And it’s a weapon she doesn’t know how to use properly because she has no deep understanding of it.
His, how do you expect to be taken seriously when you not only can not defend your faith (as you have stated numerous times) but also do not understand fully your faith or the book you so dearly love? Why are you hear if you have no intention of debating or, more importantly, learning. You have closed your mind, and in doing so can not grow. You simply restate those things which you have been taught without understanding them and when people point out your short comings you take the stance of “move on, I’m not discussing this anymore”. Do you realize how childish that is? And do you realize how childish your faith looks when you do such? It’s time to put off those childish ways, that childish reasoning. You are like that banging cymbal, simply making sound with no melody or reasoning. Read 1 Corinthinas 13.
To defend your faith, you need to understand it first. And you need to understand other’s faiths as well. Personally and with your own mind, not simply retelling what your mother or your pastor or people like Jack Chick have told you.
Kirk, thanks for the reasoned response. As I said I don’t “care”(in that I believe you all have an equal chance of getting into heaven) but I was interested in the distinction made.
You didn’t mention the Catholic reasoning for allowing images of Jesus and praying before statues; is it not forbidden to create/use images as stand ins for God?
“Catholics who are educated about their faith know the difference, and so does God.”- I’m not sure if we would agree but I think the massive majority of Catholics are not that educated about their faith.
Correct, but only to the extent that someone worships the statue as God itself. Remember that the Ark of the Covenant, for example, was detailed with heavenly images, but it was only an instrument of God, not his replacement. Compare that with the Israelites’ worship of the golden calf while Moses was up on the mountain; they were creating a false idol in God’s place.
Catholics recognize that God made us as both physical and spiritual beings, and that our appreciation for God can be deepened by appreciating beauty in the physical world. Hence, Catholic churches are filled with artwork and we burn incense as means of appealing to our physical senses, with the larger implication that it’s pointing us in God’s direction. (It’s one thing to appreciate Christ’s sacrifice by reading the Gospels; it’s another to be assailed by a physical image of Christ dead on the cross with blood pouring from him.)
The short: artwork ok. Appreciating God through artwork ok. Worshiping artwork bad. Got it?
(trying to get back into that whole “writing paper” kick).
Alluring lead-in about my father and how he found Jesus and his wife and all that crap, and how he wanted to be a Franciscan (I think) when he was 15 but they wouldn’t take him until he was 17 by which time he’s met my mother and chose her instead;)
Stuff about how he found out about the Camoldolese while I was in high school and started doing stuff to qualify, or something, to be an oblate.
Thing about the mass we had where he professed his whatevers (hey, it was a while ago and I’ve repressed most high school memories;)).
Oblates are the third order of monks in the Order of Saint Benedict, Camoldolese (I think I said that right). Basically he doesn’t live in a monastery or wear a habit, but he’s (I can’t believe I’m about to say something about my father’s sex life…) chaste and all that crap. Certainly not poor, with all the superman comics he buys:)
And Squish, I saw several people ask her. I figured I’d ask again if for no other reason than if we keep asking she’ll either answer or go away. I honestly don’t think she’s ever encountered the idea that you should keep all OT stuff if you keep any of it. My feeling based on what she’s said and what I have known of other conservative Christians is that often (and this does not apply to some noted conservative Christians on this board who are able to defend their faith with more than “I don’t know, but it’s in the Bible so I believe it”) they see their pastor as someone who, if he had a problem with some aspect of their religion, would tell them, and so they’re happy with what they believe and don’t really consider what it might be like not to believe that.
Plus I figure it’s nicer to keep asking the same questions until she either answers them or goes away than it is to keep adding questions to the mix. I have several in mind that I’ll post when others get answered. But in this case, bombardment is not really the answer. IMO, of course:)
Yes, well I found the Vatican’s page describing the out:
"2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it."70 The honor paid to sacred images is a “respectful veneration,” not the adoration due to God alone: "
Well, it is the RCC’s (self declared) right to determine the spirit of the scripture rather than follow it to the letter. I have a very hard time believing the big huge cross at the front of the church is there for “art appreciation” but hey whatever gets you through the night. In fact the official catechism seems to make it clear that praying to sacred images is used as a straight conduit for worshipping God. In my mind the ark is no more a symbol of God than a church building, it was made to carry the covenant not to be worshipped through. YMMV
Here is the(I’m not sure if it’s been posted earlier) TOCfor the Vatican’s catechism pages, maybe His4ever can peruse through it and see what in there is sending Catholics to hell.
