Assuming that the church is claiming a connection to god, and claiming that that god is unchanging? Never. See, when a church “changes its mind” about doctrine, one of two things is necessarily happening: god is changing the doctrine, or the church is admitting that it had it wrong. The former is impossible if god is unchanging, as the christian religion says he is, while the latter robs the church of any and all credibility it has as a path to god. As such, the doctrine cannot change unless god changes.
:smack: I am behind. Those were days ago and I only saw Batfish’s post. Teach me to read up until I get to the original.
If I’d seen your (and Steve MB’s) posts I would have high-fived. What a great movie!
(I’m reading back now and see that I missed out on some serious Republican Stupid and excellent snark about it in the past several days. I love this thread.)
I think his word for word quote here was “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman”. I wouldn’t have a problem with it if he said “between men and women” because that’s consistent with the practices of the originator of his religion. However I don’t think he gets a pass on the irony of his statements merely because he didn’t explicitly mention religious tradition as part of his justification.
I think doctrine, dogma and practices may need to be separated in order to acknowledge this.
Church doctrine changes over time: I wouldn’t consider it ironic or hypocritical for a Catholic candidate to support abortion, because it doesn’t contradict the expressed positions of Jesus (from what I can recall), nor his actual practices. It does contradict official Church doctrine though.
Alternative definitions of marriage contradict modern LDS doctrine (polygamy, gay marriage) but not the practices of the founders (nor dogma, for obvious reasons - though a Muslim candidate couldn’t replicate the marriages of Muhammad, since he already inserted a special pleading Sura in the Quran). At any rate, if a candidate refuses to acknowledge alternative definitions of marriage, they are implicitly denigrating the marriages of Joseph Smith.
No, our forefathers may have interpreted it incorrectly. Nobody can fully know the mind of God, blah blah blah. But I grew up Catholic before, during, and after Vatican II, so I was used to not knowing what was accepted doctrine from one day to the next.
Yeah, those were my Catholic years too, and even many of the priests were confused. I suspect they recruited and bunch of new members, and lost a bunch of traditionalists who couldn’t buy into the changes.
IMO, looking back, it’s just another confirmation that the church “believed” whatever the guys at the top believed, or claimed to believe.
Cite that the “christian religion” holds that God is unchanging in all respects?
I think you may be confusing “doctrine” with specific rituals of practice.
Vatican II did not change any doctrine. It changed the rituals we use during the celebration of Mass.
But this is kind of about God changing his mind – if God is infallible, why would he change his mind? If God instructs his followers to be polygamists one day and all the sudden that’s out and monogamy is in, then either God was misleading the people either before or after the change, or the church leaders were doing so on claims of revelations for God. Either way does not speak well of the church.
It was more than that:
Well… Here’s something of some relevance…, with specific Bible verses… Here’s another reference to official doctrine of at least one major denomination…
Personally, I’ve always wondered if the “unchanging” nature of God has any philosophical necessity. I once presented a metaphor of God as a mountain: both “the same” for all time (or at least for vast lengths of time) but also constantly changing, as the weather, the climate, the forests, the fields, the wildlife, all are constantly changing. At least one Christian agreed that it was a perfectly valid way of envisioning God.
And, of course, the gigantic shift in policy between the Old Testament and the New Testament suggests that God, in fact, did change, and very dramatically indeed! He was born and died, and those are pretty hefty changes!
Unless people are arguing that Catholicism is a stupid Republican idea, it belongs in another, incredibly boring, thread.
Then tell the Republicans that the weekend is over and they need to get to work being stupid again!
Well you certainly couldn’t do that with a tort, under the principle of De minimis non curat lex.
From the Elections board, Mitt Romney valiantly came to the defence of Hilary Rosen’s claim, pointing out that the unemployed would be better off with the dignity of work. Presumably including his wife in that category.
Guh, while googling news related to Rosen’s comments, I found this article. Looks like that trumpet is a dog-whistle (lesbian activist, indeed).
Ouch.
I just was reading here for the first time since I posted that. Tort should have been accepted, so I can’t even blame auto-correct.
Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap.
Now we have to hunt you down and shoot you.
How about Mitt talking candidly at what was supposed to be a closed door fundraiser.
I’d like to start seeing signs that read, “Mitt, let us read the fine print.”
Nice to know that Mitt is going to strengthen one arm of the government – the union-busting arm.
That’s a huge article you’ve linked to. Would you mind quoting the portion of it that shows a change in doctrine?
So… we’re still going to have bureaucracies, but just 50 little ones instead of one big one?
Don’t governors HATE this stuff? “Yes, we know you’re already having financial difficulties trying to do everything else you have to do, but here’s MORE stuff you have to be responsible for! Let the race to the bottom begin!”
I hope the states jump on Romney.