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The Great Christian Argument

Kiddo

Furry Critter with Claws
Joined
Sep 25, 2007
Messages
2,790
MBTI Type
OMNi
Protestantism was never wiped out by Catholicism. It's still around today. And the Orthodox to my knowledge have not yet reconciled with the Bishop of Rome.

I'm not talking about Protestantism. I'm talking about before the Catholic Church was even fully established.

The only thing laughable here are your responses in this thread.

And I'm not the one who is calling Jesus's teachings foolish. It's ok though. I understand that this is how you choose to treat those you deem as heretics. Feel free to look down upon me.


I find it highly ironic you talk about prayer and reason, and yet the next minute knee-jerk the Church. Especially since it was the Catholic Church that long taught the compatibility between faith and reason, especially through the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

I find organized religion to be deplorable.

Perhaps when you develop the maturity to stop knee-jerking the Christian tradition will you finally develop the ability to actually understand it.

I think you have quite adequately demonstrated your version of Christianity with your ad hominems. I've limited my judgement to Christianity and the church, but you have chosen to level your judgement squarely on me. Thankfully we don't live a few hundred years ago, where I would have been burned on the stake by your church for voicing my beliefs. But I suppose that is just another part of proud Christian tradition that can be pushed aside because of all the "good" Christianity has done.
 
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Sniffles

Guest
I'm not talking about Protestantism. I'm talking about before the Catholic Church was even fully established.

Well the Catholic Church was established by Christ when appointed Peter(the first Pope) as the rock upon the his church would be built. And historical evidence for the Church can be dated to the 1st century AD as well.

And I'm not the one who is calling Jesus's teachings foolish.

This kind of sophistry will not get you anywhere.

It's ok though. I understand that this is how you choose to treat those you deem as heretics.

I actually get along with people of various different persuations and beliefs. I do not impose my faith on anybody; nor look down upon the faith of others either.

I follow the example of Thomas Merton, who once declared:
"If I affirm myself as a Catholic merely by denying all that is Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, etc., in the end I will find that there is not much left for me to affirm as a Catholic: and certainly no breath of the Spirit with which to affirm it."​
Nevertheless, I do not tolerate those who disrespect my spiritual tradition.

I find organized religion to be deplorable.

That's understandable on many levels. Nevertheless, don't allow that to cloud your better judgement.

I don't care for much about Protestantism, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating the insights of various Protestant writers, not to mention the spiritual beauty of their liturgical hymns.

Are you going to let your negative attitude towards organized religion barr you from reading Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross? If you do, you're denying yourself a great chance to explore the depths of spiritual truth. St. John's writings are considered some of the best mystical texts ever written in any tradition.

Don't cut yourself short on purpose!

Thankfully we don't live a few hundred years ago, where I would have been burned on the stake by your church for voicing my beliefs.

Ahem:
Spanish Inquisition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Modern historians have begun to study the documentary records of the Inquisition. The archives of the Suprema, today held by the National Historical Archive of Spain (Archivo Histórico Nacional), conserves the annual relations of all processes between 1560 and 1700. This material provides information about 49,092 judgements, the latter studied by Gustav Henningsen and Jaime Contreras. These authors calculate that only 1.9% of those processed were burned at the stake.

The archives of the Suprema only provide information surrounding the processes prior to 1560. To study the processes themselves, it is necessary to examine the archives of the local tribunals; however, the majority have been lost to the devastation of war, the ravages of time or other events. Pierre Dedieu has studied those of Toledo, where 12,000 were judged for offenses related to heresy.[39] Ricardo García Cárcel has analyzed thos of the tribunal of Valencia.[40] These authors' investigations find that the Inquisition was most active in the period between 1480 and 1530, and that during this period the percentage condemned to death was much more significant than in the years studied by Henningsen and Contreras.

García Cárcel estimates that the total number processed by the Inquisition throughout its history was approximately 150,000. Applying the percentages of executions that appeared in the trials of 1560-1700--about 2%--the approximate total would be about 3,000 put to death. Nevertheless, very probably this total should be raised keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. It is likely that the total would be between 3,000 and 5,000 executed. However, it is impossible to determine the precision of this total, owing to the gaps in documentation, unlikely that the exact number will ever be known."
 
