Hello, A Satanist has joined you

[jfhh]

I wasn’t, and am not, quite that black-and-white about it. It depends on exactly what behaviour ensues, and under what circumstances (ie what the behaviour is exactly that you wish to stop).

I do believe in a proportionate response, as the law does - a slap can justify a slap in return, murder or threat of murder can sometimes justify taking of life. Desecration of Our Lord’s body? Definitely more serious than a slap, don’t think it would justify a murder. Can’t give a general rule about it beyond that.

Thing is, and I’m sure you know this, there are about as many definitions of ‘violence’ as there are people who use the word, so I definitely couldn’t say without a more precise definition.

Do you mean the legal definition whereby virtually any verbal insult or physical contact at all is wrong and can be criminalised?

Do you mean that low-level verbal abuse or minor physical contact are ok, anything beyond that qualifies as violence?

Do you mean that verbal abuse or physical contact would have to be reasonably prolonged and/or extreme (eg a single slap isn’t really ‘violence’, a punch is)

Or do you mean only something more serious - that it’s only ‘violence’ if there’s really extremely abusive language or someone gets either threatened with a weapon of some kind or said weapon is actually used on them)??

Why don’t you just tell me what you believe in your words using definitions you can choose and tell me about?

The only violence I see as legitimate is if someone is stealing something and people try to restrain that person without doing any injury to the person or causing him any substantial pain. So the same as restraining a shoplifter including placing handcuffs on them.

But if someone receives a consecrated host legally, then it wouldn’t be stealing. To give another example, if someone obtains unconsecrated bread which they can do quite easily, and then bribes a sinful priest to say Mass with that bread and minus the piece the priest consumes, give the rest to the briber, then I think that’s all legal. As you noted it may depend on what country you are in. Anyway, once that’s happened, once someone has legally obtained a consecrated host, no violence of any kind – not restraint, not anything, should be used. That would be outside the law and also IMO outside the spirit of Jesus as we’ve discussed.

Look at the Sermon on the Mount. When someone is stealing your jacket, Jesus says offer him your car too. In my personal opinion, though restraint when someone is stealing can be justified, the ideal for some should be to tell the shoplifter who is stealing a DVD, “Here, take a DVD player too.” Why? I don’t know but Jesus seems to have wisdom and I can only guess but maybe part of it is this would overwhelm the shopliftter with your charity and more important than whether you keep a DVD or DVD player is whether that person is well cared for and his soul on the path to peace. So, IMO, the same example would be true of someone stealing consecrated hosts. The ideal for some should be to offer that person more consecrated hosts or to also offer him a gold chalice.

We see in movies people sacrificing their own bodies in times of cruelty and war. Specifically, where a cruel soldier intends on raping a mother’s daughter and the mother tells the soldier, “Take me instead.” It is a tragic, bitter, yet sublime sacrifice of love admist cruelty. The body of Christ is also the church for the church is the body of Christ. The ideal for some may be to with our Lord’s implicit consent (or explicit; see my discussion above of the Gospels and Jesus’ teaching), to in tragic bitterness do as I suggest would be an ideal for some in being true to the Sermon of the Mount when faced with someone stealing consecrated hosts: by in excruciating love offering the thief more consecrated hosts or the gold chalice.

The desert monks are known to when they see sin sometimes instead of pointing it out, to remain silent for fear of making the person more guilty by increasing their awareness of the sinfulness of what they are doing. I’m sure others would disagree with that approach. Some ideals are not for everyone. One woman may be the ideal for me; another for another. I believe in peace. Violence only to protect the well being of my loved ones. Jesus is safely tucked away in the heavens. Desecration insults Jesus, dishonors him; it does not injure or harm him.

If a tiny minority of Satanists desecrate, then I commend on to you to pray that God may “bring good out of evil” and somehow make that evil of desecration and occasion of great good, especially for the Satanists.

 

[RubyT]

If you knew how to read, you would notice that is not even what I said. Besides you’re Catholic no? What about that wounded, sinful nature?

Actually you need to reread your post and then decide who can’t read.

“If the object of salvation is to ultimately bring human nature into harmony with itself, to bring humans into peace with each other,”

 

[happymommy]

Actually you need to reread your post and then decide who can’t read.

