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St_Francis
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Truth is eternal and doesn’t need updating.
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elts1956
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And neither do you.
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limerick
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**80s music could not have made me a living then. I had friends who were making good money in the industry at that time (Huey Lewis was one) but for the most part it borrowed the lamest, most vanilla traits of pop music from the 60s and even the 70s, threw a synth on top and then sent out skinny young boys with teased hair to support it.
Blecccchhh!
Pro-choice? I choose Percy Mayfield, T-Bone Walker, Louis Jordan, Ruth Brown, Count Basie, Earl “Fatha” Hines …
L**
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limerick
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**That’s the point. Let’s not superimpose our own thoughts, concerns, or compulsions to “help” over top of a situation about which we know absolutely nothing.And neither do you.
Limerick**
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limerick
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**My question always comes back to, “Who’s got the Truth?” Is Heaven populated exclusively by Roman Rite Catholics? Why would God have inspired so many schools of belief if He knew eons in advance that those who did not follow Roman Catholicism were damned before they even took their first breath?
And where, by the way, do these folks go after death if they subscribed to another religion or faith or belief system during their lifetimes? Does Catholicism provide a place for their inferior souls? Since Limbo for unbaptized babies was reevaluated and scrapped, maybe we just leave the Buddhists and the Baptists to God’s mercy as well?
If you must admit that you don’t know the answer to that, couldn’t it be possible that you don’t know the answer to many other questions concerning the faith on which you hang your soul?******
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Limerick**
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FanChan
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Firstly, the idea that “God inspired many schools of belief” is flawed. Yes, there are a great many religions that claim to follow the same God, but that doesn’t mean that every one of them was inspired and wanted by Him. Catholicism was the only consistant Christian religion for fifteen hundred years. The Christian religions to follow were inspired by the grievances and protests of men. Roman Rite Catholics never have and never will claim to be the only people to make it to Heaven. We certainly don’t believe that we’re the only Catholics in Heaven. Any reading through the Catechism will enlighten the fact that we acknowledge that God’s Grace can reach beyond the Faith and save those who do not share every aspect of our faith. We do not pretend to know who will make it to Heaven or how they will, however we believe the way to be most secure on the path to Heaven is to follow the Catholic faith.
As for leaving other people to God’s mercy, that is, simply enough, what we do. We believe that people are judged on their conscience, by their actions, by what they’ve achieved in life. But that doesn’t mean that we should just leave these people be. You make a fair assessment that Truth can exist in many places, and does. There are good morals in many religions, many good things all around. However, just because a certain person has some Truth doesn’t mean they have all of it. We as Catholics believe we have the Fullness of the Truth, and it is with that that one has the best chance at making it to Heaven.
You could leave someone to eat from the dumpsters, to feed on the scraps of a wonderful meal. They could probably survive, maybe even live a long life. However, would it not be better for them to eat from the table of the great feast? Would they not have a better chance and live a happier life if they did not have to struggle to find just enough scraps to get by?
And, don’t get me wrong, this is not to say all Catholics will get to Heaven, either. You can sit at the table and not eat, or only eat the bread and not the main course before you. You have to choose to partake of everything the faith has to offer to receive all of its grace.
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limerick
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FanChan
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I didn’t say that a person is more wanted by God than another. I said that a particular religion is. God desires all to be saved, wants each and every one of us, but by free will we can choose to accept Him or not. Christ showed us The Way. If one rejects it, one rejects Christ.
You’ve mentioned before that you have a great deal of hostility towards Catholicism due to past grievances made by people of the faith. I’m beginning to think that presupposition is going to make it impossible for us to hold a legitimate conversation if insulting comments like this are going to continue to line your responses and questions.
We, as Catholics, are encouraged to question the faith, to explore it to its limits. It’s by doing precisely that that some of us, myself included, have come to appreciate and adore the faith and God that much more. There is nothing wrong with questions, or challenges. That is how one grows. The idea that every Catholic is beaten into submission whenever they start to doubt or question is an unfortunate stereotype. And, as all stereotypes, yes, it may exist in part among certain people in the faith, but those are the people, and not the faith.
Just because we all sit at the same table does not mean that our lives are the same. And just because we all aim to wind up there at some point in our lives doesn’t mean that our lives are empty. Yes, some, if not all, of us start out at the dumpsters. We all have our own journey to the table. Some of us arrive sooner and more unscathed than others. Personally, I believe that those of us who have arrived have the duty to give a hand or a leg-up to the others on their journey. We are a family, all of humanity. We owe it to ourselves and to each other to help one another along the way.
