Why only Jesus?

[kellie]

Gracious. A few people reply and almost convince me then again this evening I get accused of being a mean guy and then you come with the “Go away! We don’t want you if you are not already sure!”

Stop twisting everything we say.

You know darn well what I meant. You have said you don’t believe Jesus is God, so how do you expect to be a Catholic?

Parrot:

Why are some of you so horrible? Is this the way you treat a new person who approaches your religion? Do you throw a Catechism book at them and say “Believe it or go to Hell!.”

No. We welcome anyone wishing to seek the Truth. I will repeat again what I and many others have said, we do not say anyone will go to hell, as we don’t know. We do not throw a book at anyone, we teach them our faith.

Parrot:

Look at your statement above…

Can you not see that is nearly like saying “We pray to God because he is Jesus.”

Yes I can, that is because God IS Jesus, and Jesus IS God.

 

[kellie]

I had to think about this comment. This afternoon, I drove around looking at different Catholic Churches in my area and then came home and went to their websites.

I have to admit that it DID make a big difference to me. One was Byzantine and I had to research what that meant. Eastern??? I don’t think so. I would have little in common with Asian parishioners I think.

Another was the closest but it had Mass in English and a separate one in Spanish. (I live in a predominately Spanish neighborhood.) No habla Espanol, so not for me. The third was worse, their website was in Spanish with English subtitles.

I don’t think I am a bigot, I just feel more comfortable with people who are more like me. I guess it is because I am like a bird and wish to flock with the same feather as it were. Why hang around some place where you know right off you will be an outsider to the group?

I then found St. Brigid’s. Look it up if you wish to see. It is huge. The inside really looks like what I call a church. I found it also nice that St. Brigid (well you are Catholic so you know, right?) is an Irish saint and I am a quarter American Indian and three quarters Irish. What better place?

For those of you who are reading this and find it disgusting, remember, it was otherwise a great waste of time and talent to have the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling painted if the look of the place didn’t matter.

I also wanted to comment on that old saw about “where two are gathered…” I always thought that was silly and illogical. It can be discerned by the average ten year old that if God is omnipresent, then it wouldn’t take two people to be thinking about him for him to show up.

You really do need to research everything you think you know about Catholicism.

The “where two are gathered” quote is not referring to whether God is present. We all know God is everywhere. The quote is to do with the church. When 2 or more are gathered in His name, there is the church.

The church is the community. It cannot be a community with 1 person, even though God is with that person.

That is why we are called to worship as a community on Sundays at Mass.

 

[Parrot]

Stop twisting everything we say.

Stop dictating how I feel or how I react to what you say.

I think you need a taste of your own medicine here… I say you have no Christian charity in your soul, are doing the work of the Devil here with your attitude and should be excommunicated from the Church.

 

[kellie]

Stop dictating how I feel or how I react to what you say.

I think you need a taste of your own medicine here… I say you have no Christian charity in your soul, are doing the work of the Devil here with your attitude and should be excommunicated from the Church.

How can I dictate how you feel? That would mean I am telling you how to feel, which I am not.

I am trying to help you, to work out what you truly are looking for here.

 

[rodschmidt]

EVERYONE who is in heaven is there because of Jesus paid the penatly for sin on by dying on the cross.

Everyone – except Mary.

Mary is in heaven because she didn’t have original sin.

This leads me to two questions. Why did God choose to create me with original sin, when obviously He could have created me without original sin?

Did Satan tempt Mary just as with Eve, but fail? (Satan would be strongly motivated to do that.) Why have I never heard about the temptation of Mary?

 

[dranzal]

Why does the Catholic Church (and any Christian religion) seem to relegate all persons who do not believe in Christ (as an actual part of God) to eternal damnation? Surely God would not really want all Jewish people and all Buddhists and all Muslims, etc to be excluded?

Were it not for that one thing, I probably would join the Catholic Church and be the most faithful servant God could imagine. Why am I excluded and excommunicated before I even begin? Why does the Catholic Church wish to reject me? Is it all only about Jesus and not about God himself?

The Catholic Church does not relegate all persons who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ to eternal damnation. The Catholic Church does not believe that God “wants” Jewish people, Buddhists, Muslims, etc to be excluded from eternal salvation.

