God is not dead!

[PRmerger]

You must have lived an innocent, care-free existence. It’s when Protestants/Catholics say Catholics/Protestants** are not True Christians™** because of X.

Just so we’re on the same page here, inocente, are you saying in the above passage that it’s wrong to claim someone is not a “True Christian”?

'cause it really did seem like you were doing that yourself here:

If I was a lost soul looking for God, I’d be scared witless by some of the things supposed Christians say about others on CAF.

This petty business of stereotyping others, like cliques of teenagers. To me, by definition anyone who can’t see that we’re one humanity hasn’t got the first clue about Christ. It’s one of the ways of killing God softly (trying to stay on-topic).

And in this passage above it really appears as if you’re saying that the bolded section is bad to do. Yet…

Does it not appear that you are doing “this petty business of stereotyping others” right here:

Yet the CRB (CAF Right-wing Brigade) think it can be overridden by the next line.

On one hand the CRB has been getting me down for some months –** so sensitive, so defensive, so despondent.** If I stick up for science, other religions, people, reality then I just get hate speak spewed at me (on this thread vomited on me).

Incidentally, the above statement about being “vomited” on, sounds a bit, well, sensitive, no?

Do I add to CAF’s coffers or cut my losses and leave? Which is best for my soul?

Definitely stay, inocente! There is no doubt that what is best for your soul is to dialogue with knowledgeable Catholics and have a discussion which stretches your theological muscles.

I am certain that many questions we’ve posed to you here you have not ever considered. And your lack of refutation, limned by your sarcastic responses, demonstrates why it is good for you to be here.

Sarcasm, BTW, is the protest of the weak.

I rarely use it.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s how it is. I didn’t invent it, just turned up one day as an atheist and Jesus found me.

Glad you said yes to Jesus!

But now you need to correct your theology so you don’t have to respond with a just “it’s how it is.”

There’s better answers to that. And they’re found in…

the Catholic Church.

I guess the fact it was a fallible choice and not my birth religion makes me inferior here. :curtsey:

Not sure what your point is, inocente.

Your theology is inferior, 'tis true, but *you *are not inferior. As if!

Now, to the point of my comment: your pastor and a bunch of other people get to decide if someone is ready to be baptized? And there’s no creed to which your church accedes.

Then, to what “gospel” is one being baptized in? Can one be baptized if he believes

• there are many gods?
• Jesus was not born of a virgin? (I don’t know your church’s answer to this. Does the pastor and a bunch of other people get to decide if it’s a deal-breaker?)
• Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a sexual relationship and produced an heir to the Davidic kingdom?
• God is a Mother?
• Jesus is NOT Lord?
• Hebrews is not* theopneustos*?
• Music cannot be played in your worship services?
• Jesus is a reincarnation of the angel Gabriel?
• Jesus is a reincarnation of Vishnu?

(these are just a few of the varied and sundry :whacky: ideas I’ve learned people actually profess since coming on the CAFs years ago.)

 

[PRmerger]

Ah, I see you’ve gone into ye olde Capitalization Mode.

Yes. Capitalization is our friend, as I like to tell my children.

(Incidentally, it would have looked better if you had written it: “Ye Olde Capitalization Mode”, don’t you think?)

Whatever you happen to believe is truth must be The Truth. Yes, that makes sense. Or …

Again, sarcasm is the protest of the weak, inocente.

But, to your point, I do not profess that “whatever I happen to believe is truth must be The Truth”. Why would you say that?

• The Truth *is a Person, of course.

(This brings to mind another question: will your pastor and the bunch of other people baptize someone who doesn’t believe that Jesus is The Truth? )

You confuse the nature of God with what we know.

How so?

I love that none of us know the mind of God, that God keeps us guessing. God is great, He ain’t going to fit in your back pocket.

This is quite Catholic of you to say, inocente.

However, those of us who have not divorced ourselves from the Faith of the Apostles* are much, much closer to the mind of God than those who choose Chaos and Confusion** over Order and Light**.

*note the capitalization, friend, to indicate it’s quite different from mere “faith”. Apostles is capitalized because it’s a proper noun, although I wouldn’t fault anyone for not capitalizing. It’s one of those grammatical gray areas, ya know? )

**don’t really feel like explaining this again.

 

[inocente]

In that case it’s either God’s fault or the fault of non-believers…

So if people in Spain are no longer going to church, nothing can be done to get them back?

