RE: Evidence for Christianity
January 23, 2011 at 3:51 pm
(This post was last modified: January 23, 2011 at 3:57 pm by dqualk.)
Quote: Thank you for your thorough response.
I find it hard to believe that in this day and age the concept of indulgences is given any credence at all, EVEN by the catholic church. I had truly thought that they had moved on from this mindset and am disappointed to find that the it still thinks that way.
An indulgence is really just an assurance from the Church that your good work is cherished by God and it has done your soul good.
Quote: Claiming homosexuality is immoral is bigotry. I don't see it as a moral issue, just a matter of the nature. Homosexauls are human too and deserve to be treated equally. Unfortunately if you buy into deutoronomy, leviticus and all those other ghastly manuscripts you buy into all sorts of nonsense, which is why xtians cherry pick the bits they're ok with (like thinking homosexuality is wrong), then say Jesus saved us from all the bitys which are bronze age garbage (like having to stone our own kids for answering back). If you scour the bible for morality its a very depressing outlook.
Is condemning incest, polyamouras promiscuity, or consentual child-adult love just bigotry? Homosexuals are humans and they do deserve equal treatment and respect. We do not get our morals from the OT alone, we get if from Christ who superceded the old Jewish understanding of morality.
The Jews never said that one shoudl stone their sons for talking back. It was a common Jewish style of exaggeration. It is similar to when Jesus says I tell you to hate your parents etc. He did not mean to hate your parents. Its an exaggeration to get a point across. In the case of mouthy children it shows the power of the parent over teh child, and how bad it is to disrespect your parent. I assure you that if someone kills their child for nearly any reason in Jewish society today, and ancient Jewish society they would kill the guy who killed his child for murdering his child. We know this from Jewish commentary on their own scripture that that was not intended to be taken literally.
Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. That is all of the law to Jesus and Christians. So if we claim homosexuality is wrong we have to show how its a way of loving them and loving God and ourself. Perhaps we could point to the extremely high STD rates, or the extremely low life expectancy of homosexuals, or there extremely high depression rate, or maybe their extreme substance abuse etc. So if we condemn a sin we are only supposed do it for teh good of the individual and the community, if you can prove that we are not helping the individal and community then we would be forced, by our own internal logic to stop doing whatever it is that we are doing.
I know many ignorant and arrogant Christians are arbitrary in their sense of morality, and that is sad, but morality is difficult and the ignorant arrogant masses just dont always get it. That is why idiots treat homsexuals poorly when they are really no worse than promiscous or divorcing Christians etc.
lol nice one dotard
Minimalist it is still a sin to sell an indulgence. You cannot recieve an indulgence for money, anywhere. Also, indulgences never went away. We did not use them in America becuase protestants were very bigotted back in teh golden days and they LITERALLY might have killed Catholics becasue of it. In my home town, in the Bible belt, my Church was not able to put up their statue of Mary, that they put in the shed, until the late 1980s because when they put up in the late 60s there was a threat that protestants would tear it down. haha Thank God America is changing, unfortunately anytime something changes for the better something else changes for the worse lol.
I suggest not going to the NY times for info about Catholicism, they rather ignorant on issues concerning the Church. And who can blame them, they don't give an ef about Catholciism, and they surely are not going to be reading up on Catholic teachings in their spare time.
