Formally Leaving the Catholic Church

[Tamsulosin]

Correct me if I am wrong, but in several posts I understand that you state you need proofs before believing in this or that.That would sound fine, except that then you go and make assumptions yourself that you cannot prove.
Example:You suggested that St Paul probably had epilepsy.If he had that illness,was that his first attack,?Otherwise why was he so transformed or suprised if these attacks were in him a common occurrence?.If the illness started right there and then,did he even mention being an epileptic,later on in his letters?How likely is it that someone with that illness had only one attack that was observed or recorded?
Second,he said he heard Christ’s voice. Hearing voices is not a characteristic of epilepsy,but of other psychiatric diseases, like schizophrenia.
Yet you may want to agree with me,that through his writings he appears to be pretty sane.

Regarding your previous statement:
Jesus did start(if you do not like the word “founded”)what later became known as the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church.

 

[rinnie]

I was told once a Catholic always a Catholic. You would just be considered a fallen Catholic as far as I can see. But I have never heard of anything you do to formally leave the Church. But thats between You and God.

 

[JimmyJazz]

You, my friend are begining to sum up alot my thoughts and concerns of American society and politics today. This country (and I don’t hate it & am not a liberal) seems to be pushing freemasonry. Were they not Deists(I really don’t know)?

Yes, many of the Founding Fathers were Deists. I’m not sure about Freemasons, although Freemasonry has historically been associated with Deism.

I could be totally wrong with you, personally, but I think what I’m describing is pretty close to what could happen if catholics put our freemason forefathers above the Catholic Church.I do apologize if I am way off track.

That’s all right. I think you’re right about Americans becoming more jingoistic and nationalistic, though.

Has popular right wing media or interest in freemasonry swayed you towards your decision? If not, what are the books or other things that led you to decide to leave the True Church that Jesus began? Were there certain media people, or authors? Is it common teaching in the public schools or colleges? Is it freemasons or a group who began to sway you? Was it another Church? I do not speak to condemn you, only to know the truth.What began and helped you along this journey?

I’m not a Freemason and I’m not interested in becoming one. Public education hasn’t really been especially damaging to my Catholicism, nor have any particular mass media figures that I can name. I certainly wasn’t persuaded by any non-Catholic Christian denominations (although I very briefly considered Eastern Orthodoxy and later Socinianism). My break is more the result of a personal campaign to be rational in religion, which got me interested in the historical Jesus. Particularly useful to that area of study were Bart D. Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, the major Jesus Seminar publications (The Five Gospels and The Acts of Jesus), and a few things by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. Getting the diluted Gospels as (sorry) a Founding Father read them in The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth was one of the things that first led me to be interested in Jesus the man, as opposed to Jesus the man hypostatically united to God. Then there were rationalist works like Matthew Tindal’s Christianity As Old as the Creation that really influenced my religious development. Finally, in between reading various articles critiquing the defenses of the Resurrection and divinity of Christ offered by Christian controvertists (too many to list here), and just thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that Chalcedonian Christianity did not warrant belief. However, I found that I still believed in God (I have many reasons for being a theist- in the broad sense- but I think that Alvin Plantinga’s modal ontological argument in The Nature of Necessity was especially helpful), just not in miracles, other divine interventions, or revelation.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

My break is more the result of a personal campaign to be rational in religion, which got me interested in the historical Jesus. Particularly useful to that area of study were Bart D. Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, the major Jesus Seminar publications (The Five Gospels and The Acts of Jesus), and a few things by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. Getting the diluted Gospels as (sorry) a Founding Father read them in The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth was one of the things that first led me to be interested in Jesus the man, as opposed to Jesus the man hypostatically united to God. Then there were rationalist works like Matthew Tindal’s Christianity As Old as the Creation that really influenced my religious development. Finally, in between reading various articles critiquing the defenses of the Resurrection and divinity of Christ offered by Christian controvertists (too many to list here), and just thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that Chalcedonian Christianity did not warrant belief. However, I found that I still believed in God (I have many reasons for being a theist- in the broad sense- but I think that Alvin Plantinga’s modal ontological argument in The Nature of Necessity was especially helpful), just not in miracles, other divine interventions, or revelation.

I can’t comment on all those sources, but I am astounded that a Catholic would find Bart Ehrman compelling. His whole thesis comes down to defining inerrancy in a way that is absurd and unnecessary.

I am vaguely familiar with the Jesus Seminars, but once again, I found that there was much that is interposed and forced upon the texts. To me, it sounds much more like “I wish to see it a different way”, rather than, “We must on the basis of this evidence see this a different way.” Big difference.

