N
Noli_novitius
Guest
This isn’t directed toward my experiences with Catholicism, in the main. There have been few other than positive experiences there. Some disappointments, but not singularly negative. That said, I’ve recently begun looking at the differences in Eastern and Western faith. Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. I am attracted to some of what I see in both. Something like the comparison of the rational/spiritual vs. the emo-psycho-spirit-mystical, with no remaining doubt about the history of the split, and more important comprehension of the commonality of origins and significance.
Anyway, this comes out of a conversation with a person on the cusp, really close, a person who’d been “ill-treated” by fundamentalist/evangelical/etc., upbringing. He was wounded by it, I was not. I am moving toward, and he is moving away. He is a serious thinker, and is a point on the spectrum of the precise descriptions of the very common problems I see.
I try to address them as they come up in an on line forum about general religious conversation. The forum conversations range from scholarly to insane and all points between. The following is a response to the person I mentioned. It was spontaneous, but on its rereading, I find it says some things that resonate deeply that want a lot more investigation and thought, on a practical level.
Thanks for letting me share, and for any criticism or useful proffers. I’m not looking for praise, or anything for myself, period. I just want to learn this, and I want to address the conversation itself more effectively by going beyond just this opening criticism into practical application, not as strategy, but as informed and prepared motive. I want to see people find God on the internet, and understand what religion really is. I find them seeking or angry all the time, and I want what I say, and what informs it to be a proper introduction to the most important thing there is. Warning: It is not a “refined” or “polite” message or commentary, and is well suited to the tone of the conversation…there, if not here…
My friend,
I never asked for repairs, and still don’t because I’m not “fundamentally flawed”, or broken. I asked, and continue to ask to be forgiven because I keep hosing things up, and ask for help to grow. There’s a huge difference between being wounded and being flawed. It’s an important difference.
Where did the thought come from, you think? My guess: that some preacher / religion was telling you that your were screwed up at birth, (a clear misunderstanding of “original sin”) that it was all about being fundamentally flawed and needing repairs, rather than that it was that we have the tendency to sin, and need to repent and learn how to stop doing that and be what God intends.
That’s not broken. The “broken” and “flawed” part of that is the wiry twisted wild hair in all this. It’s out of place, it’s not taught in Scripture. What IS in scripture has been bastardized, twisted, and turned into a weapon by these idiots. They don’t even see the intellectual, let alone the spiritual and scriptural disconnects.
I don’t have that.
No one who does have that has ever managed to mess me up that way. I didn’t not get, or un-get it from moving toward becoming Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. I didn’t have it at age 14, either. No one successfully bent my brain that way, though some tried. I saw them coming and ran.
They are a serious MESS, and work AGAINST God while claiming to be doing His work. It seems to me likely (well, obvious), that one or more of these idiot self-taught crack-pot pseudo-theologian, personal demi-popes did any number of people a great disservice by driving them AWAY. Maybe millions. You want to see broken and in need of repair? Look at those people and what they do. That’s seriously flawed.
I run into this all the time, and every time I do, I find that it’s because some self-important, ill-catechized, or worse, perfectly trained parrots with barely a part of the picture, got themselves loaded up with ****** manufactured doctrines/theology and screwed someone up, and sent them on their merry way to perdition while trying to “SAVE” them. No wonder they had to come up with the idea of an elect. No other way to explain why people were constantly being driven FROM the Lord.
If I were God and made them angels, I’d have them spend eternity undoing the damage they’ve done without joy until each and every human expression of creation and soul they lost is returned from the hole THEY put them in,
Any Help?
Anyway, this comes out of a conversation with a person on the cusp, really close, a person who’d been “ill-treated” by fundamentalist/evangelical/etc., upbringing. He was wounded by it, I was not. I am moving toward, and he is moving away. He is a serious thinker, and is a point on the spectrum of the precise descriptions of the very common problems I see.
I try to address them as they come up in an on line forum about general religious conversation. The forum conversations range from scholarly to insane and all points between. The following is a response to the person I mentioned. It was spontaneous, but on its rereading, I find it says some things that resonate deeply that want a lot more investigation and thought, on a practical level.
Thanks for letting me share, and for any criticism or useful proffers. I’m not looking for praise, or anything for myself, period. I just want to learn this, and I want to address the conversation itself more effectively by going beyond just this opening criticism into practical application, not as strategy, but as informed and prepared motive. I want to see people find God on the internet, and understand what religion really is. I find them seeking or angry all the time, and I want what I say, and what informs it to be a proper introduction to the most important thing there is. Warning: It is not a “refined” or “polite” message or commentary, and is well suited to the tone of the conversation…there, if not here…
My friend,
I never asked for repairs, and still don’t because I’m not “fundamentally flawed”, or broken. I asked, and continue to ask to be forgiven because I keep hosing things up, and ask for help to grow. There’s a huge difference between being wounded and being flawed. It’s an important difference.
Where did the thought come from, you think? My guess: that some preacher / religion was telling you that your were screwed up at birth, (a clear misunderstanding of “original sin”) that it was all about being fundamentally flawed and needing repairs, rather than that it was that we have the tendency to sin, and need to repent and learn how to stop doing that and be what God intends.
That’s not broken. The “broken” and “flawed” part of that is the wiry twisted wild hair in all this. It’s out of place, it’s not taught in Scripture. What IS in scripture has been bastardized, twisted, and turned into a weapon by these idiots. They don’t even see the intellectual, let alone the spiritual and scriptural disconnects.
I don’t have that.
No one who does have that has ever managed to mess me up that way. I didn’t not get, or un-get it from moving toward becoming Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. I didn’t have it at age 14, either. No one successfully bent my brain that way, though some tried. I saw them coming and ran.
They are a serious MESS, and work AGAINST God while claiming to be doing His work. It seems to me likely (well, obvious), that one or more of these idiot self-taught crack-pot pseudo-theologian, personal demi-popes did any number of people a great disservice by driving them AWAY. Maybe millions. You want to see broken and in need of repair? Look at those people and what they do. That’s seriously flawed.
I run into this all the time, and every time I do, I find that it’s because some self-important, ill-catechized, or worse, perfectly trained parrots with barely a part of the picture, got themselves loaded up with ****** manufactured doctrines/theology and screwed someone up, and sent them on their merry way to perdition while trying to “SAVE” them. No wonder they had to come up with the idea of an elect. No other way to explain why people were constantly being driven FROM the Lord.
If I were God and made them angels, I’d have them spend eternity undoing the damage they’ve done without joy until each and every human expression of creation and soul they lost is returned from the hole THEY put them in,
Any Help?