Posted on 07/26/2013 7:56:13 PM PDT by marshmallow
Fatima, Harissa, Damascus, Samalut, Assiut, Zeitun and many other places where the Virgin appeared are the destination of incessant pilgrimages from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iran. Pilgrims in search of physical but also spiritual healing; spontaneous and mystical prayer and not the schematic and formal verses of official Islam. The iconoclast Salafists destroy places of pilgrimage every year. But the devotion to Mary is growing, also fueled by the stories of the Koran. The spiritual dialogue between Christians and Muslims is much more promising than cultural, theological or political dialogue.
Beirut (AsiaNews) - Each year millions of Muslims come on pilgrimage to the Catholic Marian shrines. Not only to the major shrines such as Fatima in Portugal or Harissa in Lebanon, but also to Egypt, Syria, Iran. Muslims - especially Muslim women - go to give thanks to the Madonna or great Christian saints, like St. Charbel or St. George.
In the eyes of many Westerners these gestures seem ridiculous or false: they speak of apparitions, of prayers, but then there are massacres, killings, violence in the name of religion!
Like it or not, the religious phenomenon is alive in Latin America, in Africa, in Asia. When you see millions of Hindus go to bathe in the dirty water of the sacred river it may seem like a ridiculous thing. Yet for those who do it is an act of purification, of prayer. The West is tolerant and benevolent towards other religions, but its attitude towards Christians is increasingly hypercritical. The West is not post-Hindu, post-Islam. It is only post-Christian!
The point is that in the West, the supernatural is considered outdated, it is branded as mythology, illusion, instead the West is forever denouncing the difficulties that neither miracles nor pilgrimages can erase.
But in the rest of the world the spiritual.....
(Excerpt) Read more at asianews.it ...
They are WAY ahead of any other earthly answer - a quantum level ahead. In particular a government bound to the people as a servant to many masters is what I consider a main aspect of "American exceptionalism." Almost everywhere else the government is like a king. Here it is (or was) like a governmental minister and WE are the kings.
But I think reasonable and -patriotic people can discuss whether the "rights" concept is absolutely best, or whether, for example, a sense of "due" and "duty" would be better. I can see arguments both ways, and my latest alleged thought is that in our private dealings we should think of what is 'due' to the person we encounter. But the most successful way to do a government is the "rights" model -- and when the Progressives started with things like "Freedom from want" they were using the "Duty" model to make the government more like a king and less like a servant while they also vitiated the initiative of the people.
Anyway, John Adams pointed out the weakness (if that's what it is) of our system: it depends on a religious and moral people. We were given a VERY workable system, even if the dream of the founders that there would not be a real party system didn't work out. It is, IMHO, not the founding but we the people who are chiefly to blame for our current fix.
Wrong. G-d Himself wrote the Torah--according to a mystical tradition, 974 generations before the Creation--and then dictated it to Moses letter for letter. Moses was a secretary, nothing more. The Torah is of entirely Divine origin. Shows what you know.
If God wrote the Torah, Moses would not be needed. God dictated the Torah to Moses. Thus my comment.
He did not provide any of the rest of the OT and none of the New. My point is that most of the word is written by men. This is true. The Na"KH and the "new testament" depend on their canonizing authorities for their authenticity. All this goes to show that the Torah is the Supreme Revelation which judges all others, and is not a mere temporary, preparatory revelation as most people think.
Whereas Christians believe that the Incarnation of God Himself and the words written about that - first the Gospels, then the rest of the NT - are paramount. That is the difference between Jewish beliefs and Christian beliefs.
God breathed it to man's ear. Man wrote it down. Where is the weak link in this chain? Or do you consider the map to be the actual thing?
Of course not. But those who wish to rewrite history can do so elsewhere.