 

[inocente]

Definitely stay, inocente! There is no doubt that what is best for your soul is to dialogue with knowledgeable Catholics and have a discussion which stretches your theological muscles.

Probably won’t stay though. The extent of my sarcasm is inversely proportional to the degree that a thread is enjoyable. CII and I were disagreeing on everything under the sun, as we always do, and that was fun (or at least it makes me happy to argue with CII) up to post #38 or so. Eventually we would have honed in on our core disagreement and both learned something.

But you’ve had me justifying myself and my religion before, I don’t have the energy to play that game again no matter how sweetly reasonable you are. Sorry but could you rearrange the text of posts #99, #100 and #101 to leave out the personal remarks and proselytizing?

I’m not trying to avoid anything but am unwilling to continually go round in circles like we did last time we met. Could you try to theme it on the subject of this thread rather than on the subject of me?

 

[tonyrey]

So if people in Spain are no longer going to church, nothing can be done to get them back?

Reintroduce the Holy Inquisition!

 

[PRmerger]

So if people in Spain are no longer going to church, nothing can be done to get them back?

This question is a non-sequitor, inocente.

If people in Spain are no longer going to church it is up to us Christians to call them back home.

Why would you conclude that tony is saying otherwise?

 

[PRmerger]

Probably won’t stay though.

It will be your loss. :sad_yes:

(As well as ours, I suppose.)

You seem to have some degree of intellectual honesty and theological curiosity, and to leave now, just when the questions we’re posing are causing you do go “hmmmm…” would seem to belie this integrity.

The extent of my sarcasm is inversely proportional to the degree that a thread is enjoyable.

Interesting. It is my observation that the degree of your sarcasm is directly proportional to your inability to refute the Catholics’ arguments here.

But you’ve had me justifying myself and my religion before,

Well, yes, inocente. That’s the purpose of these theological discussions, no? You propose; we refute. We propose, you…well, you get sarcastic and don’t refute.

I don’t have the energy to play that game again no matter how **sweetly reasonable **you are.

Aww, shaw:

I’m going to show this to DH. I love being called sweetly reasonable, and you can bet I’m going to remind him that I’ve been called this.

 

[PRmerger]

But you’ve had me justifying myself and my religion before, I don’t have the energy to play that game again no matter how** sweetly reasonable **you are. Sorry but could you rearrange the text of posts #99, #100 and #101 to leave out the personal remarks and proselytizing?

I reviewed my posts 99-101 and will rescind the capitalization remarks.
Not necessary, to be sure. :flowers:

(I left the sentence up about my being “sweetly reasonable” just so everyone could see it again. :yeah_me

 

[inocente]

God doesn’t seem to exist as far as you’re concerned… or only as a totally inscrutable enigma…

Some years back I had what a Catholic might call an intellectual vision, a Baptist might call the hand of God, and an atheist might call a brainstorm. Don’t like talking about it as it was too touchy-feely to explain, big deal to me but apparently quite a few people have a similar experience. Lasted months, just this feeling, but by changing my frame of reference it taught me a lot. Or at least changed me. If it doesn’t make sense, blame it on God or else a brainstorm according to personal taste.

So yes, I’ve a lot of time for mystic revelation as opposed to uber-rationalization. We’re not computers, it serves no purpose to diminish or deny the spiritual. This could be a root problem these days, a belief that scientific truth is the only kind of truth, which then leads some Christians to think their faith must be totally rationally justified and validated. Why would people come to church if it’s just an imitation science lab? Paul knew different, 1 Cor 1:18-31 again.

 

[inocente]

Reintroduce the Holy Inquisition!

 

[inocente]

Why would you conclude that tony is saying otherwise?

By making the grievous fundamental error of reading what he wrote.

Methinks tony was being kind and trying to get the thread back on-topic.

 

[inocente]

You seem to have some degree of intellectual honesty and theological curiosity, and to leave now, just when the questions we’re posing are causing you do go “hmmmm…” would seem to belie this integrity.