 

[RubyT]

Originally Posted by RubyT
We Christians believe that we must lose our flesh(our humanly desires) in order to find and refine our Spirit.

Where in the above statement did you get (by it’s nature, all flesh is evil)???//

QUOTE]Originally Posted by Imryl
Now that is a load of rubbish. This sentence smacks of the same errant thinking as the Albigensian heresy. (by it’s nature, all flesh is evil)

I never said it nor did I imply it. Keep in mind I was responding to the satanist way of self centered - love myself attitudes.
Reading comprehension is not your imagination it is interpreting the words actually written. I will pray for you to have clarity and understanding. Nothing smacks (by it’s nature, all flesh is evil) it wasn’t even remotely smacking. God bless my friend. :banghead:

 

[RubyT]

Hey Ruby T, lmryl is a Satanist, so I think I’ll just let you field this one, I’m going to bed. Good night!

Yes happy mommy Imryl is a satanist thats why he/she is so offended by the prospect of losing flesh. After all I am reading in this post satanist worship and love their flesh. I will still pray that he/she may at least comprehend our Catholic principles. Clearly he/she thinks she actually has a clue as to what Catholics believe. Trying to lecture me about what Catholics believe. Hah. Takes some gall to use one of the ten commandments as a rebuttal. Does anyone else see the irony in that. :nunchuk:

Imryl you can keep your me, me, me, I love my flesh, oh my flesh is so not evil and oh so great, worship myself attititude.

And I will continue to lose my flesh and gain my spirit. I will agree to disagree with you into my everlasting life.

chuckle… I thank God every day as I shed my flesh. My spirit grows…and grows and grows…oh …so…sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

May God Bless you and lead you out of your darkness. May God show you the Truth the Way and the Light.

 

[Nepenthe]

Maybe so, maybe so, RubyT, if your complacent Pride, self-satisfaction and lack of charitableness doesn’t mess all that up for you.

I don’t mean to be singling you out one tiny bit, RubyT, since these sorts of sentiments fly up and down NCR faster than the proverbial whore’s drawers, but according to your religion, while you may work and strive to rectify yourself and your soul, there is no clearly marked finish-line that you can see, since it is a matter of faith.

So please, people of all religions, don’t get too happy about how pretty you think you’re sitting. Catholics in particular should be most aware of this, since when it comes down to assigning whether you go to the Workhouse, the Luxury Hotel, or the odd-smelling showers (Purgatory, Heaven or Hell, whatever you want to call them), it really comes down to that ol’ Ineffable Grace, right?

Fact of the matter is, you don’t know what’s going to happen after you die any better than anyone else. You may believe it until you are literally blue in the face, but wanting something to be true does not make it so, no matter how minor or grave that desired thing may be.

So, I request that you not bash those who have a differing outlook (heck, to my outlook, Imryl’s looks a whole lot like the rest of Western Theists, and Arno’s like a fairly undogmatic, oh, say, Libertarian, sheeze.)

So if you feel like punking on someone for not believing things even remotely close to the way you do, by all means aim your internet mouth at another person who is probably easily as alien as well from your standpoint. Me.

And when you are done with all the filthy heathens, move right along to the heretical, the pious and devout of other religions, people who set their table funny… and if you get done with all that and are somehow deemed worthy when you get done, Heaven sure isn’t going to be much for finding interesting conversations, is all I can picture.

 

[Imryl]

You exude a wounded sinful nature in your origional response so don’t throw stones at me.

No, I didn’t. In fact, I defined exactly I meant by human nature in both posts. Which, while you may not be familiar with the implication, refers to the wounded nature. I mean honestly, what can ordering yourself toward God (avoiding sin) mean anyway?

You are the one who interprets it as all flesh is evil.

Well obviously. That’s why I kept asking if that is what you meant.

I mean the flesh is sometimes evil and you are reading it as all flesh is evil, big difference.

Show me where you said it is “sometimes” evil.

I mean flesh is opposite of spirit they are apples and oranges.

Erm the flesh is not opposite the spirit. It’s weak… As you said in your next sentence “See 2 cor below this is what this means that the flesh **often **goes against the spirit. Apples and oranges.” The problem is not my reading skills, it’s your writing skills. I see now that this is likely just a misunderstanding and that the confusion stems from not understanding the implications of each others writing.