A Tea Party Thomist: Charles Carroll How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
America’s Catholic Colony [Ecumenical]
The Catholic Church in the United States of America [Ecumenical]
Catholic Founding Fathers - The Carroll Family [Ecumenical]
Charles Carroll, founding father and "an exemplar of Catholic and republican virtue" [Ecumenical]
He knew full well that the English Crown had sent troops to fight Calvinists and Lutherans as well as Catholics. In every case, they told the rank and file they were fighting for Christianity (the Anglican Church) against either evil Catholics or evil Heretics. He also knoew the "Catholic" French helped Lutherans revolt against the Hapsburgs because the French King fought the Hapsburgs every chance he got up to and including selling cannon to the Ottoman Turks.
Jefferson's take on history was that not permitting the establishment of a State Religion solved most problems he saw with religion and that enshrining freedom of religion right in the First Amendment solved the rest. So far his solution has worked better than anything else I've seen in history including the Peace of Augsburg that recognized specific religions but didn't outlaw the mixing of Church and State.
People who want to split hairs over theology in a civilized manner are one thing. People who love attacking others who agree that Jesus Christ is King of King and Lord of Lords who suffered and died for our sins should find a new pass time. They'd be far better off working to get rid of the secular liberal scum in elected offices no matter what such scum pretend they believe or which church the scum pretend to be a part of.
JMHO
“So you’re here to push the theory that our founders were flawed therefore the Declaration is flawed, the Constitution is flawed, our founding was flawed and our nation is flawed. Got news for you. You and Comrade Obama can both kiss my flawed American ass.”
What an astonishing response! In all honesty, making out the Founders or our history, a history my ancestors were intimately involved with making, as an objects of almost cultish worship is at a minimum idolatrous and more than a little dangerous. Is this the direction this site is headed? I know some people believe that’s exactly what’s going on here (and more for that matter) and are, well, let’s just say they are “concerned”.
Have I misinterpreted what you have written?
Frankly, my dear...
I don’t care how flawed he thinks Jefferson or any other Founder is or was. When he claims that our Founders were flawed, our constitution is flawed, capitalism is flawed, our nation is flawed, etc, etc, etc, he’s taking the same tack as Obama and the godless liberals rewriting history. Sorry, that’s not welcome on FR.
” When he claims that our Founders were flawed, our constitution is flawed, capitalism is flawed, our nation is flawed, etc, etc, etc, he’s taking the same tack as Obama and the godless liberals rewriting history.”
Does it therefore follow that in order to be “welcome” on FR one needs to embrace the theory that the Founders were perfect, that the Constitution (original, with all the amendments, with only some of the amendments) is perfect, that capitalism, or some undefined variant of it, is similarly perfect (the fact that a “capitalistic” medical system forces even veterans onto the dole for care, etc, etc notwithstanding) that “the nation”, be that the meddlesome warrior nation of the post Vietnam era or the national security state we are subject to today, is perfect, etc. etc.?
Right?
Does accepting those precepts mean that one is not rewriting history like the “godless liberals” and is therefore welcome here? I have to tell you that from what I have seen of the writings of my ancestors since arrival at Cape Ann in 1623, none of them would have qualified and they were remarkably clear headed about human nature and the nature of the human social experiment they were engaged in. They were, Mr. Robinson, very, very successful in great measure because they didn’t try to fool themselves.
On a purely personal note, it appears your problem was not with stfassisi, but rather with the writings of Bishop Fulton Sheen. Bishop Sheen was a truly great American, worthy of the respect of every poster here on FR. Certainly he is respected by virtually all the Latin and Orthodox Christians on this site. Attacking him, in all honesty, appears to be an attack on the Catholic Church here in America. If Latin Catholics or Orthodox Christians respect Bishop Sheen and his writings, should they leave this site?
Perfect? Of course not. But we defend our constitution, our nation and capitalism (free enterprise, pursuit of happiness, the American dream, economic freedom, etc) to the hilt. And we also oppose the liberals rewriting history to suit their godless socialist purposes. My problem was with the poster. He’s not welcome here.
I do believe the most all of the founders of this nation were of similar mold. It is much why there was effort to reduce or limit powers of government.
