell stories of things that are supposed to be beyond human understanding, I would not have the nerve to do such a thing. Unfortunately many millions of people do not share that inhibition and willingly tell others that there are things that exist in their world that they could never hope to understand. The saddest and cruellest twist on this tale is that these people are not doing so out of malice.

+ If you do not know why you need to know, then perhaps you are mistaken, and you don't have a need to know. I do not doubt your needs or wants. I am merely inquiring why you feel you have a need?

Not particularly logical. It is not necessary to explain a need in order to have one. Man did not know why breathing was important until very recently. Certainly nobody in biblical times had the slightest clue as to what breathing was all about but I am sure they all would have been upset if you denied them the right to do what they could not explain. Surely the moral thing to do is to supply the need if you can do so easily.

So why not explain to me whether angels have breasts and genitalia, if they do what are they for? In either case why do you trust your sources? Have you verified them in any way or do you just take everything about your faith on faith?

+ Do you really want an explanation, or a simple "yes" or "no?"

+ Either and both are available.

Why not let me have both. It always better to give more than one is asked for, don't you think?

"The saddest and cruellest twist on this tale is that these people are not doing so out of malice."

So true. The saddest people are those who are stupid, don't know they are stupid, think that they are normal and maybe even intelligent, but don't have a clue bag to hold a clue in -- if someone gave them a clue.

Because of this, I am unsure as to whether to hand you a clue....

That's alright, don't let me put you out. If it is too much trouble you can keep quiet. Perhaps if you pray to the big pixie in the sky somebody might send you a clue bag, whatever that is. As for me if I want some clues I go to my library.

Do you believe that the spirit/soul can exist separate from the body?

No. I reject the label of spirit and soul. My consciousness cannot be separated from my brain, at least not with the current state of technology. I am the current state of my brain, the result of my experience and the ideas, including self-replicating ideas, that I have been exposed to jockeying for my attention. A shifting series of paradoxes seeking a conclusion and some bodily gratification along the way.

Your logic is flawed in that you are assuming Angels are female. Ever heard of the Angels Gabriel, Michael, etc.

Of course I have, that is why I did not ask whether angels have clitorises, vaginas and wombs. Were Gabriel and Michael male? I want to know your theories.

Are angels sexless beings with no need of any reproductive equipment or are they a true species, capable of separate reproduction, or are they some kind of manifestation of an idea and so have breasts that give no milk for the same reason they have wings that they do not need to fly? Are these questions too hard? Do you want to go 50-50 or phone a friend?

You really think you are intellectual don't you? Shouldn't you be pondering the meaning of life instead of trolling a Catholic newsgroup? Why waste your time? I find you to be a foolish little man trying to convince himself that he is more intelligent than Christians. Your website is a joke.

As for the meaning of life I have already pondered it. The full explanation of the meaning of life can be found on my website. Go to the atheist zone and click on "The Meaning of Life". (A bit of a give-away). You obviously have not seen much of my site if you consider me to be a foolish little man. Nobody who knows me would ever call me little.

Angels, like other spirit "beings" or manifestations, such as Pagan dieties, are archetypes of the Unconscious, according to Carl Jung.

This means that whenever someone "perceives" and angel, spirit, or deity, the manifestations appears in a form that is symbolic of its powers or pupose or place in the Unconscious Universe. Some such manifestations have genitalia, or multiple genitalia, if they symbolize the principles of fertility or the powers of the Sun. If an angel symbolized any of those powers, it might have genitalia. A good reference book on Kabbalistic Hebrew or Golden Dawn angels might be a good place to start if you want to get specific about what a particular angel might look like symbolically.

Thank you for a good answer.

My own opinions are that naturally angels are mythical symbols and have no real external existence. They are manifestations of concepts in individual minds which reflect shared images across a culture. Over time the form and type of angels has changed. They are in some ways the dreams of a committee. Individual weird images of angels that do not sit the existing stereotypes are ignored, those that largely fit existing patterns are granted permission to fuse with the existing myths. Similar processes can be seen today with the evolution of various types of aliens and UFOs. If you claimed you saw a 500 foot pulsating pepperoni pizza in the sky you would be dismissed as a fruitcake, but if your story is suitably similar to existing stories then people will want to hear about any unique features, which can then become part of the pattern that newer experiences are compared with.