Why do you think you are excluded and excommunicated? Why do you think you are rejected by the Church. If you do, indeed, believe that Jesus was born, lived, suffered, was crucified, and then rose from the dead, what is the problem? Are you only having difficulty with His Divinity? Catholics can provide proof from the Gospels for Jesus claims to divinity. Jesus did, indeed, claim to be God in the gospels. For that to matter, you have to believe that the gospels are true. Do you believe that the gospels are true? If so, why? If not, why not?

We can begin to converse once we know what exactly you are struggling with and what you already believe.

You will not find rejection from true Christians. Catholic means universal. The underlying desire is that All May Be One in Christ. I want to help, but need to know specifics from you.

 

[CherryBomb]

You really do need to research everything you think you know about Catholicism.

The “where two are gathered” quote is not referring to whether God is present. We all know God is everywhere. The quote is to do with the church. When 2 or more are gathered in His name, there is the church.

The church is the community. It cannot be a community with 1 person, even though God is with that person.

That is why we are called to worship as a community on Sundays at Mass.

Yes, thank you! I was too tired to look it up the verse last night (it’s Matthew 18:20, btw )

We use that a Scriptural evidence to counter people who claim there’s no need for any type of church.

 

[Parrot]

The Catholic Church does not relegate all persons who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ to eternal damnation. The Catholic Church does not believe that God “wants” Jewish people, Buddhists, Muslims, etc to be excluded from eternal salvation.

Bull! You all say that the teaching of the Catholic Church is that it is the one true Church and the only way to salvation. If that is true, it means anyone who is not Catholic will never be saved. To say you don’t “want” that to happen doesn’t clear your guilt in my eyes.

God (my God) forgives you, but I probably never will.

Jesus did, indeed, claim to be God in the gospels. For that to matter, you have to believe that the gospels are true. Do you believe that the gospels are true? If so, why? If not, why not?

NO. I do not believe the Bible is anything more than a few humans telling a historical story and embellishing it (like hollywood does) to make it sound marvelous. It is old information. Back then, they would have thought your MP3 player was a miracle. You would have been seen as a Messiah. Back then, the Jewish idea was that the most important child was the first-born son so The story involves the first-born son of God.

I also do not believe the story of the resurrection. I lied about that to see where the person would go with his argument. Humans don’t come back to life anymore than Harry Potter can do magic with the wave of a wand. Both ideas are just childish fantasy.

You see, it has always been the desire of humans to never die. The Jesus thing was a story who purpose was to give humans that feeling that if a man named Jesus could do it, then so could they. It is that possibility of living forever that captured the imagination of people and that alone is why the story has lasted so long. That doesn’t make it true.

You will not find rejection from true Christians. Catholic means universal. The underlying desire is that All May Be One in Christ. I want to help, but need to know specifics from you.

Then you have some people here who are not true Christians. Yes, your underlying desire is that all may be one - all maybe saved - all may be Catholic.

I have to admit I am saddened by all of this. I have always admired the Catholic religion up to this day. I now am persuaded that even the cathedrals and the stain glass can’t shine up your image in my eyes.

But I have my answer to the question of “Why Jesus” and the answer I have gotten from you as a whole is that Jesus is the delusion upon which the Catholic Church is built.

You know Hell is looking better and better all the time - no Baptists and no Catholics there. I think I will go to a website that worships the Devil and see if they are nicer to me.

Addendum:

I wrote in the first message of this thread: “Why does the Catholic Church wish to reject me? Is it all only about Jesus and not about God himself?”

I now say that I was correct. It is all about Jesus and not about God at all.

 

[CherryBomb]

Bull! You all say that the teaching of the Catholic Church is that it is the one true Church and the only way to salvation. If that is true, it means anyone who is not Catholic will never be saved. To say you don’t “want” that to happen doesn’t clear your guilt in my eyes.

No one has ever said that in this thread (if they did, I missed it). I really don’t know what you’re talking about anymore

 

[CherryBomb]

I wrote in the first message of this thread: “Why does the Catholic Church wish to reject me? Is it all only about Jesus and not about God himself?”

I now say that I was correct. It is all about Jesus and not about God at all.

And I still don’t understand what this means.