Though I cannot prove it, I've been told that among the earliest conversations in the first Continental congress (held somewhat in secret at that point, to evade detection by Tory tattle-tales) was agreement to an unnamed person expressing sentiment that "all men are evil" or similar. They knew that whatever they did produce, there would always be those whom would strive to subvert it for their own ends. That much, has been known from the beginning. I dare say that most then realized also, that no amount of "law" would overturn the capacity for evil in the heart of man, so a wary eye should be turned towards not providing simply another avenue for an individual or group of persons to use powers of government to unduly oppress others. Oppressing certain behaviours or tendencies, was another matter entirely. For that was part of the very thing they needed to do.
Is there some other model elsewhere, which does this better? In the end, what are we left with regardless, other than a center of gravity reliant upon how well a majority follows the teachings of God, seen through the lens of Christ?
What nation is that? Where is it? What is it's name? There was none other at the time...for other efforts were by "king's prerogative", or by diktat.
Is there some superior model (to our original U.S. Constitution)? If so ---where?
While searching for this governmental nirvana, please do not allow yourself to be confused as to the founding father's considering the form of government eventually settled upon (as distasteful as it was to more than a few, even then) as being considered perfect. Rather, remarking upon it today, it could be much as what Churchill is attributed to having said of "capitalism". It is the worst system in the world ---except for all the others.
You mean the Catholic Church has not yet cast Exodus into the garbage heap along with Genesis? Wow. I'm pleasantly surprised.
It may amaze you to realize that Catholics are taught to believe that the Torah was dictated by God. Evidently you weren't taught that. Shame on us.
The so-called "Rite of the Chrstian Initiation of Adults" teaches practically nothing. And if it did, it would do so the way Catholics have been "teaching" Protestants for going on 500 years: saying "we were here first," saying "we're infallible," and then quoting some archaic saint or pope or church father to show he believed in purgatory/Mary/images whatever. Basic Protestant assumptions, which are 180 degrees removed from those of Catholicism, are never dealt with. Those three magical assertions are supposed to make everything all hunky dory. They don't. They simply, in Protestant eyes, deprive chrstianity of all the reasons Protestants think chrstianity ever existed in the first place. Hint: Not only your purgatory, but your idea of "heaven" is alien to Protestants.
I was forced on my own to do a lot of reading to answer the questions I had, and it led to nothing but torment, as none of the answers ever made any sense. I specifically investigated the Catholic doctrine of inspiration and read that dictation was heretical, as was its counterpart on the left, "mere assistance." This makes the "true" Catholic understanding of inspiration fit into a huge spectrum of nothingness, minus the only two understandings that actually say something. So yes, I do not believe Catholics believe, or even are allowed to believe, in "dictation" of the Torah.
And I will tell you something else: I'm sick and tired of "conservative" Catholics like yourself claiming to believe in "dictation" and yet never uttering one peep of protest when your co-religionists blatantly deny or laugh at the notion that the story of the Flood might actually be true. Where are you, MarkBsner? Over somewhere hiding in the corner, looking at your watch and pretending it didn't happen?
If Catholics believe the scriptures are "dictated," then why are the vast majority of Catholic bibles edited with higher critical commentary that accepts the documentary hypothesis and labels Genesis as a mixture of Babylonian and Canaanite mythology? Why is that? Do you care to perhaps answer that question, or have you suddenly thought of something you need to be doing waaaaay over there somewhere?
I'm sick and tired of it. Either defend the Bible to your co-religionists or stop making absurd claims about believing the Bible is "dictated" or even "true" an any sense but a "santa claus" sense!
So, just what parts of the Bible do Catholics have official permission to believe nowadays?
Only all of it. We cannot believe any more Bible than there actually is.
Oh really? Well, here is an article posted by a co-religionist of yours and written by another which insists that G-d did not "really" command the extermination of the Canaanites (men, women, children, and animals) because that would be mean, and since He is bound by "natural law," G-d can't do anything "mean," so therefore the books of both Deuteronomy and Joshua are in error in claiming doing so was G-d's will.
