I could have written this thread’s OP at 14 or 15… and here I am now.
Just one data point for you. 
In the interest of the Straight Dope, it should be noted that Council of Trent only confirmed the canon as it had already been promulgated at the Councils of Rome (387) and Carthage (397).
(The Eastern Church has rarely made a point of defining a canon, per se, but considers as scripture any work employed in their liturgy, placing their effective canon in the fourth century, as well. )
The sixteenth and seventeenth century meetings and documents (re)defining the canon were less a matter of “establishing” the canon as setting forth the limits each group would accept after the initial challenge issued by Martin Luther.
Where do you see yourself in 10-20 years?
What are your Dreams/Aspirations/Career thoughts/anything like that, etc?
I am not asking you to debate the merits of Catholicism. I’m not interested in arguing about which religion is more meritorious in the eyes of G-d.
You made an assertion regarding the history and origin of the Bible. I believe that your assertion is factually incorrect, and I offered support for this.
This doesn’t answer my questions, and there is no human who ever knew or knows what God wants. Some person and people have decided that God said or did something. One can believe a person who states things but they are not necessarly the truth. I could say “God told me He liked no religion” and I could be as right or wrong as the people who claim to talk for Him.
It doesn’t make sense to me for an all knowing being to create something knowing it was going to be destroyed. It sounds like a big Game God would play. That person will go to hell so I can enjoy watching him or her suffer, even though some of my good people wil be harmed.
It is just a matter of what human you choose to believe.
According to the psalmist all people are gods. Jesus back up this statement when he was quoted calling God His father, reminding them that he wasn’t Blaspheming any more than the jews who were told: I say you are gods and son’s of the most high.
It is a matter of interpretation. Every branch of The Christian Religion translates it differently,all claim to be right.
It works for you so your beliefs are best for you, but others do not find it best for them.
Monavis
I absolutely get that. It doesn’t make sense.
But suppose your fingernails were sentient. They might equally wonder why, if there really is some sort of “consciousness” in charge of the body, that they grow and are then cruelly cut off. They lack not only the ability to see or sense the larger world of other people around them, but they lack the context to interpret that information even if they did sense it. From their point of view, the randomly-timed cutting might seem acts of supreme indifference, or even malevolence.
But you, the person, understand that you can’t make a living or have a social life with four-inch fingernails. You know that it’s ultimately for the benefit of the nails, the hands, and the whole body to destroy parts of the nails on a regular basis.
This isn’t a perfect analogy, of course. But it’s perhaps a useful model to answer the ages-old “But God’s actions don’t make any sense to me!”
In the Old Testament, Job was treated very unfairly. A pious man, Job was “…blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.” But he was nonetheless afflicted with boils, lost his wealth, his cattle, and for all we know was forced to watch the Old Testament version of Love Boat reruns without end.
He questions why this is necessary, when he’s been such a good and faithful servant of God.
And God answers him: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know.”
Just as your fingernails lack both sense and context to understand you, so, too, do people not have the context and sensory ability to understand God. God’s telling Job, in essence, “How can I even explain this to you? Do you know how to create a world? No? Then I can’t explain this; you don’t have the language or the experience to understand.”
Hard for a human being to swallow. We understand nearly everything, after all, much more than we did in Job’s day. Job didn’t know squat about quantum mechanics, string theory, or black holes. We have conquered so much of the physical world that it seems absurd to say that there’s anything we couldn’t possibly understand.
But there is.
How did you come to find the SDMB? What do your parents think of your faith?
Bricker , that’s just the ultimate cop-out. Anything about religion doesn’t make sense, just say it’s unknowable and who are you to question God.
Follow Up Question:
If you could change any part of the Catholic Church, the Dogma, or your Religion, what would it be?
OK.
But what if it’s true?
Actually, let me rephrase that.
To me, it feels true. I cannot transfer to you my experience, the experience that suggests to me it’s true. So for you to say, “Hey, ultimate cop-out,” based on your experience, makes perfect sense. We simply approach the question from different experential bases.
Do you feel you are in any way betraying a rich Jewish culture? Do you still feel connected to Jewish culture, or do you not feel it is possible to be a Catholic and a cultural Jew?
Has anybody accused you of being a self-hating Jew?
Hohh, it’s not as simple as that, bathsheba. God knows all! He’d see through such a cheap trick. What we do to ourselves, we do to Him.
Well, maybe he wanted a vasectomy but couldn’t get up the nerve.
Well yes, there’s that. That’s the only argument for religion that is makes any sense to me. Well, not in that in convinces me, I can’t argue against it though.
Well, I’m impressed.
If you intend to stick around, I’m willing to sponsor your SDMB membership. (sent publicly because you have private messaging turned off)
How old were you when you converted? How did you go about the logistics of it?
When you attend the traditional Latin extraordinary form of the Mass, where do go? Is your local parish run by priests from one of the newer, traditionalist orders (e.g. FSSP)? Or does the local PP include a traditional mass in the schedule along with the Novus Ordo masses?
We do not know that God interacted with Job as the author claims. Since God knew ahead of time how Job would react it was an unnecessary test if it it were anything but a fable or myth.
Monavis
Unless, of course, you account for free will.
God exists atemporally- that’s different from predestination or foreknowledge.
I don’t think “I’m going to pick and choose which parts of Job are allowable in this discussion, and which are not” is very fair.
Okay, as someone who coverted to the Church at close to your age (I was 13/14), and who’s since fallen away from it, I have a few questions that might be a little weird.
1.) Did you go through the confirmation process normally given to youth born in Catholic families, or did you go through the RCIA? If you went through the latter, what did you think of the process?
2.) How easy is it to find Latin Masses in your area?
3.) What’s your position on the veneration of saints and their role within the church? I find that this tends to be more. . .glossed over in modern worship.