Ask a Catholic

[Cyberman]

Honest question: what is the etymology of "Catholic"? Does it have anything to do with worshiping Cathol?

catholic (adj.) mid-14c., "of the doctrines of the ancient Church," literally "universally accepted," from French catholique, from Church Latin catholicus "universal, general," from Greek katholikos, from phrase kath' holou "on the whole, in general," from kata "about" + genitive of holos "whole" (see safe (adj.)). Applied to the Church in Rome c. 1554, after the Reformation began. General sense of "of interest to all, universal" is from 1550s.

Catholic (n.) "member of the Roman Catholic church," 1560s, from Catholic (adj.).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=catholic

Kath' holou? CD, anything you want to tell us?

[LastPoet]

Honest question: what is the etymology of "Catholic"? Does it have anything to do with worshiping Cathol?

catholic (adj.) mid-14c., "of the doctrines of the ancient Church," literally "universally accepted," from French catholique, from Church Latin catholicus "universal, general," from Greek katholikos, from phrase kath' holou "on the whole, in general," from kata "about" + genitive of holos "whole" (see safe (adj.)). Applied to the Church in Rome c. 1554, after the Reformation began. General sense of "of interest to all, universal" is from 1550s.

Catholic (n.) "member of the Roman Catholic church," 1560s, from Catholic (adj.).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=catholic

Kath' holou? CD, anything you want to tell us?

I knew it man, HP Lovecraft travelled back in time!

[Randy Carson]

This is incorrect. I will be happy to address each and every instance you wish to discuss.

What were Jesus's last words on the cross?

Then you agree that all four gospels testify that Jesus was crucified and died upon the cross? Gee, that doesn't square with what the other members of this forum are claiming to be true.

But if you place all of the gospels side by side, you will see that it is most likely that they were, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

[Minimalist]

Kath' holou?

Notice how close that is to Ass Holes?

[Ashground]

A (Practicing Catholic) friend of my family said she and her husband decided to start using contraception after the birth of their third child. When I asked, "Isn't the Vatican against that?", she said, "Yes but they don't have to live with the consequences, I do". I've found this with most religious people I know, they are much more sensible than their 'rules' would suggest. I just wanted to know is this common?

[Randy Carson]

My turn, yet?

So.. catholic, ex-protestant... I'm guessing, US born and raised, huh?

What's it like being a catholic in the US?
No old timey churches like we have here in Portugal:

I remember we exchanged a few photos.

It has always been my impression that the heads of the church are fully aware that they run the institution without any "outside" help... that is... no god intervenes. How else can we explain those nice things that happened a few centuries ago, like the Avignon Papacy, the crusades... and Galileo?

I didn't feel the need to comment on an impression that is based on a faulty assumption.

Since I'm going to delve into history, how about we consider the very real possibility of fabrication of the concept of Jesus? PErhaps as an amalgamation of other pre-existing deities and some other real people. I'm not even going into other gods (egyptians, greek or romans, or assyrians) who were claimed to be born of virgins, died and resurrected and other tri-parted heads of pantheons.... I'm going into my favorite simple and evidenced Teacher of Righteousness:

Michael O. Wise posits that the Teacher of Righteousness was the "first messiah", a figure predating Jesus by roughly 100 years.[9] This figure - who Wise believes was named Judah - rose to prominence during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, and had been a priest and confidant to the king. However, he became dissatisfied with the religious sects in Jerusalem, and in reaction, founded a "crisis cult". While amassing a following, the Teacher (and his followers) claimed he was the fulfillment of various Biblical prophecies, with an emphasis on those found in Isaiah. The Teacher was eventually killed by the religious leadership in Jerusalem, and his followers hailed him as messianic figure who had been exalted to the presence of God's throne. They then anticipated that the Teacher would return to judge the wicked and lead the righteous into a golden age, and that it would take place within the next forty years. Wise explains that dating of manuscript copies among the Dead Sea Scrolls shows that the Teacher's postmortem following drastically increased in size over several years, but that when the predicted return and golden age failed to materialize, his following dissipated rapidly.

The story does sound familiar, does it not? The troubling bit is that it pre-dates Jesus by over 100 years. It could have been revived some time before the Council of Nicaea and found its way into some text that would later be considered a gospel.