If you think Jesus is just a delusion and a story, there’s really nothing we can say to change your mind. Jesus is literally the embodiment of God’s love for us. Why would we ignore Him? Jesus is God, He is the Word made flesh. To worship Him is to worship the Trinity, which is to worship God.

I’m sorry we couldn’t be of more help to you, I am. But you insist on saying that Catholics believe things that we most certainly do not, so it’s just become a circular discussion. You say we believe non Catholics will burn in Hell, we say we don’t, and then you say we do. Good luck on your journey, wherever it leads you.

 

[dranzal]

Bull! You all say that the teaching of the Catholic Church is that it is the one true Church and the only way to salvation. If that is true, it means anyone who is not Catholic will never be saved. To say you don’t “want” that to happen doesn’t clear your guilt in my eyes.

Your knowledge of Catholic teaching is incorrect here. From the Catechism:
846. …all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is His Body…

1. This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and His Church…
2. Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.

The surest (not only) path to salvation is through the Church, the Body of Christ.

God (my God) forgives you, but I probably never will.

I will pray for you.

NO. I do not believe the Bible is anything more than a few humans telling a historical story and embellishing it (like hollywood does) to make it sound marvelous. It is old information. Back then, they would have thought your MP3 player was a miracle. You would have been seen as a Messiah. Back then, the Jewish idea was that the most important child was the first-born son so The story involves the first-born son of God.

Who do you believe penned the Gospels? Who did the embellishing? Which parts of the Gospels do you believe to be factual accounts?

I also do not believe the story of the resurrection. I lied about that to see where the person would go with his argument. Humans don’t come back to life anymore than Harry Potter can do magic with the wave of a wand. Both ideas are just childish fantasy.

You see, it has always been the desire of humans to never die. The Jesus thing was a story who purpose was to give humans that feeling that if a man named Jesus could do it, then so could they. It is that possibility of living forever that captured the imagination of people and that alone is why the story has lasted so long. That doesn’t make it true.

Of course writing it doesn’t make it true. But, what if…what if it were true. I’ll come back to these if the thread continues.

Then you have some people here who are not true Christians. Yes, your underlying desire is that all may be one - all maybe saved - all may be Catholic.

You are correct. There are some here who are not living up to their Namesake.

I have to admit I am saddened by all of this. I have always admired the Catholic religion up to this day. I now am persuaded that even the cathedrals and the stain glass can’t shine up your image in my eyes.

I have faith that, in God’s time, He will lead you home. He is a very persistent Father.

But I have my answer to the question of “Why Jesus” and the answer I have gotten from you as a whole is that Jesus is the delusion upon which the Catholic Church is built.

You know Hell is looking better and better all the time - no Baptists and no Catholics there. I think I will go to a website that worships the Devil and see if they are nicer to me.

They may be nicer. They are not in it for their own souls, much less yours. We are not here to be nice. We are here to love and teach and offer hope. I’m afraid you’ll not get love and hope with the satanists.
Addendum:

I wrote in the first message of this thread: “Why does the Catholic Church wish to reject me? Is it all only about Jesus and not about God himself?”

I now say that I was correct. It is all about Jesus and not about God at all.

Oh, that you could see what we see. The Bible is a love letter. Jesus is the very Word of God. It is all about Jesus because Jesus is all about God.

I hope you are reading this in the spirit in which it was written. I, like my fellow poster in earlier pages, consider you my brother. It is my sincere hope to meet you and all my brothers and sisters in heaven.

Keep asking. We’ll respond as best we can.

Holy Spirit, please guide this discussion. Your will be done.

 

[Grateful4mercy]

This is all a little sad, I’m afraid. I pray for you, Parrot, that you are once again joking with us. Our Church is not a building, not stained glass windows,…and NOT perfect.

I think we should put the Bible and CCC down for a moment and examine why you felt the need to come here. What is it you are searching for? Perhaps you are trying to validate some preconcieved notion that you came in here with.

I am not convinced that you came here to lead us into your “trap” that Jesus is just a fable. You are sounding very frustrated and conflicted. What is it, Brother, that is troubling your mind?

 

[kellie]

Parrot has been told over and over that Jesus IS God.

He doesn’t believe that at all, as he has said over and over.

Parrot only wanted to be Catholic as we have pretty stained glass windows, incense, candles, and tall pointy steeples.

I will pray for him.

