The Church is dying and will die

  • Thread starter Thread starter salival
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Wormwood’s fascinating reminder about the sheer weirdness of the human genome reminded me of a writing by Chesterton. I learned much about the human genome, espescially when they completed the mapping, but unfortunately I was dogmatically atheist at the time and didn’t even care to notice the glaring irregularities. Having just read G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” the other day, I recalled something he wrote that’s worth quoting at length:
If you leave off looking at books about beasts and men, if you begin to look at beasts and men then (if you have any humour or imagination, any sense of the frantic or the farcical) you will observe that the startling thing is not how like man is to the brutes, but how unlike he is. It is the monstrous scale of his divergence that requires an explanation. That man and brute are like is, in a sense, a truism; but that being so like they should then be so insanely unlike, that is the shock and the enigma. That an ape has hands is far less interesting to the philosopher than the fact that having hands he does next to nothing with them; does not play knuckle-bones or the violin; does not carve marble or carve mutton. People talk of barbaric architecture and debased art. But elephants do not build colossal temples of ivory even in a roccoco style; camels do not paint even bad pictures, though equipped with the material of many camel’s-hair brushes. Certain modern dreamers say that ants and bees have a society superior to ours. They have, indeed, a civilization; but that very truth only reminds us that it is an inferior civilization. Who ever found an ant-hill decorated with the statues of celebrated ants? Who has seen a bee-hive carved with the images of gorgeous queens of old? No; the chasm between man and other creatures may have a natural explanation, but it is a chasm. We talk of wild animals; but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals; following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type. All other animals are domestic animals; man alone is ever undomestic, either as a profligate or a monk. So that this first superficial reason for materialism is, if anything, a reason for its opposite; it is exactly where biology leaves off that all religion begins.
Click to expand...
I find it fascinating that the more we learn about science, the more we try to find atheistic explainations for things, the more the world throws it back in our faces. What’s even more fascinating is that, in this case, it’s WE that were thrown back in our faces by our own scientific research. It’s not proof of the Judeo-Christian concept of God, but it is a sign that what we feared would close of all possibility of our God is actually a startling indication that, at the very least, something as fantastic as our God is going on. Sure, we are only 1% different, genetically speaking, from a chimp, but it’s by precisely by 1% that humans defy all understanding of genetics.

This is why I can never bring myself to fear science. Quite simply, it’s been far, far too good to faith to simply set aside and ignore. As I’ve said before as it relates to medicine, science is the business of mapping out miracles; in this case it is literally true.
 
40.png
FCEGM:
The Church, since it is the Body of Christ, is not immune from the same treatment received by the Lord Jesus. The Church is the Incarnation extended into our time and place; just as the Lord suffered for our salvation, in His people He continues His salvific sacrifice. If you embrace this truth, you will experience great peace in the depths of your soul in the midst of attacks on Christ and His Church.
Click to expand...
very good answer. the defeat is only an appearance.
 
40.png
salival:
Well, this topic sure got active. But most of the responses you all have posted, are based on the promise that Jesus said that The Church would not die. But how can you be sure of this if everything around you says other wise?
Click to expand...
BECAUSE JESUS SAID IT - and I trust in Him.😉
 
The ‘image’ has taken over. The devil laughs at the Church, laughs at her teaching and will laugh at her next encyclical. The image must be fought with the image. Movies are the only hope for unity right at this moment in time. (Watch for Inland Empire in 2006.)
 
The gates of the nether world shall not prevail against us. Sorry.
We have our security.

You, on the other hand, are very insecure. Seek professional help.

Now, in response to your completely ridiculous claim, though the Church looks like it is in its most perilous and worst times, It is not.

It always seems worse when we are the ones to witness it. There have been more worse times for the Church.

It also seems that the Church is living in its worst times because we are living in the United States; and the Vatican no longer exercises effective control over the liberal bishops of the United States.

