And a blessed Monday to you too.
I may be wrong about the reality but I'm the world's foremost expert on what it looks like from here. And what it looks like from here is a bunch of angry, hostile, and judgmental people dead set on not understanding (note: I did not say "agreeing with", I said "understanding")what we teach, eager to misrepresent what we teach, speedy to condemn us for not believing as they do.
Last night it occurred to me that if one's religion includes the assurance that one is right as a sign that one is saved, then one can expect a kind of brittleness and inflexibility in conversation. Entertaining the possibility that there might be something worthwhile in catholic Christianity would mean entertaining the possibility that one was not saved, which, according to some theologies would be sign that one was not saved.
No wonder conversation is difficult!
Last night it occurred to me that if one's religion includes the assurance that one is right as a sign that one is saved, then one can expect a kind of brittleness and inflexibility in conversation. Entertaining the possibility that there might be something worthwhile in catholic Christianity would mean entertaining the possibility that one was not saved, which, according to some theologies would be sign that one was not saved.
No wonder conversation is difficult!
For what it's worth, I am not a chr*stian of any kind and do not consider myself "saved" (in fact, I reject "salvational" religion as fraudulent).
I was a member of your church for six years and was finally asked to leave or my "un-Catholic" beliefs: ie, my belief that the Bible in inerrant. How dare you imply that I have never given your church a chance? I submitted to your church and bent myself out of shape to do it, but the fact that I still believed in the total inerrancy of the "church's" Bible made me suspect.
Meanwhile the church is full of "good Catholics" who are liberal politicians, homosexuals, Marxists, etc., but I suppose the fact that they are evolutionists and higher critics makes them "good Catholics."
I advise you to refrain from criticizing someone when you have never stood in his shoes.
Go back to your blasphemous mythologizing.