There is no 'right' religion

  • Thread starter Thread starter minkymurph
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
minkymurph said:
We also need to acknowledge mistakes
Click to expand...
I’m not sure what mistakes you are referring to but it could also be said that perhaps those mistakes would never have taken place had the individuals been obedient to Christ and His Church.
 
MarkThompson said:
This is the part that fails logically. When you say, “I believe that X,” do you mean that you believe that X, or just that X is “true for me” in some sort of nonspecified way? If you mean that you actually believe it, then what can you make of someone who doesn’t believe it? It either happened or it didn’t – it’s either true or false – so a person who believes or disbelieves X is either right or wrong.
Click to expand...
Yes I do believe X holds true for me. What I make of someone who doesn’t believe it is there are reasons they don’t believe it and while I may not agree, I can understand why they don’t believe and it does not mean they have rejected God and have no desire to follow Christ. However, I can understand why people have certain objections. Understanding why someone has certain objections does not mean you think they are right. It just means you can understand were they are coming from and I think it is important to understand objections and were someone else is coming from to engage in productive dialogue and not just have an argument that one party wins. Passing on faith is not about winning arguments or demanding obedience.
MarkThompson said:
If you think that facts about Jesus, salvation, the Sacraments, and so on are actual facts rather than opinions or something (and I’m not how one could make sense out of saying that whether Christ rose from the dead is a matter of opinion), then there is a “right” and a “wrong” view about them. Likewise, because the Earth can only be shaped in one way, then if the Earth is flat, round-Earthism is wrong, and if it’s round, flat-Earthism is wrong. Two incompatible theories about something cannot both be right, unless it’s just a make-believe topic with no genuine fact-of-the-matter (was Sherlock Holmes gay?) or a matter of opinion (was Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot the better detective?). Likewise, if Shiva exists, then Catholicism is wrong; and if not, then Hinduism is wrong. Any other result must rely on the view that there’s no real fact-of-the-matter about Shiva in the first place, and this is all basically just a game.
Click to expand...
In my opinion, belief is not fact. That is to say, it cannot be proven by empirical evidence. The shape of the earth can be. Christ rising from the dead cannot. It involves faith and choice. If we could prove everything we believe, we would have no need of faith and we would not need to make a choice. We do not accept the law of gravity through faith and choice. The resurrection of Christ cannot be verified in the same way.
MarkThompson said:
I sense a bit of weariness and exasperation in your posts. That fits with the theory you put forth, in which we just throw up our hands and say, “All right already, we won’t call anybody right or wrong, we’ll just all have our own beliefs; we’ll agree to disagree.” That is a useful rule to help keep conversation among friends and family harmonious, but it is not ultimately viable as a belief system of its own. My suggestion is that you try and devote the time you spend thinking about religion, for the near future at least, to thinking about things you like and enjoy about your own religion, and stop spending so much time thinking about other people’s religions. I’m betting you will find that to be a healthier use of your spiritual resources.
Click to expand...
Ok, now you’ve got me. Yes, I would admit to being a people pleaser, ‘We won’t argue we’ll agree to differ’ because I do believe in taking the easy way out when there is nothing to achieve. Yes, I do spend a lot of time thinking, ‘can I make Catholicism more appealing to those who don’t believe.’ Probably a mistake as I have found sometimes you do just need to stick to your guns. A lot of my aquaintences are atheists and I would admit to my faith is sometimes too secular because I would prefer to find what I can agree on with someone rather than argue about what we don’t agree on. One aquaintance said to me recently he couldn’t believe, he is an atheist who professes to accept nothing that is not supported by hard evidence, I as an educated person who though scientifically believed in God. He asked me why I believed in God and I asked him why he wanted to know? He only wanted to beat what I said into the ground so what’s the point? Go be an atheist and lobby MP’s to pass a law preventing people from putting pictures of Jesus on Christmas cards if it rocks your socks. I am who I am, I believe what I believe, love me or loathe me for it, your choice. However, I had to be honest with him. We cannot deny that religion is easily exploited as a means of social control and religion does have it’s dark side. We would appear naive if we did not acknowledge that. I don’t believe that everyone who professes belief in God has a desire to look after my best interests, or anyone else’s.
 
jam070406 said:
Too authoritarian?? :eek:

I think you’ve been listening too much to your atheist friends that you admire so much. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Come on, I didn’t say I admired them! I just think if they have a valid point we can’t just ignore it and hide behind ‘we are the true church.’