You quoted the following to sentences:

1. I didn’t say anything about human nature being at peace with humanity.
2. If the object of salvation is to ultimately bring human nature into harmony with itself, to bring humans into peace with each other,

You then say these sentences are the same? Again, you missed the whole point. Body, intellect, emotion and will - human nature. Ordered toward God - Avoiding sin; Repairing our sinful nature. All of these things were in my previous posts. I purposely specified what I meant by “human nature” to avoid this confusion.

I am actually trying to teach you something.

I couldn’t possibly take you seriously based on your writing. You’ve also said that God is not human.

God is not human He is Spirit. God created man in his image this does not mean God is human.

When you say “God” to me, my immediate thought its the truine God; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Since Jesus, God the Son, was in fact human, saying God is not human is contradictory.

Jesus was but we are not!

Then you say the above, which… wasn’t even a response to what I said.

You are not only completely misreading my post but lacking in understanding what the Bible has to say about losing the flesh.

Do you expect me to know how you interpret the bible? You shouldn’t. I took you at your word That is why it’s important for you to type out what you believe, rather then submitting one line statements and hoping everyone understands what you mean. Being Catholic doesn’t guarantee you all believe the same things. Don’t blame the reader for making assumptions when you do not clearly state your opinion.

Like I said, we’re probably arguing the same point… And this is just a communications break down.

 

[RubyT]

QUOTE=Nepenthe;4443576]Maybe so, maybe so, RubyT, if your complacent Pride, self-satisfaction and lack of charitableness doesn’t mess all that up for you.

Quite pompous of a statement. You don’t know me at all. You judge with absolutely no authority to judge. Take a look at the above quote. To be perfectly honest I don’t understand how satanist can lecture Christians about Christianity. They know little about it but want to lecture us as Imryl was doing in he/she post. You use the word Grace as an argument for your statements but you are using Christian values to state your case. Give me your opinion from the satanic view and you may actually make a valuable point. Seems like your a bit mixed up.

You would have had to read all the post to follow my last post. I said earlier in this post that I do not just have faith and belief I know. I know! You can give all the suppositions of not knowing what happens when we die that you want.Through my personal experience I know. What you claim as bashing of Imryl was merely a response to our last few communications. So why don’t you take your own advice. It is perfectly okay to disagree with people on this forum as that is where we define our difference in beliefs. Nothing I said in my previous post was bashing but rather laying out our clear differences. So why do you take offense and come to he/she defense? If stating that satanist have a me me me attitude and loving the flesh is offensive to you than maybe you should rethink your position.

I have to wonder why you are even on this forum since you are not Christian but rather satanist, wouldn’t you want to discuss your belief system in one of the satanic forums on the net. Why are you here? To strenthen your own values by finding fault with Christianity. Seems like a round about way to strenthen your beliefs. Take a look at your own weakness before you start pointing the finger at others. Oh thats right your too self absorbed for all that.

 

[Swan]

Pride seems to be alive and well among Catholics. Sure, we non-believers have some pride too, but to us it isn’t a sin. Just an observation.

 

[Imryl]

Could we perhaps take a step back and cool down?

Let’s not get too off topic.

 

[RubyT]

Imryl, As I said in my last post I will agree to disagree with you. There is no real response to the issues in your reply. Just more of the same. Clearly you can’t even admit when you have misinterpreted something I said, ie my origional post. I don’t need to spoonfeed you with my words as I assumed you had a reasonable amount of intelligence. My bad for the assumption.

Just don’t try to convince me that you know anything about Christianity even if you went to catechism as a child. Clearly you want to live for the now and I want to live for the after. You want to live for the flesh and I want to lose it. I don’t expect you to ever understand. I will pray for you regardless. No harm was ever meant and I am just as happy as I was before posting with you so no harm done. Actually I want to thank you satanist for strenthening my faith and giving me a stronger notion of how right I am in my beliefs. Most of what you say makes me laugh. So thanks for the chuckle.

