What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[robvalue]

Thank you! I sure did. For all the bad luck in my life, I hit the jackpot with her

[Whateverist]

I feel like I landed a challenging one, and deservedly so. But we've been very happy together for more than 30 years now. I like that we have a relationship of equals. She is a friend as well as my partner in recreational sex.

[Pyrrho]

Since everyone is hanging out in this thread today, and marriage has come up, I'd like to proudly say it's my fifth wedding anniversary tomorrow

You are practically newlyweds.  Congratulations!

[Nope]

[quote='abaris' pid='966960' dateline='1434547039']

Happened to me yesterday. Typed for about ten minutes, only to get the quote without my reply. Couldn't be arsed to type again.

Thanks

[Nope]

Since everyone is hanging out in this thread today, and marriage has come up, I'd like to proudly say it's my fifth wedding anniversary tomorrow

Congratulations Robo! I hope that you and your wife have a wonderful anniversary tomorrow. In October, my husband and I will have been married 26 years.

[Catholic_Lady]

Hi Stimbo. I think looking at the words and actions of Jesus (whom I believe is God) provides a great insight for me into "what God wants."

Thank you for taking the time to reply. The way some of the threads have been going lately, I was starting to think I was invisible.

However, it doesn't answer my question; it only pushes it back a step. How do you know these things?

You mean how do I know that Jesus was real and that He did and said all those things?

Well, I think that historically, we can all agree that Jesus was a real person. Whether or not you believe all that is said about Him is a different story, but the fact that there was a real person in history named Jesus who established Christianity, is fact as far as history is concerned.

Obviously I do believe that Jesus is the person who is being portrayed in the NT and that He did do and say all that is accredited to Him there, and I believe He really is God. I don't believe this just because "it was written", but rather I look at the whole history of the Church and all the Saints and all the amazing things they've done. There have been many miracles that cannot be explained. I myself have witnessed something supernatural happen right before my eyes.

I don't see how any of this would make sense if Jesus was just some fraud.

[abaris]

What I don't understand is why people are willing to basically say "priests are bad" but not willing to say "teachers are bad". Especially since it has happened soooo much more often with teachers.

Part of the problem may be that many of the cases came to light within a short period of time. The brushing under the carpet business and shipping around of bad apples has been going on for decades and now it's game over. So people, me included, get the impression of this being rampant. Most, if not all catholic residential schools had cases of sexual or physical abuse. Agreed, some of them having happened as far as 50 years ago, but some of them pretty recently. Which again brings us to the brushing under the carpet issue.

Also, at least in my corner of the world, this isn't the first case of hypocrisy that came to light. In the early 2000s, must have been around 2003 or 2004, there was a case of gay orgies being celebrated in a seminary. The responsible bishop got suspended. Nothing against gay orgies, but if you preach that being gay is wrong, you should at least rise up to the standards. Otherwise you're just being hypocritical, taking the fun out of everybody's life whilst having at it as if there was no tommorow.

There have been numerous cases of priests having affairs with paritioners. Again, nothing against that, since I think celibacy goes against human nature. But if you're having at it, please don't preach it's wrong to have extramarital sex.

So all of this adds up to a pretty ugly picture and it's no big surprise, people don't make the fine distinctions.

Well, I think that historically, we can all agree that Jesus was a real person. Whether or not you believe all that is said about Him is a different story, but the fact that there was a real person in history named Jesus who established Christianity, is fact as far as history is concerned.

No, we can't agree on that, since this is still very much up for debate. Truth is, there's neither physical evidence for his existence nor for his non existence. And, at least as far as we can say it now, there never will be.

[Catholic_Lady]

Do either of you seriously think pedophilia is more rampant among public school teachers than it is with Catholic priests?

That is one question.  Another is, do either of you seriously think there has been the same effort to cover it up when it emerges as there has been among the priesthood?

If the answer to either of these questions is yes for either of you I would appreciate knowing the source for your opinion, assuming there is one.  

It is the failure of the Catholic leadership not to seek legal intervention for its priests the way I believe every school system would always do in regards to its teachers which I find the most reprehensible.

Here is site that offers multiple sources if you click on "read more"

http://www.themediareport.com/fast-facts/

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Since everyone is hanging out in this thread today, and marriage has come up, I'd like to proudly say it's my fifth wedding anniversary tomorrow

Hey, congrats!!

