I'm going to hell for sure, so I might as well question everything?

[thesummerqueen]

That sounds like you'd be making personal observations of her character then, not of the culture she was raised in.

As far as I can tell, Christians don't really have a "culture" anymore, if they ever did. Maybe in the past, pre-Schism, you could argue for it, but no way these days.

[kılıç_mehmet]

That sounds like you'd be making personal observations of her character then, not of the culture she was raised in.

As far as I can tell, Christians don't really have a "culture" anymore, if they ever did. Maybe in the past, pre-Schism, you could argue for it, but no way these days.

What I can say is that personal traits and characteristics are influenced by the culture that you live in.
My personal characteristics are in accordance with my culture.
If I would act against them, I'd act against myself.
It doesn't matter if I'm faithful, or not. I still go and slaughter the sheep of my relatives during Kurban, and attend family dinners during Ramazan.
I still turn off the music while a person is praying in the same room as me.
I do not smoke before a person that fasts at that day.
Not that I'll face consequences for doing the opposite, I'm simply adhering to certain things that culturally, has an impact on who I am.
I hope I could have explained myself.

[thesummerqueen]

I get what you're saying, to a point, but unless joining her family for a meal on specific days counts as "Christian culture" then I'm still at a loss to say how Alei fits in with Catholicism.

[kılıç_mehmet]

I get what you're saying, to a point, but unless joining her family for a meal on specific days counts as "Christian culture" then I'm still at a loss to say how Alei fits in with Catholicism.

Well, maybe not from A-Z, but I'm sure she does show certain cultural elements without even noticing it.
I sure do.

[thesummerqueen]

But you can't provide any examples. I'd say she falls into a rather standard Southern US culture.

[kılıç_mehmet]

But you can't provide any examples. I'd say she falls into a rather standard Southern US culture.

Certainly, I do not know her on a personal level.
I can provide examples of my own, and people that I know, who belonged to variaty of different cultures.

[Drich]

I was watching a documentary on cemeteries. There was this man in a purple dress, waving his brass-phallic-holy-water-slinger around the cemetery. He informed me that he was slinging holy water on these graves to bless their corpses and pray for them. Also, he said he would be asking them to pray for us.

Now... hold on a sec. I was a Catholic a long fucking time. So I remember all the praying. Praying sucked balls. You know what I prayed for? That they wouldn't make us say them out loud, so that I could think about anything but boring shit, like praying. I don't think I ever really thought about what I was saying as I was forced to repeat the measureless, flavorless words. (I got in trouble all the time for saying things in my mind like "Hail Mary, full of turds, the squirts are with thee..", and then lmao)



We did ask for dead people to pray for us. How fucking selfish is that shit?!?! They're dead. They're supposed to be in paradise. Whose afterlife paradise would involve hours spent in prayer for fucking alive people?

Isn't god busy enough listening to a bunch of people rabble on and on about things they want that aren't in his plan? Does he really give a shit what ex-life wasters think about current life-wasters?

And why are they praying for dead people? I suppose they're only praying for the ones in hell or purgatory? In that case, don't you think they should be kinda praying for themselves, and the people with whom they're suffering?

None of this shit makes any sense to me, and yet so many believe this sort of thing, in one form or another.


It's off-putting. That's all.

I do not know what he was doing or why... Maybe He saw an unclaimed oppertunity for sainthood or something.

[LarissaAnn]

But you can't provide any examples. I'd say she falls into a rather standard Southern US culture.

Certainly, I do not know her on a personal level.
I can provide examples of my own, and people that I know, who belonged to variaty of different cultures.

Then perhaps that should be a lesson to you not to state your opinions as facts, especially when they are about people you don't know at all.

[thesummerqueen]

Okay, maybe I'm not saying this correctly.

Based on what you know of Catholicism, what would a person who fit into that culture very probably display?

[Doubting Thomas]

And why are they praying for dead people? I suppose they're only praying for the ones in hell or purgatory? In that case, don't you think they should be kinda praying for themselves, and the people with whom they're suffering?

It's a Catholic belief that the more people here on earth pray for someone who recently died, the sooner they can get out of purgatory and get into heaven. I wouldn't think there's any use praying for the souls in hell, though, since they are damned after all.

I've heard of praying to saints, but I've never heard of praying to just everyday dead people to intercede on your behalf. I think this is one valid criticism of Catholicism that Protestants have, that (assuming all Christian mythology is true) that you'd need to pray to Mary or some other saint instead of going straight to the big man himself. If God is supposed to be all-powerful, he'd be able to listen to every single person on earth praying to him simultaneously, so asking Mary to ask God for something seems pretty ridiculous.