Liberalism is a sin. Moderenism is a sin. Islam is a sin. And sin never conquers Truth.
 
40.png
trth_skr:
I think in the USA and Europe, every other Church, as well as secular society saw this change.
Click to expand...
Well, I would say that the figures for the USA show conclusively that you are incorrect. Here’s why:
Let’s compare the number of divorces with the number of annulments in the USA.
Divorces in the USA
1930: 195, 961
1979: 1,179,000
1998: 1,135,000
Annulments given out by the Catholic Church:
1930: 9
1989: 61, 416.
The divorces have increased by a factor of about 6
The annulments in the RCC have increased over the same period by a factor of 6824, or more than one thousand times as much as the divorces in the USA at large.
Now did you say that the increase in annulments is due to the surrounding culture??
If so, then why has the number of annulments in
the RCC gone up by more than one thousand times more than the number of
divorces in the surrounding culture?
As far as I can see, the underlying reason for this is that the RCC has eased up on its rules and requirements to get an annulment, or to put it another way,
Catholic theologians have figured out a way to get around the doctrine of indissolubility of marriage by introducing the concept of easy to obtain annulments. That would be my personal opinion on the situation.
 
40.png
salival:
Also, wanted to add. Another thing is the theory of evolution. It completelly destroys the Adam and Eve along with Original Sin story and weakens, in fact completelly debunks the fundations of Catholicism.
Click to expand...
The bible is not a science text, and people who try to read it that way end up looking very foolish (and making Christianity look very foolish, unfortunately). But by the same token, the theory of evolution says absolutely nothing about whether humans have souls, and if so, when the first humans got the first human souls.

So there’s no conflict at all.
 
40.png
salival:
That is what you all continue to say, but how do you know this? How can you say that after seeing how everything is?
Click to expand...
What has brought about your despair? I’m sure you haven’t always felt this forlorn. What has changed in your life or your outlook to trigger this?
 
40.png
salival:
Well, this topic sure got active. But most of the responses you all have posted, are based on the promise that Jesus said that The Church would not die. But how can you be sure of this if everything around you says other wise?

I mean, Catholicism is God’s religion, you would think that it would be dominant, like maybe a 70 percent of the world or something, with only a few deviants. But it is not that, it is shrinking and on decline, so, why? How can God’s religion be in such a state?

I doesn’t makes any sense.
Click to expand...

Wasn’t the Founder of Christianity crucified 🙂 ?​

How could that happen to God’s Messiah ? That is what made the Jews “stumble”, what “scandalized” them - the Messiah was, allegedly, a crucified felon, the lowest of the very low; someone who was “hanged on a tree”, therefore, according to Deuteronomy 21.23, someone who was “accursed”.

The “Greeks” had a similar problem: “sons of god” did not end up being crucified - they always escaped the cross: but Jesus did not. So He could not be a “son of god” - let alone the unique Son of God, and Judge of all mankind.

IOW, by preaching Christ Crucified, St. Paul had a major credibility problem (1 Corinthians 1.21 ff.) - humanly speaking, neither group would believe any thing so blasphemous or so “unfitting”.

It makes perfect sense that the Church should be in trouble - Jesus was not spared betrayal, arrest, being flogged, being tried, the Cross, or death. He was not spared anything. That is what He went through: because He accepted the Will of His Father, and “was obedient to death, death on a cross”. That is how far God was prepared to go in bringing about our salvation - He has withheld nothing: not even the Son Whom He Loves.

That is why we can’t withhold anything; and why the Church can’t, and mustn’t. She has no pattern but the perfect love and perfect obedience of Christ - if she follows Christ all the way to Cross and beyond, then she is perfectly safe; it’s when she listens to the temptations of the devil, that she is in danger.