 

[Parrot]

I think we should put the Bible and CCC down for a moment and examine why you felt the need to come here. What is it you are searching for? Perhaps you are trying to validate some preconcieved notion that you came in here with.

That is an intelligent remark. That is what I have been advocating all along. I don’t think it is right to just present website links and books and quotes from the Bible to make a point. Look at it this way, if the Devil came here and slammed your religion against the wall and told you what you believed was wrong, would you stand up for what you believed? Are you able to defend your beliefs?

Yes, I am partly joking here in this thread and partly writing different ideas that may or may not be my own to see what you all will say.

Your prayers have been answered, however.

I think I came here to find out the truth, to discover if any of it is real, to determine if people who are Catholic really believe their faith or whether they are like many Baptists I have known who just recite rhetoric and throw the bible at you.

Some of you have been unable to prove your faith to me; some of you have been far less than cooperative and said things just to make yourselves look good; some of you have nearly turned me away from the idea completely. God moved against you and led me in the right direction.

I will share a little personal information with you… I am a scientific sort of person. I think in that way. If I encounter something I do not understand, I test it. I don’t accept that a transformer works a certain way based on mathematical and engineering texts entirely. I get some wire and I wrap it around a piece of iron and I hook it to a battery. I put a fuse on one side and short the other to ground to see for myself if the fuse will blow when there is no connection between the circuits except a magnetic field. This is how such things are proved to operate. Some people take it on “technical faith” that such devices work that way. Some things are too large or theoretical to be easily tested in such simple ways. On the other hand, thinking CAN be tested in this manner.

I had a person once give me a book about handling anger and he asked me to read the book and tell him what I thought. I read halfway through the book and physically threw it against a wall it made me so angry. When I saw the person again, he said that was the most accurate response one could have made to such a book. He taught me that just because something is said or written or even published by some authority (example “Mein Kampf”), it doesn’t make it true or valid or reasonable. I question everything before I buy into it. I spent most of my life in pain due to people teaching me things that I found on my own to be absolute garbage as it relates to life and success thereof.

Thank you to those who were helpful and to those who fell before the test, please think next time before you write. It takes a long time to build a house or grow a forest, but it can take only one match to destroy either.

I have advice for you all for the next time someone like myself comes to you to discuss a subject. Keep in mind that you are not talking to people who may not be educated about your religion; who may not hold it in high esteem at all; who may be afraid to even approach you with questions about your religion. I am a very strong person. I can defend myself against many things and I have been through trials in my life on more than one occasion that would have had some of you committing suicide due t the inability to cope with the stress. Keep in mind the next person may not be that strong and instead of bringing that person to your faith, they might fell turned away and you would thereby have damned their immortal soul to Hell.

Eventually God will judge whether you all did the right thing here or not. Lastly, this is the “Other Religions” portion of the forum. You must expect that the discussions might be about things you don’t believe or don’t want to hear. As someone said, I might agree with what a person believes, but I will defend his right to express it.

And to a couple of people here (particular the woman from Australia) don’t ever presume to say what a person’s intent is nor remark on what that person means. People who are like me will just run around you until you have no idea what the conversation is about.

 

[Parrot]

No one has ever said that in this thread (if they did, I missed it). I really don’t know what you’re talking about anymore

Okay. Let’s use your references (you meaning plural of all who have written here). One person wrote…

“Your knowledge of Catholic teaching is incorrect here. From the Catechism:
846. …all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is His Body…”

It specifically states that **all **salvation comes via the “Church” - capitalized means the Catholic church does it not?

“Christ” means Jesus does it not?

Therefore only people who are saved by Jesus through the Catholic Church will be saved and the lack of being “saved” means they will burn in Hell. Someone said they could not determine where those souls would be, but the implication is for them to be in Hell I’d say.

This is why I said it “seems” the Catholic Church is all about Jesus and not about God, whom some call “Allah” and some call Buddha, for example. Even the Jewish faith holds the same high esteem for and uses the name “God” as you do, but sees Jesus as an important prophet and not a part of God.

Honestly, I do not believe this is what Catholics teach but as I said when I started this thread, it “seems” so and this whole thing was to test that theory.

I do have a legitimate question on specifics… Is the title “Monsignor” strictly honorific as in saying “Sir” or is he a Bishop who chooses to not use the term “Bishop?”

