Amos

They are lucky!!!!!!!!

They are lucky to have saints, wisdom, understanding, tolerance, etc. etc. I guess all of these good things are part of the kingdom of God, we can say.

sullster

Oh, Amos, my man, you have the right to view the appeals to saints as showing all these wonderful things. A grand vision indeed.

But, for those of us who live in the real world, the belief in and the appealing to, of saints, is all a product of irrationality, superstition and the desparation of people when they loose things.

Shake

Ah yes, a good point, Amie! As an ex-Protestant (ex-Lutheran to be precise), I remember actually learning that about Catholics. Dad's a history buff, even taught it for a while, but now occassionally teaches confirmation classes at his church. He likes to talk about the Reformation and how Luther was just trying to get some changes done in the Catholic Church, not start some whole new religion! Anyway, this idea of having to go through some intermediary always struck me as sort of odd.

When I first started straying from the church, I realized that religion is more personal than anything. I felt that you should be able to have your own personal relationship with God, and you didn't need anyone telling you how to do things or what not to do (can't eat meat during certain days of the year, etc.). This and other things led me away from "organized religion" (an oxymoron, IMHO), and eventually to my atheism.

Why go through a middle man? It's not like God's the CEO of a company, and you, a worker, have to go through management to be able to talk to him. He supposed to be omniscient, infinite, blah blah blah ... so one would think he'd be able to handle multiple simultaneous conversations from peons like us. Further, if he's omnibenevolent, he'd want to listen to each of us personally, not through some glorified secretary.

"yeah god, st. <name> here. So-and-so lost her keys. Have you got a second to help her find them?"

Uh-huh. Whatever.

Amie

Hi Shake
It certainly does no harm to take part in intercessory prayer, its not for everyone but then again, what is when it comes to religious beliefs?...