Are we perfect? If we are at fault, we are at fault.
 
jam070406 said:
I’m not sure what mistakes you are referring to but it could also be said that perhaps those mistakes would never have taken place had the individuals been obedient to Christ and His Church.
Click to expand...
Ok I’ll explain. At one time the Church said people who committed suicide went to hell. The Church would not say that now because the Church is older and wiser. Yes you could say it was not a mistake, we just did not have full understanding. At what point can we say we now have full understanding on this issue?

The Church is not always right about everything. If it was, we have nothing more to learn about God. That does not mean Christ did not institute the Church and all it’s teachings are wrong. It means we learned something about compassion. When the adultress was thrown at Jesus feet, he did not say adultery was now ok. But we learned a deeper meaning of forgiveness.
 
Barbkw said:
It doesn’t matter what type of Catholic (trad. or modern) you are so long as you’re continually converting toward holiness in the practice of the Commandments, the use of the Sacraments and in particular - closeness to Jesus.

You’ve seemed to have placed yourself inside of some imaginary wheel that you’ve called Catholicism.

I’d suggest jumping off the wheel, and orienting yourself toward the receiving of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Is the True Presence difficult for you?
Click to expand...
Do you mean Real Presence? Transubstantiation? No, that’s not difficult. I believe in transubstantion. However I wouldn’t attempt to explain how it physically happens. I’m just happy to believe it does.
 
Edward_H said:
Does this mean then that there is no - none - wrong religion?
Click to expand...
I suppose it’s a hard thing to explain. There are things that are true, and things that are false. To me, true transcends simply ‘being right’ and false transcends simply ‘being wrong.’

I don’t see Catholicism as simply ‘being right.’ Jesus did not institute the Church and the Sacraments to make humans ‘right.’ He instituted them to bring us to God, for salvation, to lead fulfilling lives and many other reasons. There are many things Protestant denominations believe, such as the Incarnation, that are true. What we disagree on is interpretation and understanding. I believe Catholicism takes the believer into a divine dimension other denominations don’t reach for. Sort of, ‘so far but no farther.’ This does not make what they believe ‘wrong’ but rather, lacking.

There are things which as Christians we have would have to say we don’t believe are true rather than wrong. There are also human opinions which may be valid, but not necessarily true. Does that make sense?
 
mdgspencer said:
I’m not sure if the opening poster believes in the Bible or not, but if so, perhaps this will throw some light on the issue raised. One time Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman. The Samaritans followed a different religion than Judaism. He said to her, speaking kindly then so she did not take offense, “you worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews”(John 4:22). That is, he told her that people with her religion do not really know God.
Click to expand...
Yep, I could go with that. Lots of people have a love for God and/or Christian values, but don’t really know God or his purpose for them.

Being Catholic does not guarantee this.
 
minkymurph said:
Yes I do believe X holds true for me. What I make of someone who doesn’t believe it is there are reasons they don’t believe it and while I may not agree, I can understand why they don’t believe and it does not mean they have rejected God and have no desire to follow Christ. However, I can understand why people have certain objections. Understanding why someone has certain objections does not mean you think they are right. It just means you can understand were they are coming from and I think it is important to understand objections and were someone else is coming from to engage in productive dialogue and not just have an argument that one party wins. Passing on faith is not about winning arguments or demanding obedience.
Click to expand...
I agree it is valuable to understand where people are coming from. Everything you say in this paragraph makes sense, and most people who are not Catholics (e.g., someone in China in 1100) have not made some sort of conscious decision to reject Jesus. However–
In my opinion, belief is not fact. That is to say, it cannot be proven by empirical evidence. The shape of the earth can be. Christ rising from the dead cannot. It involves faith and choice. If we could prove everything we believe, we would have no need of faith and we would not need to make a choice. We do not accept the law of gravity through faith and choice. The resurrection of Christ cannot be verified in the same way.
Click to expand...
What you’re describing here sounds like a version of extreme relativism, in which facts about God and religion are not “real” facts, they are just true “for me” or “for you” inasmuch as we have faith in them. They are fake facts. We create God by sheer force of our own wills in believing in him, and if we all stopped believing in God and forgot about him completely, then he would no longer exist. So Jesus exists for me, and Shiva exists for a Hindu; and if I converted to Hinduism then Shiva would exist for me too.