Atheist Tim O'Neill address the problems with the mythicist view in a devastating two-part article entitled "An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus". Part one covers this, but you'll want to read the whole thing, I'm sure.

According to Bart Ehrman, prior to this council, there were several flavors of christianity, gnostics, trinitarians, non-trinitarians, orthodox, etc, etc.... After the council, there were catholics and orthodox... all others were persecuted. As a persecuted minority, some fled away from the Turkey/Israel/Syria area, further south, into north Africa and the arabian peninsula. There, a few centuries later, a tribal leader, knowledgeable about Moses and with this authority figure on his back, rose up and conquered other tribes. About 70 years after this guy's death, the caliphate he allegedly initiated was too big and its leaders instituted a caliphate-wide religion with schools dedicated to teaching the principles of this religion... and a book: the qur'an.
It seems unlikely that this tribal leader had direct contact with an angel who told him to conquer all the neighbors and spread the message of "believe in me, or else...", so it stands to reason that the Qur'an popped up after the flash conquest took place, as the guy gained some acclaim as a military genius, or something.... and his descendents took advantage of that awe people gained for the man and added some extra bits to the tale.
Thus Islam was born.
Taking hints from Judaism (prophet figure in Moses) and from roman-catholicism (implementation of a state-wide religion).
So, my point is catholics are responsible for islam. Thanks a lot!! -.-'

And this wasn't worth commenting upon.

Shall we go further back in history? What, no christ figure back then? awww... you poor fellow...

And since you have not Christ now, does that make you even more pathetic than me?

You had Moses and Abraham.... the though part is that there was a world before them... Did I mention the Assyrians? How about the Egyptians? And the chinese?
There were civilizations... great civilizations... prior to Abraham. There were religions. There were polytheist religions, shamanism, animism...
The complexity of religions seems to have evolved with time.... climaxing in the single god that takes care of everything... and does nothing - the creator god whose plan you cannot mess with, that set everything in motion prior to the big bang and whatever you do now, won't cause any change in that motion.... the deist god.
And all (perhaps except the very first - animism?) are man-made concepts that build upon the previous.

Why believe?
To me, the requirement of belief in the existence of a god only signals that the religious institution lacks a solid base... hence, it lacks credibility.

Uh...yeah. It is true that ancient religions search for God in the shadows whereas more recently God has sent His Son to be the light of the world...but I'm not sure what you're really aiming at.

TL,DR?
0- HAHA, the US has no cool churches!
1- church leaders must know that god is frightfully absent from this world.
2- Jesus as an amalgamation of other fictional or real figures.
3- Thanks a lot for Islam, catholics! Fuck you!
4- Religions evolve... it's almost like they're man-made concepts.
5- the requirement of belief removes all credibility to any religious institution.

I suggest that you think about these things when you're a bit older.

[Minimalist]

A (Practicing Catholic) friend of my family said she and her husband decided to start using contraception after the birth of their third child. When I  asked, "Isn't the Vatican against that?",  she said, "Yes but they don't have to live with the consequences, I do". I've found this with most religious people I know, they are much more sensible than their 'rules' would suggest. I just wanted to know is this common?

Overwhelmingly.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/...h-control/

82 Percent Of Catholics Say Birth Control Is ‘Morally Acceptable’ Despite Catholic Institutions’ Crusade Against It

No one listens to those cassock-wearing morons anymore.

[Randy Carson]

What were Jesus's last words on the cross?

"Hey Ma, I can see our house from up here."

Now that was clever.

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God has spent a fair amount of time informing us of what happens after death.

Written as one who has bitten on the whole revelatory package.
God:

1. Could be imaginary.
   
2. Could be lying.
   
3. Could be a social construct whose sole effect in this reality is to manipulate minds and scam resources for an indolent class of clerics.
   

Reading your unquestioning acceptance of Catholic tradition, I'd say 3. is pretty effective.

Could be. But I wouldn't want to wager my eternity on any of your options. However, I do have another thread that is more relevant to this currently underway.

The purpose of the phrasing is to say that what an infinite God has prepared for us is BEYOND what we can comprehend.

Exactly, BEYOND only specifies incomprehensibility not utility.  I don't think you understand the concept of ineffibility or infinity.  Tell me again why God can't lie?[/quote]

Because lying is an imperfection, and God is a perfect being.