I believe our definitions of a ‘happy life’ are different. I, being someone who deeply appreciates and embraces the value of suffering in one’s life, can find happiness in the darkest moment of life. It is not my fault or anyone else’s if some choose to embrace their misery without searching for the other half of the experience. As you said, each trial helps us to grow. It’s up to each person what they do with that growth. But that doesn’t mean that each person will make the right choice.
If you choose to reject that which is actually best for you, and choose to follow your own judgement instead, then there is no guarantee of anything.
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limerick
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**This is interesting because I’ve just addressed the same points on another thread.
You say a particular religion is preferred by God, and that religion is Catholicism. You also say, “I didn’t say that a person is more wanted by God than another.”** If the living body of the Church is its faithful followers, and God “prefers” Catholicism over every other religion ever to have been embraced by man since the beginning of time, doesn’t it follow that God does indeed prefer the Catholic over any other individual who has ever followed any other faith?
And isn’t it interesting that you can “explore Catholicism to its limits”, but not beyond?
There is no presupposition in my viewpoint. My position springs from experience. I’m genuinely interested to know how a practicing Catholic can defend mass manipulation of children, which is what I unfortunately experienced for years as a kid.
“Just because we all sit at the same table does not mean that our lives are the same,” you say. I’ll go you one further and suggest that we don’t all even get to the table. Yours is an elitist view that is totally out of touch with much of the world’s population. There are even those who, contrary to what you have written, really don’t care if they wind up there or not; and there are others who don’t even believe there’s a table at all.
So I’m supposed to choose Catholicism because it is “best for [me]”? The same way I was supposed to choose a shiny, glittering trinket over a crucifix as a prize in a CCD game - because it was best for me? What kind of a game is that?
Limerick
You say a particular religion is preferred by God, and that religion is Catholicism. You also say, “I didn’t say that a person is more wanted by God than another.”** If the living body of the Church is its faithful followers, and God “prefers” Catholicism over every other religion ever to have been embraced by man since the beginning of time, doesn’t it follow that God does indeed prefer the Catholic over any other individual who has ever followed any other faith?
And isn’t it interesting that you can “explore Catholicism to its limits”, but not beyond?
There is no presupposition in my viewpoint. My position springs from experience. I’m genuinely interested to know how a practicing Catholic can defend mass manipulation of children, which is what I unfortunately experienced for years as a kid.
“Just because we all sit at the same table does not mean that our lives are the same,” you say. I’ll go you one further and suggest that we don’t all even get to the table. Yours is an elitist view that is totally out of touch with much of the world’s population. There are even those who, contrary to what you have written, really don’t care if they wind up there or not; and there are others who don’t even believe there’s a table at all.
So I’m supposed to choose Catholicism because it is “best for [me]”? The same way I was supposed to choose a shiny, glittering trinket over a crucifix as a prize in a CCD game - because it was best for me? What kind of a game is that?
Limerick
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FanChan
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I can’t quite figure out how to explain this, but I’ll do my best. I have little doubt you’ll rip it apart as everything else I’ve tried with my limited abilities to explain, but I’ll do it anyway. Catholicism is a faith. No matter who believes it or how many, it exists. That living body is not a stagnant number. It has the capacity to encompass every person on Earth or no one on Earth. When one says God wishes for all to be saved, it can also be said that God wishes for all to be Catholic. Real Catholics, not just Catholic in name. God will eventually judge all of us, and yes, He is going to ‘choose’ some over others. That does not mean he preferred some over others from the start.
Jesus Christ has already been brutally murdered for our sins. It’s up to us now to embrace that gift.
You’ve taken something I’ve said about one thing and applied it to something else as though I purposefully left it out. I believe this is what’s called twisting someone’s words, or putting words in someone’s mouth. I did not say you can’t explore beyond. However, as a Catholic, if I am expected to believe that Catholicism has the Fullness of the Truth, then my exploration of other practices or faiths is going to consist of comparing it to the Church, to see if perhaps another faith has a Truth that Catholicism does not. So far, I’m still Catholic.
Am I expected to defend that? Perhaps you experienced something that is not Catholic, but something from the warped practices of one calling themselves Catholic. Unless by ‘mass manipulation’ you mean education. I don’t exactly have much to go on there. You’ll have to explain that a bit more to me if you expect me to respond.
I didn’t suggest we do all get to the table. That would go against some of the other things I’ve said. It is also not contrary to what I’ve written that some don’t want or care to get there, or that some don’t believe it’s there. The quote you used was in reference to those already at the table.
Yeah, this is another obscure reference to something that happened in your life that I know nothing about, so I can’t exactly respond. Again and again you’re giving examples of terrible things people have done to you. But those are people, not the Catholic faith. Just because someone who calls themselves Catholic does something evil does not mean the Catholic Church condones it.
