Ask a Catholic

[Randy Carson]

Jesus didn't go to the toilet, eat yoghurt or play Xbox either. That's the trouble with getting your rules from a book of pronouncements, rather than a working system; eventually you come across something not in the book.

Also, the Catholic Church had the concept of purgatory which they've now abandoned entirely.

Incorrect. Purgatory has not been abandoned. You may be thinking of Limbo, but that was a theological speculation (which has not gone away, either).

I guess they're only willing to change their stand on certain issues.

Unlike every other Christian group, we are not changing on contraception, and we won't be changing on abortion, either. Two more ways the Church protects women. So, it's not all bad.

Then again, why a woman would want to be ordained, let alone belong to, a group that has held them with such disdain for centuries is beyond me.

I guess it's another example of battered spouse syndrome.

I'm glad I got out of that cult at an early age.

If you left at an early age, then I suspect that you did not have a mature, adult understanding.

However, if you want more information about the dignity of women which has been defended by the Catholic Church, John Paul II wrote an entire encyclical entitled "On the Dignity and Role of Women".

The Catholic Church made most of the advances which you enjoy today possible. This is history. You can read about it.

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Oh... you want to learn about atheists... why didn't you say so!!

My lack of belief comes from the awareness that my brain can be fooled.... my brain, your brain everyone's brain can be fooled.
It also wants answers to questions it poses, or other people pose... when faced with the lack of information to form a reasonable answer, it will delve into speculation... from speculation comes mythology.... so, in my endeavor to be as intellectually honest with myself as possible, I choose the answer "I do not know" for the questions that, currently, go beyond what science has available... even for some of those that science provides an answer, I'll take care and use the caveat that the answer comes from science... that ten-eyed bug... we'll see if those answers pan out on the long run...

From the implicit trust people, as children, must have for their caregivers, comes indoctrination and the convincing of something for which there is no actual evidence and which, if not presented (preferably, repeatedly) at that young impressionable age, would be laughed at by the majority of the adults receiving that information for the first time.... like Santa claus.
Whether it's christianity, islam, hinduism, animism, or whatever myth... this is the religion's main generational transmission vessel.

Add in politics and the awareness of the power such beliefs have on the people's behavior, and you get a state endorsed (sometimes enforced) belief system with a whole set of rules that the people must obey, under penalty by the ultimate free baby-sitter, god.
In christianity, those rules have become essentially the moral rules some like to discuss ad nauseum (but it wasn't always so).... In islam, you have Sharia which goes into rules about exchanges and the corresponding punishments for failure to abide them.... And I'm covering more than half the world's population with these 2, so... that's enough and I'm going to bed. cya!

I do. But there are other threads.

This is "Ask a Catholic", so let's stay focused. 

BTW - did you know that you and I are not actually discussing anything? I'm only proselytizing (having dropped all pretenses).