Some angel stories are dreams that are confused with reality, some are the result of deliberately induced visions, some are made up to order, many are dreams that are embellished, some might be real events misinterpreted. Some are probably the result of specific seizure-like brain events that can produce very strong, more-vivid-than-reality illusions in the brain that bypass the normal senses. Similar impressions of presences and the like can be induced in laboratory experiments, the subjective impression received is totally convincing, only the fact that they can be turned on and off at the discretion of the experimenter sets them aside from "spiritual" experiences.

>>Angels seem to be some kind of non-sexual species directly created by God as individuals, correct me if I'm wrong. (A superfluous addition > if ever there was one)

What is a "superfluous addition?"

Tautology territory. What I meant was that I hardly need to ask people to correct me, anything to do with religion will generate a whole series of corrections from fundamentalists of various kinds. I admit is seems a little inelegant but neither word alone would convey the intended meaning.

> > Do angels have breasts and genitalia?

Angels are beings of pure spirit. When they appear before men and women they have to "appear." They could I imagine appear as amorphus blobs of jello, but instead they mostly appear as men. Artists love to depict them as cute little babies and women, however.

I can see that babies and women have more appeal to people who create theology for the masses with oil paints. By the way is or was jello a brand name? (Jell-O, says my spellchecker)

What is this spirit that you talk of? This is an alien concept to me. I am unaware of any spirit. To me such talk is mystical mumbo-jumbo, I reject it along with ether and ectoplasm. If that means that you and I can never understand each other I feel sorry for your lost opportunity.

Fallen angels on the other hand, have had some interesting legends among the popular media during the middle ages, especially during the witch trial craze which rocked Europe and touched the United States. The sexual prowess of these demons can take up an entire hardcover work.

> > Men have nipples because they are mammals and all mammals have nipples. That same logic does not seem to apply to angels who have no evolutionary inheritance.

Wrong argument. It has nothing to do with evolution, man never "evolved" from woman or vice versa, it has to do with genetics, and the common mechanism within the body of activation by hormonal stimulation.

What?? Who said women evolved from men or vice versa? We are mammals and so we have the common tissues that can become breasts and nipples and the common tissues that can develop into a penis or clitoris and the tissues that can develop into testes or ova. This has everything to do with evolution, every woman has evolved from men and vice versa, everybody has an ancestry that is 50% female and 50% male. The shape of your penis could have been determined by genes carried by your mother. The genes we carry that code for these organs must be useful to the sex that uses them and not harmful to the other sex. The organs that we think of as being particular to our sex have their analogues in the opposite sex, they grow from common foetal tissues. This can be easily demonstrated by comparing the head of the penis and clitoris, this can be quite an enjoyable science experiment, I recommend it to everybody with curiosity, and Catholics too.

> > They have never needed nipples, breasts, penises or clitorises (same thing as a penis but less plumbing) All mammals have a penis or clitoris, even nuns, how's that for a redundant organ, it knocks the appendix into a cocked hat.

It shows your lack of command of the English language.

1 a : exceeding what is necessary or normal : SUPERFLUOUS

b : characterized by or containing an excess; specifically : using more words than necessary

c : characterized by similarity or repetition group of particularly redundant brick buildings

d chiefly British : no longer needed for a job and hence laid off

2 : PROFUSE, LAVISH

3 : serving as a duplicate for preventing failure of an entire system (as a spacecraft) upon failure of a single component

I can't see how it could be "redundant." What's it duplicating? (Especially in anyone who has taken vows of celebacy.)

Since when has a word got to be justified by all its meanings? I think definition 1 a and 1 d covers my usage reasonably accurately.

By the way, I'd be rude if I said, "all mammals have brains ... even you ... how's that for a vestigal organ," so I won't.

(vestigal: a bodily part or organ that is small and degenerate or imperfectly developed in comparison to one more fully developed in an earlier stage of the individual, in a past generation, or in closely related forms)

And I might suggest that such childish point-scoring was unchristian, but I won't either,

My spellchecker prefers vestigial to vestigal.

vestigial adj.

1 being a vestige or trace.

2 Biol. (of an organ etc.) degenerate or atrophied, having become functionless in the course of evolution (a vestigial wing).

This is a good word So is this

redundant / adj.

1 superfluous; not needed.

2 that can be omitted without any loss of significance.

3 Brit. (of a person) no longer needed at work and therefore unemployed.

4 Engin. & Computing (of a component) not needed but included in case of failure in another component.

Superfluous and not needed. A nun's clitoris N is not vestigial it is redundant. I think that has got the nun's clitoris problem well and truly licked.