Outside the Church there is no salvation

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LOOK,
yES, ‘REALLY.’
sEE WHAT THE bIBLE READS. ePH.2:8,-9 ROM.10:9-10
mY PC IS ABOUT TO CRASH. tHIS IS HOW its typing

GOD BLESS,
JEAN
Huh? You’re responding to a post from almost a month ago (neglecting the numerous messages since then?), and the format of your post is highly questionable.

What, exactly, are you sharing?
 
*From my original post: *
Quote:
I was born and raised Catholic and went through the rituals/sacraments up through confirmation as a child.

*None of it ever meant anything more to me than family/social rituals I grew up with. *
So yes, I was definitely just going through the motions.

Originally Posted by anon5216
forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif

I may have been told what to believe, but I never actually bought into it. So again, since I never had Catholic faith, how could I possibly have lost it.
*IOW you were disobedient? *
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anon:
Curious response.
*Belief has to follow rational inquiry and honest conclusion. *
You would have to abandon all rational thought and all honesty to simply obey and ‘believe’ what you are told.
Paul said

[Rom 1:]
18* For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20* Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse;

How then can one deny the sacraments and Church that He established.?
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anon:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming an honest, rational person would never conclude CC claims were true - rational and honest conclusions are not guaranteed accurate.
You said
  • beilief should follow reason (actually anon, faith is a gift. and nobody is denied if the ask)
  • a rational person could conclude the CC claims are true.
Therefore, since God is the one who gives faith, and started the Catholic Church, and made specific claims/promises to His Church, and He gurantees all He says is accurate, because no untruth is in Him, and He will NOT lead anyone astray,
what part of accurate do you not believe?
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anon:
I don’t believe having magical incantations said over one automatically does anything, and therefore have not ‘responsibility’ to act in accordance with those incantations.
Sacraments aren’t magic. But it is true that clergy MUST be validly ordained or they have zero power to effect certain sacraments
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anon:
I can agree the apostles were eyewitnesses of Jesus.
But I believe the experience of Jesus was way over their heads and their response to that experience and teachings based on that experience were not uncolored by their spiritual ignorance - and therefore degenerated into myth eventually.
Paul said it clearly in the quote above

In the end, i.e. when one dies, no one has any excuse. God doesn’t sandbag anyone.

And as I previously quoted from Peter, Peter anticipated those who would come along and charge the Catholic Faith with myths. And as he says, those people have already fallen and put their election in jeopardy.
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anon:
*He only anticipated people would come along and claim that the person of Jesus was a myth. *
Nice try.

Jesus confirmed by command, we are to obey all that He taught. and that those who wouldn’t hear His apostles wouldn’t hear Jesus or the one who sent Him.
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anon:
*I do believe there was a historical Jesus of great spiritual stature, *
Even the demons know He’s God
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anon:
but the quote you presented doesn’t counter my prior statement.
I think it does.
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anon:
The CC requires belief in all their claims to be Catholic, does it not?
True
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anon:
The CC itself does not allow me entry by that requirement.
The Church is not a buffet line.
 
Hi, SteveB,

I only disagreed with you on one item … :D
Nice try.
In my opinion, it is both a sad and totally inadequate try. For whatever reason - anon is still not ‘buying in’ to what the Church founded by Jesus Christ on Peter has been trying to tell (not sell) him.

Your other comments are right on target. 👍

God bless
 
*IOW you were disobedient? *
No. Where do get this from anyway?
I obeyed my parents as a child, attending all the Church related things asked of me.

You keep giving the “disobedient” response to my statement of never having believed CC claims.
What does belief have to do with obedience?

Do you seriously go around informing your friends and colleagues of CC doctrines and dogmas and then tell them they are being “disobedient” if they don’t believe CC claims are Truth?

Paul said
[Rom 1:]
18* For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20* Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse;
This quote, if anything, implies that Truth as been clearly perceived since the creation. CC approved scripture came about millions of years later.
CC texts can therefore not be the Truth referred to. They can be an imperfect human attempt at describing it however.