Why should the Church have a more comfortable time of it than Christ ? Is the Church greater than Christ ? Absolutely not. As those who follow Him are told by Him “to take up [the] cross daily, and follow” Him, how can the Church be exempted from doing so. That “prosperity theology” would be OK if we were still under the OT, before Christ - but we are not. So it is not. He preached “the good news of the Kingship of God” & and repentance. Not success; there is nothing very successful in being crucified. The only preaching of the “prosperity gospel” is in the temptations of Christ; it was the devil who set before Him the glory of “all the kingdoms of the earth”. They were a temptation, and so were the terms Jesus could gain them on. And they were a temptation because they were what the Messiah was promised - but Jesus has a different way of becoming Universal King. ##
 
40.png
salival:
And how is it recovering? With the novus ordo abuses going rampant? With a possible schism between the USA and Rome? With the covering up of paedophile acts? By the closing of different Churches and the supression and futur criminalization (look at canada) of Catholicism? It is happening in the USA too, it is just a matter of time.

I don’t see this recovery, all I see is decline and erosion, watering down of dogmas and message, etc. I am serious, The Church has never faced this sort of challenge before, with the media and mass communication being available to everyone and the freedom of the press and all media, it has opened a pandora’s box of conflicting opinions and claims against The Church which she cannot control, that is what is making people lose credibility in it.
Click to expand...

The Church had some horrible problems before the Council of Trent:​

  • bishops who entered their dioceses only when they died
  • clerics who farmed out benefices to the lower clergy
  • priestly illiteracy
  • grossly immoral Popes
  • Popes who were more like petty princelings than Successors of Peter or Christian pastors
  • clergy with mistresses or wives - very widespread
  • clergy with illegitimate children from priests to Popes
  • Abbeys held by non-resident abbots
  • “Creaming off” of the revenues of dioceses and abbeys to the benefit of rulers
  • trafficking in indulgences
  • selling of relics (many of them false)
  • far too many priests of wholly unpriestly character
  • far too many priests, with not enough to do
  • absence of religious life in many religious houses
  • and so on. There are plenty of problems today, but at least prostitutes don’t use the Mass as an opportunity to tout for business; and at least bishops are obliged to reside in their dioceses, instead of holding abbacies, bishoprics, and parishes purely for the cash. And at least no diocese has been vacant simply because Rome could not get round to supplying it with a bishop; as happened in Iceland. Priests & bishops may have children on the side, but they are at least expected to behave better than that.
Europe had a lot of trouble with Manichaeism; especially in Italy and Southern France (where they were known as “Cathari”; “Pure Ones”). And, a while after 1300, from the Ottoman Turks. Not to mention the Magyars, Saracens, Vikings, and a few others. The Church “can’t control” most things - because there is only One God, and she isn’t Him 🙂

Schisms, war, turbulence of every kind, are anything but new. If anything, the Church in the USA has been astonishingly well-off.

Did I mention the Reformation ? ##
Im not a Jack Chick fan, I don’t even know who that is.
Click to expand...
 
40.png
salival:
That is what you all continue to say, but how do you know this? How can you say that after seeing how everything is?
Click to expand...

That’s easy 🙂 - because “we walk by faith, and not by sight”.​

Appearances do not matter

Outward and visible well being does not matter

How we feel, does not matter.

That we should trust God to be faithful to His promises, and to make good His word, matters vastly.

If - as - the Church is His, won’t He care far more for her than we ever could ? As Our Lord said: “Do not be afraid”. The Church is always going through storms - but they are never so severe that He cannot say to them “Be still !” Just as He does in the Gospel. He is, in the most literal sense, “in the same boat” as us. He is with His Church because He has sent His Spirit upon her. And since He has not gone back on Pentecost, we may reasonably suppose His Spirit is still with the Church 😃 ##
As far as saints go, where are them? When even the top of the top inside The Church are corrupt and do not follow what they teach, you’ll have a hard time finding any saints.
Click to expand...
To quote Abraham: “God will provide” (Genesis 22). ##
 
Good posts ‘Gottle of Geer’,

Now Salival, after all this good advice/information, what do you say?
Please don’t say you’re still not convinced that the church won’t die!