Do you care to make a comment? Do you care to defend the integrity of the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua on that thread? No? Oh, something suddenly came up.
Please cease these absurd and patently false claims that Catholics "believe" the Bible. At the very least don't cry and moan because I disproved your assertions to your face.
Courtesy ping to NYer.
According to a mystical tradition, the Torah was written by G-d "974 generations before the Creation" in "letters of black fire on a scroll of white fire." This is the prototype Torah Scroll, of which the one Moses wrote down was a reproduction.
Whereas Christians believe that the Incarnation of God Himself and the words written about that - first the Gospels, then the rest of the NT - are paramount. That is the difference between Jewish beliefs and Christian beliefs.
Unfortunately for chrstians, the prior Revelation from the Mouth of G-d sits in judgment on chrstianity's claims, and finds them unauthorized.
I truly look forward to your puffery and hijacking of threads.
It is always a good thing to see such huffing and arrogance. Demanding that people of other faiths accept your flawed interpretation of Scripture.
“Unfortunately for chrstians, the prior Revelation from the Mouth of G-d sits in judgment on chrstianity’s claims, and finds them unauthorized.”...
LOL, such arrogance. Unfortunately for Jews, you continually let down God. This pattern is continued by missing The Messiah. Jesus Christ is God, sent to proclaim all the Scripture true and fulfill it.
Continue living your fantasy that God has not come to save the whole of the world.
Jewish tradition holds that "Moses received the Torah from Sinai," yet there is also an ancient tradition that the Torah existed in heaven not only before God revealed it to Moses, but even before the world was created.
In rabbinic literature, it was taught that the Torah was one of the six or seven things created prior to the creation of the world. According to Eliezer ben Yose the Galilean, for 974 generations before the creation of the world the Torah lay in God's bosom and joined the ministering angels in song. Simeon ben Lakish taught that the Torah preceded the world by 2,000 years and was written in black fire upon white fire. Akiva called the Torah "the precious instrument by which the world was created". Rav said that God created the world by looking into the Torah as an architect builds a palace by looking into blueprints. It was also taught that God took council with the Torah before He created the world.
Other Jewish sages, however, disregard the literal belief that the Torah existed before all else. Saadiah Gaon rejected this belief on the grounds that it contradicts the principle of creation ex nihilo. Judah Barzillai of Barcelona raised the problem of place. Where could God have kept a preexistent Torah? While allowing that God could conceivably have provided an ante-mundane place for a corporeal Torah, he preferred the interpretation that the Torah preexisted only as a thought in the divine mind. Similarly, the Ibn Ezra raised the problem of time. He wrote that it is impossible for the Torah to have preceded the world by 2,000 years or even by one moment, since time is an accident of motion, and there was no motion before God created the celestial spheres; rather, he concluded, the teaching about the Torah's preexistence must be a metaphoric riddle.
Given this, what do you think that I should conclude?
Unfortunately for chrstians, the prior Revelation from the Mouth of G-d sits in judgment on chrstianity's claims, and finds them unauthorized.
That is not the message of Christ.
A Freeper friend requested that I ping this post to you all.
RCIA depends far too much on the diocese - which is how the Church was set up millennia ago. The texts range from mediocre to atrocious. I agree with you.
Basic Protestant assumptions, which are 180 degrees removed from those of Catholicism, are never dealt with. Those three magical assertions are supposed to make everything all hunky dory. They don't. They simply, in Protestant eyes, deprive chrstianity of all the reasons Protestants think chrstianity ever existed in the first place. Hint: Not only your purgatory, but your idea of "heaven" is alien to Protestants.
Agreed, again. The Protestant view of 'heaven' is the position of seating in the celestial football stadium.
