misunderstandings about Catholicism

Chai Tea,

Since it said no Christians please, I stayed out of there.

Christian = Christlike

Not saying as good as Christ. Saying that's what we are supposed to do. Live our lives like Christ. I pray through the Son because that is what the Bible says to do. Jesus says no man gets through to the father except through me.

That's why I pray the way I do.

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<<nodding head towards Chai

Yeah. You said it perfectly. It is very personal.

All I can say is that I have found that most of times I'm actually listening to (the creator, God, whathaveyou) ......it simply can not be communicated entirely. And it may be that it's not meant to be.

I have had some good experiences communing in all kinds of places and situations. If it's one thing the creator has; it's a raunchy sense of humor! Razz

At least that's how it filters to me. haha. Who would have thought a bowel movement could be sacred? :wink:

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Oh, but it can feel so good......

I'll tell ya what, I'm thinking of those church bingo halls, man oh man, those ladies were a tough bunch.

When I was a girl, the 8th graders would take turns working bingo nights, pushing a little cart around, selling a cup of coffee for a dime, a donut for a quarter.
We loved it because we had a little styrofoam cup on our carts for tips. We'd put all this artwork on the cup to draw attention to it....
We'd walk away at the end of the night with $2.11 worth of nickles and 1 penny in our pockets feeling rich.

But your WORKED for that money, these old dolls expected you to remember if they wanted 1 sugar or 3, and would get mad if you had just sold the last jelly donut and all you had left was glazed.....

On top of that, if you raised you voice above a whisper, and made someone miss a number......Oy Vey, it would be like 'SSSHHHHHH" 'don't THOSE GIRLS know ANYTHING. THEY NEED TO KEEP QUIET"

It's like you were afraid they were going to call your mother or something.....

We'd do things like accidently on purpose bump Mrs. DeFazio's chair, so she'd drop here bingo daupper.

wow, we were really bad, huh

I'll tell ya, us Cat'liks could hold our own.

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Chai Tea wrote:

uh huh, and you prefer to pray to God through Jesus the son, and I prefer to God my Creator.

Same God. you could agrue that jc is god, I could say god is god, using the doctor/nurse example from above, my allegiance is more with the creator than the son......

Your example above misses the theological point though. If it were modified slightly it would fit the theological viiew more accurately.

If you were ill and the doctor was in Switzerland but told you that he/she couldn't be your doctor because they weren't licensed to practice medicine in the U.S. So they come to the U.S. anyway but, instead of acting as a doctor, they act as a nurse and cure you.

Now who do you give the credit to? The "doctor" or the "nurse"?

They are the same person so what difference does it make?

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that is an interesing way of looking at it Fishin. It is a good illustration of the trinity.

I'm still wondering what you all think about the highly ritualistic (yet, IMO, appropriate) Eucharistic practices of the Church.

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Momma Angel wrote:

Christian = Christlike

I meant the connotation of the word in America today, not the definition

Fishin' as said before, my beliefs are personal, I'm not going to debate them here.

DanielleJean

Re rituals - I feel rituals can be beautiful, relegious or otherwise...in worship, it helps center us, reminds us to focus on what we are doing.

I found myself staring at a still candle flame the other day, I didn't purposefully do it, my eyes just moved to it.
Eventually, I found myself in an altered state of consciousness, very beautiful. While that in itself wasn't a ritual, it's akin enough to use as an example.

However, there is a flip side. One must be careful to not become a slave to that ritual.

Myself, I have borderline OCD, very mild and I know through working with it when I have to pull back if I see myself repeating things, so anyway, relating to others it depends on how they respond to the rituals, does it free or enslave them?

Does that make sense?

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daniellejean wrote:

I'm still wondering what you all think about the highly ritualistic (yet, IMO, appropriate) Eucharistic practices of the Church.

The rituals of the Catholic Church in all its masses and practices are followed not just to maintain its long history but because they believe they were right then and are therefore still right as long as the ritual is correctly followed.

It also means that mistakes can't be made and perpetuated. The entire congregation would revolt if a priest didn't follow standard practices as they'd been taught. As you surely know, the Mass follows what is believed to be as it was performed from earliest times beginning with the Last Supper and the Nicene Creed. These are spoken at each mass in substantially the same form as was approved in the fourth century. There is a strength to this, just as there is strength to the Muslims belief that the Koran has never been altered (and must be read in its original language).

I was speaking last night with someone, a non-Catholic, who questioned the rules for taking the Eucharist and acted on it. This person... years later... still feels guilty for taking the E. during a wedding mass. Guess that Catholic Guilt can be catching.