How then can one deny the sacraments and Church that He established.?
Not believing the texts chosen by the CC are the actual undistorted “Word of God”, why should I believe any indirect claims of the CC that are based on the assumption of bible inerrancy?

You said
  • beilief should follow reason (actually anon, faith is a gift. and nobody is denied if the ask)
  • a rational person could conclude the CC claims are true.
Therefore, since God is the one who gives faith, and started the Catholic Church, and made specific claims/promises to His Church, and He gurantees all He says is accurate, because no untruth is in Him, and He will NOT lead anyone astray,
what part of accurate do you not believe?
The CC came up with the collection of human authored texts it calls the Bible. Any and all claims made in these texts are human authored.
Where is any proof that God actually made any of these claims attributed to Him by various human authors?

Sacraments aren’t magic. But it is true that clergy MUST be validly ordained or they have zero power to effect certain sacraments
Magic as a noun is defined in my dictionary as “the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.”
As an adjective: “used in magic or working by magic; having or apparently having supernatural powers.”
– These are the primary definitions, not some rare, obscure, alternate usage.

Surely you’re not claiming that there is nothing supernatural going on in what the CC calls sacraments?

So the question is not magic vs. no magic; but rather effective magic vs. pretend magic.
I can believe someone like Padre Pio would be effective.
Others who have been merely defined as priests I doubt anything happens at all other than a possible placebo effect.
Yes, I know the CC has defined that idea as heresy, but of course, what else would they claim?

Paul said it clearly in the quote above

In the end, i.e. when one dies, no one has any excuse. God doesn’t sandbag anyone.
Paul, of course, was just Paul - not God. Paul believed what he believed and he may have said and written what was alleged he said and wrote.
That doesn’t change my original comment at all.

And as I previously quoted from Peter, Peter anticipated those who would come along and charge the Catholic Faith with myths. And as he says, those people have already fallen and put their election in jeopardy.
Your previous quote from Peter - back in post #330 was this:
. 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
 
Hi, Anon5216,

I have read your last post. And, then I went back and read some of your pevious posts.

These posts are really very sad. If taken at face value, e.g., a young child simply rejecting the Catholic faith as taught by, unless otherwise indicated, competent teachers, is just beyond the scope of small child. Unless there is some type of mental pathology, young school age children focus on pleasing their parents and other adults seen as authority figures. Now, pre-teens and teens are a different story - but, at least as I read it, this rejection was reported happening at an early age.

What I did find to be present, however, is a bitterness that simply goes beyond something that someone finds disagreeable. From my experience, people reject the Catholic faith usually for one main reason: their behavior is not in conformity with the stated rules of the Catholic Faith. The vast majority of the folks I know were Catholic and are divorced and now remarried. It was apparently easier to find a church that allowed the remarriage in this manner outside of the CC then to modify their behavior.

While understandable - and the associated outpouring of negative statements about the CC to enable one to feel better - the issue, to be convincing, is one honesty and integrity.

For example, I do not believe that the CC is the Church of Christ, because:
(just fill in the blank). Furthermore, I believe the ________ church is the True Churhch found by Christ because: (just fill in the blank). This type of reasoning is conspicuous by its absence. Ultimately that is what we will all be tested on for our Final Exam.

God bless
 
I found most of the answers on here at least naive and some bordering on disengenuous. Perhaps this is because most folks are lax in self understanding and therefore have little perspective on a broader picture of how and why things happen, particularly in the realm of interior life. Perhaps it is so because they have learned to substitute an aquired system of religious dogmatism and have used it in the place of genuine self inquiry. This is easy to do, and is excusable on many grounds, but it is less thatn useless in dealing with such as Anon, myself, or any number of folks who have “left” the Church. We didn’t leave, necessarily; we went to a different and more inclusive understanding. It is also possible that many, in the natural course of events, simply ran head on into the limitations inherent in any belief system and had to break off in order to maintain integrity.

It reminds me of an LDS person who said “I also think that some people leave the church they were raised in because they find truth elsewhere.” If you are a truth seeker beyond the habituation of cradleism, this might ring true. Otherwise it is useless and will be refuted through habit. You might even think that someone leaving the Church is “sad,” when in fact it could be the best next step in maturation. I would be sad to see the state of schools if no one graduated past fifth grade.