I was forced on my own to do a lot of reading to answer the questions I had, and it led to nothing but torment, as none of the answers ever made any sense. I specifically investigated the Catholic doctrine of inspiration and read that dictation was heretical, as was its counterpart on the left, "mere assistance." This makes the "true" Catholic understanding of inspiration fit into a huge spectrum of nothingness, minus the only two understandings that actually say something. So yes, I do not believe Catholics believe, or even are allowed to believe, in "dictation" of the Torah.
Oddly enough, I spoke on this to the intermediate school relious education class last spring. With the priest and deacon both there. With their approval. Of course, our bishop and I have tangled in public on the Catholic faith and the diocesan establishment. On television (heh heh heh).
And I will tell you something else: I'm sick and tired of "conservative" Catholics like yourself claiming to believe in "dictation" and yet never uttering one peep of protest when your co-religionists blatantly deny or laugh at the notion that the story of the Flood might actually be true. Where are you, MarkBsner? Over somewhere hiding in the corner, looking at your watch and pretending it didn't happen?
I don't have a lot of time for FR due to a change in career and escalating responsibilities with five kids at home. If you wish to note what you consider to be posts that contain ideas contrary to the word of God, please let me know. I have no problem confronting Catholics and have done so many times on FR. However, I do it in private, not in the public forum, for the sake of onlookers' satisfaction.
Oh really? Well, here is an article posted by a co-religionist of yours and written by another which insists that G-d did not "really" command the extermination of the Canaanites (men, women, children, and animals) because that would be mean, and since He is bound by "natural law," G-d can't do anything "mean," so therefore the books of both Deuteronomy and Joshua are in error in claiming doing so was G-d's will.
Did you even read the article? It posed it as a possibility, while acknowledging that it was in no way a definite conclusion. You and I have known each other here for a long time. I don't post speculative stuff like this. I realize that people might and do not begrudge them this; however, claiming that this article is the Gospel Truth, assuming that I actually see it, would normally get me involved.
Do you care to make a comment? Do you care to defend the integrity of the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua on that thread? No? Oh, something suddenly came up.
I will defend the integrity of Deuteronomy as what God wanted Moses to know. I will consider Joshua down a notch. God did not dictate Joshua.
Please cease these absurd and patently false claims that Catholics "believe" the Bible. At the very least don't cry and moan because I disproved your assertions to your face.
You've done no such thing. Individual Catholics such as Pelosi and Biden are as irrelevant to the Church as are the secular Jews like Carl Sagan, Woody Allen, Bill Maher and Howard Stern.
Courtesy ping to NYer.
Likewise. I know that you are disappointed in the Church. We have had conversation before on this. Believe it or not, it does distress me.
Being in a Catholic Church that retains Syriac-Aramaic as its liturgical language, I have gained tremendous insight into the multitude of dialects spoken in the Middle East. This german scholar makes a very sound argument for how the Bible, orally transmitted to Bedouin tribes (each tribe has a different dialect), was misinterpreted.
I posted this article back in 2000 but it's worth reviewing again.
The Virgins and the Grapes: the Christian Origins of the Koran
Linguistic forensic and speculative evidence. We have Muhammed's own words in various books, that do not support this. Most of us who have looked at Islam from a Christian perspective do acknowledge that it is most likely a Christian heresy on a par or surpassing most heresies in the first millennium. After all, most of the heresies in the Church came from the East during the first millennium. Perhaps early Christianity was misinterpreted by the Bedouins (who are a very small percent of the inhabitants of the Middle East and none that I know of in Iran (Persian, not Arab)).
Being in a Catholic Church that retains Syriac-Aramaic as its liturgical language, I have gained tremendous insight into the multitude of dialects spoken in the Middle East. This german scholar makes a very sound argument for how the Bible, orally transmitted to Bedouin tribes (each tribe has a different dialect), was misinterpreted.
Muhammed was the first Joseph Smith, who constructed his own religious text, for fun and profit. Islam was not a mistake, nor was it misinterpretation.
Good for you, marshmallow! I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. Wonderful, thought-provoking article.
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