I did have a “hmmmm…” moment when I realized it’s completely unreasonable for anyone, especially me, to think I would react to being set upon by a wannabe lynch mob without any emotion. You might be stronger, perhaps females could deal with it without sarcasm, but I’m not going to beat myself up for being human.

Interesting. It is my observation that the degree of your sarcasm is directly proportional to your inability to refute the Catholics’ arguments here.

Have there been any “Catholics’” arguments to either agree with or refute? I seem to remember CII and me having a nice little ding-dong about such things as freedom of conscience (specifically about gays, aka ye olde sodomites) and the relevance of religion to real life (for me at least why nothing is happening to reverse the trend in Spain), then it all became a bit of a blur as the inquisition descended in a red mist.

The plain fact is that Catholics don’t agree. Go to any thread on gays (there are plenty - what is it about Catholics and sex? ) and agreement is something you won’t find. I’ve been on CAF long enough not to buy the line that there is such an animal as a Catholic argument. It’s a universal church, folk can bandy around terms like cafeteria if they wish, but CAF wouldn’t be very interesting if Catholics agreed. It’s called Answers Forum, plural.

btw: Number 5 - good cry or bad cry? Number 21 - that’s just weird, imho.

 

[tonyrey]

Methinks tony was being kind and trying to get the thread back on-topic.

Precisely. In response to:

God is a God of Truth, Beauty and Order.

You wrote:

You confuse the nature of God with what we know. I love that none of us know the mind of God, that God keeps us guessing. God is great, He ain’t going to fit in your back pocket.

Which implies that God is an inscrutable Enigma entirely unrelated to Truth, Beauty - and Love… This gives the impression that God is not dead because He never existed!

 

[inocente]

Which implies that God is an inscrutable Enigma entirely unrelated to Truth, Beauty - and Love… This gives the impression that God is not dead because He never existed!

Practical examples: I say Creation is beautiful and you agree. I say it’s created by God and you agree. Then I say evolution plays a part, you disagree and off we go merrily debating how God did it. Or I say morality is relative to culture, you say no there’s one absolute objective morality for all time and again off we go. And so on.

But has either of us actually said anything meaningful about God? Is any of that at all relevant to our faith or are we simply finding reasons to be divisive? Is our faith ultimately about dry reason or is it wet, felt? Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. – 1 Cor 1:20-21 NIV

 

[PRmerger]

Methinks tony was being kind and trying to get the thread back on-topic.

Oh, topic-schtopic.

I rather like meandering off as the conversation leads; as I said, I imagine this to be the virtual equivalent to sitting at someone’s kitchen table, sipping some wine, discussing religion. Staying “on topic” is sooo not that. Rather, my preference is to more closely mimic the true conversations that ensue at a coffee shop or someone’s kitchen. And in real life, conversations veer off into often more interesting diversions.

I leave it to the mods to direct us to stay on-topic.

 

[PRmerger]

I did have a “hmmmm…” moment when I realized it’s completely unreasonable for anyone, especially me, to think I would react to being set upon by a wannabe lynch mob without any emotion.

Yes, I agree it would be difficult for me to be the lone Catholic on an atheist forum. So kudos to you for staying and dialoguing! :aok:

You might be stronger, perhaps females could deal with it without sarcasm, but I’m not going to beat myself up for being human.

Have there been any “Catholics’” arguments to either agree with or refute?

In a sense, all truth is Catholic truth, inocente, and each time a Catholic argues truly, she is arguing Catholicism. She need not mention “The CC proposes…” or “Scripture declares…” for it to be a Catholic argument.

The plain fact is that Catholics don’t agree.

'Tis true, this. But you are projecting your Protestantism paradigm into the CC. There is only one Catholic POV, and one can find it by reading the Scriptures, the Catechism, the encyclicals, etc.

I’ve been on CAF long enough not to buy the line that there is such an animal as a Catholic argument.

This is absolutely not true. Ask anyone (admittedly, probably not the Joe-lump-in-the-pews Catholic):“Is the Catholic Church against abortion?” and you’ll get one answer. In fact, I bet if you ask any Spaniard–even one who only attends Mass for his grandson’s baptism at 2 years of age (because his daughter doesn’t even really believe in baptism, but wants the party afterwards), he’ll tell you the Catholic answer.

t’s a universal church, folk can bandy around terms like cafeteria if they wish, but CAF wouldn’t be very interesting if Catholics agreed. It’s called Answers Forum, plural.