For my part I left after strenuous effort to discover the meaning of a mystical experience I had. That experience was the “capper” on a series that I had had throughout my life. When approaching clerics over the next few years, my sincere questions were dismissed with opinions ranging from calling them halucinations to that they were the product of hormonal functions. I was also repeatedly told to pray and have faith. I had been and was continuing to do that to the pont of, well, too much. It wasn’t a case the was susceptible to a “faith” answer. No respectful psychological, logical, spiritual, scriptural, or metaphysical explanation was forthcoming from any quarter I had access to, including literature of the Church.

At that time, with the resources I had available in a large urban parrish and archdiocese, I found nothing that was fitting to the experience I had had without the aid of halucinagenics and perhaps with the aid of long years of fervent prayer. I went outside the Church to see if there was anything that matched my experience. There was.

Not only did this newly discoverd paradigm fit, it fit a whole gamut of considerations I didn’t think were associated with my perceptions. For over forty five years now, what I found outside the Church has unfolded as an increasingly deep and profound structural and practical system for engaging life and doing good at all the levels of my involvement with it, from interior practice to public service.

Had I stayed in the Church I would have perhaps gone mad, or at least become very repressed and closed, as seemed evident from my course before my happy discovery. I will say that after all this time, and within the last five yeras, I have seen why the Church didn’t meet my plea for knowledge. It has the necessary knowledge, but doesn’t know it, or won’t admit it. If it doesn’t know it, that’s because it has made something symbolic and meant as an exemplary map, into something unattainable. I sense and feel that the original teaching of Jesus, the aspect of it that would have been directly pertinent to my needs, has become hidden, lost, or both. It is why Mark 4:33,34 is in my signature. I further feel that, despite such teaching as would have helped me is invaluable in some circumstances, it is not necessary or crucial for most of the faithful. That is particularly true of some of the above posters. But it was in my case, and it has taken this long for me to even see its traces in the modern Church.

I feel sorry that I had to go “outside.” It is traumatic to discover that the system that you had lived and proselytized has failed you in you hour of need. But, fortunately, God is not Catholic, God is God, not our thoughts about God, or our thoughts about the Teaching of the Son of God. So I feel like I won the lottery, in fact, at least in this regard. And as for salvation, IMHO, that is one of the most sadly misundestood concepts in the Church as it sands.

So three off the top reasons for my leaving are:
  1. Incompetent response to sincere questioning in esoteric cases.
  2. Lack of teaching distributed over all aspects of human experience.
  3. Failure to recognize and teach root Understanding relative to the Nature of God and Man.

 
I feel sorry that I had to go "outside." It is traumatic to discover that the system that you had lived and proselytized has failed you in you hour of need. But, fortunately, God is not Catholic, God is God, not our thoughts about God, or our thoughts about the Teaching of the Son of God. So I feel like I won the lottery, in fact, at least in this regard. And as for salvation, IMHO, that is one of the most sadly misundestood concepts in the Church as it sands.
I feel sorry that you had to arrive at your current notion of what you describe as a progressive spiritual evolution through the compulsions of trauma and lack of conviction in Christian faith. In one sense these factors can be both imagined internal factors or misperceived external factors just as well as they could be real factors in either context. Without some standard of orthodoxy except “restlessness” how can one have any idea if one has “arrived” to attain the nexus of their spiritual nirvana (since you don’t believe in the idea of Christian salvation)? Since you are not Christian I can’t use the term theosis/beatitude here - which is our crowning epoch - but given by God not by settled feeling nor by sudden self acclamation.

You may personally believe that God is not Catholic and make such sterile and universally neutral characterizations of the Divine as “God is God”. But you can’t use that nondescript and pragmatically useless description of God while universally projecting the speculation that a “God who is God” excludes the universalism of truth and faith and Catholicism without losing some credibility. Nope - I don’t think so - that’s personal projection outside your own boundaries. You might as well just say “truth is truth whatever it is” or as Pilot said “what is truth” even as he faced it to ask it what it was for what good it does you or I or anyone else. I may be wrong but on one hand you seem to suggest God (and truth) can not be known yet you know its not Catholicism. What is your standard?