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Sniffles

Guest
Oh no, the evil Christians are coming!

image2gs9.jpg

"The black ravens are preparing a brigand attack on the USSR. Proletariat be ready!"

Sarcasm aside: If I've acted too aggressively here, I apologize. I don't wish to turn this into a personal slugging match.
 

Night

Boring old fossil
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Well pride is one of the deadly sins; and I try to present myself with as much modesty and humility as possible. Nevertheless, I understand the point you're trying to make.

You're welcome.

And, thank you for the comprehensive response.
 

Kiddo

Furry Critter with Claws
Joined
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Messages
2,790
MBTI Type
OMNi
Well the Catholic Church was established by Christ when appointed Peter(the first Pope) as the rock upon the his church would be built. And historical evidence for the Church can be dated to the 1st century AD as well.

I think you need to do a little bit more research on the origins of your church.

This kind of sophistry will not get you anywhere.

If you say so.

I actually get along with people of various different persuations and beliefs. I do not impose my faith on anybody; nor look down upon the faith of others either.

From a person who argues I am immature, foolish, oversimplistic, etc. for believing the way I do, I find your statement that you don't look down upon other faiths to be a blatant lie.

I follow the example of Thomas Merton, who once declared:
"If I affirm myself as a Catholic merely by denying all that is Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, etc., in the end I will find that there is not much left for me to affirm as a Catholic: and certainly no breath of the Spirit with which to affirm it."​
Nevertheless, I do not tolerate those who disrespect my spiritual tradition.

I believe in tolerance, even for those who have no tolerance for me. It's this silly idea I have about turning the other cheek. Can't imagine where I got it.

That's understandable on many levels. Nevertheless, don't allow that to cloud your better judgement.

I don't care for much about Protestantism, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating the insights of various Protestant writers, not to mention the spiritual beauty of their liturgical hymns.

Are you going to let your negative attitude towards organized religion barr you from reading Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross? If you do, you're denying yourself a great chance to explore the depths of spiritual truth. St. John's writings are considered some of the best mystical texts ever written in any tradition.

Don't cut yourself short on purpose!

I follow the belief that I will defend to the death any person's right to freely worship even if I disprove. My principles and judgement are quite intact.


Strange, you act as if posting percentages changes the fact that it happened. But I understand you point. Perhaps I would have just rotted in prison for expressing my beliefs.

Are you honestly insinuating that I'm a revolutionary communist? :rofl1:
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
A Cicuitous Route

It does seem to me that this is an argument between Roman Catholicism and Protestant Dissenters.

It is a very old argument being rehearsed here.

But more important is that it is the intellectual side of bigotry.

And on this site it is replete with irony because MBTI itself is part the New Age Religion with Carl Jung as a Guru.

And part of the New Age religion is sneering at 'organised religion' while at the same time denying that the New Age is an organised religion.

The New Age religion is not new. It was very strong and pervasive in the beginning of the 20th Century particularly in Germany. And the ideas of the German National Socialist Workers Party were borrowed in large measure from the New Age religion.

When the National Socialists were defeated in WW II, the New Age religion transferred itself to the New World and found a warm home for itself among the Protestant Dissenters.

And so via this circuitous route, we have here a New Ager, a believer in MBTI, making propaganda against "organised religion", code words for Roman Catholicism.
 

heart

heart on fire
Joined
May 19, 2007
Messages
8,456
And part of the New Age religion is sneering at 'organised religion' while at the same time denying that the New Age is an organised religion...

I'll agree with this. Just as much dogma in it as in other religions. I have a sibling, so freaking dogmatic about his New Age ideas, he drives me nuts with it.
 
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Sniffles

Guest
The New Age religion is not new. It was very strong and pervasive in the beginning of the 20th Century particularly in Germany. And the ideas of the German National Socialist Workers Party were borrowed in large measure from the New Age religion.

Yes and no. Certain factions of the NSDAP were influenced by New Age beliefs, but overall the movement was most influenced by liberal Protestantism with its concept of "Positive Christianity".
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
From a person who argues I am immature, foolish, oversimplistic, etc. for believing the way I do, I find your statement that you don't look down upon other faiths to be a blatant lie.