I was actually thinking you were beginning to sound more like a Muslim than a Deist.

 

[JimmyJazz]

Correct me if I am wrong, but in several posts I understand that you state you need proofs before believing in this or that.That would sound fine, except that then you go and make assumptions yourself that you cannot prove.
Example:You suggested that St Paul probably had epilepsy.If he had that illness,was that his first attack,?Otherwise why was he so transformed or suprised if these attacks were in him a common occurrence?.

I’m sorry if I sounded certain of the epileptic explanation. I’m not. It’s just a possibility that I think more likely than the one that requires a divine Incarnation.

If the illness started right there and then,did he even mention being an epileptic,later on in his letters?How likely is it that someone with that illness had only one attack that was observed or recorded?

He might have mentioned being epileptic later. He had a “thorn in [his] flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7) that he didn’t identify. Maybe his rapture recorded in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 was an ecstatic experience caused by epilepsy.

Second,he said he heard Christ’s voice. Hearing voices is not a characteristic of epilepsy,but of other psychiatric diseases, like schizophrenia.

Sometimes people with temporal lobe epilepsy present symptoms indicating that they are schizophrenic. True, we’re dealing with completely different illnesses, but they can be superficially similar.

Yet you may want to agree with me,that through his writings he appears to be pretty sane.

On the whole, yes.

Regarding your previous statement:
Jesus did start(if you do not like the word “founded”)what later became known as the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church.

Forgive me if I phrase this flippantly, but why should I believe that?

 

[JimmyJazz]

I was actually thinking you were beginning to sound more like a Muslim than a Deist.

Just out of curiosity, may I ask why?

 

[Angels_Unaware]

Just out of curiosity, may I ask why?

Just an intuitive sense. Nothing rational. It was just the way what you were saying struck me.

Your objections just sort of sound like the objections of a former Catholic who has converted to an intellectual, liberal brand of the Muslim faith. Maybe a Sufi- though that might be too mystical.

I say that because unless I skipped over something, you sound most concerned with Jesus as Messiah. Your focus is on what you consider the misinterpretation and what you consider to be inauthentic use of the New Testament. And yet you hold highly organized beliefs in the afterlife, but describe your belief in God as “Deism”, which gives the impression of a removed, omnipotent, whole authority- something perhaps similar to the idea of Allah, from a highly intellectual point of view.

 

[JimmyJazz]

Just an intuitive sense. Nothing rational. It was just the way what you were saying struck me.

Your objections just sort of sound like the objections of a former Catholic who has converted to an intellectual, liberal brand of the Muslim faith. Maybe a Sufi- though that might be too mystical.

I say that because unless I skipped over something, you sound most concerned with Jesus as Messiah. Your focus is on what you consider the misinterpretation and what you consider to be inauthentic use of the New Testament. And yet you hold highly organized beliefs in the afterlife, but describe your belief in God as “Deism”, which gives the impression of a removed, omnipotent, whole authority- something perhaps similar to the idea of Allah, from a highly intellectual point of view.

When you put it like that, I guess I do sound a little Islamic. I’d just never thought of it that way.

 

[Tamsulosin]

Epilectic attacks are not something that would go unnoticed.He travelled a lot,and it would have happened to him in front of other people.
"A thorn in the side’ can be anything, like a hernia,an orthopedic problem,etc,etc.
A"thorn in the side "does not bring to mind such neurologic problem.
If he were aware of being epileptic( having such thorn in his side),why would he not dismiss the account of what happened to him on his way to Damascus as inaccurate,
and blame it to his ailment?

 

[JimmyJazz]

Epilectic attacks are not something that would go unnoticed.He travelled a lot,and it would have happened to him in front of other people.
"A thorn in the side’ can be anything, like a hernia,an orthopedic problem,etc,etc.
A"thorn in the side "does not bring to mind such neurologic problem.

No, not necessarily. But it’s a possibility, and would make sense of his visions (if you approach the question naturalistically, anyway, and I’ve yet to see a reason to approach it any other way). I’m just saying that we need not understand what St. Paul’s experiences as veridical to explain his conversion or anything else that we know of him.

If he were aware of being epileptic( having such thorn in his side),why would he not dismiss the account of what happened to him on his way to Damascus as inaccurate,
and blame it to his ailment?

Given the time and the place it would be unreasonable to expect him to have a perfect understanding of his illness. We could, however, reasonably expect him to misinterpret partial seizures as mystical experiences; apparently they can be quite powerful.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

I closed this thread because it has become more apologetics oriented than liturgical in focus, so please take any apologetic questions/responses to the Apologetics forum. Thank you all.