What is this all about?

[DeniseNY]

For us non-meat eaters abstaining from somethiing else would be good.

Then abstain from something else if you want to. Why the need to call the Catholic faith stupid and weird because you choose not to eat meat?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If I’m not mistaken, this OP does it a lot.

You’re correct Denise. This OP has created many threads starting out by naming some practice that he doesn’t understand, doesn’t agree with, or doesn’t like. He then proceeds to denigrate the practice by calling it “weird” or worse, and then asks why everybody doesn’t do exactly what he thinks is best instead. I try to be patient with these kinds of posts but it gets difficult after a while when someone constantly starts threads basically saying, “Catholics do this weird thing, I don’t agree, why doesn’t everybody do it my own way instead?” There seems to be zero effort to understand or empathize with others.

 

[Irishmom2]

I can’t understand why someone that is not Catholic yet, and clearly does not have a grasp of what Catholicism is, would come on and insult a religion either. Ask a question yes, but same the personal views until you understand what you are “objecting to.”

 

[stpurl]

I don’t know how old you are (It’s my experience that the majority of people under age 35 were raised in an atmosphere of ‘question everything’ to the point of never actually accepting ANY answer because one could always always say ,'but WHHHYYYYY"; as well, due to the use of things like Smartphones they often lack recognition of social cues, not realizing when their insistence on ‘being able to say what I think’ shifts into rudeness because they refuse to allow others to say what THEY think); be that as it may, there is a library on this site and with just a little effort you can find all kinds of nice scholarly articles that would answer your questions. Of course, you can’t talk back to the articles or call them weird or keep saying “why” at THEM (and get answers) as you would here, but just thought you might want to give some ARTICLE reading a try.

As for me, I’m muting this thread; either you will do some research on your own or you won’t.

 

[Irishmom2]

You could abstain from making posts that are disrespectful when you don’t know what you are talking about instead of giving up meat. That could be something for you to give up instead of meat.

 

[Todd_Easton]

Some history on the subject can be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia article on “Abstinence.”

 

[Pattylt]

Here we are talking about abstaining from something that is ok the other days.
What is this all about?

Almost all religious traditions have some rules regarding food and they may make no sense to others not in that religion. Jews don’t mix milk with meat (kosher law), Hindus don’t eat cows. They are ways to set the people apart from others and unite them in a common practice.

Catholics abstain from meat on certain religious days for religious reasons. It reminds them that they are Catholics! The point isn’t whether it’s easy or hard. It’s an obedience!