 

[Parrot]

If you think Jesus is just a delusion and a story,…

Not really. I just wanted to see what would be said. This is not a serious discussion on doctrinal truth here. It is an internet forum. You are not Priests nor members of the college of Cardinals or whoever manages the Canonical law. You are just parishioners who claim to be Catholic and I am a person here seeing what you actually will say about the religion.

Someone said that I would always find only the approved Catholic answers here. That is not a valid discussion. Anyone can go read those views at the Vatican website. Here, the idea is to discuss general ideas of religion and in this portion of the forum - the ideas of Non-Catholic religions.

 

[Parrot]

Someone wrote…

“Who do you believe penned the Gospels? Who did the embellishing? Which parts of the Gospels do you believe to be factual accounts?”

Don’t be absurd. Even the most simple person can crack open a Bible and read the titles… "The Gospel **According **to “*whoever” *and that tells you right off the bat it is an opinion. Now if there was a book in the Bible that was entitled “The Gospel According to God,” I’d believe it far more quickly. Even the simplest statement can be interpreted many ways and an event can be also be told in such a way as to convince another something happened that didn’t actually happen that way. I’ve even done that in this thread.

 

[Grateful4mercy]

Whew, I’m glad the Satan thing was tongue-in-cheek

I think, given your bio, you would really like the Catholic Church. We are generally a thinking religion. We reason ourselves to our faith. Did you know that all priests are required to take philosophy classes before they take theology classes? But that also means that everybody is at a different place in their faith journey. Sometimes you meet people who are just starting out (like myself) or you meet people that are so close to God that you can almost see him in their eyes (where I hope I am going). Meet all these different kinds people on this forum is a blessing, you either get to help a person a little further on their journey, or get helped on your own. And you never know which way the exchange will go until its over.

If you distill Catholicism down to its elemental core you will find there one simple idea…Love.

Love our God with every breath in your lungs.
Love yourself as a creation worthy of God’s love.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

If these things are put first, everything else makes sense. Put all the devotions and pomp and circumstance aside, those are all just expressions of the Love we have for God. Same thing goes for the buildings.

We are called to witness our Faith and Love to the world. NO sinner is ever rejected (our churches would be empty), no Pilgrim is ever turned away, not by the Church. Now individual people are only human. We are not always the image of Jesus we would like to be. Please don’t judge us to harshly.

 

[carol_marie]

Everyone – except Mary.

Mary is in heaven because she didn’t have original sin.

This leads me to two questions. Why did God choose to create me with original sin, when obviously He could have created me without original sin?

Did Satan tempt Mary just as with Eve, but fail? (Satan would be strongly motivated to do that.) Why have I never heard about the temptation of Mary?

Very good questions rodschmidt. I think rather than looking for answers on this very long thread that many people have already given up on - you should start a new thread. I think you’ll get a good discussion going.

Welcome to the forums!
CM

 

[Stolen_Rutters]

Why does the Catholic Church (and any Christian religion) seem to relegate all persons who do not believe in Christ (as an actual part of God) to eternal damnation? Surely God would not really want all Jewish people and all Buddhists and all Muslims, etc to be excluded?

This may be what you believe. However, ask yourself this question. What is eternal damnation for a christian? It is not being with christ’s love. An end of nothingness, never again feeling god’s love. Denying god’s love is what it’s all about.

Now to this damnation that you talk of. I think you are talking about something that is not taught in the Catholic church. I saw it on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (It’s a pretty fun show to watch, but not a place to pick up knowledge about real life.) Are you sure you have the right religion?

I DO however doubt that Jesus is the only path to communication with God in the literal and the philosophical or religious sense…

Were it not for that one thing, I probably would join the Catholic Church and be the most faithful servant God could imagine. Why am I excluded and excommunicated before I even begin? Why does the Catholic Church wish to reject me? Is it all only about Jesus and not about God himself?

You choose to join the church or stay away. Jesus and god (yes, and the holy spirit) are one and the same. If you don’t believe this, you made the choice. The church doesn’t make you believe. The church is more like the communion of believers. (Communion = coming together)

Note: none of this post has been checked with any church authority. This is only my opinion, freely asked for, freely given, and not guaranteed to be what the church teaches. That stuff is all written down somewhere.

Ed (aka SR)