T
Traditional_Ang
Guest
Ian:No, it doesn’t, and this is an important concept here.
“God says so” is not valid reasoning and cannot be the basis of any argument. Yes, you can show where your God orders and commands and claims things, but these are not reasons in themselves. They just mean there must be reasons out there (erm, I guess only supposing your faith is rational).
You may not see this as a problem, but again, this is where I strongly encourage critical thinking.
And don’t get superficial here; this goes way beyond the issue of women’s ordination.
Muslims said that their God commanded them to crash planes into the world trade center. They were completely wrong and immoral. Why? Because they could not justify their actions with logical, secular, rational reasons using humanistic morality.
See the problem yet?
Claiming you have divine backing is not enough. It’s hard to look at your own religion this way, so I’m using examples you will understand. You can’t hold the wtc bombings against the perpetrators unless you recognize that “God says so” is not enough.
It’s 3 in the morning and so I hope this is coming out correctly.
I’ll try to state this more clearly.
If you expect other religious people of the world to be rational in their beliefs and actions, you have to do the same.
Until you can justify all of your beliefs beyond “God says so,” you are in no position to condemn other actions done in God’s name, like the world trade center bombings.
It’s completely invalid and unfair to equate what 19 crazies did (crashing planes into buildings to slaughter 3,000 innocents) in the name of a religion when the overwhelming majority of the authorities in that religion and the Holy Book and Traditions of that religion overwhelmingly condemn the obscene action in question to an action which takes no lives and injures no one (except for for some oversized egos) and which is completely consisent with the Scriptures and the Traditions of that religion.
You are comparing Mass Murder in the name of God which is a violation of the 3rd Commandment (using the Name of God to justify Mass Murder) and the 6th Commandment (Murder of the Innocent). and which is condemned by the Holy Q’uran and the Hadiths and all reputable Islamic religious authorities, with the claim by the Catholic Church concerning the decision by our Lord as to who would serve the Church and offer the Sacrifice of Calvery and forgive sins in His name.
This is wrong and morally repugnant. It is the same as comparing a garden variety Russian or German to Joseph Stalin or Adolph Hitler.
I see that you’ve checked “No Religion” in that box. Since the Priesthood has to do with How we are served and how God brings us grace in this insane world of ours, might I suggest that you look into the claims of Jesus Christ and of the Catholic Church about who He is and how He bring you to new life in Him and His love.
The Sacred Priesthood is a matter for Catholics and Orthodox to discuss, as we are discussing a series of Mysteries that are to us much like Quantum Physics to the physicists, and the Scripture and Tradition (Church Fathers Early Councils) are to us like their textbooks and their journals are to them.
No one would demand that Quantum Physicists drop their textbooks and journals and conform to his mode of argumentation and then claim that they were like a bunch of mass murderers who perverted and misused the holy books of their religion when they wouldn’t or couldn’t. It would be unthinkable.
I don’t think it’s unfair to demand the same courtesy for Catholic Christians, Esp. when many of us here have friends who are dying at the hands of people who agree with the crazies.
Pax Christi, Michael