Well, what does that get me, exactly. If God is a creation of my own will and faith, then (1) did he create the universe countless ages before I was born?, and (2) how the heck is he going to save me and give me eternal life after I die? I can’t do either of those thing personally, so how could one of my mental constructs do it?

Verificationism in this context is nonsense. True, if something cannot be verified for the time being, then I cannot say “I know for a fact you’re wrong, and I’ll prove it.” Was Alexander the Great gay? Some people say yes, some people say no. Without a time machine we’ll doubtless never know. But the fact that we cannot prove it doesn’t mean that he must have been both gay and straight any more than it means could neither have been gay nor straight. The fact that we can’t prove his sexuality has absolutely no bearing on the fact of his sexuality.

The same applies, in the first place, for various historical claims that Christianity makes, like the fact that Jesus Christ was conceived of a virgin, walked around Judea and taught, met with the disciples and said “This is my body, this is my blood,” was crucified, died, and was buried, and then rose on the third day and passed through a closed door to meet with the disciples again. Those are all historical claims; they either happened or they didn’t. With a time machine, maybe you could go check for yourself, just like you could check on Alexander the Great’s sexuality, on whether Homer was really blind, and on whether the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith and gave him some golden tablets. Those claims are verifiable in the time-machine sense (like a claim about a distant galaxy may be verifiable in the warp-drive sense), and generally unverifiable in the real sense.

In the second place, non-historical claims that religion makes can be verifiable. You might have to die to verify them, though. If you and your atheist friend have heart attacks at the same moment and show up at the Pearly Gates together, that will be your big chance to say “I told you so.” The fact that, while on Earth, you could not offer scientific evidence of the existence of Heaven turns out to have had no bearing at all on the question of whether Heaven existed all along. It did not force Heaven not not-exist, or to only exist “for” those people who chose to believe in it.
 
MarkThompson said:
What you’re describing here sounds like a version of extreme relativism, in which facts about God and religion are not “real” facts, they are just true “for me” or “for you” inasmuch as we have faith in them. They are fake facts. We create God by sheer force of our own wills in believing in him, and if we all stopped believing in God and forgot about him completely, then he would no longer exist. So Jesus exists for me, and Shiva exists for a Hindu; and if I converted to Hinduism then Shiva would exist for me too.
Click to expand...
I am not an extreme relativist. I will retract anything that makes me sound like one! I am just saying that we cannot prove our beliefs in the same manner we can prove the circumference of a circle equals pie r squared. Faith is not designed that way and I think we should accept that. That does not mean what we believe is a fake fact. Just because something cannot be proven in the manner the circumference of a circle can does make it false. It is perfectly feasible that something which cannot be proven is still true.
MarkThompson said:
In the second place, non-historical claims that religion makes can be verifiable. You might have to die to verify them, though. If you and your atheist friend have heart attacks at the same moment and show up at the Pearly Gates together, that will be your big chance to say “I told you so.” The fact that, while on Earth, you could not offer scientific evidence of the existence of Heaven turns out to have had no bearing at all on the question of whether Heaven existed all along. It did not force Heaven not not-exist, or to only exist “for” those people who chose to believe in it.
Click to expand...
I would not entirely agree with you concerning historical evidence. The same facts can be portrayed in a variety of ways. Historical evidence can also biased and inaccurate. However, I have said to my atheist friend I’m quids in. He asked me how I would feel if I died and found there was no God. I said I wouldn’t know any different cos I’d be dead. What if he dies and finds there is a God?
 
minkymurph said:
I am not an extreme relativist. I will retract anything that makes me sound like one! I am just saying that we cannot prove our beliefs in the same manner we can prove the circumference of a circle equals pie r squared. Faith is not designed that way and I think we should accept that. That does not mean what we believe is a fake fact. Just because something cannot be proven in the manner the circumference of a circle can does make it false. It is perfectly feasible that something which cannot be proven is still true.
Click to expand...
Okay, so far so good. While I was typing I missed your posts about how “true and false transcends right and wrong.” I guess most people use the terms in the ordinary, straightforward sense in which a person who says “I believe that X” is right if X is true, and wrong if X is false. Some things are neither true nor false (Sherlock Holmes was gay; that woman’s dress isn’t really pink, it’s more like coral), but other things (Homer was blind; God created the universe) are either true or false. Most people would say that if an atheist believes God didn’t create the universe, and if in fact God did create the universe, then the atheist was wrong. I guess you would say he was not wrong, although the content of his belief was false? I don’t really see the point in that kind of linguistic game.

