Catholic & Christian Fundamentalists

[pirana 0]

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I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are you christian or buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you catholic or protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me too! Are you episcopalian or baptist?" He said, "Baptist!" I said,"Wow! Me too! Are you baptist church of god or baptist church of the lord?" He said, "Baptist church of god!" I said, "Me too! Are you original baptist church of god, or are you reformed baptist church of god?" He said,"Reformed Baptist church of god!" I said, "Me too! Are you reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off. -- Emo Phillips

THAT is funny.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[Royd 0]

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Did you ever look in your mother's missal? Contained within it were the readings for the Mass which came from, you guessed it, the Holy Bible! Each day, 365 days a year, there is a reading from the old testament, a psalm and a reading from one of the 4 gospels. On sundays, there is a reading from the OT, a psalm, a reading from the new testament, then a reading from one of the 4 gospels. Every year, the cycle changes so that over a period of 3 years, your mother was exposed to just about the entire bible.

I had my own as a kid.

The missal that I saw couldn't have possibly contained the contents of the Bible.

My point is that Catholics from her era were discouraged from reading the Bible, as if understanding and discernment were solely the gift of the clergy.

Our spiritual gifts are given to us by the Holy Spirit, and should be used to edify the Body of Christ, not just to ride herd on a bunch of sheep.

My siblings seem to be exposed to considerably more scripture than I remember from that time. But then, I was probably ADD, and my mind was always somewhere else.

PS. I am not your enemy.

[micro 0]

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Did you ever look in your mother's missal? Contained within it were the readings for the Mass which came from, you guessed it, the Holy Bible! Each day, 365 days a year, there is a reading from the old testament, a psalm and a reading from one of the 4 gospels. On sundays, there is a reading from the OT, a psalm, a reading from the new testament, then a reading from one of the 4 gospels. Every year, the cycle changes so that over a period of 3 years, your mother was exposed to just about the entire bible.

I had my own as a kid.

The missal that I saw couldn't have possibly contained the contents of the Bible.

My point is that Catholics from her era were discouraged from reading the Bible, as if understanding and discernment were solely the gift of the clergy.

Our spiritual gifts are given to us by the Holy Spirit, and should be used to edify the Body of Christ, not just to ride herd on a bunch of sheep.

My siblings seem to be exposed to considerably more scripture than I remember from that time. But then, I was probably ADD, and my mind was always somewhere else.

PS. I am not your enemy.

Hers might have been an abridged missal. Mine is in the attached picture. It is the official Missal, approved by the Vatican and I can assure you, at 2450 pages, it hits every salient story from Scripture.

But I agree w/ you, that most Catholics, esp. from your mother's era, do not/did not know the Bible as they ought. I'm guilty of this as well.


edit to add pics

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[Royd 0]

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Hers might have been an abridged missal. Mine is in the attached picture. It is the official Missal, approved by the Vatican and I can assure you, at 2450 pages, it hits every salient story from Scripture.

But I agree w/ you, that most Catholics, esp. from your mother's era, do not/did not know the Bible as they ought. I'm guilty of this as well.

And I don't consider you an enemy, I hope you didn't take my posts as sarcastic or contentious. If I came across as negative, I apologize. It wasn't meant to be offensive.

Her missal was more the size of a pocket dictionary. She had several Bibles in the house, and even sent me a big fancy one when I told her that I had become a Christian. The idea was an affront to her. "All you need to be is a Catholic , because that's how you were raised," was her mentality.

Most of us, at some point in our Christian experience, usually early on, become rigid and contentious about what we know. Often times, this is exploited and encouraged by the leadership of any given church.

We must learn to separate religiousness from faith in Christ. Much of what we do is just time filling, dead ritual. Of course, this could apply to any number of secular orginzations, also.

[kallend 2,101]

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Hers might have been an abridged missal. Mine is in the attached picture. It is the official Missal, approved by the Vatican and I can assure you, at 2450 pages, it hits every salient story from Scripture.

"Salient" according to whom?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Hers might have been an abridged missal. Mine is in the attached picture. It is the official Missal, approved by the Vatican and I can assure you, at 2450 pages, it hits every salient story from Scripture.

"Salient" according to whom?

Not according to St. Kallend, that's for damned sure. But since the canonical texts in the Catholic Bible contain more books than the Protestant Bible, the "salient" stories are not more restricted or censored as you seem to be intimating.

Why don't you do this, John: Look through the three yearly cycles of OT, NT, and Gospel texts found in the daily/Sunday Catholic liturgies and compare them to the themes of the Bible. See if any are missed

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[micro 0]

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Hers might have been an abridged missal. Mine is in the attached picture. It is the official Missal, approved by the Vatican and I can assure you, at 2450 pages, it hits every salient story from Scripture.

