I don't get it...if you are a non-Catholic Christian, then why aren't you a Catholic Christian?

[1beleevr]

I live in Africa and watch EWTN often. Through EWTN I have learned much about the Catholic Church. I have also seen many programmes with many converts from Protestantism - Marcus Grodi, Thomas Howard, Msg Stuart Swetland, Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins (revert - was protestant Minister for a time), Kevin O’Brien (was atheist) and so on - so many wonderful people who are devoted to the Church and who contribute enormously. Isn’t it interesting how the layman’s role has changed in the Church? Wonderful! Wonderful! The program The Journey Home which is about converts to the CC (many ex protestant ministers) features each week and has done so for the past 12 years or more.

The Holy Spirit is doing a great job. Yes we have our problems and I believe that the purge which is taking place after the abuse scandal will do us a lot of good.

The OP chose an interesting topic and look the thread has grown to over 1000 postings. I hope that some seeds have been planted. I want everybody to know the Catholic Church as I do and learn about the fullness of truth.

God bless all
Cinette

Yes, the Holy Spirit is doing awesome work in me! Thank You, Jesus for sending Him to me! I will continue to learn more about the cc and remain noncatholic!

 

[PRmerger]

will continue to learn more about the cc and remain noncatholic!

So what have you learned about the CC since being on the CAFs? (yes, yes, I know that you’re really disenchanted with many Catholics here…understood and acknowledged.)

I’d like to know if anything you thought about Catholicism has been changed since coming here. Be honest, my dear friend! Isn’t there anything about Catholicism (again, not Catholics, but Catholicism) that you’ve been impressed with since coming here?

 

[larkin31]

Funny you should mention stop signs! A lady ran one on Tuesday, and almost hitme; smiled at me and went on her merry way! Stop signs are put up to tell us to be aware that other traffic is coming, and that we should stop, for safety’s sake. Do we have to stop? Well apparently some people don’t always believe so. God puts stop signs in our lives, and sometimes we blow right through them So, whether you do a “rolling” stop, or flat out run it; it is your choice. Tghe cop ain buyin’ it!

Have you noticed those cops and ambulances, too? In my town, they aren’t legally obligated to obey them the same way the rest of us folks do. I gotta get me one of them flashy little lights for the top of my truck so I can do all those rolling pass-throughs, too! Even the plow-trucks in winter don’t have to stop! (but they are like gods around here in snow-country, so maybe that is why…)

 

[PRmerger]

Have you noticed those cops and ambulances, too? In my town, they aren’t legally obligated to obey them the same way the rest of us folks do. I gotta get me one of them flashy little lights for the top of my truck so I can do all those rolling pass-throughs, too! Even the plow-trucks in winter don’t have to stop! (but they are like gods around here in snow-country, so maybe that is why…)

Have you noticed that they actually do slow down and observe what that sign says?

I have never seen an EMS vehicle just plow through an intersection!

Incidentally, I was not proclaiming that it is a moral absolute to stop at a stop sign. The analogy was provided to show you that even if someone disobeys the law, it does not negate the valid use of it. Similarly, even if someone disobeys one’s conscience, it does not negate its authority.

Abusus non tollit usum. (A very basic philosophical principle, BTW).

 

[Cinette]

Yes, the Holy Spirit is doing awesome work in me! Thank You, Jesus for sending Him to me! I will continue to learn more about the cc and remain noncatholic!

*LOL! Don’t be surprised if the Holy Spirit has other ideas. He has been known to take people on journeys they never dreamed of.

God bless
Cinette*

 

[Cinette]

Have you noticed those cops and ambulances, too? In my town, they aren’t legally obligated to obey them the same way the rest of us folks do. I gotta get me one of them flashy little lights for the top of my truck so I can do all those rolling pass-throughs, too! Even the plow-trucks in winter don’t have to stop! (but they are like gods around here in snow-country, so maybe that is why…)

*This is off topic I know but I just HAVE to share this with you all!

The other day we stopped at traffic lights and a white convertible Porsche stopped next to us - music was blarring and the driver had a glass of champagne in his hand!!! Of course this was to show off in front of his girl friend. The registration was WHATNOW - This is Africa my friend!