As for salvation, you seem very sure that everyone else or most others have it wrong. Have you been saved and are here to tell us all about what it really is or are you here to tell us what you know it not to be? Again - by what standard?
So three off the top reasons for my leaving are:
  1. Incompetent response to sincere questioning in esoteric cases.
  2. Lack of teaching distributed over all aspects of human experience.
  3. Failure to recognize and teach root Understanding relative to the Nature of God and Man.

With regard to the above let me ask:
  1. Incompetent against what standard or system of judgement? Why do you feel this? Is it because no one is able to give you the answers that completely satisfy you and help you resolve the mysteries that came out of your own extraordinary experiences?
*Our hearts are restless, until they rest in Thee. – St. Augustine *
  1. Should we be giving teachings over the full range of human experience? Even to include the details of spiritual depravity and the methodologies of evil (as Satanism attempts to canonize)? Or are we sufficient to just teach in generalities in some areas on the undesirable experiences to dissuade folks from taking evil paths that lead to eternal unhappiness. Why not focus predominantly in the quadrant of hope that might permit us to rendezvous with our higest and best objective purpose (rather than its opposite)? Why teach on the negative experiences beyond the general? These can only defocus our attention to a fear based fixation to the exclusion of the positive. It seems to me too that you believe that you have a good taxonomy of categories of human experience that are not being addressed by Christianity and other “systems”. Do you feel alienated and excluded by current teachings?
3)The Nature of God you have summed up as simply “God is God” . Of course Christianity has a lot more to say about it than this for we know him as: unchanging/immutable, just, merciful, loving, loyal, benevolent, omniscient, omnipresent, holy, forgiving, providential (orders all things efficiently to an objective purpose), Prime Mover/Creator, Majestic etc. As well, we know that His creatures bear some resemblance to Him - even though we are fallen but see death as the mean by which we can escape our fallen nature and attain a new elevated nature superior to original design IF we cooperate with God’s grace in ways that He instructs us. We know too that many will fail and some others will succeed (just as most caterpillars die in the cocoon and never mature through the final stages of metamorphosis to become butterflies to attain their highest and best natural objective end). Are you suggesting that you have unique and superior insights that exceed what Christ taught us and know of a better root understanding? If so, how did you come into this superior insight and why you and not Paul, or Peter, or Jesus? A lot of men in history have made such claims but none have ever come back from the grave to prove what they say except Jesus.

Back to OP - am I properly summarizing your belief that you think that not only is salvation (whatever it really means) possible outside of The Church but “true” salvation is only in spite of the wrong ideas that The Church has?

One more question - what is your idea of salvation and am I correct in assuming that it is not what Christians conceptualize as hell?

James
 
Goodness! That got a log into your fire, didn’t it? (It is so easy to misread your handle as “CentralFlames”)

Most of what you said is so inextricable from your belief system that I will simply answer your summational questions. My compliments on your verbal pyrotechnics, though!

"Back to OP - am I properly summarizing your belief that you think that not only is salvation (whatever it really means) possible outside of The Church but “true” salvation is only in spite of the wrong ideas that The Church has?

Yes.

One more question - what is your idea of salvation and am I correct in assuming that it is not what Christians conceptualize as hell?

That is two questions. Mine isn’t an idea, though one can have ideas about it. Hell is the situation you now experience in some degree as the sense that you and I are so different. Only your thoughts separate us. If you can experience how that is actually a functioning reality, you will cease to be so unnecessarily argumentative about my statement.
 
Goodness! That got a log into your fire, didn’t it? (It is so easy to misread your handle as “CentralFlames”)

Most of what you said is so inextricable from your belief system that I will simply answer your summational questions. My compliments on your verbal pyrotechnics, though!

"Back to OP - am I properly summarizing your belief that you think that not only is salvation (whatever it really means) possible outside of The Church but “true” salvation is only in spite of the wrong ideas that The Church has?