[Randy Carson]

What I don't understand is why people are willing to basically say "priests are bad" but not willing to say "teachers are bad". Especially since it has happened soooo much more often with teachers.

Part of the problem may be that many of the cases came to light within a short period of time. The brushing under the carpet business and shipping around of bad apples has been going on for decades and now it's game over. So people, me included, get the impression of this being rampant. Most, if not all catholic residential schools had cases of sexual or physical abuse. Agreed, some of them having happened as far as 50 years ago, but some of them pretty recently. Which again brings us to the brushing under the carpet issue.

Also, at least in my corner of the world, this isn't the first case of hypocrisy that came to light. In the early 2000s, must have been around 2003 or 2004, there was a case of gay orgies being celebrated in a seminary. The responsible bishop got suspended. Nothing against gay orgies, but if you preach that being gay is wrong, you should at least rise up to the standards. Otherwise you're just being hypocritical, taking the fun out of everybody's life whilst having at it as if there was no tommorow.

There have been numerous cases of priests having affairs with paritioners. Again, nothing against that, since I think celibacy goes against human nature. But if you're having at it, please don't preach it's wrong to have extramarital sex.

So all of this adds up to a pretty ugly picture and it's no big surprise, people don't make the fine distinctions.

I'll be a lot more blunt than CL: the Catholic Church's mistake was in believing that gays could be accepted into the priesthood in the first place without the problems that are being discussed surfacing eventually.

There is no "heterosexual priest" problem in the Catholic Church. There is a "homosexual priest" problem that is being mis-identified by the media as a "pedophile priest" problem. But these aren't straight, horny priests molesting girls. These are predatory homosexuals preying on boys. (And the affairs with parishioners you speak of are nothing in comparison to the problems experienced in Protestant churches.)

So, the irony here is that the Church was TRYING to practice what it preaches by treating these homosexuals as if they were just as qualified for the priesthood as the straight seminarians were. They weren't. But does the Catholic Church get any kudos for that? Hell. No.

And let's lay one other card on the table: homosexuals flocked into the Church in droves during the 50's and 60's because society wasn't ready for them to live as gays openly. What was a gay man to do if he didn't want to explain why he wasn't dating? He considered the priesthood. Final point (and this will drive some of you nuts): Satan, yes, that ancient serpent who is opposed to all of God's plans, has, IMHO, had a hand in all of this. I have no doubts that he has been targeting the Catholic clergy by infiltrating its ranks with men with whom he has an inordinate amount of influence and sway. It is an unseen spiritual battle, and their are plenty of casualties.

Well, I think that historically, we can all agree that Jesus was a real person. Whether or not you believe all that is said about Him is a different story, but the fact that there was a real person in history named Jesus who established Christianity, is fact as far as history is concerned.

No, we can't agree on that, since this is still very much up for debate. Truth is, there's neither physical evidence for his existence nor for his non existence. And, at least as far as we can say it now, there never will be.
[/quote]

Atheist Tim O'Neill, an occasional member of this forum, has debunked the Jesus Myth convincingly.

[pocaracas]

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Things to take away from this thread:

- Good either comes from a god who keeps changing his mind; or from a society that keeps evolving to better fit everyone in and keep most of them happy.

- Catholic marriage only pertains to man+woman. Catholic marriage is NOT a civil marriage. Civil marriage allows (in some countries) same sex unions and confers them the same rights as man/woman couples. As a corollary in this part of the discussion, it seems obvious that our Catholic_girl was married a virgin to a military guy and, after some time of marriage, is still without children. She also likes cats.

- Priests are human beings. So are school teachers. Some of them like young kids... a lot... a few act on that. Both higher powers in their respective hierarchies have, in the past and present, shoved around the problematic individuals around in an effort to keep the priest/teacher in functions, while keeping the person away from the authorities. These two classes of people, who, in our society, hold a lot of power over our children, have misbehaved, and yet... we need them around... well, believers need priests, everyone needs teachers. How to keep the bad ones at bay in both cases? psych-tests?

- Catholics may choose to look at he OT as metaphorical and a lot of the NT as obvious allegory. What matters for real is the catechism... which takes a few lesson from the bible, but extrapolates a ton of other stuff.

- Atheists can be kind people. Who'd have thought?

I probably missed something... it's not easy to sum up 52 pages of you people hounding the poor girl. And that avatar of hers only made you hound her even more!

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Wow, thanks for the recap! You have been paying attention!

When a pretty lady is involved, I always pay attention!