Well, I suppose that if I were a cynic, I might consider that possible. So, I can either ignore God now, and guarantee my eternal damnation or believe what God has said about the afterlife and deal with any potential "rug tugs" later.

Either way, that has to be better than simply bee-lining straight into hell.

Again, you don't understand.  Your omni-god can do ANYTHING including lying, double dealing, bait and switch....ANYTHING.  Bee-lining straight into hell only applies if hell actually exists.

Oh, I understand what you're saying. That's not the problem here...

Show me some of that. Or are you merely asserting it to be true? If there is soooo much evidence, you ought to be able to demonstrate this to me easily enough.

Nope, not gonna bite.  I'd provide some simple and obvious inacuracies of the bible and you'd go into Bill Clinton mode and start laying out jots and tittles of Greek semantics worked out by monks in the twelfth century.  Brain washing WORKS.  Ask the North Koreans.

And it works on people who obviously don't even want to hear the explanations for things they have convinced themselves cannot be explained.

You're a bigger dupe than me, because at least I'm willing to listen to YOUR explanations. You want nothing to do with mine.

Let's talk about the facts of all three of those examples. Or would you really just rather cling to your ignorance so that you don't have to deal with the implications of the truth?

First, define truth.
No, let me...
Truth is a property of propositions.  A proposition is true in direct proportion to the degree that proposition accurately predicts future events.

Jesus said, "I am the Truth" then predicted his own death and resurrection with what turned out to be 100% accuracy.

I'm gonna have to remember that, Julia. Thank you.

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Even when confronted with contradictions, somehow it remains "true"... Maybe, this is one of the reasons the catholic church didn't like science for a long time. Those pesky facts always get in the way.

Google "List of Catholic Scientists".

See what history really reveals about this.

[Ashground]

A (Practicing Catholic) friend of my family said she and her husband decided to start using contraception after the birth of their third child. When I  asked, "Isn't the Vatican against that?",  she said, "Yes but they don't have to live with the consequences, I do". I've found this with most religious people I know, they are much more sensible than their 'rules' would suggest. I just wanted to know is this common?

Overwhelmingly.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/...h-control/

82 Percent Of Catholics Say Birth Control Is ‘Morally Acceptable’ Despite Catholic Institutions’ Crusade Against It

No one listens to those cassock-wearing morons anymore.

Thank you for the link! I had no idea it was so high.

[Randy Carson]

Honest question: what is the etymology of "Catholic"? Does it have anything to do with worshiping Cathol?

Acts 9:31 (Greek)

ἡ μεν ουν εκκλησια καθ᾽ ὁλης της ιουδαιας και γαλιλαιας και σαμαρειας ειχεν ειρηνην οικοδομουμενη και πορευομενη τω φοβω του κυριου, και τη παρακλησει του ἁγιου πνευματος επληθυνοντο.
 
Act 9:31 (Transliteration)
aye men oon ekklaysiaye kath olays tays ioodayeas kaye galilayeas kaye samarayas aycon ayraynayn oikodomoomenaye kaye poryoomenaye tow fobow too kurioo kaye tay paraklaysay too agioo pnyoomatos eplaythunonto (http://www.russ.org/gtb/luke.html#a9)

Acts 9:31 (English)
So the Church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was built up; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit it was multiplied.


From this text, we can see the Greek word “kath olays” which is rendered “Catholic” in modern English and the word “ekklaysiaye” which becomes “ecclesia” in English and is commonly translated as “church”.
 
εκκλησια καθ᾽ ὁλης = ekklaysiaye kath olays = “the church throughout all” = Catholic Church.

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A (Practicing Catholic) friend of my family said she and her husband decided to start using contraception after the birth of their third child. When I  asked, "Isn't the Vatican against that?",  she said, "Yes but they don't have to live with the consequences, I do". I've found this with most religious people I know, they are much more sensible than their 'rules' would suggest. I just wanted to know is this common?

Sadly, this is true.

And, for the record, my wife and I were misinformed about ABC when we were first married, but we switched to NFP once we learned that contraception is intrinsically evil. Since many forms of birth control are actually abortifacients, this is a really grave situation. 

God may have mercy due to their ignorance...but many are not so ignorant. They just do what they want regardless of the consequences.