Which Religion is the One True Religion?

Re: to


classic intolerance !!!


& yet every non christian religion is judged to be inferior and its followers regarded as unsaved sinners in need of some serious "saving"



yes very joyful. ask the aztecs and the asatru.

and it sure changed the lives of those who came under the (joyful) genocidal evangelism carried out by CharlieTheMango of france.




yes, "prey" in Jesus's name is precisely what the missionary armies did.




i am now gonna bet my soul that you is a bigot.

everything eh?? including those takes regarding slavery for example?



which explains the bigotry and the genocides carried out on other faiths.

Hi Mesquite,

The prediction that I referenced is regarding the end. It makes only a passing reference to Noah. But it happened all right, and so will the end that is similarly predicted.

And sorry, CI, I'm not a date setter.

In Roman times Christians were persecuted for a sort of an anti-cosmopolitanism and for this general belief that not all religions are created equal.

Consider however: whenever you have more than two people making mutually contradictory statements about ANYTHING, there are but two possibilities; either they're all wrong, or one of them is right and the others are wrong.

There can be only one true religion.

There are two patently FALSE religions abroad in the land at present, i.e. I-SLAM, and evolution/secular-humanism, which is also a religion.

Christianity at least checks out historically; the others I don't even think are relevant anymore.

Gestalt wrote:
All I have to do is prey for ANYTHING in Jesus' name and it will be granted.

brahmin wrote:
yes, "prey" in Jesus's name is precisely what the missionary armies did.

ROFLMAO Thanks for the laugh for today, brahmin.

lol welcome.

How very true!

But if you are a superstitious person and you "believe" there is a god...and you "believe" your god is the god of everyone...and you "believe" your god is a kind, compassionate, humanity loving god...

...you sure as heck can make judgements about that god if it goes out of its way to say that there is nothing wrong with slavery.

My personal take on the matter: Any god that would do that is a cartoon god...not worthy of capitalization...and most assuredly not worthy of worship except by people in abject terror of the god.

C'mon Gunga...I know you sometimes get embarrassed because you are such a superstitious person....but to try to heap all the philosophical disciplines which you want to call "secular-humanism" ...

...as "a religion"...goes beyond absurd.

I am an agnostic. It is not a religion in any sense of the word.




Actually...Islam and any of the so-called secular humanist philosophical disciplines "check out historically" just as much as Christianity.


So what is your point?

Hi GS,

Yeah then , as now, the PC crowd is down on the Christians for their refusal to join in the homogenization of thought. 'How dare those Christians speak their mind ! Who are they to dissent ?! The gall ! (Can't we all just get along?) All we are saaaaaayyyinnnngg......'

.... is give Pope a chance....??"

"There are two patently FALSE religions abroad in the land at present, i.e. I-SLAM, and evolution/secular-humanism, which is also a religion."

I dont think I've read such a sentence of palpable nonsense on a2k since...well since the last time.

What is I SLAM anyway? You too scared to say Islam in case it turns out to be true?

Hi Folks, I think we have approached this topic from the wrong perspective. Actually, all religions created by man are the true religion. The culture and peoples that have believed in all the religions ever crated were "true" to them. The Hebrews, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Arabs, the Buddhists, Hindus, Jain, voodoo, witchcraft, all the satanic, jihad, Mayan, Confucianism, Taosim,and all the belief systems of all the tribes of this planet. The people who were born and raised into their religion followed in their culture's footstteps, believing that their religion was the one true religion. They prayed, sacrificed, and died believing in their religion. For them, it was true.

God is the embodiment of Love. Love is His nature. Just as God manifests His love in the world, everyone should manifest his love. Prema Love has been described as beyond speech and mind; it is said to be indescribable. This love cannot be got through scholarship, wealth, or physical powers. God, who is the embodiment of love, can be attained only through love, just as the effulgent Sun can be seen only through its own light. There is nothing more precious in this world than Divine love. God is beyond all attributes. Hence, His love also is beyond attributes. But, human love governed by attributes results in attachment and aversion. Love should not be based on expectations of reward or return. Love based on such expectations makes it a business deal. Love is not an article of commerce. It is not like a lending a loan and getting it back. It is a spontaneous offering. Pure love of this kind can emanate only from a pure heart.

