Posted on 01/24/2007 8:41:04 AM PST by Joseph DeMaistre
"I guess to make it easy, the Tanahk are the Hebrew writings and the Talmud is commentary"
You should go farther and say that the Torah is the written law and the Talmud is the oral law, lest people think that they can understand Judaism by reading the Old Testament.
Works for me since I wouldn't be able to understand Catholecism by reading the NT either. Makes sense.
I'll let vicomete13 expalin my religion to ya. Although he'd pitch a fit If I were to give you my slant on his.
"I'll let vicomete13 expalin my religion to ya. Although he'd pitch a fit If I were to give you my slant on his."
Wanna bet?
I would correct errors.
I never pitch fits about this stuff, because I am not emotionally invested in any academic subject.
Touch my kid, and I will kill you.
Let me try to give a good Jewish description of my religion.
First, there's the business of authority. Jesus repeated a lot of stuff that Hillel said, and tended towards the asceticism of the Essenes, but he lost his mind and started claiming divinity, which is blasphemy. The Torah prescribes the death penalty for blasphemy, and although today we understand that this should be carried out in only the most extreme situations (which essentially never happen), Jesus' blasphemy was that of an essentially good man who needed to be in therapy, not executed. But that was then. So, he was tried and condemned for blasphemy, but the Jews couldn't put anybody to death. The Romans did that, for their own political reasons. Jesus was a rabbi. He had some wisdom. Perhaps he was a prophet. But he went into an eclipsed orbit, lost his bearings, claimed authority that he did not have, claimed divinity, and with that, passed out of all serious consideration by Jews.
So much for Jesus.
As for the Catholic Church, well, Jews don't look at words, they look at deeds. What the Catholic Church, says it believes is all very good and nice, today, and today Jews can work with Catholics in a spirit of cooperation, to a point. But the Catholic Church itself has a long and bloody history of murdering Jews and oppressing them, spreading, reinforcing, and not intervening to stop the Blood Libel against Jewish people.
In recent years, since the 1960s, the Catholic Church has changed its historical policies 180 degrees and is trying to behave differently towards Jews. This is commendable. However, the Catholics can't change their Bible, which is full of the blood libels and half-truths against Judaism, and which remains a perpetual source of animus by Christians towards Jews.
Most Protestant sects just haven't been around long enough to have perpetrated the really murderous deeds against Jews that the Catholic Church has, so they are not as threatening.
Don't get me wrong, the Catholic Church has done some good things. Individual Catholics saved many Jews during the Shoah. But the Catholic Church itself, as an institution, is viewed with suspicion both because of the history, and because Catholics to this day insist on the infallibility of their Church, that the Church can commit no error. From the standpoint of a Jew, this is frankly an obscenity.
Of course, Jews believe in forgiveness, and believe that people can change, and the Catholic Church has tried to do better in recent years, and modern Catholics can be partners in social life and charity.
Still, the theological pretentions of Catholicism to infallibility are obviously as vaporous as the original claim to divinity by Jesus. Jesus wasn't divine, and the Catholic Church has obviously failed. Just the tortures and murders of Jews by the Spanish Inquisition alone are sufficient to reveal that Catholicism is anything but morally infallible.
There's no point in getting into theology, as Christianity is built on a fairy tale about Jesus of Nazareth.
There.
How's that?
Anything you'd add or subtract?
Do feel free to give your slant on my religion.
I just don't take offense at this sort of thing.
God made me a man, in his image, which means that I am capable of reasoning. If God doesn't want me to follow reason wherever it goes, then He shouldn't have made me like this. If He doesn't like what I have done with the gifts He gave me, I am sure I will hear about it in the hereafter. But for now, I intend to use my ears and eyes and reason, and there is nothing anybody can say about my religion or anything else that will turn me into a cringing or screaming ball of nerves.
The exception is menacing my child.
I will kill anybody who threatens my child's safety or life.
excellent.
Anything you'd add or subtract?
Wow. No. Nothing to add or subtract. I had you pegged all wrong. I offer you a sincere apology.
Catholic Dogma, when accurately stated, does have clear and well defined boundaries and as such cannot be the subject of a "straw man" argument.
When one (a Protestant?) misstates a dogma and attacks this false definition it is dishonest and unethical.
When one manufactures his own definition of Sola Scriptura, attributes this particular stated, or unstated, definition to the mythical "Protestants" it is dishonest and unethical.
BTW, I agree with you that some Protestants will misstate the practices of some Catholics and falsely attribute those practices to all Catholics.
Are you sure you're not the author of Constantine's Sword? :-)
"How, in any way, does that statement make oral tradition more important then the written Word of God? Unless you don't believe that the NT is inspired, then I don't know as that we can carry on a discussion. My discussion is with Catholics who believe that the NT is inspired but believe in traditions not supported by the NT."
