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inocente
Guest
Does Catholicism rely on the promise of eternal life, would it not work for someone who just wanted to follow Jesus to help the Kingdom of God here on earth and with no other expectations?
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inocente
Guest
I’m pretty sure I didn’t write 1 Corinthians - you should refer this complaint to paul @ scripture-authors-are-us.com
Perhaps. I see your logic. But devil’s advocate: there are ghost hunters who say ghosts won’t appear in the presence of cameras, mediums who say spirits won’t appear in the presence of skeptics, it sounds a bit flabby. And not especially moral – God prefers to stay in hiding than do good?
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inocente
Guest
Here’s how I see it, you may not like it, I’m probably wrong, but what the hay.
We evolved to have feelings and to have intellect. The intellect doesn’t really understand the feelings, it can’t put them into words. We can describe the mechanics, e.g. blue is light at 440–490 nm, but not what blue feels like, whether it’s happy or sad, what happy or sad feels like, etc. We try to understand all these feelings but we’re just not equipped. We only need one law of gravity but have zillions of love songs because it’s impossible to capture the totality of feeling romantic love.
We naturally base many of our explanations on “I”, on our ego, but a few see beyond that, Jesus is one of them, and He gave us another way. Trouble is, and this is a big problem, we aren’t satisfied and want every last inch of our beliefs to be uber-rational. But they can’t possibly be when we can’t totally ground spirituality in words, so folk come up with loads of differing explanations. For us Chrstians the yoke is only easy if we accept that Jesus is trying to get us past all of that, past our egos, towards finding the humility to accept what we truly are.
We’re not gods, we’re not computers, we’re animals with just enough ability to ask questions we can’t really answer. Christianity makes sense to me, Buddhism makes sense to rossum, but none of us really knows, how could we?
Here’s part of a Sikh prayer about this. Read it with our ego and it’s just chocolate box. Read it in full humility and it may make such perfect sense that we’ll giggle at ourselves for our puny conceits (I think that’s the intent, it’s said at bedtime to help sleep).
*The sky is the azure salver,
The sun and moon Thy lamps.
The stars are Thy scattered pearls,
The sandal forests are Thy incense,
And the breeze is Thy fan.
These, along with the flowers of vegetation,
Are laid as offerings at Thy feet.
What other worship can be compared to
Nature’s own Festival of Lights?
While the Divine Music resounds within.
Thousand are Thine eyes, yet Thou has no eyes;
Thousand are Thy forms, and yet Thou has no form;
Thousand are Thy lotus-feet, and yet Thou has no feet;
Thousand are Thy noses to smell, and yet Thou has no nose.
I am enchanted with Thy play.
It is Thy Light which lives in every heart,
And Thy Light which illumines every soul.
*Set to music by Snatam Kaur (nice video too) at youtube.com/watch?v=fUL679-8Zv4
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fhansen
Guest
I think the promise of eternal life, which pretty well happens to be one of the central aspects of the gospel BTW, is consistent with Gods’ love-and if the “problem” of death wasn’t addressed, there’d be an inconsistency-an unanswered question for us- as we become aware of the incongruity of a God of love who would make existence for humans a temporary matter, as if life were as cheap as this world seems to treat it, more often than not .
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grannymh
Guest
Catholicism relies on a personal relationship with God the Creator. Yes, I know that just about every other religion relies on some kind of relationship with God because it is part of our nature to seek spiritual answers.
In my humble opinion, the Catholic Church has the most logical answers to human life’s most important questions.
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inocente
Guest
Going only on posts I’ve seen on CAF, I’m not sure Catholicism does tackle the question – there seem to be a whole host of views on who will get to heaven, what heaven is, and what eternal life will be like.
Matthew 6 - There’s a strand in Protestantism (possibly also in Catholicism?) that says never once worry about eternity because it mixes up our motives – are we acting in compassion or to gain points? Basically I guess it’s asking what are treasures in heaven anyway, if we’re not to worry about tomorrow then there must at least be an aspect of them that is real now (growing closer to God).
But then I never really got why we ignore the bit about only praying privately – it’s right there just before the Lord’s prayer, it’s kind of hard to miss.
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Faith1960
Guest
That book comes from an athiest perspective, which doesn’t help.
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tonyrey
Guest
Then it stands to reason that there is a reason! For example, coercive miracles defeat the purpose of giving us free will.
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tonyrey
Guest
It does far more harm than good if we pray that God defeats His purpose of giving us free will. What is God supposed to do?
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tonyrey
Guest
God manifests Himself in many ways - if you accept the teaching of Jesus about the lilies in the fields, the miracles He promised His followers would perform and the inspiration of the Bible…
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tonyrey
Guest
Inspiring and beautiful! I agree with you. I believe all religions are ways to God but Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.Here’s how I see it, you may not like it, I’m probably wrong, but what the hay.
We evolved to have feelings and to have intellect. The intellect doesn’t really understand the feelings, it can’t put them into words. We can describe the mechanics, e.g. blue is light at 440–490 nm, but not what blue feels like, whether it’s happy or sad, what happy or sad feels like, etc. We try to understand all these feelings but we’re just not equipped. We only need one law of gravity but have zillions of love songs because it’s impossible to capture the totality of feeling romantic love.
We naturally base many of our explanations on “I”, on our ego, but a few see beyond that, Jesus is one of them, and He gave us another way. Trouble is, and this is a big problem, we aren’t satisfied and want every last inch of our beliefs to be uber-rational. But they can’t possibly be when we can’t totally ground spirituality in words, so folk come up with loads of differing explanations. For us Christians the yoke is only easy if we accept that Jesus is trying to get us past all of that, past our egos, towards finding the humility to accept what we truly are.
