What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Catholic_Lady]

I think telling kids about the Catholic teaching of Hell hardly qualifies as "torture".

we were taking about threatening with torture. You can't talk about hell without threatening with torture, its virtually impossible . 'a place you go to if you reject god' is already a threat. It's a place for sinners to stuffer forever. There's no way to go about it without invoking fear.

Fair enough, I see what you mean now. I understand what you're saying but am having a hard time seeing it that way. I was taught about Hell but never once felt like I was being threatened. We were taught morality and the reasons behind why certain things were moral/immoral. It was never about "do this or you're going to be tortured forever in Hell!" But I don't doubt that some people may have taught it that way, and that's not right. The way I see, if someone has a dark heart and is going to commit bad deeds without any remorse (remorselessness is needed for Hell), they will do it anyway. Hell won't stop them. At least not for long.

I know I keep saying this, but I think it is important to do so: I feel for you for whatever horrible experiences you have had. I really do, and I feel awful about it.

I know you mean well. But you don't know what you're sorry for.

Just feel sorry for you for having such a bad experience. You seem like you're really traumatized. Sounds like some pretty terrible stuff happened to you, and I don't want to dismiss that.

To me though, everything you're saying about my Church is completely foreign. I never felt tortured or heard of anyone feeling tortured from this. Though I was taught about Hell, I was never taught in a way that I would ever think to describe as "torturing with the fear of Hell." Hell was never, ever any sort of main focus on anything I have ever experienced during my lifetime in the Church. I am not denying your experiences, but feel like you are making unfair generalizations and blanket statements about an entire group of people.

I said it may not be like that everywhere, but it's the same church and the same doctrine. I'm not generalizing about a group of people,we're taking about an institution.that's different.

it's good you didn't have that experience. Unfortunately, many did.

You did say that on your last post. Fair enough.

Though I will mention that the institution is made up of people. It isn't "the institution" that talks to you, get's stuff done, etc. It's the people.

How have you seen them go about "forcing" people to save sex for marriage?

telling them they'll burn in hell forever if they don't, and ostracizing those who didn't listen.

While this is heinous on the part of the people involved, I don't know if I'd go as far as to make the general statement "the Catholic Church forces people to..."