Anne Rice Breaks Up With Christianity via Facebook

[1holycatholic]

No, you’re wrong. Here is a definition from Wikipedia, but others are available. Please note the highlighted area.

Having no dogma cannot be equated with its absence being a dogma because one cannot be expelled or chastised for not adhering to something that doesn’t exist.:twocents:

Sorry, you can’t escape logic: “We have no dogma.” is dogma.

It’s as self refuting as the statement: “There are no absolute truths.”

P.S. Promoting intrinsically evil acts like homosexual behavior is an evil in and of itself.

 

[SpectatorX]

“As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

So, she chooses to abandon Christianity not because she thinks it is false but because she values her other mutually-exclusive alliances to a greater degree? I hope she wasn’t expecting this to be an argument.

“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

Oh, great. She doesn’t reject Christ, just all that stuff He said which is in opposition to that other stuff she supports. I feel all better about this, now. Consider me assuaged.

Anyone else in the room who’s weary of the relativistic apporach to truth common to our vapid culture say “Hey!”

Why doesn’t anyone care whether or not they’re wrong anymore? Someone let me off this ride. It’s too scary.

 

[estesbob]

There are actually seven different sexual orientations:

1. Heterosexuality - Sexual feelings, desires, and emotions exclusively for the opposite sex of the appropriate age.
2. Regressed Heterosexuality - Sexual feelings, desires, and emotions exclusively for the opposite sex with no regard to age (including children).
3. Bisexuality - Sexual feelings, desires, and emotions for both opposite same sex of the appropriate age.
4. Regressed Bisexuality - Sexual feelings, desires, and emotions for both opposite same sex with no regard to age (including children).
5. Homosexuality - Sexual feelings, desires, and emotions exclusively for the same sex of the appropriate age.
6. Regressed Homosexuality - Sexual feelings, desires, and emotions exclusively for the same sex with no regard to age (including children)
7. Fixated - Sexual feelings desires and emotions exclusively for children with no regard to gender.

).

Or to greatly simplify things there are two:

1. Ordered (Normal)

2.Disordered.(Abnorma)

The Church teaches that number one is fine as long as it is praciticed in marriage. Number two is always gravely sinful when acted upon.

No matter how many sub classes of disordered sexual attactions/beahviors you want to list they are still disordered.

 

[seeker57]

Sorry, you can’t escape logic: “We have no dogma.” is dogma.

It’s as self refuting as the statement: “There are no absolute truths.”

P.S. Promoting intrinsically evil acts like homosexual behavior is an evil in and of itself.

I think we will agree to disagree on this one.

Oh, and just for the record, I don’t think homosexual behavior is evil.

 

[AmateurPianist]

If I am wrong concerning the acceptance and equality of my gay brothers and sisters…I will gladly err on the side of love, mercy and compassion than trust in what I am told a book means by someone no better qualified than I…nor closer to God to tell me what it means…
Of course accepting someone and believing in their equality … and …

believing what they are doing is outside of God’s design…

are not mutually exclusive…

When you refer to the written word of God as just “a book” it makes me wonder whether you think that it has no more authority than say the Koran.

 

[AmateurPianist]

Or to greatly simplify things there are two:

1. Ordered (Normal)

2.Disordered.(Abnorma)

The Church teaches that number one is fine as long as it is praciticed in marriage. Number two is always gravely sinful when acted upon.

No matter how many sub classes of disordered sexual attactions/beahviors you want to list they are still disordered.

So are 3-7 for that matter.

What I still don’t get (and nobody has answered here) is why is same-sex acts ok because they are simply the outworking of an immutable orientation…while…at…the same time…

4,6, and 7 are also immutable orientations, and nobody as far as I know is claiming that acting on these orientations are ok.

 

[Zooey]

Anne Rice UPDATE:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.”

This is much better than what she wrote before. It is still mistaken, but hearing that she still is still committed to Christ is a step in the right direction.

Jesus didn’t condemn the woman caught in adultery, just her actions. (Sin no more). Love the sinner, hate the sin. That is why I love ALL including gay/lesbians - not their actions.

John 8.

This.:sad_yes:

We should all pray for her conversion back to Christianity.

:byzsoc:

I’m sure she came under great persecution for her professed beliefs, simply because she is who she is. I’m always a bit skeptical and fearful whenever I hear about someone famous who embraces the faith.** Satan loves to attack them because they are so visible. **When they fall, they become a spectacle. Let’s pray that Anne Rice will come to understand that Christians–however imperfect–are the body of Christ. You cannot have Christ apart from his body, the Church.

Bolding the part that I have been thinking about in regard to Anne.

People: Please!! Stop & think before you post.
Some are becoming so angry that it overwhelms their charity.
Some others are so sympathetic that it overwhelms everything else.

As I said before: Let us remember that Anne Rice’s only living child is a gay man. Christopher Rice is all this woman has that she can call a family.
This woman is hurting, hurting deeply, and none of us knows what events in her private life have brought her to such a state.
What we do know is that she needs our prayers.
Let’s give them to her. Regardless of what we think/know/feel about what she says or writes, she is a soul for whom Christ died.

Can at least some of us agree to pray for her at this time?? (And, yes, I include the prayers of both those who are angry, & those who feel she said something they agree with).
[bibledrb]Luke 18:1[/bibledrb]

 

[MormonHero]

Anne posted a response, on her facebook page:

Hello Anne,

I would imagine that today you have found yourself a bit overburdened by the hundreds and hundreds of voices either praising or denouncing what it is that you have said about the label of Christianity, and denouncing the burden (which wholly belongs to christian’s) after a long and difficult struggle. And so I understand if these words are simply lost under the pile.