About time you replied to some of these good people…

God bless,
Noel.
 
AH HA! Yes…I mean no…I mean…let me go back and reread your post
Click to expand...
😃
Ghosty:
It’s not proof of the Judeo-Christian concept of God, but it is a sign that what we feared would close of all possibility of our God is actually a startling indication that, at the very least, something as fantastic as our God is going on. Sure, we are only 1% different, genetically speaking, from a chimp, but it’s by precisely by 1% that humans defy all understanding of genetics.
Click to expand...
Yes exactly! I found that research fascinating, I usually only bring it up in the face of atheism. I think it is extremely presumtious for atheist to assume they KNOW there is no God, when indeed if you look at nature it becomes hard to doubt at least the possibility. I agree fully that science seems to lead towards God. Not only did we magically aquire the most powerful 1% of a genome, but we did it independant of nature. Seriously human beings are the only species that did not fit their hypothetical mold. Could apes or chimps be “the clay of the earth” from which we were formed? Maybe, but if you check the summerian version humans were created when the gods put their “image” onto the wildmen in Africa. If you’ve ever read The Epic of Gilgamesh, you know that the “wildmen” were described something like neanderthals that existed before humans; they ate plants straight out of the ground with their mouths like the animals did. This even further crushes the atheistic science view because, those primitive hominids were the only “proof” they had for a human evolutionary ladder. Looking at facts like this or the “mitochondrial” eve (who was found in Africa) only reinforce the ancient texts, not discredit them. I think the original poster was incorrect, I think atheism is going to be killed by science and knowledge, not religion. If you need more proof of God in nature, think about the complexity of plants, or circulation, or creative thought. Granted there are powerful forces of nature that push evolution along sometimes at a rapid pace, but it is only to adapt for survival or change to fill a new niche. Homo Sapiens evolved in ways that do not fit that criteria. We “evolved” organs we do not need, skin that is fragile, minds that are fragile, formal speech, etc. As for the new Niche, we are the only species with no natural niche. If we are a product of PURE evolution we seem to have evolved beyond nature itself. If we are products of PURE evolution I’ll eat my hat!! 😃

To the OP: Hang in there and wait, science will be completely different in 50 years…people in 1200C.E. thought they had this science thing down…looked with pity on past scientists…and they were completely wrong about most things, as it turns out it is germs and not imbalance “humors” that make you sick. Just because a profound scientific discovery occurs, doesn’t mean it is yet FULLY understood. Science can only prove what can be proven, and even then it may not be understood ( penicillin had saved millions before it was understood how it worked). Don’t let psuedo-science sway you either. Things like “history” are based only on surviving fragments of the past…for example, the first biblical cities were once thought to be only myth, because they couldn’t be located. Within the last 200 years almost every city from OT has been unearthed. The same history that tells you it was a myth, also tells you it was real…both were learned as fact in their times…see the problem with this?
 
Wormwood said:
😃 To the OP: Hang in there and wait, science will be completely different in 50 years?
Click to expand...

“OP”? Other People? Older Persons? Orthopedic Patients?
 
The church have problems but everytime had problems, but the message of the church, the christian message is eternal and don´t die never. You are Peter.
In addition, we have very good news, but we only see bad news. Be not afraid. Pray to God.
 
Sherlock: “OP”? Other People? Older Persons? Orthopedic Patients?
Click to expand...
Original poster…sorry. 😉
original players, optimistic pessimists, and O.P.P. should also listen up though.
 
God promised the church would be around for the whole life of the world. He never said it would be easy. The devil will continue to try his best to corrupt priests, nuns, believers, and the whole church. He will also try to convince us that it is hopeless to fight it. Thankfully, he can’t actually end the church, because it’s in God’s hands! We will have struggles and many will fall, but many will fight back and be saved!

And an optimistic thought: usually the devil works the hardest to make us discouraged when we’re succeeding the most! 👍
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top