There was a yellow arrow in the right hand lane indicating that the driver had to turn right but he and his champagne carried on straight ahead!!

Cinette*

 

[DeusVult09]

I live in Africa and watch EWTN often. Through EWTN I have learned much about the Catholic Church. I have also seen many programmes with many converts from Protestantism - Marcus Grodi, Thomas Howard, Msg Stuart Swetland, Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins (revert - was protestant Minister for a time), Kevin O’Brien (was atheist) and so on - so many wonderful people who are devoted to the Church and who contribute enormously. Isn’t it interesting how the layman’s role has changed in the Church? Wonderful! Wonderful! The program The Journey Home which is about converts to the CC (many ex protestant ministers) features each week and has done so for the past 12 years or more.

The Holy Spirit is doing a great job. Yes we have our problems and I believe that the purge which is taking place after the abuse scandal will do us a lot of good.

The OP chose an interesting topic and look the thread has grown to over 1000 postings. I hope that some seeds have been planted. I want everybody to know the Catholic Church as I do and learn about the fullness of truth.

God bless all
Cinette

Yes many protestants are converting to Catholicism. I used to be a Pentecostal but I had some bad experience in my church that was very overboard. They were so bad that I kind of became an agnostic and hated hearing about Jesus and the bible. If you brought up the subject I would walk into another room or shout obscenities I disliked it so much. Then I had a supernatural experience that I could not explain and it led me back. I have-not officially converted to Catholicism yet as I want to study it a lot more but I consider myself catholic as I believe basic catholic doctrine. My family was catholic but converted to Protestantism before i was born so its kind of like im coming home.

I just posted that list of alleged crimes of the church because an ex-Pentecostal I know their reasons for not being catholic well and almost all of them have no basis in reality but are propaganda which demonstrate a lack of understanding of catholic theology.

by the way where abouts in africa are you from?

 

[benedictus2]

Do you have any evidence for this, or any argument?

Hmmm, I thought that was very easily self - evident.

Okay here is a quick one.

Let us say that you are a 12th century man before the helliocentric universe was common knowledge.

Now, you would have believed that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and that the sun revolved around the earth.

THAT perception of truth is limited ( erroneous even) but the truth - that the earth revolves around the sun, well, that is never limited. It simply is truth. And that perception has as you know proved to be transient - for now we know what the truth is.

You see, truth cannot be described in those terms. Truth is truth. What is limited and transient is our grasp of it.

 

[benedictus2]

*LOL! Its just like saying “I won’t marry Mary because her siblings Tom, Doris and Harry are obnoxious Catholics!” LOL!

Imagine we all go to Heaven and see a whole bunch of obnoxious Catholics there! Are we going to tell St Peter we’d rather not stay! :nope::extrahappy::crying:*

No I won’t but I’ll make sure that I sit on the other end of the dining table

 

[benedictus2]

Thank you for answering directly. I won’t criticize your faith, but I will disagree with your conclusion. God killed everything but a pair in the flood. Children under 3 years old were killed. In Gommorrah, children under 3 were killed. I thought that the RCC considered those children innocent. This means that genocide by God is justified simply because God did it.

Aah but you see, you are putting your piddly brain on the same par with God.

Now I don’t know whether you’ve ever killed an insect, but before you killed it, did you ever try to explain to it why you were killing it. Would your action have made sense to an insect. Or even a dog. Would your explanations have made any difference to them. And here you are expecting to comprehend the mind of God?

That is hard for some people to stomach because of the logical weakness in the argument. Faith, yes. Logic, no.

No there is no logical weakness. Perhaps from the piddly human brains logic it is weak. But then of course it will be because it is a piddly human brain, the brain of a creature trying to understand the brain of the One who created it.

Hmmm, wouldn’t that be like Windows 7 trying to understand it’s programmers ?

