In sniping, one wanders about making short, disparaging remarks about a group rather than investing the effort to produce a logical and coherent criticism of a specific point of thought or action.
Clearly, Poly made no such claim. He noted a general tendency in public exchanges (also seen on this board) to “snipe” at the group–making stupid comments that are neither informed nor helpful. If you wish to open a new thread to discuss what you perceive as the philosophical failings of any particular group, feel free. You are advised, however, to refrain from perpetuating a hijack of this thread simply to make arch comments or to ask disingenuous questions that are intended to derail this mess further.
And speaking of which, I really wish there were some Catholics on the board, because it’s not my place to defend the church. Nevertheless, there are some really stupid, prejudiced statements being made in this thread.
Do you know any Catholic welders? I do. They get it. It’s not esoteric or difficult in the least. Cathoilics believe sperm exists to be ejaculated into a vagina, and to evetually reach the womb. You can say you don’t believe it, you don’t think it’s good for people or whatever, but it is perfectly consistent, simple and logical.
No they have to piss all over their shoes. You can read, right?
I’m Catholic, and I am doing my best. I am having trouble keeping up with it, quite frankly, because there is so much rampant mischaracterization & criticism of the Church’s teaching, I hardly know where to begin. Thanks for helping out, even though you are not Catholic…that is totally cool.
Absolutely right…it’s not complicated at all. It’s actually quite simple. I can certainly understand not agreeing with this POV, but calling it esoteric & complicated is just plain wrong.
(Not to mention the fact that Sunrazor’s implication that welders are stupid is pretty elitist and insulting.)
Actually, several of us responded early in the thread. I suspect that most of us are simply not interested in hashing out the same tired complaints that we’ve encountered dozens of times, before, with the same few posters whose opinions will not change, anyway.
A couple of the grievous factual errors have been addressed. It serves little purpose (IMO) to go into lengthy ping-pong matches of “is too/is not” on the issues of opinion in which no argument will persuade.
For most posters, on both sides of the issues, the views are firmly and sincerely held, but there is a chasm of understanding for which I have not yet seen a bridge in nine years of message board participation.
tomndebb, you make very very good points. You are exactly right that these are the reasons I have only been involved in this half-heartedly. My desire here was to try to provide factual information (as much as I can, not being a theologian), rather than getting into a debate about who is wrong and who is right. I fully realize that I am not going to change anyone’s mind, which is fine, but I do think that if people are gong to find the Church’s beliefs “despicable,” then at least they should make that judgment based on what the Church really believes, vs. stuff they make up in their own heads.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena…if people are gong to find the Church’s beliefs “despicable,” then at least they should make that judgment based on what the Church really believes, vs. stuff they make up in their own heads.[/QUOTE]
Bp. Fulton Sheen famously said, “There are millions of people in America who are strongly in opposition to what they think the Catholic Church believes, and perhaps a hundred who disagree with what it actually does believe.”
There are quite a few issues on which the Church has taken stands that I as an Episcopalian have divergent views, ranging from strong opposition (no female/gay/non-celibate Roman Rite priests) to bland indifference (Assumption, for example; what God did or did not do for Mary is between Him and her, not my problem and certainly not a matter of faith). But I try to find out what it is that the Church teaches first.
The “despicable” comment was in reference to your statement. I didn’t make it up. I read your link. Looks like you’re right. The will forbid perfectly capable potential parents the joys of parenthood based on what they think god might want? I’m pretty certain that artificial insemination isn’t covered in the bible.
You don’t need to be a theologian to see that it’s cruel.
Pure nonsense. There are far more than a hundred atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, and so forth who disagree with a wide variety of the CC’s teachings. An awful lot of Catholics as well.
I realize that it was in reference to my cite, but, as I said, at least NOW you are making a judgment based on what the Church actually teaches.
Just because you don’t agree with something, it doesn’t mean it is illogical or cruel. My mother had trouble with fertility. So, she and dad adopted…me!!! If this situation happened now, they would still choose to adopt, rather than undergoing IVF. I assure you neither they, nor I, think this is cruel in the least.
Yes, I have to say I lost interest in this thread when it the topic shifted to “air any and all grievances against Catholics.”
I notice that Valteron has declined to offer any kind of support for his initial assertion that priests openly cruising for gay sex is a common phenomenon, which I asked for back on the first page. For all I know he just made it up.
I was always making my judgement based on what the church actually teaches. The cruelty isn’t a secret. I don’t know why you assumed otherwise.
That’s just dandy that your parents would choose to adopt rather than have biological children. I’m glad the church didn’t put restrictions on that, as well. They could have said, “Sorry…if you can’t get pregnant, you weren’t meant to be a parent.”
I never said adoption was cruel. I said robbing couples of the right to have their own children is cruel.
You base your judgments on the Church’s actual teachings… yet, in the very next paragraph, you’re perfectly willing to slam the Church based on something it didn’t say, but “could have.”
Well, you thought it was cruel earlier when you said the same thing based on what Polycarp said, which, while it was sincerely and respectfully explained, was wrong. Just wanted to be sure you were clear on what exactly you were criticizing. It is now obvious that it doesn’t really matter what the Church’s reasoning is…you are obviously not willing to make the weakest attempt to try to understand it.
Don’t forget us ;j - there are at least 4.4 million Jews in the US who are current members of synagogues, all of whom presumably disagree with what the Catholic Church teaches on one or more issues. The number of Muslims in the US is disputed, but it’s at least a million- presumably they don’t agree with Catholic teachings, either. For starters, we generally believe something quite different from what the Catholic Church teaches about the nature of God and Jesus…
No one’s been able to explain to me in terms that don’t involve blind faith why they would allow an organization to control harmless behaviors under threat of an eternity in a lake of fire. When you can explain to me how that’s a good thing, le me know.
