Catholicism = One, True Faith?

[Detales]

Hi DonSnow,

Post #37 above, where it says “originally posted by Detales” in the gray box, only from the words “True enough…” in the third line of the second paragraph is mine. Yet it appears from the formatting that the whole thing is, don’t you agree?

DS~I’m sorry that your faith works that way. I find faith quite illuminating in my life. If you only have faith, that is great and wonderful. I avoid faith, which is an adult word for “let’s pretend,” like the plague as it has deadly effects both in the world theater and in private.

~I don’t judge God and what He did, I worship Him. I like a God who takes care of His own. That is all well and good until one realizes that you are talking about your private perception of God, not God as God, as God didn’t “do” any of that in a personal sense. So really you are talking about yourself, not God. Therein lies bigotry. Evil such as that is found, for instance, in the former atrocities in Ireland. All that you are talking about is the evil of men misunderstanding God, not God. Where is the loving God of your signature in such actions?

~the early Church was not violent. … I think the Middle Ages Church was justified in all that it did. I don’t judge the Church a whole lot, either. And, I don’t blame the Church for the wrongs of some of its members. Then what do you call the burning of libraries, slanders, deletions from and additions to scriptures, usurping of pagan practices, and even murders, if not violence? And rationalizations are not justifications. Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal, as I believe it was Mark Twain said. He also said “Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.” Your rationalizing fits that, eh?

~Oh, OK, just as long as you assess science as critically as you assess the Church and faith. I do. Why would I not? What worries me is folks like you who look at everything through the lens of their bigotry. I have many disagreements with science because, as I said, it has a self limited scope of inquiry which makes it incomplete.

~I think it’s wrong to look at the past through the lens of the present. What does that mean? God is God always and unalterably. Truth is the same. Love is the same. By your standard the suicide bombers of today are doing what you approve of the Church doing in the Middle Ages. Truth operates impartially from any view. So if you agree with witch burning, then you must be ready to be burned as a witch. In other words, you must be ready to die for having simple curiosity interpretable by pious fear as evil, eg. Or simply have honest questions from experience about faith and be killed horribly for that, or even the mere suspicion of that. You believe in a rather weird and arbitrary god, my friend. Your signature is betrayed by your words.

BTW, you might go to post #478 for some further thoughts on this at forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=6046732#post6046732

 

[donsnow]

Hi DonSnow,

Post #37 above, where it says “originally posted by Detales” in the gray box, only from the words “True enough…” in the third line of the second paragraph is mine. Yet it appears from the formatting that the whole thing is, don’t you agree?

Hi, Detales -

I just triple-checked.
Oh, Dear Lord, you’re right.
My sincerely abject apologies.
My error.

 

[donsnow]

Hi DonSnow,

Post #37 above, where it says “originally posted by Detales” in the gray box, only from the words “True enough…” in the third line of the second paragraph is mine. Yet it appears from the formatting that the whole thing is, don’t you agree?

DS~I’m sorry that your faith works that way. I find faith quite illuminating in my life. If you only have faith, that is great and wonderful. I avoid faith, which is an adult word for “let’s pretend,” like the plague as it has deadly effects both in the world theater and in private.

~I don’t judge God and what He did, I worship Him. I like a God who takes care of His own. That is all well and good until one realizes that you are talking about your private perception of God, not God as God, as God didn’t “do” any of that in a personal sense. So really you are talking about yourself, not God. Therein lies bigotry. Evil such as that is found, for instance, in the former atrocities in Ireland. All that you are talking about is the evil of men misunderstanding God, not God. Where is the loving God of your signature in such actions?

~the early Church was not violent. … I think the Middle Ages Church was justified in all that it did. I don’t judge the Church a whole lot, either. And, I don’t blame the Church for the wrongs of some of its members. Then what do you call the burning of libraries, slanders, deletions from and additions to scriptures, usurping of pagan practices, and even murders, if not violence? And rationalizations are not justifications. Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal, as I believe it was Mark Twain said. He also said “Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.” Your rationalizing fits that, eh?

~Oh, OK, just as long as you assess science as critically as you assess the Church and faith. I do. Why would I not? What worries me is folks like you who look at everything through the lens of their bigotry. I have many disagreements with science because, as I said, it has a self limited scope of inquiry which makes it incomplete.

~I think it’s wrong to look at the past through the lens of the present. What does that mean? God is God always and unalterably. Truth is the same. Love is the same. By your standard the suicide bombers of today are doing what you approve of the Church doing in the Middle Ages. Truth operates impartially from any view. So if you agree with witch burning, then you must be ready to be burned as a witch. In other words, you must be ready to die for having simple curiosity interpretable by pious fear as evil, eg. Or simply have honest questions from experience about faith and be killed horribly for that, or even the mere suspicion of that. You believe in a rather weird and arbitrary god, my friend. Your signature is betrayed by your words.

BTW, you might go to post #478 for some further thoughts on this at forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=6046732#post6046732

I think ‘let’s pretend’ has little to do with human faith and much to do with human imagination.

God did those things through His angels and through His people Israel, in the OT and spoke to Israel and humankind through His prophets.
Nah, I’m a different being that God Most High the Holy Trinity. I’m not talking about me. I’m not my own God. I just don’t need a ‘white-washed “nice” God’. I prefer the Biblical description and revelation of Himself God, to any modern ‘concept’ of God.
There was evil on both sides of the ‘Troubles’ in Ireland.
As far as God, again, I have already written of the depths of parental love, and our God is the perfect parent. We’re supposed to be like Him, with out picking and choosing which of His attributes to be like.
Nice quotes, you offered. Maybe you should read more of the Church Fathers, like I’m beginning to do. What do I call all those acts which you attributed to God and His Church? I call it history. I call it war against false gods and other such spiritual warfare, and my little military mind accepts it without accusing our God or Church.

Well, finally, something we both agree on: God is always the same, yes; but present values are different than values of the past, and it’s those present human values which are wrong to judge the past…judge the past by the values of their day.
As far as my death, yes I am ready to be beheaded by an extremist of another religion for claiming our common profession of faith, “Jesus Christ is the son of the Living God come in the flesh”.
Are you? Look around the world news. Everybody in this Board should be preparing themselves and their families to both live and die for our Christian faith.

I’ve heard your side of it in rants and repeated phrases from atheists, one who calls himself ‘AntiTheist’ on my thread, “Who is the creature to judge the Creator?” and elsewhere. You’ve written nothing new, to me. Maybe I’ve written something new to you.