Funny you've insisted that judging others is wrong, yet throughout this thread you make all sorts of judgements about people you don't agree with(Catholics, Conservative Christians, etc.). And right here, you call me a blatant liar.

So maybe it's time for you to follow your beliefs, and "judge not, let thee be judged".


I believe in tolerance, even for those who have no tolerance for me. It's this silly idea I have about turning the other cheek. Can't imagine where I got it.

"Mere tolerance is a virtue to those who don't believe in anything."
--GK Chesterton

And btw, turning the other cheek has nothing to do with tolerance.

I believe in religious freedom, not religious tolerance. They're not the same.

I follow the belief that I will defend to the death any person's right to freely worship even if I disprove. My principles and judgement are quite intact.

This is an evasive answer of a very deceptive kind.

Strange, you act as if posting percentages changes the fact that it happened. But I understand you point. Perhaps I would have just rotted in prison for expressing my beliefs.

Thus is the fine art of missing the point.


Are you honestly insinuating that I'm a revolutionary communist? :rofl1:

You do seem to share the staunch anti-Christian fervor of the Communists.

In any case, I'm done with this charade of yours.
 

Kiddo

Furry Critter with Claws
Joined
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Messages
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Funny you've insisted that judging others is wrong, yet throughout this thread you make all sorts of judgements about people you don't agree with(Catholics, Conservative Christians, etc.). And right here, you call me a blatant liar.

I'm only following your lead and judging the sin, not the sinner. I can't imagine why you would think of me calling you a liar just because I detested the lie you told.

So maybe it's time for you to follow your beliefs, and "judge not, let thee be judged".

Funny, I thought you were the Christian.


"Mere tolerance is a virtue to those who don't believe in anything."
--GK Chesterton

And btw, turning the other cheek has nothing to do with tolerance.

I believe in religious freedom, not religious tolerance. They're not the same.

Oh please explain the difference between religious freedom and religious tolerance. And its funny how you would say that a story in the Bible that has to deal with how Jesus acted with complete tolerance toward those who demonstrated no tolerance towards him "has nothing to do with tolerance." :rofl1:

This is an evasive answer of a very deceptive kind.

What is evasive about me defending to the death, your right to freely worship, even though I may disagree with it? I would love to hear it. :D



Thus is the fine art of missing the point.

Your point is the people in history have exaggerated the atrocities committed by your church, and yet they still occurred. It sounds like you might be missing the point.


You do seem to share the staunch anti-Christian fervor of the Communists.

In any case, I'm done with this charade of yours.

:violin:

In other words, you realize you are losing so you are trying to bow out with as much of your pride intact as possible. In order to do so, you wish to accuse me of being a communist, which I am not, and has nothing to do with the discussion. It is a cheap rhetorical trick aimed at derailing the discussion at best. Please do remember that it was pride and inhospitality that were the true sins of Sodom.

I'm anti-religious intolerance. It's not Christian to be intolerant to your fellow man by condemning him through his sins. That is the opposite of what Jesus taught. Which was namely to love God and to love your fellow man as yourself. And as you aren't even holding yourself responsible for a lie you clearly told in front of anyone who can read, I doubt it is your place to condemn what you percieve as the sins of anyone else. That is the charade here. People who practice a Christianity that has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
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By "conservative", I think we can presume that Jennifer is pointing to the Moral Majority; Christian Coalition; Jerry Falwell - any constituent part within Evangelicalism would likely be a good guess.

Since I'm here for a moment, yes, that's what I meant.

Perhaps I'm not being specific enough with the terminology because the bulk of my religious experience has been dealing the major denominations + the typical evangelical subculture. Sorry.

More importantly, I think she was referencing the political ideology that typically characterizes these systems. "Conservative" in this case suggests a belief in the sanctity of traditional values concerning abortion; homosexuality; marriage; trade; etc.

Yup.

Well first off, Christianity is not an ideology. There are certain elements of Christian teachings that deal with socio-political issues; the Protestants have the Social Gospel, and Catholics have Social Doctrine.

Homosexuality is a sin. Within the Catholic perspective, I believe the notion commonly is that homosexual acts are the sin but not necessarily homosexual inclinations per se. You just can't act on those inclinations.