From the NYT:

September 22, 2005
New Vatican Rule Said to Bar Gays as New Priests
By IAN FISHER and LAURIE GOODSTEIN
ROME, Sept. 21 - Homosexuals, even those who are celibate, will be barred from becoming Roman Catholic priests, a church official said Wednesday, under stricter rules soon to be released on one of the most sensitive issues facing the church.

The official, said the question was not "if it will be published, but when," referring to the new ruling about homosexuality in Catholic seminaries, a topic that has stirred much recent rumor and worry in the church. The official, who has authoritative knowledge of the new rules, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the church's policy of not commenting on unpublished reports.

He said that while Pope Benedict XVI had not yet signed the document, it would probably be released in the next six weeks.

In addition to the new document, which will apply to the church worldwide, Vatican investigators have been instructed to visit each of the 229 seminaries in the United States.

Although work on the document began years ago under Pope John Paul II, who died in April, its release will be a defining act in the young papacy of Benedict, a conservative who said last spring that there was a need to "purify" the church after the deeply damaging sex scandals of the last several years.

Is catholocism the right relgion?

Vatican 'to ban new gay priests'
By David Willey
BBC News, Rome



The Pope wants the Catholic church to focus on traditional values. (Whatever that means.)
The Vatican is preparing to issue what promises to be a controversial instruction on the admission of gay men wanting to be trained as priests.

The Vatican document was ordered by the late Pope John Paul II after the priest paedophile scandal in the US.

The Vatican will insist that all candidates for the priesthood who say they are homosexual will be barred from studying at Catholic seminaries.

Currently candidates who take a vow of sexual abstinence can be accepted.

The text is still secret, but leaks have been published in the US, where an inspection of the nation's 229 training colleges for priests begins this month.

Well, I guess while CI is bashing the Catholics he is leaving the rest of us alone :-o . At least for now ;-)

Unsurprising, really, that The Media gets it wrong, and that many fail to realize that. There's nothing new at all in the announced Instruction; it is but a stern reaffirmation of Church Teaching, Doctrine, and Tradition dating back two millenia. Over the past few decades, the proscription against confering Holy Orders on those of homosexual orientation has been broadly overlooked, particularly in North America and Western Europe.

The Instruction itself is the result of a process begun a dozen years ago by Pope John Paul II, and merely echoes The Church's unchanging position. While The Media make a big deal out of its having been "Approved By The Pope", it is not his work at all.

The document is the product of The Congregation for Catholic Education (a Vatican Congregation essentially is analogous to a governmental department, in this case, the parallel would be to The Department of Education), it appears over the signatures, respectively, of the Prefect and the Secretary of that Congregation: Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski and Archbishop Michael Miller. Developed through consultation among all The Church's bishops, and with input from psychologists, sociologists, theologians, and educators, it has been circulated among, has been ammended and/or modified by, and in final form unanimously approved by all of The Vatican's Congregations. Benedict XIII's approval is but a formality; the principle embodied within and promoted by the Instruction is wholly consistent with The Church's Teaching, a matter of Doctrine and Tradition stemming from Dogma, unchanging over the past two millenia.

The primary focus of the document is to disambiguate the matter in advance of a long scheduled examination and evaluation of the entire seminary system, which is to begin shortly in North America, and eventually encompass the rest of the world's Catholic seminaries.

What is most surprising is that any might think this was anything new, surprising, or different. It is an echo, not a fresh song. As a rule, The Church don't do new.

I thought this was interesting...and germane to the discussion. It is from today's New York Times:




At the Vatican, Exceptions Make the Rule


By JOHN L. ALLEN Jr.
Published: September 27, 2005 (New York Times Op Ed)

Rome

THE forthcoming Vatican document on gays in seminaries will unleash a wrenching debate about Catholicism and homosexuality, but one thing it is certain not to mean is that in the future there will be no gays in the priesthood. The continued presence of gays in the priesthood will be the product not just of difficulties in enforcement, or the dishonesty of potential candidates, but also of design.