 

[Nepenthe]

Ma’am, I am not a Satanist, nor a member of any theistic sect. I am not nearly as interested in your religions themselves as I am in their effect on peoples’ behavior, which is why I took a careful, in-depth study of them, though admittedly I’m no Contarini or serious, degreed scholar of these subjects. But neither are you. And mere ad hominem attacks will boot you nothing.

I accused you of nothing, rather warned you to beware of those things that are considered wrong by your religion (and wisely so). But commit them you did - perhaps confession would help (possibly the institution I admire most about your religion!) and self examination would bear rich, healthy fruit.

Best Wishes (and I DO have them )
Nepenthe

 

[Imryl]

Just don’t try to convince me that you know anything about Christianity even if you went to catechism as a child. Clearly you want to live for the now and I want to live for the after.

I’ve never professed to be an expert on Catholicism. Not even close, but I do understand the basics. Something you seem to be lacking.

Also - Satan worship - is not focused on “the flesh”. That would be a LaVeyan-type philosophy. I am probably one of the least materialistic people I know… Things (possessions, money, etc) bring me no satisfaction whatsoever. That makes my husband happy of course, because I never spend money ^.^

 

[Gatell]

Lily, I think it’s fine to try to prevent it by persuasion and also be having good custody of consecrated hosts and to retrieve hosts that are stolen from churches and to make or enforce policies that make who receives a host be a more narrow list and to communicate that more effectively.

I just don’t believe in violence or going outside the law. So for example, if an unorthodox priest … some priests believe Jesus is not God as you know, some believe in open communion… gives a host to a non-Catholic and that non-Catholic walks out with the host in his mouth but decides he sees no point in completely consuming the host and happens to run across a pornographer who offers him money in exchange for the consecrated Host … and then he spits the host out and hands it to the pornographer and the pornographer makes a sacriligous movie with the host, then I am all for your making your opinions and feelings known to the pornographer, but I am also for respecting his freedom there since he obtained the host legally. It may shock you but there have been pornographic movies produced with consecrated hosts. I know of one; I haven’t seen it, but the description of what happens (if the Internet can be trusted) is probably disturbing to a traditional religious person. If you choose to find out more about it, google “Club Satan: The Witches Sabbath.” As long as you have the safe search feature on, no explicit images should come up. (This was a hypothetical thing I described earlier; I have no idea how the consecrated host(s) used in the movie were obtained; I assume they were obtained legally)

Hi LilyM:

Obviously the movie you mention contained, not Satanists, but well meaning people who don’t really believe all that hogwash about God, and evil and angels, etc. They were just showing what a harmless thing it is to desacrate such a Sacred item. They only use the term Satanist to “stir up the pot” or “get attention”. Or just for shock value, to show young people that it’s not really a big deal and all.

My obvious sarcasm aside, I wonder how many people are cultivated into actual devil worship by such intellectually accepted religions? Entry level Satanists may be on a need-to-know basis, only to find out much later (much like the new age) what actually lies behind it all.

Here is a humorous thought (maybe not so humorous); Two people stand in front of God at end of their lives, one explaining ot God why he belonged to a religion called Treeism, the worship of God in the form of a tree. That person could actually stand there with a **** eating face and admit his or her ignorance.

Then comes the Satanist, what else to say but; what were you thinking?

Victor

 

[LilyM]

fjjh, you have totally the wrong end of the stick.

Yes, Jesus said ‘give your cheek, give your cloak, lay down your life …’ but you are seriously warped if you think this gives us any right to give away the cheeks, the cloaks or the lives of other people - they simply aren’t ours to give.

I have no right to give YOUR cloak, or anyone else’s, away, only my own. I have no right to give them YOUR body to be violated or YOUR life as a sacrifice, I can only sacrifice my OWN body, my OWN life.

Now if you of your own free will choose to give them away, as Jesus did, and then enjoin me to respect your decision then I can do so. But that is not, as you seem to think, a free ticket to throw you to the dogs ever afterwards. I don’t have any right to assume, for example, that just because you once chose to give away your cloak, that I am free in future to give your property away to whoever wants it.

Neither do I have the right or the permission to hand over Jesus’ body to be violated, any more than the cemetery worker in my example would have a right or permission to hand my friend’s mother’s body.