One of the parts you labeled as ‘clear’ was the Old Testament description of homsexuality as “abomination”. Maybe this is clear if you only look at the King James translation. I think you should look at a discussion of both sides of the issue. That is a very controversial passage. Did you know that ‘to’ebah’, the word translated as ‘abomination’, is also applied to eating lobster, or women wearing men’s clothes? I bet you are not quite as adamant about the latter two being incompatible with Chrsitianity! That link discusses the ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ interpretations of every major passage relevant to homosexuality; I hope you’ll read it.
I hope you will keep studying, and I hope this might give you pause when denouncing other Christians. Internet message boards are a really valuable step, in my opinion, in establishing faith – I know that my continued defenses of Christianity when I was younger certainly made me think about what I really believed.
[On a side note: I’m sure if offends you that people respond negatively to your posts. From your point of view, you are offering the truth to them. However, from their point of view, you are expressing the right to hate them because of your faith – perhaps not directly, but saying that God will torment them for eternity because their beliefs or sexual orientation is a rather hateful statement. I’m sure you would feel the same way if a Muslim told you about how he ‘knows’, in his mind, that you will go to Hell. Keep it in mind.]
Having been brought up in catholic surroundings I must admit that the saints an Mary are indeed worshipped by the vast majority.
Wether you call it veneration or adoration or whatever, in practice it’s the same thing.
This is not at all surprising as the saints are nothing but the old pagan gods, glossed over with a little christian varnish.
That’s how the west was won, so to speak. Paint a cross over it and in time people will forget its true meaning. But the rituals are still there as are the feasts, like easter and x-mass.
You heretics have it good, you stepped away from official doctrines and traditions and free to invent (and are still inventing) new ones. Some of them are admittably cute, like dancing with snakes.
Having spent most of my adult life in Catholic surroundings, I must admit that you are wrong, and Mary and the saints are not worshipped by any Catholics I knwo.
Veneration and adoration are as different from each other as night and day.
Quoting your Lord God Jack T. Chick and his lies, I see. The nonsense that Catholicism is just “redressed paganism” is as old as anti-Catholic fundamentalism.
Hehehe, I get mistaken for a fundie, now that is funny.
Yes, now this Nicholas was a cool dude, lets proclaim him a saint.
Let’s invent a new ritual for him where he hands out presents once a year. Ooh yes, and give him a white horse so he doesn’t have to walk. And a servant would be nice, let’s invent a black guy to do his chores and frighten little bad children with.
Any similarities to Wodan are of course purely coincidental.
To those of us who don’t have any emotional investment in the subject, there really doesn’t seem to be much practical difference between veneration, adoration, and worship.
Catholics say they don’t worship Mary and the saints, and that’s good enough for me . . . but you gotta admit, it’s a real easy conclusion to reach.
Images are not used as stand ins for God, no more than a picture of your wife (if you’re one of the lucky people allowed to marry in our culture) is a replacement for the person. Catholics do not worship statues of Jesus. They honor them for the God they represent, but the true recipient of the hono given to an object is the saint it represents, or God himself. Never just a hunk of wood. A hunk of wood is just a hunk of wood.
That two terms are substansively different, and that they are used to describe two totally different concepts within Catholicism IS NOT WORD GAMES.
People are not “proclaimed” saints because they’re “cool.” Your sarcasm weakens whatever feeble point you are attempting to make. People are recognized as saints because of the strength and example of their faith in God.
Do not confuse the canonization of Nicholas with the myths that have since cropped up about him. St. Nicholas, the saint of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, is nothing like the Santa Clause of American commercialism.
And that something in Catholicism is similar to something from a previous religion or another religion does not equate with there being a direct connection between the two. By that standard, Judaism has to be thrown out because in a lot of ways its just a redress of previous ancient religions, and Christianity is out because it is quite similar to Mithrianism.
"Judaism has to be thrown out because in a lot of ways its just a redress of previous ancient religions, and Christianity is out because it is quite similar to Mithrianism. "