We’re not gods, we’re not computers, we’re animals with just enough ability to ask questions we can’t really answer. Christianity makes sense to me, Buddhism makes sense to rossum, but none of us really knows, how could we?
Here’s part of a Sikh prayer about this. Read it with our ego and it’s just chocolate box. Read it in full humility and it may make such perfect sense that we’ll giggle at ourselves for our puny conceits (I think that’s the intent, it’s said at bedtime to help sleep).
*The sky is the azure salver,
The sun and moon Thy lamps.
The stars are Thy scattered pearls,
The sandal forests are Thy incense,
And the breeze is Thy fan.
These, along with the flowers of vegetation,
Are laid as offerings at Thy feet.
What other worship can be compared to
Nature’s own Festival of Lights?
While the Divine Music resounds within.
Thousand are Thine eyes, yet Thou has no eyes;
Thousand are Thy forms, and yet Thou has no form;
Thousand are Thy lotus-feet, and yet Thou has no feet;
Thousand are Thy noses to smell, and yet Thou has no nose.
I am enchanted with Thy play.
It is Thy Light which lives in every heart,
And Thy Light which illumines every soul.
*Set to music by Snatam Kaur (nice video too) at youtube.com/watch?v=fUL679-8Zv4
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tonyrey
Guest
It sounds to me like a subterfuge for sabotage!
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razredge
Guest
Then what is the point of praying if disasters fall on believers and unbelievers with equal likelihood?
I believe He can, but He does not - for reasons known to him, free will perhaps.
Your notion of infallibility is defective. The Popes have made many mistakes when they were not speaking ex cathedra…
Hey, I am all for the free will defense (and free processes) - though there are actually some Catholics on here who believe that God ‘rules the hearts of kings’ and so indeed worked through Hitler.
The problem with this is infallibility is essentially unfalsifiable since you claim as infallible the teachings that haven’t changed and as fallible the ones that have.
It then becomes a case of ‘vaticinium ex eventu’ and I doubt that earlier Catholics or Popes would accept your modern revisionism of their then current doctrines as fallible.
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razredge
Guest
Indeed - though there is a possible response to this I find plausible:
Simply, there might not have been an amputee who sincerely believed that God would miraculously regrow their arm and prayed for this to happen - this is plausible since it is quite a leap of faith from asking God to cure your cancer and curing something very material such as a missing limb which defies all common sense and conventional wisdom (wheras most cancer patients believe that there is a change that their illness will go into remission).
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tonyrey
Guest
Your question assumes:
- God never intervenes for anyone.
- Prayer is wasted if it is not answered as we expect.
- Believers and unbelievers live in separate places!
Then why did Jesus tell us to pray for our needs?
Not all Catholics are orthodox.
The development of doctrine in the light of new discoveries is consistent with the fundamental teaching of the Church.
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inocente
Guest
Going only on posts on CAF, I’m not sure Catholicism does tackle the question, or if it does it didn’t publicize the answer very well – there’s a whole host of views on who will get to heaven, what heaven is, and what eternal life will be like.
The reason for asking was issues with Matthew 6 (the whole chapter). Most Christians follow the advice about keeping donations private but somehow not about praying only in private, even though it’s right next to the Lord’s prayer, you can’t miss it. So already there’s confusion about the nature of treasures in heaven. Then if we’re not to worry about tomorrow, the treasures can’t be about storing up air-miles to heaven, that would make our motives selfish. The treasures must be about today, about growing closer to God today. No?
I’m not questioning the promise of an after-life but wondering about the core of Catholicism. If the choice was to live forever or to make a better world today with no assurance of an afterlife, and a Catholic could only opt for one, which would be the officially approved good choice?
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inocente
Guest
I don’t see it like that, sorry. If you walk out into a desert with no food, water and clothes, the chances are you’ll die. We have a tendency to remember the rare cases where people are rescued and put them down to God intervening through a guardian angel, but we can only do that by forgetting the many more bad outcomes. We’re just not very good at statistics and probabilities.
So there’s hyperbole here (incidentally, my Bible downgrades lilies to mere flowers
). Jesus knows we have a strong tendency to dwell on the past and worry about the future, and reminds us that right now today is more important by saying it in a way that sticks in our heads. That’s what I mean about personal Savior, all beliefs are about steering us along paths of righteousness, as soon as we try to rationalize the entire world through them we get seriously unstuck.Why won’t God heal amputees? Because it’s a very silly question that only ties theists in knots when we forget God is in our heads amongst all that other irrational stuff like love, none of which we can explain. But I guess that undermines centuries of straw from the uber-rationalists. Hildegard of Bingen, Catholic scientist and mystic, seems to have been acquired by the New Age. Too spiritual by half for modern Catholics?
I
inocente
Guest
I don’t see it like that, sorry. If you walk out into a desert with no food, water and clothes, the chances are you’ll die. We have a tendency to remember the rare cases where people are rescued and put them down to God intervening through a guardian angel, but we can only do that by forgetting the many more bad outcomes. We’re just not very good at statistics and probabilities.
So there’s hyperbole here (incidentally, my Bible downgrades lilies to mere flowers
Why won’t God heal amputees? Because it’s a very silly question that only ties theists in knots when we forget God is in our heads amongst all that other irrational stuff like love, none of which we can explain. But I guess that undermines centuries of straw from the uber-rationalists. Hildegard of Bingen, Catholic scientist and mystic, seems to have been acquired by the New Age. Too spiritual by half for modern Catholics?
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tonyrey
Guest
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fhansen
Guest
They can’t be separated. The justice mentioned above inherently involves both, IMO.
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