Yes.

One more question - what is your idea of salvation and am I correct in assuming that it is not what Christians conceptualize as hell?

That is two questions. Mine isn’t an idea, though one can have ideas about it. Hell is the situation you now experience in some degree as the sense that you and I are so different. Only your thoughts separate us. If you can experience how that is actually a functioning reality, you will cease to be so unnecessarily argumentative about my statement.
You are over-reading my tone completely. I am a very objective sort of person - my tone is almost completely neutral - so I can only imagine that the place you are now at is in a state of judgement and discernment where you have a compass needle that is fluctuating wildly looking for any objective pole that will settle your needle on true North. I asked you questions to get better insight into what it is that unsettles your bearings not to flame you. I think I see that you might have some perception problems that are a good part of what is causing you your current anxieties with religion and perhaps your relationships with some others as well.

So you reject The Church and believe in a do-it-yourself sort of salvation system. What do you need saving from - The Church or your own restlessness in general? Who told you that you need to be saved?

James
 
CentralFLJames,

*"…what it is that unsettles your bearings…"

"I think I see that you might have some perception problems that are a good part of what is causing you your current anxieties with religion and perhaps your relationships with some others as well.

So you reject The Church and believe in a do-it-yourself sort of salvation system. What do you need saving from - The Church or your own restlessness in general? Who told you that you need to be saved?"*

I don’t believe, except in one other case, that I have ever seen such arrogant, dismissive, presumptive, self congratulating, pompous, pedantic, and bigoted misreadings of my posts. But thank you for your interest.

Blessings and Best,

BD

P.S. Thanks for the quote from Aquinas. It is perfectly accurate, given the vagaries of translation.
 
Detales:
Given the moderators earlier warning, I would take advantage of the 20 minute window and edit the above post.
 
Thanks for your concern, Just, however, on re-reading the moderator’s post I left my comment stand, as it is corrective to the interpretation of my post, and not uncharitable, but simply an accurate assessment of the interpretation of my intent on the part of CFJ.
 
That’s kind of what I am talking about.

Did King Henry VIII know?
At some point he might have known, but would he have left if he knew?
Yes, he certainly knew. His “Defense of the Faith” for which he was given the title "Defensor Fide: by the Pope, is very clear on that point. I have a copy of it at home in my library. 🙂
Martin Luther is another example.
He might have known, but would he have left if he knew?
With him, it’s less clear, since it seems as if he thought the Church was an organization of human beings. Still, he knew that he was breaking with the tradition of the Apostles, even if he thought the Apostles had come up with it by themselves, without God’s inspiration.
A modern day example is Fr. Cutie.
He might have known as well, but would he have left if he knew?
It’s difficult to understand how he would not have known, since he was a priest.
The problem I am having is I don’t understand how someone could leave in the state of knowing.
I think it’s possible that they come to a place where they think that maybe they had been wrong, before - they somehow become convinced that by departing from the Church, they have become “more enlightened.”

The question of whether they deliberately put their souls in jeopardy, or whether it happened by accident, is not really for us to judge, although they themselves would certainly be able to know, by making an honest examination of conscience.
1 John 2:19
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
I think what’s clear here is that, how ever it may have happened. St. John doesn’t think that these people are on the road to Heaven.
 
Yes, he certainly knew. His “Defense of the Faith” for which he was given the title "Defensor Fide: by the Pope, is very clear on that point. I have a copy of it at home in my library. 🙂

With him, it’s less clear, since it seems as if he thought the Church was an organization of human beings. Still, he knew that he was breaking with the tradition of the Apostles, even if he thought the Apostles had come up with it by themselves, without God’s inspiration.

It’s difficult to understand how he would not have known, since he was a priest.

I think it’s possible that they come to a place where they think that maybe they had been wrong, before - they somehow become convinced that by departing from the Church, they have become “more enlightened.”

The question of whether they deliberately put their souls in jeopardy, or whether it happened by accident, is not really for us to judge, although they themselves would certainly be able to know, by making an honest examination of conscience.