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Chai Tea Wrote:

Quote:

I meant the connotation of the word in America today, not the definition

Understood. Thank you for elaborting.

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I'm not Catholic,and not particularly an adherent of any particular denomination. But in regards to the charge of Idol Worship an example from another culture might be instructive. Many Iroquois groups had statues, basically a totem before which they preformed rituals. When accused of idol worship by Christian missionaries the reply was " it is not our god, but it reminds us of him".

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Sorry to be a party pooper, but:

If Catholics had it right, the Inquisition would be a bright spot in human history.

If Catholics had it right, there would have been no concordat between the Nazis and Rome in 1933.

If Catholics had it right, there would have been no complicity in the Rwandan massacres. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/218498/112627525676.htm

If Catholics had it right, they would understand the meaning of the words 'thou shalt not' in the second commandment.

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excuse me Neologist, but are you Catholic? Every organization that has a large hierarchy gets it wrong sometimes based upon the corruptive nature of power. Can you give me some reasons for your vast generalizations. If I were to respond to you the way you responded to this intellectual conversation about Catholic Doctrine, I could say things (that I dont believe but people have said before me) like:

If protestants had it right, we would kill every Arab in the world

If protestants had it right, we would go to every foreign country as missionaries and force people to assimilate into western societies ideas of conformity (i.e. women must wear clothing over their chests even in deepest africa to protect their modesty). Please read The Poisonwood Bible if you want any evidence for this claim.

If protestants had it right, Slavery would still be legal.

If protestants had it right, it was okay to kill so-called "witches" in Salem with little to know trial

I do not believe any of what I just said basically because I know that Catholics and Protestants believe essentially the same things - that Jesus Christ died a willing and painful death to save Us from our Sins.

It is the hatred, and misunderstanding, and lack of willingness to understand others that you, neologist, embody which keeps us in a perpetual cycle of hatred. This is a thread of tolerance. You are more than a party pooper, you are a generalizer, and I am willing to bet you've never been to a catholic service or given a catholic the time of day to explain themselves. You just think, "dirty papists!" and move on. Well, Jesus said to love your neighbor. We are neighbors in Christ.

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By the way, your example about the Genocide in Rwanda is relevant, and I accept that point. However, the Catholic Church was not the only group to turn a blind eye on this. The whole of America turned a blind eye to it as we removed our troops and funds.

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If you can give me an example of other Religious organizations that were highly involved in this struggle, I would be surprised.

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You ROCK daniellejean....

neologist just like to pick fights IMO....

I usually just scan over his posts.

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daniellejean wrote:

. . . If protestants had it right, we would kill every Arab in the world

Not really. If protestants (and Catholics, Muslims, etc.) had it right, there would be no war.

daniellejean wrote:

. . . If protestants had it right, it was okay to kill so-called "witches" in Salem with little to know trial

No. If protestants had it right, there would have been no trials.

daniellejean wrote:

I do not believe any of what I just said basically because I know that Catholics and Protestants believe essentially the same things - that Jesus Christ died a willing and painful death to save Us from our Sins.

So far, so good.

daniellejean wrote:

It is the hatred, and misunderstanding, and lack of willingness to understand others that you, neologist, embody which keeps us in a perpetual cycle of hatred.

I understand more than you give me credit for. And my hatred is for those to whom Jesus referred in Matthew 15:14.

daniellejean wrote:

This is a thread of tolerance. You are more than a party pooper, you are a generalizer, and I am willing to bet you've never been to a catholic service . . .

I left the Catholic church in disgust at age 14.

daniellejean wrote:

or given a catholic the time of day to explain themselves.

Catholics and Protestants alike have much to explain:

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote:

What would we say if we read in holy writ of our Lord having blessed the battering-rams and catapults of the legions?

Daniel DeFoe wrote:

By this I observed that there is a priestcraft even amongst the most blinded, ignorant pagans of the world, and the policy of making a secret religion, in order to preserve the veneration of the people in the clergy, is not only to be found in the Roman, but perhaps among all religions in the world, even among the most brutish and barbarous savages.

Spinoza wrote:

I have often wondered that persons who make boast of professing the Christian religion...should quarrel with such rancorous animosity and display daily such bitter hatred, that this...is the readiest criterion of their faith.

(Just a few observations by men through the ages.)

daniellejean wrote:

You just think, "dirty papists!" and move on. Well, Jesus said to love your neighbor. We are neighbors in Christ.