But I agree w/ you, that most Catholics, esp. from your mother's era, do not/did not know the Bible as they ought. I'm guilty of this as well.

And I don't consider you an enemy, I hope you didn't take my posts as sarcastic or contentious. If I came across as negative, I apologize. It wasn't meant to be offensive.

Her missal was more the size of a pocket dictionary. She had several Bibles in the house, and even sent me a big fancy one when I told her that I had become a Christian. The idea was an affront to her. "All you need to be is a Catholic , because that's how you were raised," was her mentality.

Most of us, at some point in our Christian experience, usually early on, become rigid and contentious about what we know. Often times, this is exploited and encouraged by the leadership of any given church.

We must learn to separate religiousness from faith in Christ. Much of what we do is just time filling, dead ritual. Of course, this could apply to any number of secular orginzations, also.

Here is where we part company... for the Catholic whose faith is truly alive, it is not just "time filling, dead ritual." Too often it is, unfortunately, but OTOH, it is supposed to envelope the whole body, in the worship experience... the ears and the mind in the reading and hearing of the Word, the smells of incense, the seeing of vaulting, reaching architecture, soaring to the Heavens, catechetical stained glass and statues which teach us of scenes of Christ's life and of His disciples, using our arms and legs in blessing ourselves w/ the sign of the cross and in humbling ourselves by kneeling and genuflecting before the thrown of God, etc. etc.

See, for the Catholic, Christ is one with His Church, b/c She is His Bride. They are inseperable. That is the meat and potatoes behind your mom's statement of, ""All you need to be is a Catholic," even if she couldn't elucidate it at the time. Until the Orthodox split in the 12th cent. and then the Anglican split and then the rest of the Reformational splits later in the 15/16th cents, there was just one Church that was Christ's bride...

While there is some truth in your statement that one can indeed be spiritual w/o organized religion (and conversely, I'm sure we all know many, many people, sadly enough who are religious and not at all spiritual and I all too often fall in to this latter category, I'm afraid), it was Christ Himself who gave us His Church to help us to lead us to Him.

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[kallend 2,101]

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Hers might have been an abridged missal. Mine is in the attached picture. It is the official Missal, approved by the Vatican and I can assure you, at 2450 pages, it hits every salient story from Scripture.

"Salient" according to whom?

Not according to St. Kallend, that's for damned sure. But since the canonical texts in the Catholic Bible contain more books than the Protestant Bible, the "salient" stories are not more restricted or censored as you seem to be intimating.

Why don't you do this, John: Look through the three yearly cycles of OT, NT, and Gospel texts found in the daily/Sunday Catholic liturgies and compare them to the themes of the Bible. See if any are missed

You miss the point. Cherry picking.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[micro 0]

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Hers might have been an abridged missal. Mine is in the attached picture. It is the official Missal, approved by the Vatican and I can assure you, at 2450 pages, it hits every salient story from Scripture.

"Salient" according to whom?

Not according to St. Kallend, that's for damned sure. But since the canonical texts in the Catholic Bible contain more books than the Protestant Bible, the "salient" stories are not more restricted or censored as you seem to be intimating.

Why don't you do this, John: Look through the three yearly cycles of OT, NT, and Gospel texts found in the daily/Sunday Catholic liturgies and compare them to the themes of the Bible. See if any are missed

You miss the point. Cherry picking.

Try being less obtuse.

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[JackC 0]

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why are you applying science to a matter of faith?

It can be used as part of an effective bullshit filter to avoid gullibility. The question should be: why aren't people applying scientific methods to matters of faith?

[Royd 0]

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Here is where we part company... for the Catholic whose faith is truly alive, it is not just "time filling, dead ritual." Too often it is, unfortunately, but OTOH, it is supposed to envelope the whole body, in the worship experience...

I'm not just pointing fingers at Catholics here. Most people start their children off early in the church, and it is very easy for rituals to become routines with no meaning.

I also have a problem with what appears to be idolatry.

A recent thread about the dripping chocolate. There was the insulated window that went bad a couple of years ago, and looked like the Virgin Mary, I believe somewhere here in Fl. There was the water stain on the underpass that looked like Jesus. The next thing you know, people are actually praying to these images.

Moses would have torn them a new one.

I also have a problem with praying to mortal men, i.e."saints." These people are born of the seed of Adam, and were sinners like you and me. They were just blessed with the proper combination of personality, temperament, and the gifts of God.

There are many references to the saints being all believers in the Church, not just a handful whos lives were fully dedicated to the work of God.