Being raised Catholic certainly can create so many demon’s within us, don’t you think? Seems to be that hell will await us at every turn, according to the church, while guilt pain and intolerance seem to be the fuel with which we are taught from children. I first walked away at the age of 18, a senior in high school, in the middle of CCD. My teacher, who is also a Deacon stood before a group of strong and hopeful and intelligent young adults, many of whom would be voting for the very first time in a presidential election, and told us that if we were to vote Democrat we would burn in hell for eternity, as Catholicism would not allow for the principals that Democrats supported. I stood up and walked out right in that moment, and I never went back. It took years for me to figure out that he was only promoting his own political agenda, not teaching us what God wants from us.

Years later while attending a western religion course in college I began to look at God from a scholars point of view. Russian Orthodox, Catholic, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and indigenous religions. I very much expected that during this research that I would find my proof that there was no God, no Jesus, and that religion was all wrong. I read about the war, the strife, and the overall inhumanity that religion had caused through the decades - “in the name of God” - and I was infuriated. I wanted to find proof that religion was wrong because these religions preached hate and I thought "what better way to prove this than to read their “books”, I mean, It was like I was going to use the words in the Holy Bible, the Quran, and The Talmud against these religions to prove that there was no God and only that religion was a weapon engineered by man. It took years to complete, but I did finish all three but I did not find what I was looking for. Instead I found God. Not the God that we are taught about in catechism, but a God that loves us so much that he found away across many cultures, and languages, and time to bring us to him.

The people screwed it all up. God gave us everything we need to follow him. Even most indigenous religions believed in one ultimate and all knowing force who was responsible for the world’s existence (their polytheism can even and does on most levels equate to what Christians consider to be angels - powerful, but on a level below the Creator). All over the globe since the dawn of time God has shown us that he is there. The Talmud provides us with amazing insight into God and humanity and family. The Bible shows us the capacity of God’s love. The Quran shows us how surrender can bring us peace. The people held responsible for teaching the people the message of God in EACH of these religions are the ones that got it all wrong. Greed, Power, Political Gain. They fueled the mess we see now. Anne, you are so right. There is so much pain, intolerance, and anti-human in Christianity. It exists too in Judaism, and Islam too. Each label for religion seems to bring with it this requirement that you go against that religion’s original teachings in order to be a member of it.

So, now when someone asks what religion I am, I simply say “I believe in all path’s to God”. This is what works for me. I meditate and pray a lot. Sometimes I even go to Mass simply to be filled with awe as hundreds lift their voices in song. At times it seems that in that moment God wraps his arms around us accepting us as we simply are - no drama, no b.s., just filled with hope and love. I enjoy hours of contemplative discussion with Muslim women and men on religion and philosophy. I enjoy the Jewish Temple and its wonder. The point I am trying to make is that my relationship with God is mine. No one made it for me, I found the way myself. It is far from orthodox, and I can’t for the life of me find a label for it and I don’t want to. I think, if I understand you correctly, this is what you are doing.

Anne, I encourage you to find your own way. The journey is so much fun.

Love, Hope, Faith

Jessica

 

[1holycatholic]

I think we will agree to disagree on this one.

Oh, and just for the record, I don’t think homosexual behavior is evil.

[bibledrb]Isaiah 5:20[/bibledrb]

 

[John_of_Woking]

Anne Rice’s announcements via Facebook.
“As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”
Notice that she hasn’t give up on Christ, just “Christianity”.

:yawn: . Ahem the Democrats are pro-life and the Church is anti-life

 

[John_of_Woking]

I I value my freedom of conscience too much to surrender it to any institution.

.

Dear friend Conscience is liberated by the Truth. The Truth sets you Free

 

[John_of_Woking]

Are you seriously stating that bisexual individuals can’t be truly happy unless they have multiple partners?

You condemn ‘conservative christians’ for bias, yet how biased is it of you make the statement that they just can’t help it? Victimizing a group of people where no real disability exists is not a kindness.

Well said:clapping: -

it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest fornication is necessary for Happiness. It actually leads to misery.

With the grace of God self-mastery is achievable. To suggest it’s not possible is a chronic under-estimation of the power of God’s Grace.

True Happiness comes from Union with God - anything else is not really happiness You can choose fornication or a Life in Christ. It is a free choice but a choice with consequences.

 

[Cinette]

Well said:clapping: -

it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest fornication is necessary for Happiness. It actually leads to misery.

With the grace of God self-mastery is achievable. To suggest it’s not possible is a chronic under-estimation of the power of God’s Grace.

True Happiness comes from Union with God - anything else is not really happiness You can choose fornication or a Life in Christ. It is a free choice but a choice with consequences.

*In my view fornication is sexual recreation which does not include intimacy. Fornication would be in the same league (almost) as sex with a prostitute. Its a release. What does it leave one with afterwards?

The best sex is married sex (good marriage sex) where intimacy is expressed and exists - it is unselfishness and the desire to please and protect the other. You don’t get that anywhere else. After years of marriage you still get goose bumps when your spouse walks into the room…

For some sex is a sport even. Then when all is said and done…

Hey aren’t we off topic here?

*

 

[PaulDupre]

The best sex is married sex (good marriage sex) where intimacy is expressed and exists - it is unselfishness and the desire to please and protect the other. You don’t get that anywhere else. After years of marriage you still get goose bumps when your spouse walks into the room…

That is so true. There is nothing so deep and fulfilling as marital intimacy, where there are no secrets and nothing to hide, where you are completely secure, where you can reach the heights of erotic excitement or just laugh yourselves silly. I feel sorry for any man who doesn’t have that.

Of course it can take years of marriage - of treating each other well (even when things aren’t so good) and being honest with each other - to achieve such intimacy. At least it did for us. But man, it’s worth it!

I would not trade my sweet wife for all the wealth in the world.

Paul