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limerick
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**
a) How is a brutal murder a gift? I’m not looking for “Christ died for our sins”. I’m looking for a believable explanation as to why His death changed anything that already had been in place before then. If He died for our sins, what’s the deal with Purgatory? Did He really only die for sins committed up until that time? Yes, yes, another thread indeed.
b) If God is “going to choose some over others”, wouldn’t this suggest favoritism? How can God be biased? Don’t good deeds and bad deeds, good lives and bad lives, stand on their own merits or weaknesses?
c) You’re not expected to defend anything. The people to whom I was referring in my earlier posts, the ones setting me up for Epic Fail, were Roman Catholic nuns “teaching me about the Fullness of Truth” in CCD classes in the 1960s. Please, don’t try. Their behavior was indefensible. The question was rhetorical.
d) Putting words in your mouth? No, I was actually exploring your thought beyond the acceptable parameters.
Limerick**
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SteveGC
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You’re doing an absolutely fantastic job, FC. Absolutely fantastic.
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CMP2
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QUOTE: “about which we know absolutely nothing.”
There are more than a few that do know something about this subject and an open heart is all one needs to see the truth. Two choices: Pro Life or Pro Death. Period. This I do know. Not much, but enough.
There are more than a few that do know something about this subject and an open heart is all one needs to see the truth. Two choices: Pro Life or Pro Death. Period. This I do know. Not much, but enough.
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limerick
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**Jeez.
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royal_archer
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And what exactly did they do that was so bad?
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limerick
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Arthur001
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I’m not sure how this crosses my last question to Sailor. Does anyone else want to answer it?
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FanChan
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I’m not quite so eloquent as to be able to do justice to the whole doctrine of Christ’s redemptive death. If anyone else would like to explain it, please do. Otherwise, L will have to explore it herself if she is, in fact, interested to know how that works.
In a nutshell, sin causes the soul to die. In order to save our soul, that sin has to be transferred elsewhere. No one person’s life could encompass the souls of all eternity but the life of Christ, but God made Man. To ensure we had the chance to come Home, He bore the sins of all - past, present, and future. However, as you are so fond of mentioning, God gave us Free Will. He does not force redemption on to us. We have the choice of accepting that redemption or not. We do so through living good lives, receiving the Grace He offers through the Sacraments, and continually confessing our sins as we commit them, placing them upon the Cross so we can live.
I’ll leave you to seek another thread out if you really want to know about Purgatory. It sounds to me like you don’t have a very good understanding of anything in this area.
I put ‘choose’ in quotations because it isn’t really His choosing us, it’s us choosing Him. If we do not embrace His Grace and His Redemption, then He will not save us. It’s our choice. You’re for choice, yes?
Rhetorical, but pointed. Again, those nuns were people, not the Church. They do not represent us all, and I’m sorry for whatever they did to you.
Again, that may have been your intent, but it dripped of malice and twisted what I was and am trying to say. If you want to have a conversation, that is fine. But one can only take so much bitterness before they’re quite sure a conversation is not wanted so much as a fight.
Thanks, Steve. The support means a lot.
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limerick
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**You’re right, FanChan, I do not understand why, when Purgatory was already in place, Christ had to gather up everyone’s wrongdoings and be hanged on a cross to redeem every sinner. Isn’t that two solutions to one big problem? Why two?
“If we do not embrace His Grace and His Redemption, then He will not save us. It’s our choice. You’re for choice, yes?”** you ask. What if we embrace His grace and redemption through avenues other than or in addition to Catholicism? Are we still entitled to be saved? Yes, I am for choice - what if I choose Lutheranism and lead a clean and moral life? Do Catholics get front row seats in Heaven and all others get the cheap seats? I’m not attempting humor here, nor am I trying to offend - I just can’t think of a more graphic way to ask my question.
Please don’t read bitterness into my posts where I’ve only meant to convey mild disdain.
Limerick
“If we do not embrace His Grace and His Redemption, then He will not save us. It’s our choice. You’re for choice, yes?”** you ask. What if we embrace His grace and redemption through avenues other than or in addition to Catholicism? Are we still entitled to be saved? Yes, I am for choice - what if I choose Lutheranism and lead a clean and moral life? Do Catholics get front row seats in Heaven and all others get the cheap seats? I’m not attempting humor here, nor am I trying to offend - I just can’t think of a more graphic way to ask my question.
Please don’t read bitterness into my posts where I’ve only meant to convey mild disdain.
Limerick
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FanChan
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Again, you don’t seem to understand what Purgatory is. I’m not going to go into it here.
Your disdain will make any answer I give pointless. It seems to me that you’ve made up your mind on things and the words of someone you have no respect for will do nothing. I’m sorry for the things that you’ve gone through, I’m glad that you’ve carried yourself through them.
I’m withdrawing from this particular discussion. I wish you the best.
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