Christianity's role in a secular society

Arkhum wrote:

semyaza wrote:

No offense to anyone of the Christian persuasion here, but I simply refuse to bow down and worship *any* "higher power" that has ordered and encourages the slaughter of innocents...If Christianity is a religion of peace, love, and doing good, then they need to investigate the barbarous foundation upon which their church has been built.

Once again I bring to light that ALL faiths/beliefs are beautiful, in their own way, until touched by humans. I truly believe that we (we being used in the most general of senses, mostly ancestors who helped build religions) have tampered and severely scarred the words of what was truly meant at one point. Humans=mistakes therefore everything throughout history has been tarnished. Just my belief. The bible is a book written by man throughout the ages. This has been succeptable (sp?) to as many misinterpretations as anything else throughout history. I bring this to light only because the Christian faith is built upon this book but still ppl choose to believe this book and it's entirety as the end all be all of the word of GOD. I understand the human need for a higher power, to believe in something bigger than we are. Hell, I believe in GOD/DESS but am not so intent on the need for it that I cannot be intelligent enough to realize that this is a book that has been written and rewritten by man throughout time. This is what I find scary. To know that there are ppl who simply accept things as they are told. Otherwise intelligent ppl who question every aspect of their lives except for this part. That is what I cannot understand. Why be not afraid to question other parts of your life but be afraid to question the one thing you should be searching the truth of?

There's no such thing as faith untouched by humans. Faith cannot exist outside humans because it takes humans to engage in the action of faith. Same thing about belief. Belief is something that humans DO. Since each person is unique, their view of faith and belief will most certainly be different from everyone else, regardless how great or small that difference is.

That, I believe, only furthers my long standing argument that religion is a construct of mankinds' imagination.

Arkhum wrote:

I bring this to light only because the Christian faith is built upon this book but still ppl choose to believe this book and it's entirety as the end all be all of the word of GOD.

I actually do understand what you're saying, but in the interest of accuracy, want to clarify that the Protestant faith was built upon the Bible, which in turn was built upon Christianity. Catholicism is built upon Christ's teaching, much of which is in the Bible, if not all when properly understood. I agree with you about how little of this proper understanding actually happens.
I know this doesn't affect you're point, just the wording.

Arkhum wrote:

This is what I find scary. To know that there are ppl who simply accept things as they are told. Otherwise intelligent ppl who question every aspect of their lives except for this part. That is what I cannot understand. Why be not afraid to question other parts of your life but be afraid to question the one thing you should be searching the truth of?

Amen to ALL of that.

Gomez wrote:

As to your question about us being able to make up your own doctrine as you go along, regardless of whether it's rational or not: If you're a Protestant, that's fine.

Sorry. I'm not meaning to be deliberately awkward (for once!), but this really seems contradictory to me.

As I understand it, from what you said:
The Catholic view: The Bible is part of Christian teaching, but there is other stuff that has come from people after Christ's death, inspired by the Holy Ghost.
The Protestant view: The Bible contains the whole kit and kaboodle, and is therefore the last word on everything.

Unless the Holy Ghost only inspires people officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church (which begins to make it sound like a franchise) then it seems to me that Catholicism have "made it up", but also made it sound official.

Gomez wrote:

Arkhum wrote:

This is what I find scary. To know that there are ppl who simply accept things as they are told. Otherwise intelligent ppl who question every aspect of their lives except for this part. That is what I cannot understand. Why be not afraid to question other parts of your life but be afraid to question the one thing you should be searching the truth of?

Amen to ALL of that.

After you with that hassock.

The Catholic bible is the 12" Extended Remix of the Bible in that we have " 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), additions to Esther, and the stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon which are included in Daniel;" books taken out of the Protestant Bible in the 1500s.
I got this bit of info from THIS SITE

Maxmordon wrote:

Protestants tends to be quite literal of what says in the Bible. If it says it happened in 6 days, in 6 days happened, etc. While Catholicism has outright admited that quite a lot of things are metaphorical

Plus we Catholics are a fun lot when you've got a demon that needs exorcising!

darkwave_71 wrote:

The Catholic bible is the 12" Extended Remix of the Bible in that we have " 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), additions to Esther, and the stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon which are included in Daniel;" books taken out of the Protestant Bible in the 1500s.
I got this bit of info from THIS SITE

Maxmordon wrote:

Protestants tends to be quite literal of what says in the Bible. If it says it happened in 6 days, in 6 days happened, etc. While Catholicism has outright admited that quite a lot of things are metaphorical

Plus we Catholics are a fun lot when you've got a demon that needs exorcising!