 

[benedictus2]

This reminds me of a dialogue I had here on the CAFs with a Protestant who vehemently objected to the fact that there are now over 40,000 Christian denominations. (I offered this statistic as a way to dismiss the paradigm "The Holy Spirit is all you need to lead you to truth when you read the Bible)

He kept proclaiming: There are NOT 40,000 denominations.

Ok. I was willing to discuss what he thought the actual number was, provided he gave a source.

He just kept proclaiming: There are NOT 40,000 denominations

Ok. Then how many are there, and how do you know?

And if there were only 1 whose views differ from the Catholic teaching, it would still be one too many for the question remains, which one is being guided by the Holy Spirit? And how do we know for a fact?

 

[benedictus2]

I don’t have to. You asserted that it IS. The onus is on you. I don’t claim that conscience is always binding, that one “must” follow it. I even already noted how Jesus tells us to follow authority, and render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. I agree, for the most part. Duty and lawfulness can trump conscience. I might even hurt someone in order to feed myself, despite the fact that it bother’s my conscience. But my need for survival trumps my conscience.

How can one call conscience binding when it is contradicted and violated so many times each day?

The problem with your argument is your approach to it.

You see when we say that conscience is binding, it means that there are repercussions when you do violate it. But since it is not like civil law, you do not get to see the repercussions in the here and now. And being an agnostic repercussion that are not in the here and now will not count to you so obviously you will not think it is binding.

But take for example murder. The law prohibiting murder is binding. And because it is part of the law of the country, therefore when you violate it, you suffer the consequences (if you get caught ). That is all that binding means. It will not necessarily stop you from commiting a murder but it will be a deterent and you will certainly pay for it.

And the fact that it is binding is the reason why we say it has been violated. Otherwise, there would not really be a violation, would there?.

 

[benedictus2]

Were any of God’s killings of many many persons in the Old Testament “good”?

Is a gardener who pulls out weeds a good gardener?

 

[benedictus2]

Well, hello Sister benedictus; long time no hear!

Hi there petal, long time no hear indeed! Have been too busy of late so gave up CAF for a while.

And I am not wrong. You assume to know how and what I feel, when I interact with people of different faiths!

Nope I am not assuming. I am merely making an illustration. So humour me here. Tell me, do you think what a pagan believes is on par with what you believe? If you meet a pagan, hindu, etc, would you try to convert them to Christianity? If so, why would you do that? Wouldn’t that be because you believe that your faith is superior to theirs?

Would really like you to answer those questions.

I have had heated and sometimes negative debates with members of other faiths also, but it seems to me that the catholics are the most vocal and uncharitable

Yes, some of us can be quite passionate at times. But that is neither here nor there. As I have stated before. Just concentrate on the arguments, and forget about the attitude. That in the end does not matter. The only thing that matters is the Truth.

My friend George, a catholic co-worker, said GD it three(3) times during a debate about legalism; and about five F-bombs! And the negative attitudes do not shake my faith, rather they stretch it, growing me by how I deal with it.

Again, forget about the attitude, just concentrate on the points being raised.

And I know that the Earth revolves around the Sun. just as we revolve,(or should) around the SON!

Very well said! :clapping::clapping: You know what, even though I have been away from CAF I have thought about you and your dedication to Jesus, quite a lot. And I must say I really admire that.

What brought that about was a conversation I had with another Catholic who said she does not want to wear a cross or anything that will identify her as a Christian and I thought my! she is almost embarassed by it. And this whole thing started because inspite of the errors in their belief, I really admire the passion of those so called “Bible bashers” who risk ridicule for the sake of Christ.

The past few months I have been reading up on New Age and how it has been steadily encroaching into our parishes and into Catholic consciousness that I suddenly realized that I have more in common with Protestants who truly believe and love the Lord than these so called Catholics who have allowed their beliefs to be corrupted by Buddhist and Hindu influences. I mean, we have priests and nuns whose beliefs are more pantheistic than theistic.

And I thought of you and your ministry and your un-equivocal position on the Lordship of Christ and I thought now that is really something. So yes, kudos to you indeed.

And Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to me to guide me into Truth, and He does!

Well not quite. The promise of the guidance of the Holy Spirit is for the Church. But it does not mean that He abandons those outside of her. I think He continues to guide them and that continued guidance is to lead them back home to His one true Church.