If the point is just to avoid having to come to the conclusion that the atheist is blameworthy (“in the wrong”) for holding the “wrong” belief (because he was raised by atheist parents, he was raised in an atheist society, etc.), then it is simpler to say that he is wrong in his belief but not blameworthy in this case (and explain why; it’s a question for moral philosophy) than to say that he was not “wrong” at all.
 
minkymurph said:
Ok I’ll explain. At one time the Church said people who committed suicide went to hell. The Church would not say that now because the Church is older and wiser. Yes you could say it was not a mistake, we just did not have full understanding. At what point can we say we now have full understanding on this issue?

The Church is not always right about everything. If it was, we have nothing more to learn about God. That does not mean Christ did not institute the Church and all it’s teachings are wrong. It means we learned something about compassion. When the adultress was thrown at Jesus feet, he did not say adultery was now ok. But we learned a deeper meaning of forgiveness.
Click to expand...
I don’t think the Church claims to have all the answers, yet. I think I read that in the Catechesim. There is a difference between dogma and Divine Revelation. For example, only recently was it made dogma that Mary was Assumed into Heaven, body and soul. Pope Pius XII decreed that, I believe. Does that mean prior to 1950 the Church thought Mary wasn’t Assumed into Heaven? No, it does not, only now it is dogma thus Truth. If a pope or council speaks infallibly then it is God speaking. If not then it is guidance.

Maybe you should speak to a priest about your concerns.
 
minkymurph said:
I have been through a lot of questioning in the process of becoming Catholic, and a lot of questioning on becoming Catholic. I now have a theory. I don’t believe any religion is ‘right.’ There is no such thing as the ‘right’ religion. Why am I Catholic? I believe Christ was the Incarnate God, I believe he rose body and soul to heaven, I believe he somehow comes to us in the seven sacraments of the Church but I can’t provide irrevocable proof as to how he does it. I am not a creationist, I accept evolution. I don’t believe this changes the belief God created us. I accept historical criticism because again, it doesn’t change anything, it just gives us greater understanding of the Catholic faith. I refuse to be pigeon holed. I am not a moderneist, I am not a traditionalist. I am Catholic.

Why am I posting? I don’t like organised religion. I have certain affection for atheists as a consequence. My eldest child recently received his first Holy Communion. Who was there? My friend who is an atheist. Not because it was a great religious experience. He came because he is my friend and like an uncle to my kids. Their Godparents were too busy to come. I hear time and time again on traditionalist forums about obedience and ‘we are the true Church.’ Can any traditionalists out there understand if someone causes you to loose faith, they are more guilty than the person who looses faith and it’s not all about unquestioning obedience? I believe the Pope has a unique role in guiding the Church. Is he always right? I don’t think so. Does that mean I don’t believe what the Catholic Church teaches? No. Does it not take more faith to say, ‘I’m not sure but this is what I believe?’

I have not come on this forum to criticize traditionalists. I know nothing of the Church prior to Vatican II and I have no idea what it has been like to deal with the changes and controversies. I have come on this forum to ask traditionalists, can they understand what it is like to completely loose faith in organised religion but not God? Can you understand why I think people who cause someone to loose faith because of their lack of compassion, understanding and love is more guilty than the person who loosed faith in organised religion?
Click to expand...
Your atheist friend is blessed with passion, but still lost. The others are blessed by the chuch but lack passion since that is the way they are wired, but not lost. However, they would pray for passion as I do as well. I covet passion. Sometimes I feel it but rarely. We recently learned that Mother Teresa herself was completely devoid of passion, did not feel the presence of Christ in her soul or life. The only way she could get even remotely close to feeling the passion of Christ was to work among the lepers in India. She said only there, with these people she could see the face of Christ. Hang in there Mick! Prayin’ for ya!
 
OurLadyPerpHelp said:
Right again. The one established by Jesus Christ, a.k.a. God.
Click to expand...
I doubt that today’s Roman Catholic Church has more than a nominal relationship with the original Church that Christ intended to create, as much as its present-day management wants us to believe otherwise.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top