When you have a demon in your nephew or a poltergeist in your bathroom you never call Methodists, that's for sure

semyaza wrote:

Arkhum wrote:

semyaza wrote:

No offense to anyone of the Christian persuasion here, but I simply refuse to bow down and worship *any* "higher power" that has ordered and encourages the slaughter of innocents...If Christianity is a religion of peace, love, and doing good, then they need to investigate the barbarous foundation upon which their church has been built.

Once again I bring to light that ALL faiths/beliefs are beautiful, in their own way, until touched by humans. I truly believe that we (we being used in the most general of senses, mostly ancestors who helped build religions) have tampered and severely scarred the words of what was truly meant at one point. Humans=mistakes therefore everything throughout history has been tarnished. Just my belief. The bible is a book written by man throughout the ages. This has been succeptable (sp?) to as many misinterpretations as anything else throughout history. I bring this to light only because the Christian faith is built upon this book but still ppl choose to believe this book and it's entirety as the end all be all of the word of GOD. I understand the human need for a higher power, to believe in something bigger than we are. Hell, I believe in GOD/DESS but am not so intent on the need for it that I cannot be intelligent enough to realize that this is a book that has been written and rewritten by man throughout time. This is what I find scary. To know that there are ppl who simply accept things as they are told. Otherwise intelligent ppl who question every aspect of their lives except for this part. That is what I cannot understand. Why be not afraid to question other parts of your life but be afraid to question the one thing you should be searching the truth of?

There's no such thing as faith untouched by humans. Faith cannot exist outside humans because it takes humans to engage in the action of faith. Same thing about belief. Belief is something that humans DO. Since each person is unique, their view of faith and belief will most certainly be different from everyone else, regardless how great or small that difference is.

That, I believe, only furthers my long standing argument that religion is a construct of mankinds' imagination.

Semy, you are so very right. I suppose what I was thinking is more along the lines of whatever is out there that is working becomes twisted in our humanity. But then as I think of that it is a human thing to even consider whatever is out there beautiful in the first place.

EvilHippyEmperor wrote:

Sorry. I'm not meaning to be deliberately awkward (for once!), but this really seems contradictory to me.

As I understand it, from what you said:
The Catholic view: The Bible is part of Christian teaching, but there is other stuff that has come from people after Christ's death, inspired by the Holy Ghost.

Sorry I wasn't clearer on this point. I don't believe that at all, really.
All of Christ's teaching was in the original Deposit of Faith. All religious development from that time on (at least from the Catholic point of view) is nothing more than mulling over what he said.
Example: The word "trinity" isn't in the Bible, I doubt Christ ever used it, but it's a term we use to label the odd concept that God is One and there is but one God, but Christ was God and he prayed to God. WTH?

Interestingly, lots of people do believe this: That the Catholic Church invented doctrines after the time of the Apostles, but nobody has ever been able to supply me with a genuine example of this. They usually quote me things that "everybody knows" Catholics believe, which were never doctrine at all, or else quote me things that the original Christians did believe, but Protestants later threw out on the grounds that the early Christians supposedly didn't.

Okay, I know this thread's been dead for a while, but this wasn't available when the topic was started, and I think it relates to the original point.

If we are going to do show and tell... here is a painting I did this year showing how I feel about organized religion. I am not picking exclusively on the Catholic church, but all organized Christian religions. Have a go at an interpretation!

Um... hmm... nope, sorry.
Been puzzling over it for a while now and don't really get what it's meant to convey.

One of the dolls is wounded like Christ - not sure why.
She's got her legs bound with a rosary... maybe that means that prayer makes you less free or something? The opposite of my personal experience, but maybe that's the message there. No idea who the other dolls are or why the girl's got a mitre. The doll in the middle reminds me of nihilism, so that one smacks of Buddhism or Hindu from my point of view, but I doubt others would share it.

All and all, yeah, it went right over my head. Sorry.