Although this is a difficult point for many Anglo-Saxons to grasp, when the Vatican makes statements like "no gays in the priesthood," it doesn't actually mean "no gays in the priesthood." It means, "As a general rule, this is not a good idea, but we all know there will be exceptions."
Understanding this distinction requires an appreciation of Italian concepts of law, which hold sway throughout the thought world of the Vatican. The law, according to such thinking, expresses an ideal. It describes a perfect state of affairs from which many people will inevitably fall short. This view is far removed from the typical Anglo-Saxon approach, which expects the law to dictate what people actually do.

While Italians grumble about lawlessness, fundamentally they believe in subjectivity. Anyone who's tried to negotiate the traffic in Italian cities will appreciate the point. No law, most Italians believe, can capture the infinite complexity of human situations, and it's more important for the law to describe a vision of the ideal community than for it to be rigidly obeyed. Italians have tough laws, but their enforcement is enormously forgiving. Not for nothing was their equivalent of the attorney general's office once known as the Ministry of Justice and Grace.

The British historian Christopher Dawson has described this as the "erotic" spirit of cultures shaped by Roman Catholicism. Catholic cultures are based on the passionate quest for spiritual perfection, Dawson writes, unlike the "bourgeois" culture of the United States, which, shaped by Protestantism and based on practical reason, gives priority to economic concerns. As one senior Vatican official put it to me some time ago, "Law describes the way things would work if men were angels."

This value system means that while Vatican officials often project a stern moral image on the public stage, in intimate settings they can be strikingly patient and understanding. Policymakers in the Vatican tend not to get as worked up as many Americans by the large numbers of Catholics in the developed world who flout church regulations on birth control, for example. It's not that Vatican officials don't believe in the regulations. Rather, they believe the very nature of an ideal is that many people will fail to realize it.

Of course, one can debate whether a ban on birth control, or on gays in seminaries, ought to be the ideal. The point is that although Vatican officials will never say so out loud, few actually expect those rules to be upheld in all cases.

Some in the Anglo-Saxon world see this as a form of hypocrisy: the church apparently issues laws while winking at disobedience. But Vatican officials view it instead as a realistic concession to fallen human nature.

On background, some such officials have said that the point of the forthcoming document is to challenge the conventional wisdom in the church, which holds that as long as a prospective priest is capable of celibacy, it doesn't matter whether he's gay or straight. Vatican policymakers and some American bishops believe that's naïve. In an all-male environment, they contend, a candidate whose sexual orientation is toward men faces greater temptations and hence a greater cause for concern.

That's a debatable proposition, but it does not add up to an absolute conviction that no gay man should ever be ordained a priest. Rather, it means that bishops should take a hard look at such candidates, but in the end, they'll still use their best judgment.

Those determined to apply this decree in uncompromising fashion will be able to do so. But while the Catholic priesthood of the future may include fewer homosexuals - and it will certainly have fewer gay seminarians and priests willing to speak openly about their situation - it will not be "gay free."

On the ground, as bishops and seminary teams make decisions, many will still draw on that classic bit of Italian clerical casuistry: "If the pope were here, he would understand."

John L. Allen Jr. is the Vatican correspondent for National Catholic Reporter.

"Well, I guess while CI is bashing the Catholics he is leaving the rest of us alone . At least for now."

I don't need to bash the catholics. They do a good enough job by themselves. What I posted is from a news media, and it is not my writing.

Our local newspaper prints stories about pedophile catholic priests all the time, and how much the catholic church is paying in law suits - in the millions. They don't need me to bash them; they're doing it to themselves.

You are posting about old news CI. Specifically, what is the point of your post? Not being Catholic, I have no axe to grind. I am just curious as to your purpose?

Intrepid, I didn't know I had you on a chain. Free thyself! Do you know how to use the scroll button?