I think what’s clear here is that, how ever it may have happened. St. John doesn’t think that these people are on the road to Heaven.
Well, there is knowing and there is knowing.

What most people (regardless of religion or spiritual tradition) “know” about God,
is the equivalent of a man “knowing” his wife’s name and a textual description of what she looks like - all the while living in a completely different country.

If there is to be the fruit of a marriage in terms of begetting children, this type of “knowing” is obviously entirely inadequate.

Relating this to knowing spiritual Truth and manifesting the fruits thereof - multiply by orders of magnitude.
 
Yes, I have to agree with Anon. We are here on fora that clearly demonstrate that faith and belief suffice for many as actual knowledge. There are mixed with that some degrees and kinds of intellectual, or “book” knowledge. But in Borneo, they say that “All knowledge is theoretical until it is in the muscles.” That is a sort of knowledge that includes but transcends tho other sorts of knowledge in the way that there is a difference between an apprentice tradesman and a Master Craftsman who does work largely by “feel.” And there is yet another knowledge that is mystical in nature, that can yet be misinterpreted by filtering it through the lower forms in the attempt to incorporate or explain it. Very few in this last category, Mystical knowledge, are clear in their understanding of the significance of their experience. This highest knowledge is called Knowledge by Identity, or in the Church, one of its names is “Mystical Union.” That last may even be understood to some degree as Salvation.
 
steve b:
*IOW you were disobedient? *
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anon:
You keep giving the “disobedient” response to my statement of never having believed CC claims.
tqualey I think, assessed this well. Young children don’t have the capacity to do what you say you did.
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anon:
What does belief have to do with obedience?
The first time Paul speaks of faith to the the Church of Rome, [Rm 1] he compliments them for their obedience of faith. And he closes the book of Romans with obedience of faith. There is only one faith and we are to be obedient to it.
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anon:
Magic as a noun is defined in my dictionary as “the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.”
As an adjective: “used in magic or working by magic; having or apparently having supernatural powers.”
– These are the primary definitions, not some rare, obscure, alternate usage.

Surely you’re not claiming that there is nothing supernatural going on in what the CC calls sacraments?

So the question is not magic vs. no magic; but rather effective magic vs. pretend magic.
I can believe someone like Padre Pio would be effective.
Others who have been merely defined as priests I doubt anything happens at all other than a possible placebo effect.
Yes, I know the CC has defined that idea as heresy, but of course, what else would they claim?
as I previously quoted from Peter, Peter anticipated those who would come along and charge the Catholic Faith with myths. And as he says, those people have already fallen and put their election in jeopardy.

Re: Padre Pio, don’t guess, you should read about him.
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anon:
Your previous quote from Peter - back in post #330 was this:
Quote:
. 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

That clearly refers to the reality of the apostles having lived and interacted with Jesus, and that they experienced things with Jesus that were miraculous to the apostles.
Peter doesn’t say any more than that - in the quote you presented in any case.
It refers to the reality that what is being taught verbally AND by writing from the apostles to the Catholic Church is NOT myth but the truth. And in the end, no one who has been given this truth can deny it without severe consequences to their soul.
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anon:
Also, Peter was just Peter - not God.
God directly gave Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. God told Peter directly, What he binds here is bound in heaven and whatever he looses here is loosed in heaven. :cool:
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anon:
Peter believed what he believed and he may have said and written what was alleged he said and wrote.
I gotta tell you friend, I hope you’re just having a bad day and what you’ve been saying here is NOT what you really think and believe
 
…I have [n]ever seen such arrogant, dismissive, presumptive, self congratulating, pompous, pedantic, and bigoted misreadings of my posts. But thank you for your interest.

Blessings and Best,

BD
Detales your terse opprobrium here given in response to my Socratic method of asking questions about your beliefs is completely over-the-top hysterical, unwarranted and utterly unjust. You were not making yourself very clear and I was trying to get you to be more concrete. But then to close it all off with a “blessings and bests” puts you in the front seat of the roller coaster of hyperbole my friend. Sadly I must say this re-casts your prior dialog in a completely different colour and kind of light. I am sorry but now must agree with your advisors and councilors – you have a certain proclivity for extremes to say it mildly Detales. I think I know a little more about you now though. I bet you like roller-coaster rides and like to close your eyes just so you can’t see from the way the rail is ordered what is coming next? Am I right? You don’t like predictability and any kind of rule do you?