[skysaintj 0]

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why are you applying science to a matter of faith?

It can be used as part of an effective bullshit filter to avoid gullibility. The question should be: why aren't people applying scientific methods to matters of faith?

" oh no here we go again " - someone on a forum some months ago.

[StreetScooby 5]

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The question should be: why aren't people applying scientific methods to matters of faith?

What vocabulary would you use to describe the observations?

We are all engines of karma

[stevebabin 0]

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What vocabulary would you use to describe the observations?

Words like "delusional"?
(Relax Windcatcher...it's a joke.)

"Science, logic and reason will fly you to the moon. Religion will fly you into buildings."
"Because figuring things out is always better than making shit up."

[Nightingale 0]

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The question should be: why aren't people applying scientific methods to matters of faith?

What vocabulary would you use to describe the observations?

To me, science explains what happens in the world around us and why, while faith explains the purpose behind it. When faith and science clash, it happens when faith is trying to step into the realm of science, since it is impossible for true science to step into the realm of faith.

Science will never be able to accurately explain why we exist, and it doesn't try to do so. Faith will never be able to accurately explain how we came to exist, and it shouldn't try to do so.

To apply science to things that are matters of faith does both faith and science a disservice. Applying faith to things that are matters of science is equally foolish.

[JackC 0]

That depends on the observations.

Science is just a tool. If your pet theory says that if you apply force X to object Y then it will behave in manner Z, and when you do all that object Y doesn't behave in manner Z, then I don't care if your name is Albert Einstein, L. Ron Hubbard or Jesus of Nazareth, the theory is wrong. That's all.

[StreetScooby 5]

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That depends on the observations.

Science is just a tool. If your pet theory says that if you apply force X to object Y then it will behave in manner Z, and when you do all that object Y doesn't behave in manner Z, then I don't care if your name is Albert Einstein, L. Ron Hubbard or Jesus of Nazareth, the theory is wrong. That's all.

Agreed.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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To apply science to things that are matters of faith does both faith and science a disservice. Applying faith to things that are matters of science is equally foolish.

At some point in our existence, I'm hoping mankind can get past this. Though it's going to be very difficult.

We are all engines of karma

[JackC 0]

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To apply science to things that are matters of faith does both faith and science a disservice.

I disagree, if you believe something as being true you should have a (good) reason for it. Especially if you plan on using the object of your belief as some kind of life or moral compass. If this object can't stand up to a fair amount of scrutiny then it has no business being held up as true. If you have no reason for belief and yet you still do, then you have faith and that is dangerous ground to be on IMHO.

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Applying faith to things that are matters of science is equally foolish

On that, we agree.

Generally, I don't see faith as a positive attribute.

[micro 0]

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To apply science to things that are matters of faith does both faith and science a disservice.

I disagree, if you believe something as being true you should have a (good) reason for it. Especially if you plan on using the object of your belief as some kind of life or moral compass. If this object can't stand up to a fair amount of scrutiny then it has no business being held up as true. If you have no reason for belief and yet you still do, then you have faith and that is dangerous ground to be on IMHO.

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Applying faith to things that are matters of science is equally foolish

On that, we agree.

Generally, I don't see faith as a positive attribute.

Perhaps you want to qualify that statement to say you don't see RELIGIOUS faith as a positive attribute... you have faith in MANY things.

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[GTAVercetti 0]

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Perhaps you want to qualify that statement to say you don't see RELIGIOUS faith as a positive attribute... you have faith in MANY things.

I have faith in my ability to use my powers only for awesome.

Why yes, my license number is a palindrome. Thank you for noticing.

[JackC 0]

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you have faith in MANY things.

Like what?

[StreetScooby 5]

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Like what?

Sounds like he's referring to your faith in the scientific process. IMO, that's not a matter of faith.

We are all engines of karma

[micro 0]

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you have faith in MANY things.

Like what?

anything requiring your complete confidence in a person or plan.

like when you go to a new doctor, one you've never seen before... he may have the diplomas, but you don't KNOW he's good. You have put a certain degree of faith in his ability. He could be a complete clod.

like in any romantic relationship... you have faith your significant other isn't going to cheat on you... he or she may have well placed history of NOT cheating, but that isn't necessarily proof that he or she will NOT cheat in the future.

you could call this "confidence" or "belief" or "trust" or whatever, but at root, it's faith, not at all dissimilar to the virtue of religious faith.

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[Nightingale 0]

Matters of faith should be matters that are not scientifically testable. Science isn't going to be able to tell you the purpose of life. Applying philosophy to faith makes more sense than applying science to faith.