Reena

I agree with you. Everything good that is in the Bible and Christianity (i.e. forgive, help others, be a good person, don't kill, don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat on your spouse etc.) are also found in other religions, and for that matter in the mind of any honest human being.

But in the Bible, especially the Old Testament there is so much disgusting behavior at times on the part of God. Even Jesus is not that great. What does he do that is so special? "Love your neighbor as yourself", that is not a particularly new idea. The one thing that he does is condemn people to hell left and right. There is a wide way and a narrow way, the wide way leads to hell and most of you are going there. Those of you who don't help others are going to go to hell. Those who don't believe are going to go to hell. How about forbidding slavery or fighting for women's rights (of which they had very little back then) instead of all the threats?

As for Catholicism, the technical and harmful things such as don't remarry if your spouse abandons you, don't use birth control even if you have a 1 in 16 chance of dying from pregnancy and your husband won't abstain during fertile times, don't have a homosexual relationship even that is who you are biologically etc. are very harmful.

Plus, right now the Church is far more liberal than it used to be, if you read some of the things the saints did (i.e. the give up everything you have bit taken to the extreme) then their standard no longer seems worth aspiring to.

It is too focused on obedience and on sacrifice, and for what purpose?

Chili

What do you mean, the church loves a cheerful sinner. They're so human and at times all too human. The front they wear is just to look their Sunday best when seen. Don't we all?

Chili

The OT is not for Catholics, we have NT, a new religion, new God, new Testament and a new way. Inside the fold hell is impossible but he can't tell you that from the pulpit

I am done, not here to preach.

Reena

121 The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.


123 Christians venerate the Old Testament as true Word of God. The Church has always vigorously opposed the idea of rejecting the Old Testament under the pretext that the New has rendered it void (Marcionism).


-- Catechism of the Catholic Church

Impossible if you do everything they say as they say it. If your spouse abandons you, you fall in love again and want to have a family, you have to give that up and stay celibate all your life.

Wads4

"Originally Posted by Spitfire
That is what I have been trying to explain over the past few days. I've tried to give reasons why I don't think what I believe flies in the face of reason. Go ahead and read if you like. The real reason I believe, however, is that this is the direction my conscience pointed me in. And so far nothing has convinced me that I have made a mistake"

There is a certain reason in your position; it is reason based on a closed system of logic which itself is based on assumed and shakey premises, thereby rendering your conclusions invalid.
Your premises assume the existence of God,-but this is not axiomatic, but has to be proved. You have a conscience,-but this has been moulded and produced by your cultural environment,-in your case your Catholic upbringing; I think you will find that Hindus and animists for instance, would have a quite different sort of conscience from yours. One has to realise that the things we believe to be true are not necessarily so,--it depends upon the basis for your claimed knowledge. The scientific method of rational theorising, confirmed by obervation, is a much better basis for knowledge than ex cathedra pronouncements.

Chili

It is not about denying the OT it is but the fulfilment of the OT. It will always be the trunk that leads Catholics past Abraham, past Adam back to God in the inspired lineage of Luke.

To venerate, respect and honor and neither persecution or brown-nosing allowed. They are our equals but deserve to be venerated on account of our religious heritage.

Jesus filfilled their Law and we have our own.


That seems wrong in our modern world. I would never defend that position on their behalf but I do have a defense for it.

Spitfire

:worried:

Where did you get that from? The prophecies of the Old Testament are the best evidence we have that Christ really was the Messiah.

Spitfire

It wouldn't believe it was true if I didn't think it made sense, that good and evil are manifestations of individual will rather than cosmic forces or simply imaginary. Some people say that we only imagine things to be good or evil and there is actually no such thing as either, but they always seem to feel differently when they become the victims of evil.

Did you observe the beginning of the universe? I didn't think so. The best we can do, since none of us were around to see it happen, is use science to disprove faulty theories concerning the origin of life (like spontaneous generation, for example,) arriving at our conclusion through deductive reasoning when something cannot be inductively determined.

jackrabbit

I don't believe in a concrete thing called "evil", but I do believe that certain human behaviors (killing, causing physical harm, lying, cheating) are not beneficial to the smooth running of society and should be avoided. On the other hand, there are behaviors that affect only me and no one else (watching porn, going to titty bars), or at least me and only one other person (unmarried sex). Yet both are considered "sin".

In general, I try to avoid the society-harming behaviors. I see no reason to avoid the allegedly self-harming behaviors simply because an ancient book, with no actual authority that I recognize, commands me to do so.

BTW, please don't claim porn (in general, not including kiddy porn) and titty bars harm other people. That claim is made, but it is under dispute.

Chili

The conscience is an illusion but God is axiomatic in the einai of the ousia that enables parousia. We call her Mary to whom Jesus was betrothed then because she was the presence (einai) of God from the beginning of time in history until that time in history. This would be the significance of the inspired lineage in Luke on the 'she' side of the tradition that contains the einai of the father in the son.

Eternal truth is a commodity as if it is the yoke inside the ovum that contains the 'einai' of the 'on' in the perpetual 'essence of being' here called God in the image of Man. Hence, the woman is the essence of man that is recognizable if and only if there exist a sense of apostolic tradition in our past. That the woman is the essense of man is clear from Gen. 3 where the woman of the TOL saw that the TOK was good for gaining food wisdom and beauty.

This would be another way of proving Johnny that: yes, the Catholic God is the same God of Gen.1 ('they' disconnected from that 500 years ago which leaves a gap too far to bridge in apostolic tradition).

Of course science is good but if the fullness of God is equal to the reign of God that is already in our midst it makes sense to explore our inner being when it proves to be fruitful and satisfying.

This spurious minor here is that the presence of an ex cathedra einai is not for others to judge because it belongs to the particular of the being.