This thread is especially interesting, but I plan to drop out of it after this posting because I need to pay attention to more pressing matters. I am hopeful that God will somehow use my musings to spur on creative and less dogmatic thinking and help lead toward religious understanding among at least a few critical readers.
1. I respect the beliefs of most people. The ones that trouble me are those that are 'fundamentalist', whether Catholic or Protestant. By that I mean those belief systems that are adamant that they alone have the truth and all the rest are in serious error.
2. Most Catholics and Protestants I know may embrace generally the views advanced by their respective traditions, but they also are rather open-minded, have doubts, and do not consider other viewpoints as wickedly heretical. Most of them 'agree to disagree' and live together amicably in mutual respect.
3. Most mainline Protestants (Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, UCC, etc.) that I know do not believe that their particular sect is the 'one true church'. For about 100 years they have worked together in such groups as the World Council of Churches and National Council of Churches. Members easily may join one denomination in Omaha, and quite another when they move to Chicago. They often pick a church on the basis of location, preaching, Sunday School facilities, friendliness, etc., and doctrine may be secondary. There is, as everyone knows, a major schism between 'big tent' Protestant churches that place less emphasis upon doctrine and more evangelical Protestant churches which are usually more dogmatic. After Vatican II priests rushed to join local clergy associations and Protestants became 'separated brothers and sisters' overnight. God bless John XXIII!
4. Ironically, while mainline churches generally are further away from Catholicism on various social issues, and sometimes even theological ones, these churches are more likely to have a friendlier attitude toward Catholicism. This arises from their less emphasis upon doctrinal conformity. "Thank and let think" typifies many of them. They often have more appreciation of Catholic concern for the poor and the sick, and work closely with Catholics in local soup kitchens and other humanitarian projects.
5, Freedom of inquiry means freedom of inquiry. I remember when I did my undergraduate thesis on St. Thomas Aquinas decades ago. I had to get permission of a priest to obtain certain 'caged' books if they were available at all in Catholic university libraries where I did extensive rsearch. Fortunately, Vatican II seems to have changed this. But freedom of inquiry is limited when the church's position is "you must believe everything the church teaches:!" How free is that? By the way, Aquinas stated that heretics should never be executed by the church. No, the church was to turn them over to the civil authorities so that the state would execute them! Real freedom, right? And separation of church and state, too? When I ran across this my admiration for Aquinas took a sharp tumble.
6. I predicted that I would be accused of manufacturing my own god by responders. That seems to be the principal retort to my dissent. Ad hominum - sp? Charge the other party with egotism, pride, hauteur, cockiness, placing personal views over the infallible teaching of the Magisterium, etc. I commend independent thinkers for using their God-given brains. I'm sure that's what the good Lord had in mind when he gave us the ability to think.
6. Now, if you want to believe that God ordered Joshua to murder all the inhabitants of cities like Jericho and Ai or that he commanded Saul to murder every last Amalekite, that's your privilege. But then I would feel that we worship different gods. Mine is a God of love, of compassion, or mercy, of forgiveness, the God revealed to us by Christ. I do not rejoice when the crowds shout "Saul has killed his thousands but David has killed his ten thousands!" I consider such shouts as approval of outrageous atrocities thought to be done in obedience to God. Do you really believe that Christ would approve of such atrocities? Have you ever read the Sermon on the Mount? Or, even the Ten Commandments? This blind literalism when it comes to scripture has been the cause of so much violence over the years. It is similar to wild Muslim extremists who grab on to verses in the Koran to justify their murders! "Allah is great!" What an insult to our God who must weep as we go about slaughtering one another. "Blessed are the peacemakers!"
7. I'm interested in theology and have arrived at some views of my own. But I'm painfully aware that in this universe of perhaps a million (or billion) solar systems we may not know all that much. I walk by faith and not by knowledge, My trust is in God and not in a church or a book or a creed. Christ is my guide and inspiration, and when the lawyer asked him how to obtain eternal life he ignored theological language entirely and said love God and one another That is the heart of the Gospel and I try to live by it.
8. Religion should be a bridge and not a barrier. For centuries religion has been at the root of so much injustice, oppression, hatred, and violence. Think of those Catholic explorers who tortured Indians who resisted the Gospel. And those Protestant Puritans who thought that they alone were God's chosen. Today fundamentalist Muslims are causing so much pain and violence. And we could go on.
God bless all of his childrem - of every creed, color and country. And may God forgive all those who are infected by the grave sin of religious, racial or any other form of bigotry.
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