Are you even aware that you are a person of extreme polar self-contradiction? That’s OK – everyone has their own “peculiarities”. A broken compass is no better than a functioning one if its driver is a contrarian and prefers South-West to North. 😛 It all probably explains why you relish such a wide range of dichotomies and contradictory self-opinions all within one post. I don’t mean anything negative or positive here. But using your own vernacular “you are what you are” – but its only God’s job to judge for better or worse. Not everyone is content with the concept of black and white as a taste and preference – but do you even like the traditional salt and pepper seasonings on the dinner table or is that even too orthodox for you?

OK, I think we all “got it”. Why didn’t you just come right out and say it? You abhor orthodoxy and love heterodoxy and love to hate those who are so narrow minded that they can’t agree with your world. Yes?

You made some very unkind & unwarranted personal statements above and I want you to note that I did not reciprocate in kind. An apology is in order – but I really don’t except it from someone like you who has come into his own and now thinks himself above the teachings of the church and the prophets and most of his fellowman. But I must say here as a matter of self-respect that you can not escape the same things you subscribe to me. I simply asked you questions which in your own complaint against The Church you “could not answer competently – and didn’t even try”. Pity – you don’t lead by example. You had the right to ignore the questions that may have been too hard for you to admit (as you did nearly all of them) or those you did not know how to answer without exposing some flaws in your thinking. But you can’t ever earn the moral high ground or gain any sympathy by ignoring tough questions and insulting the person questioning. That only makes you look bitter and contemptuous. Your sincerity is very suspect now.

If you want to write an autobiography on your own religious beliefs this is not the place to develop it and get free critique. Nor is it the place to come to teach Catholics that their faith is wrong and that you have a better way. No sir – all those prior charges against me just fall in your own lap by your own failure to clarify your beliefs. Why pretend to be some new spiritually enlightened and elevated person who is now above us mere human peons in the Catholic Church when you can’t even defend your own beliefs?

After your vituperative outburst against my “sincere questioning” I have organized for your convenience some of your recent judgmental comments. This is an opportunity to rephrase some of them to avoid being seen as hypocritical.
Select Detale’s Maxims:
  • Incompetent response to sincere questioning in esoteric cases.
  • I found most of the answers on here at least naive and some bordering on disingenuous
  • Perhaps this is because most folks are lax in self understanding and therefore have little perspective on a broader picture
  • Perhaps it is so because they have learned to substitute an acquired [sp] system of religious dogmatism and have used it in the place of genuine self inquiry
  • This is easy to do, and is excusable on many grounds, but it is less thatn [sp] useless in dealing with such as Anon, myself [ed: higher ordered creatures?]
  • Had I stayed in the Church I would have **perhaps gone mad **[ed: 😃 :BitingTongue: ]
  • But, fortunately, God is not Catholic, God is God, not our thoughts about God, or our thoughts about the Teaching of the Son of God.
  • And as for salvation, IMHO, that is one of the most sadly misunderstood concepts in the Church
  • have ever seen such arrogant, dismissive, presumptive, self congratulating, pompous, pedantic, and bigoted misreadings of my posts. But thank you for your interest.
  • Blessings and Best,
  • Thanks for the quote from Aquinas. It is perfectly accurate, given the vagaries of translation. :confused:
Friendly advise – if you can’t control your emotions better and engage others with two-way rational discourse and defend you beliefs by actually answering simple questions without getting all defensive I think you would do better off seeking some counseling or unsubscribing… I’d also like to remind you that this is not a forum for attacking Catholicism or for venting your personal frustrations on others who just don’t understand how you can believe what you do without even being able to answer simple questions on what that fuzzy belief really is.

Finally can you answer my repeated questions and tell al us narrow minded people how you got to the top of the mountain of wisdom and what standard you use to gauge Truth?

Pax,
James
 
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