Everything here is correct... the only objection I would make is that God does not change lol.

Oh, darn...

But, but, but... the god of the OT, Yahweh, used to be the Yahu from Midian,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh:

His name may have originated as a title for El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon (el dū yahwī ṣaba’ôt, "El who creates the hosts", meaning the heavenly army accompanying El as he marched beside the earthly armies of Israel), but although El and Yahweh have much in common they also have many differences.[11] The more probable explanation is that he originated as a storm-god from regions south of Israel and Judah,[12] where Egyptian inscriptions mention a "land of the Shasu Yahu", the Shasu being nomads from Midian and Edom and Yahu a place name.[13]

There is considerable support–though not universal–for the view that the Egyption inscriptions do refer to Yahweh.

Then, he was plucked from the pantheon of that region and taken as the only god that matters or something, by Abraham, or Moses or some other city-state ruler, making its appearance as the antagonist to the Canaanites.
These guys, had El as the head god:

El, not Yahweh, was the original "God of Israel"—the word "Israel" is based on the name El rather than Yahweh.[22] He was the chief of the Canaanite gods, described as "the kind, the compassionate," "the creator of creatures".[23] He lived in a tent on a mountain from whose base originated all the fresh waters of the world, from where he presided over the Assembly of the Gods with the goddess Asherah as his consort.

[...]

Yahweh, the southern warrior-god, joined the pantheon headed by El and in time he and El were identified, with El's name becoming a generic term for "god".[24] Each member of the divine council had a human nation under his care, and a textual variant of Deuteronomy 32:8–9 describes the sons of El, including Yahweh, each receiving his own people

Curious read, isn't it?
Shall we go on?

After the 9th century BCE the tribes and chiefdoms of Iron Age I were replaced by ethnic nation states, Israel, Judah, Moab, Ammon and others, each with its national god.[30] Thus Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Qaus the god of the Edomites, and Yahweh the "God of Israel"

So... that's why he didn't want his people to worship other gods... That would mean that they were the people from another nation state.

In each kingdom the king was also the head of the national religion and God's viceroy on Earth,[33] reflected each year in Jerusalem at a ceremony when the king presided over a ceremony at which Yahweh was enthroned in the Temple.[34]

The centre of Yahweh's worship lay in three great annual festivals coinciding with major events in rural life: Passover with the birthing of lambs, Shavuot with the cereal harvest, and Sukkot with the fruit harvest.[35] These probably pre-dated the arrival of the Yahweh religion,[35] but they became linked to events in the national mythos of Israel: Passover with the exodus from Egypt, Shavuot with the law-giving at Sinai, and Sukkot with the wilderness wanderings.

I see... the king wouldn't want people to desert to neighboring states, "either"... so it's best to have god command everyone to worship only him.

Scholars agree that Israelite monotheism was the culmination of a unique set of historical circumstances.[45] Pre-exilic Israel, like its neighbours, was polytheistic.[46] Yahweh and El merged at religious centres such as Shechem, Shiloh and Jerusalem,[47] and the national god appropriated many of the older supreme god's titles such as Shaddai and Elyon (Almighty).[48] Asherah, formerly the wife of El, was probably worshiped as Yahweh's consort, and various biblical passages indicate that her statues were kept in his temples in Jerusalem, Bethel, and Samaria.[49] Yahweh may also have appropriated Anat, the wife of Baal, as his consort, as Anat-Yahu ("Anat of Yahu," i.e., Yahweh) is mentioned in 5th century records from the Jewish colony at Elephantine in Egypt.

[...]

Baal and Yahweh coexisted in the early period of Israel's history, but from the 9th century they were considered irreconcilable, probably as a result of the attempts of King Ahab and Jezebel, his Phoenician queen, to elevate him in the northern kingdom.[49]

The worship of Yahweh alone began at the earliest with Elijah in the 9th century BCE, but more likely with the prophet Hosea in the 8th; even then it remained the concern of a small party before gaining ascendancy in the exilic and early post-exilic period.[46] The process by which this came about might be described as follows: In the early tribal period each tribe would have had its own patron god; when kingship emerged the state promoted Yahweh as the national god of Israel, supreme over the other gods, and gradually Yahweh absorbed all the positive traits of the other gods and goddesses; finally, in the national crisis of the exile, the very existence of other gods was denied.

Still think the guy didn't change?

And I haven't even delved into OT -> NT divergence!!