Listen, I deal with difficult people everyday, and get paid to do it. Doesn’t mean I have to go to church and get blasted! Although if I were catholic, they wouldn’t have the attitude, right?

Sadly, the attitude will remain. If one has an attitude, the attitude will remain regardless of their faith affiliation. That is why I keep saying, forget about the attitude. That is a fact of life. Just continue seeking after the truth. Concentrate on the arguments.

 

[benedictus2]

When you say we are conceived in sin, you speak the truth! Does the WE include ALL born after the fall?

If you start reading ALL as meaning ALL then one cannot make exceptions because ALL allows for no exceptions (unless Paul has stated ALL except Christ which is not in the text at all)

Since Christ was born after the fall and is also a human being (albeit truly God at the same time), then by reading ALL as encompassing all born after the fall, then by reasoning that would mean also Christ.

That is why you cannot use this single line in the Bible as a proof text for your argument against the Immaculate Conception.

Notice too the way it is written. He did not say all was “conceived in sin” but that all “have sinnned”, that is, a personal commission of sin.

But how can that be when we know that babies who have died have not committed any sin even though were conceived in sin?

 

[benedictus2]

Yes, the Holy Spirit is doing awesome work in me! Thank You, Jesus for sending Him to me! I will continue to learn more about the cc and remain noncatholic!

If you continue to learn more about the Catholic Church and her true teachings, (not some rubbish that the likes of Jack Chick put out there), and do not resist the leading of the Holy Spirit, then my brother in Christ, your non-catholic days are numbered.

Again, forget about the attitudes. You get those with attitude along with those who don’t. It’s called diversity.

 

[benedictus2]

*This is off topic I know but I just HAVE to share this with you all!

The other day we stopped at traffic lights and a white convertible Porsche stopped next to us - music was blarring and the driver had a glass of champagne in his hand!!! Of course this was to show off in front of his girl friend. The registration was WHATNOW - This is Africa my friend!

There was a yellow arrow in the right hand lane indicating that the driver had to turn right but he and his champagne carried on straight ahead!!

Cinette*

That brings to mind a bumper sticker I saw many years ago. “Drive like hell and soon you’ll be there!”

 

[larkin31]

Is a gardener who pulls out weeds a good gardener?

My point was the killing of pregnant women and their fetuses in those mass slaughters (I consider them virtually indiscriminate slaughters, where God kills everyone alive in a city because of the actions of the adults). Are the fetuses of sinners “weeds” worthy of destruction?

 

[PRmerger]

My point was the killing of pregnant women and their fetuses in those mass slaughters (I consider them virtually indiscriminate slaughters, where God kills everyone alive in a city because of the actions of the adults). Are the fetuses of sinners “weeds” worthy of destruction?

When God takes fetuses today, do you object to that? When God takes an innocent 11 yr old home with him after a 2 yr battle with leukemia, do you object to that? When God takes an i82 yr old nun’s life, do you object to that?

God, the source of life, gives and he takes. When he takes is up to him–fetus, 11 yr old, 82 yr old–it’s his choice.

 

[benedictus2]

My point was the killing of pregnant women and their fetuses in those mass slaughters (I consider them virtually indiscriminate slaughters, where God kills everyone alive in a city because of the actions of the adults). Are the fetuses of sinners “weeds” worthy of destruction?

Well helloo, thousands die in car crashes, accidents, disease, etc, etc. In the end God still is the one who decides when that life will end? How is that in anyway different?

He has every right to do as He pleases to His creation. If you were a programmer and you decide to terminate a program because you feel it is not working according to your plans, could that program complain at being terminated?

You know there is such a thing as Author’s rights. God is the great Author. He has all the rights.

As your question “Are the fetuses of sinners “weeds” worthy of destruction?”. Answer: Yes. They must be because God alone knows whether this or that “weed” ought to be destroyed.

You made an interesting choice of words there : ***worthy ***of destruction. Hmmm, you must think then that to be destroyed is a great priviledge that one needs to be worthy of.