Ron Garrett

Well, actually, each of those "heresies" I listed all had individual characteristics that may or may not have differed from Catholicism on the issue of repentance and confession.

My impression of Catholicism is that it is all about guilt and guilt management. By making confession an office of the priest, an utterly extra-biblical notion, the church inserts itself between the Christian and Christ, whom the scripture identifies as the sole intercessor for the believer, in the process of guilt management. I personally think that anyone who believes their wrongs righted and their guilt expunged because they say some Hail Marys, only has a clear conscience because they have an empty head.

DougI

A passage from the fundy bible:

John 3:16, "All y'all who believe in Jesus Christ is g'wine to be saved. Unless you happen' to be one of dem sonsabitches who voted for Clinton, is a Cathyolik, a negro who listens to rap, a single mother, Hillarerally Clinton, a queer, a damned longhaired hippy, those stupids who keep bangin' on my trailer door, liberals, the ACLU, and you Bubba unless you pay me the five bucks you owe me."

PopeInTheWoods

Unbelievable, Amos! You've said something that I completely agree with!

Andy (PITW)

Amos

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[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Amos

Well, it's in the bible and I hope it did not scare you. If you read it in proper context it become much more profound.

If "they" only knew what else was in the bible they'd be burning churches instead of trying to built them.

Amos

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[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Amos

Sorry Ron I had a post up and when I tried to delete your "quoted portion" to save space and everything else went wrong, so here is my reply again.

First of all, understand that Christians can't sin (1Jn.3:9) and so Catholics (instead of Christians) need to confess sins. Sin management has a dual effect (as all Sacraments do) or they would not be sacret. First, in "the Church Militant" it convicts of sin. The other side of Confession relieves the sinner from guilt and so drives the sinner further into the jungle of life where he/she will carve a clearing to give birth to the child within. This child will in time reveal to the sinner that the concept sin is needed for conviction only (the Laws were given to Moses for the conviction of sin and thus not to stop sin), and that the entire circumcision by the law was needed only to be set free from the bondage of "slavery to the senses" and Judaic Law was only the instrument needed to accomplish this. This makes the concept sin the illusion (placebo) needed to be set free from our lymbic orientation in which we are a slave to our senses and in which only the concept sin is realized. Yes, it is kind of like fishing in which me must throw out small bait (concept sin) to catch the big one (mind of Christ/God).

The atonement for sin now becomes the annihilation of the ego and the subsequent recollection of our lymbic system into the mind of Christ (the child that was born in the clearing carved in the depth of our jungle of life).

It is the best kept secret of the Church and no protestant will ever get to the bottom of this (or they would be Catholic).

Amos

Ron Garrett

Amos

I get where you're going now. Ever read "Suspicion and Faith" by Merold Westphal?

"Are there legitimate uses for atheists' critiques of religion? Westphal says yes, if we take a closer look not at the atheists' arguments against the existence of God, but at their observations about the sometimes disreputable functions of religious practice and belief, as demonstrated in the "atheism of suspicion, " put forth by Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche."

You would, I think, find this an interesting though probably not revelatory work.

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Garrett ]</p>

Amos

It is the mystery of faith that does "the saving" and the rest is all to serve as a disguise for this mystery. To be atheist is much better than to be fundamentailst and there is nothing wrong with "faith seeking understanding." In the end what counts is that faith is true (including male priesthood only) albeit not quite in the same way as we first thought is was illustrated to be. I actually preach philosophy of religion and never get into "religious" aspects.

Amos