Sorry you feel that way. I have only the kindest of feelings toward you. Not so for the priests and politicians who have conspired against their fellow creatures for thousands of years, like this fellow:

Martin Luther wrote:

The hand that wields the secular sword is not a human hand but the hand of God. It is God, not man, who hangs and breaks on the wheel, and decapitates, and flogs; it is God who wages war.

(It's not just the Catholic clergy who have a firm grip on evil.)

Chai Tea wrote:

You ROCK daniellejean....

neologist just like to pick fights IMO....

I usually just scan over his posts.

Correct, Chai. but I punch both ways.

http://web4.ehost-services.com/el2ton1/boxing.gif

Wherever it is deserved.

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I have to study for an exam in The English Renaissance. Ironically, Milton was a Catholic hater too! Probably what got me thinking about this. I appreciate the thought you put into this Neologist, I do not have time to respond properly, except to make one point about The Salem Witch Trials. It was the Massachusetts Puritans who initiated them, who were a group of Protestants. I do not see any doubt that they wanted to kill witches out of fear. However, this thread is not about what protestants have or have not done. In fact, Neologist, I was making false statements on purpose to show how your statements were not well thought out...they were parallel examples of the type of broad generalizations that one should not make in these types of threads. In fact, it is listed in the notice by the Spirituality and Religion forum moderator to avoid such.

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I didnt read everything you just posted thoroughly enough. I can see that you have had some interesting experiences with the church, and Im sorry that I got so infuriated. I just hope that you can see that what we are talking about here is how the Catholic faithful are a very different entity than the Catholic Clergy. Also, there is a difference in how people practice and what the Vatican says. The church evolves slowly. Some cannot take that and they leave, as you have done. But others are intrigued and downright moved by some of what Catholicism embodies (for me, it is the very special eucharist we celebrate), and choose to deal with the slow change and remain. And many, like myself, hope to be a part of the solution by working in the lay ministry and being involved in parish councils. I guess, to each his own - hence why there are so many different forms of Christianity.

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So allow me to show where I was going with my post and why I could not remain a Catholic. Jesus gave explicit instructions to his disciples at John 4, 35: "I am giving YOU a new commandment, that YOU love one another; just as I have loved YOU, that YOU also love one another. 35 By this all will know that YOU are my disciples, if YOU have love among yourselves."

The Catholic church has adopted wholesale almost every pagan belief and tradition originating in Babylon. Some of these I have attempted to identify in other threads. (Catholics are not unique in this, of course.) You might want to check them out:

http://able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=60155

http://able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=61968

http://able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=51117

http://able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=52186

Not to mention the many times I showed the speciousness of hellfire and the immortal soul.

Now, if the church was faithful to God in these matters, it seems reasonable that the laity would give evidence of Jesus' words quoted above.

"The person faithful in what is least is faithful also in much, and the person unrighteous in what is least is unrighteous also in much." (Luke 16:10)

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I suppose I am going to have to post on this thread sometime. Not tonight though.

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danjeljean wrote:

When I was going to make my confirmation, I told my CCD teacher that I though I was gay. He told me that if I believed in Christ and believed in the church to make it anyway. He said he knew of many Catholics who actively choose to love the lord, and to belong to this church because they like the opportunity to take the body and blood of christ every week, but do one or another thing that the Church condemns. It is hard to live by all the rules of the church, and I dont think anyone does. Just like very few jews are completely orthodox. Maybe I am describing a phenomena known as "Cafeteria Catholisim" but I dont know if that is necessarily negative.

I think this is the key for understanding the "extremely conservative" part. The doctrine of the Catholic Church is indeed very conservative in parts -- as when it condemns contraception as comparable to abortion, proscribes sex to its priests, and denies women a role in the administering the church that they are as much part of as male Catholics.

But while Catholic doctrine is on the conservative side, in my experience Catholic individuals tend to care surprisingly little about the doctrines of their church. When I attended confirmation class in my Lutheran community, part of the program was to hang out with that year's Catholic confirmation class. My impression from that experience was that while Lutherans had a lot fewer stupid rules, we were strongly expected to follow whatever rules we had. By contrast, my Catholic companions basically didn't care about the doctrines of their Church at all.

So my explanation for this particular prejudice about Catholics is this: Protestants hear about all these doctrines that Catholics have, expect that Catholics deeply care about them try as hard to follow them as Protestants follow theirs, and arrive at the conclusion that Catholics are backward. It is this disconnect between the church organization and the community that I find typical of Catholicism, not that Catholics are especially conservative.

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