If Homosexuality is indeed genetic(Im not debating the issue whether it is or not), that still doesn't change the fact that it's a sin. Of course this will put plenty of internal pressure upon people with such inclinations. We know it, and we understand.

The life of the true Christian is one of constant struggle with ones flaws and sinfulness, and of course laspes will occur. We understand, and we wish to show compassion when that happens. It should probably be noted that God does acknowledge honest efforts to stay on the right path, even when we ultimately fail in doing so.

Within Catholicism, we have the sacrament of reconciliation(confession), where we come before God and asked forgiveness for our wrong-doing. In doing so, we are forgiven and brought back in God's good graces.

God does not want us to hate ourselves, he wants us to love ourselves in proper form(geniune self-love is not the same as pride mind you). As even my own confessor once said, Satan is interested in undermining ones faith, and certainly one sneaky way he does it is by convincing you you're worthless before God. One must constantly resist such thoughts. Sin does not make you worthless before God.

As St. Padre Pio once said:
"God can reject everything in a creature conceived in sin and of which it bears the indelible impression inherited from Adam. But He can absolutely not reject the sincere desire to love Him."​
The great irony I find is when people criticise Christianity for claiming that man is sinful, claiming that means man is worthless before God. That's not all so. If God thought so, he wouldn't have sent his son to die for our salvation. It should also be noted that the Bible claims that man was created in God's image. That happens before original sin.

And the incarnation of Christ also shows the close relationship between the human and the divine, as Nikolai Berdyaev explains:
"Christianity is not only belief in God; it is also belief in man, and in the possibility of a revealation of the divine in man. There exists a commensurability between God and man and on that account only is revealation of God to man possible. Pure abstract transcendentalism makes revealation impossible; it cannot open out pathways to God, and excludes the possibility of communion between man and God."​
Martin Buber also further elaborated upon this, claiming that according to the Biblical tradition, the relationship between man and God is based upon the I-Thou relationship. We connect with God on such an intimate level, which is not readily seen in many other traditions.

I think I've drifted from the original topic here. Applying to homosexuals, we can also address this from the basic Existential argument of Existence preceding Essence.

Long story short: Homosexuals are not somehow sub-human for being homosexuals. They're still people, and sinners like anybody else. In this case, they have their own particular demon to face; just like we have our own particular demons to face.

And I'm beginning to loose my train of thought, so I'll end it here.

This probably answers your question in your other thread as to why most people (except for those who aren't intellectually intimidated) shy away from engaging you.

1. You overwhelm them with lots of information.

2. You seed your posts with references that quickly distinguish "you know more than them" -- regardless of whether you really do or are consistently interpreting the sources you quote. (Essentially, it's a form of intellectual intimidation. Those who want to communicate make it EASIER for people to respond by not quoting authorities to people who most likely will not have heard of them; but it seems more like a way to buttress your authority in the conversation and "win the point" than to allow the other person an opening to respond.)

I'm not sure yet if you comprehend how your approach closes down conversation rather than encourages it, but basically if you put out bait for shark in a pond, don't be surprised when none of the fresh water fish bite.

As far as the homosexuality argument goes, you seem to have everything figured out. Yes, your framework has internal consistency. Does it have external consistency? I'm not convinced of that. That's my biggest problem with the evangelical church, having lived within it so long. It tries to derive clean answers to life's complex problems. "Well, if God is THIS, and he does THAT, it all must fit together like THIS." And people fail to step outside the framework and look at it from the outside, until some life situation intrudes that jars against the frame... and they don't know what to do with it.

There's also some lovely assumptions (including whether homosexuality is actually a sin). I'm not debating that point with you here, nor am I sure of the answer myself. But I think that's where "fuzzy logic" breaks into things. I don't disagree with how "sensible it sounds" that we all each have our demons to deal with, etc., in fact, that's such general statement, I think it makes sense; but that still doesn't deal with proving what is a sin and what is not, and what things might fit into other categories. Do the specific acts we're talking about fit into the broader theology you bring up? Maybe. Maybe not. But you seem inclined to accept it as all part of the same.

I'd go further, but it's midnight and I'm tired and now I'm losing MY train of thought. ;) Maybe some other time.
 
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