Shake

Or by the actual praying! Prayer will never stop anyone from dying, it has no effect on how your favorite sports team does, nor does it affect the weather!

I've got a funny story about praying for different weather if anyone wants to hear it!

atheist_in_foxhole

Let's hear it!

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: atheist_in_foxhole ]</p>

MrDarwin

I think the idea is that pretty much everybody does time in Purgatory, it's just a matter of how long; and also that pretty much everybody is saved in the end. I have to admit I find it marginally more palatable than the Protestant idea that you're either damned or saved, depending solely on your acceptance of God and repentance in your last moments, and being completely independent of who you were, how you lived your life, or how you treated others. Too bad the idea of Purgatory is an entirely invented one.

Well, it's not the certificate, so much as the prayers. But yes, I also find this idea amazing: that your salvation, or punishment, or release from Purgatory, can be at all influenced by the prayers of others after you're dead. Doesn't a person deserve salvation (or punishment) on his or her own merit? Why should one's salvation be dependent on the actions of others?

MortalWombat

"You know, I was going to make you stay in Purgatory for a few more millenia, but I've just been served with these official looking papers, and, well, I guess I gotta let you out. Damn lawyers."

crocodile deathroll

Many Catholics point an accusing finger at IVF scientists etc as "playing God". Don't they think that using their prayers at a tool to give their relatives and friends some kind of get out of jail free card from this so called Purgarory is also playing God?

Besides, I used hear of this eschatology a lot more prequently in the past. Could the decline in these old assumptions be due it all being a bit of an embarrassment to liberal Catholics, the majority of Catholics, and lapsed Catholics like myself?

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: crocodile deathroll ]</p>

atheist_in_foxhole

I really don't understand how my grandfather could have been so religious. He was, after all, a very prominent doctor and very, very brilliant. And he also saw the horrors of WW2 up close. The childhood conditioning must have been brutal.

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: atheist_in_foxhole ]</p>

Shadowy Man

"Uh God... another FAX just came in. Unfortunately, the lettering is a little blurred."

crocodile deathroll

Yes it sure puzzles me be why <a href="http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1998/indulgences-cont.html" target="_blank"> intelligent Catholics</a> still fall for this <a href="http://www.fatima.org/library/cr37pg24.html" target="_blank"> eschatology. </a>

<img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: crocodile deathroll ]</p>

atheist_in_foxhole

I found a little card this morning that's from my great-grandmother's funeral. Here's what it says:



This is utter madness. It breaks my heart to know that people believe this nonsense.

Gemma Therese