His self-sacrifice translates into an injunction on us to sacrifice our OWN lives if need be - but not to give HIM up again for desecration. The example of saints such as Tarcisius who gave their lives up in defence of the Blessed Sacrament show us what the right thing is to do, and that is to defend the Body of Our Lord from desecration to the death if need be.

Now I’ve said all I have to say on how much violence I think would be appropriate in order to prevent sacrilege - I think murder, stabbing, shooting etc would be taking it too far.

As for whether lesser violence is justified - proportionate response, mate, proportionate response like I’ve said before. Violating a body is a very serious moral wrong, and a reasonable level of force would be justifiable to prevent its desecration. I’m sure you wouldn’t sit idly by, wringing your hands and chanting peace slogans, if someone were digging up your mother’s or father’s body in order to take it away and sell it, put it on display or otherwise desecrate it, now, would you?

 

[Nepenthe]

LilyM is quite right - although the somewhat - ambiguous and famous painting of VanDyck’s portrayal of St Martin deserves as much commentary as it has received, if not more.

It is very hard, the discipline of charity. And while I am no catholic, I do my very utmost to encourage and practice it,even though my tongue may seen a little harsh and dry to a few.

 

[Arnoagns]

Hello,

I have not read all of your posts yet, and there’s A LOT of them, but I’m just replying to tell you that I am here. Sorry it’s taking so long to reply but there are some home issues at the moment that I’m taking care of. I should be replying to all of your questions/posts tonight and I look forward to all of your responses.

P.S. Boy, that sure sounded canned didn’t it?

Sincerely,

Arnoagns

 

[Nepenthe]

No problem, dude, I said in one of those huge heaps of posts that you were likely swamped with personal, scholarly and family stuff right now - so take your sweet time!

 

[jfhh]

fjjh, you have totally the wrong end of the stick.

Yes, Jesus said ‘give your cheek, give your cloak, lay down your life …’ but you are seriously warped if you think this gives us any right to give away the cheeks, the cloaks or the lives of other people - they simply aren’t ours to give.

I have no right to give YOUR cloak, or anyone else’s, away, only my own. I have no right to give them YOUR body to be violated or YOUR life as a sacrifice, I can only sacrifice my OWN body, my OWN life.

Now if you of your own free will choose to give them away, as Jesus did, and then enjoin me to respect your decision then I can do so. But that is not, as you seem to think, a free ticket to throw you to the dogs ever afterwards. I don’t have any right to assume, for example, that just because you once chose to give away your cloak, that I am free in future to give your property away to whoever wants it.

Neither do I have the right or the permission to hand over Jesus’ body to be violated, any more than the cemetery worker in my example would have a right or permission to hand my friend’s mother’s body.

I understand what you are saying, Lily, but you miss something IMO. Jesus proposed this ideal so we can assume that he himself embraces it for his life forever; otherwise he would be like a hypocrite. So I agree with you in your general point, but in Jesus’ case it is different since he is the originator of this ideal (not requirement, ideal).

Now I’ve said all I have to say on how much violence I think would be appropriate in order to prevent sacrilege - I think murder, stabbing, shooting etc would be taking it too far.

As for whether lesser violence is justified - proportionate response, mate, proportionate response like I’ve said before. Violating a body is a very serious moral wrong, and a reasonable level of force would be justifiable to prevent its desecration. I’m sure you wouldn’t sit idly by, wringing your hands and chanting peace slogans, if someone were digging up your mother’s or father’s body in order to take it away and sell it, put it on display or otherwise desecrate it, now, would you?

It sounds like you favor things like punching. Your zeal is well zeal. Zeal can be dangerous as we know from the modern world. I hope you temper your zeal with the gentleness of a dove. Some in the OT did speak of zeal for God and his temple, and maybe that is not wrong. It’s not for me though. I don’t know of any women in the bible who are described as having that zeal, only men. Jesus, in Christian mythology (mythology doesn’t mean it isn’t true; I believe in a lot of it), ushered in an age of peace and mercy. The age of OT judgment had come to an end.

 

[fbl9]

Wow, I have a very serious desire to address your post sir, but it is completely off topic. Someone who is Catholic address this one so I don’t get accused of trying to lie again. >.<

fine then if you ain’t going to post pm your response ,please…