Of course it would still be interesting. There’s folks like you who come, no?

btw: Number 5 - good cry or bad cry? Number 21 - that’s just weird, imho.

Huh?

 

[inocente]

Yes, I agree it would be difficult for me to be the lone Catholic on an atheist forum. So kudos to you for staying and dialoguing! :aok:

You’ve never fancied the Dawkins forum? (tagline - A Clear-Thinking Oasis )

In a sense, all truth is Catholic truth, inocente, and each time a Catholic argues truly, she is arguing Catholicism. She need not mention “The CC proposes…” or “Scripture declares…” for it to be a Catholic argument.

From what I’ve seen, the theology must be continuously reinterpreted as society changes, and so there’s always a lot of room for differences.

'Tis true, this. But you are projecting your Protestantism paradigm into the CC. There is only one Catholic POV, and one can find it by reading the Scriptures, the Catechism, the encyclicals, etc.

That’s probably the big difference between us, to me messiness is what makes the world go round, orderliness is overrated.

This is absolutely not true. Ask anyone (admittedly, probably not the Joe-lump-in-the-pews Catholic):“Is the Catholic Church against abortion?” and you’ll get one answer. In fact, I bet if you ask any Spaniard–even one who only attends Mass for his grandson’s baptism at 2 years of age (because his daughter doesn’t even really believe in baptism, but wants the party afterwards), he’ll tell you the Catholic answer.

No, I think you’ll find it is true. I mean even I know the Church’s position, and I’m just a country boy, but individual Catholics don’t necessarily agree.

Of course, merely mentioning that got me in hot water, so I’ll not mention it.

Of course it would still be interesting. There’s folks like you who come, no?

Well pleased to meet you too. :flowers:

I meant if every Catholic really did have the same view on everything only one would need to show up, you could sign in on a rota system.

Huh?

Your 25 Random Things

 

[tonyrey]

                 [

](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=7952701#post7952701)
*

Which implies that God is an inscrutable Enigma entirely unrelated to Truth, Beauty - and Love… This gives the impression that God is not dead because He never existed!

I believe evolution plays a big part!

Or I say morality is relative to culture, you say no there’s one absolute objective morality for all time and again off we go. And so on.

If morality is relative to culture God is irrelevant to morality.

But has either of us actually said anything meaningful about God? Is any of that at all relevant to our faith or are we simply finding reasons to be divisive? Is our faith ultimately about dry reason or is it wet, felt? Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. – 1 Cor 1:20-21 NIV

The foolishness of what was preached is the foolishness of Jesus who taught us how to love one another in this world, to appreciate the beauty of God’s handiwork in nature in this world and to recognise the** truth **by its fruits in this world… If you accept that how can we be divided?

 

[Betterave]

But I’m now torn about speaking my mind. On one hand the CRB has been getting me down for some months – so sensitive, so defensive, so despondent. If I stick up for science, other religions, people, reality then I just get hate speak spewed at me (on this thread vomited on me).

If I feel to compelled to point out that your comments here are bigoted, you call me a “hate-speaker”? That’s plain old idiotic, self-serving, sticking your head in the sand and refusing to consider that you may not be all you’ve cracked yourself up to be. Apparently you haven’t come to CAF to be honest, certainly not about yourself, and certainly not to sincerely and open-mindedly consider the honest views of others - hence you closed-mindedly and angrily dismiss the comments about your bigotry! Sad. You really can’t see that you’re nailing up your own coffin with this kind of reaction?

But to stay on-topic, imho the CRB are definitely killing God softly, one day at a time. If I was a lost soul looking for God, I’d be scared witless by some of the things supposed Christians say about others on CAF.

LOL! What - you mean like pointing out that his comments are very clearly dishonest and bigoted? LOL! This would be scary stuff indeed, at least for the trenchant bigot who is trying to hide his bigotry from himself. Many lost souls, even ones that claim to be looking for God, probably are scared witless by God - much more so than by these “supposed Christians” you so self-righteously slander and dismiss here. (And again, I must observe: your comments here are bigoted!)