Catholics, if they are Catholics, believe that the Bible is part of the written Tradition of the Church, which, along with the Oral Tradition of the Church (much of which is also written, now) is inspired by God. The Bible tradition is not superior in authority to the rest of the traditions of the Church. The Church is the final authority which organizes and regulates the rest.
An analogy: the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. The judicial decisions that interpret the Constitution and put it into force have the same authority as the Constitution - they ARE the Constitution for the purpose of that clause of the Constitution, for it is they: the judicial opinions (the "oral tradition") which tell everyone authoritatively what the Constitution MEANS.
The same is true for regulations issued by executive departments which interpret the Constitution and apply it to a set of facts.
It's ALL the Supreme Law of the land. The standard operation of the US Federal government, as understood by both major parties, is the equivalent of the "Catholic View" of the authority of the Bible and the rest of Tradition.
The "Protestant view" of the Constitution is that anybody can read it and understand what it means, and where that persons understanding contradicts what the Supreme Court (i.e.: the Vatican of the Constitution) has said, that the Supreme Court has violated the Constitution and in fact broken the Supreme Law of the Land, substituting its own judgment for the one TRUE supreme law, which is the written text of the Constitution itself.
The two approaches lead to radically different results in the organization of people. The former, "Catholic" approach to the Constitution leads us to the massive American empire and structure of law and governmental authority we have today. The "Protestant" approach to the Constitution results in a proliferation of different schools of thought about what the Constitution REALLY means, because different people read the words differently.
For example, when I read the Second Amendment, straight, strictly and fair, I see a clear authority of State government to regulate firearms possession written right into the Constitution itself. Others tell me, with increasing vehemence which ends up impugning my MOTIVES and my READING COMPREHENSION that there is no such power there, that the right to keep and bear arms is absolute. No, it is not. The first clause of the Second Amendment is "A WELL-REGULATED..." that, right there, gives Constitutional authority to pass law and regulate firearms. Period. Reading 101 as far as I can see. I don't even think it's debatable. And neither do my opponents. I understand that they are misreading the text, but sincere. They usually think I have a secret agenda and REALLY see the text as they do, and am hiding it to try and expand government. They are wrong. I really think it says in plain English that government can regulate firearms. So, what resolution?
Well, my Catholic mind sees the resolution of the issue in Courts and Congress and the States and Executive Agencies - all those things the rest of the Constution lays out. My "Constitutional Protestant" opponents see there being NO supreme authority other than the text itself...which means NO SUPREME AUTHORITY AT ALL, because we cannot agree on what the text says.
And that is why there are 6000 different branches of Protestantism that have formed in the past 500 years, but only one Catholic Church.
It is ultimately a question of authority.
You could understand much about Catholicism, at least what Catholicism ASPIRES TO BE, by reading the New Testament.
However, if you do as a good Jew would do, and look at fruit, at acts, at history and not just at words and aspirations and doctrines - at what is DONE and not just what is SAID TO BE BELIEVED - then you would indeed find quite a bit of Catholic history that is diametrically opposed to what Jesus said. And in that sense, reading the New Testament and then comparing to, say, the Spanish Inquisition, you would realize that the Catholic Church has not always followed Jesus' example literally (or even figuratively, in such cases).
You confusion would be justified.
"Are you sure you're not the author of Constantine's Sword? :-)"
I am just a French Catholic.
Not really.
You said you were (past tense) a Christian. I'm just curious how you believe that you were, and why you don't believe now. That, I think, is an interesting discussion.
I don't mind discussing it. I suppose in a nutshell I began reading about the early history of the Church. The anti-semitism in the New Testament began to bother me as well. The fact that there was this big bru haa 2-300 years later about whether Jesus was divine or not was bothersome. Finally, after witnessing discussions here on FR thinking "these are the people who claim their forefathers started the church"? That's all she wrote, I converted to Judaism. Lol.
However, if you don't want to discuss that, or wish that someone else discuss what you believe (I don't think that's possible, but whatever), I can drop it. It does seem strange to me,though, that given a golden opportunity to share your spiritual contentment that you have found, you instead decline. 8^(
I declined? where?
If you change your mind,and respond with your beliefs, it may be awhile between postings. For me it is feast or famine. The last couple of days, it's been feast, but I don't know how long that will last.
Fair enough. Ask me as many questions as you would like.
"Or died a horrible death. Ask Hus."
Or died a horrible death at the hands of the Protestants.
Ask Campion.
You could also do the same with Judaism and the Torah. Especially Sinai.
I agree.
I happen to believe that the "Protestants" where they had the power were just as evil as the "Catholics" where they had the power. They are brothers under the skin.
This belief may help to explain my attitude toward any group of men who have the nerve to claim they are the "one, true, Church established by Jesus".
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