Ask a Traditional Catholic

[SteelCurtain]

It's easy for you to brush off everything that is harmful about your religion as a bastardization. Yet there is a reason that "Catholic Guilt" is a meme in our lexicon, and has a rich history in our literature. There is a reason that "fire and brimstone" speech is part of our lexicon, there is a reason why fear of hell is nearly ubiquitous among Christians. I'm sorry Randy, but reading through the Bible, you cannot escape the death cult nature of the "believe in me or suffer eternal anguish" bullshit that is rampant throughout. Whether you want to accept it or not, your intellectual honesty is at stake in not acknowledging its pervasiveness.

Your mind is twisted....darkened, really. You cannot see verses such as:

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John 3:16-18
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Romans 5:1-10
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Romans 8:31-39
If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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I appreciate the confirmation on your wealth of intellectual dishonesty. Well done.

I listened. I provided support for what they needed rather than what I wanted for them. I asked them questions and allowed them to come to their own conclusions. I allowed them to grieve for a lost part of their life. I was supportive. My conscience is without reservation perfectly clear.

Bull. What they needed was to know that God loves them and that the people who had abused certain passages or concepts were wrong. But you couldn't tell them that God loves them because you don't know that God loves you.

I've heard your story that many people in this forum have been hurt by other Christians, have had bad experiences, etc. I'm very sorry that happened. But what ALL of those folks need is not less God but less man and MORE GOD. God is love. Only God can heal these hurts.

Except your sky daddy is only love if you understand him is just the right way. And any variation in that understanding is considered heresy which apparently in a whirlwind of love, a person should be drowned mafia style.

Tone down the preaching, Randy. Nobody wants to hear it. If that's all you have, then you've exhausted your attempts at reasoned argument and have settled on pulpit pot shots. Your god is only love about 10% of the time. For every one of those verses about love, I could pop off 10 which describe the hate mongering, fear mongering jackass that is described by your Bible.

I won't waste my time or breath though, because it doesn't exist. It is a story you tell yourself to feel more secure about your place in the cosmos. If you need that, fine. But I don't. I am happy, connected, and secure. I enjoy fulfilling relationships. I practice empathy and connect with others. I seek to rectify my ideas and align them most closely with what can be shown to be, not what a book written by bronze age goat herders and the medieval scribes who modified it to fit their whims.

Which brings me to my point: why did you post that verse from Matthew? If you don't believe that I or anyone that leads a person from your concept of Truth, if you can understand the murder of a person that simply doesn't believe the same things about foreverland that you do, why post those verses or that opinion at all?

I leave you to God's mercy, Mike, but you saw the verse. Leading others astray is something that God takes very seriously, apparently.

I bet you do, Randy. You know what the ultimate irony is? You caterwauling about how using fear to subjugate others is not what your religion is all about, and in the very same post you threaten me with your god's wrath for leading people astray, alongside your "understanding" about people who believe differently being killed for doing so. But it's not about fear at all, is it?

Still didn't answer the question.