Posted on 03/15/2012 11:29:19 AM PDT by NYer
So have you studied the typology between the Old and New Testaments as I mentioned. I took a class with a Baptist preacher, turned Catholic, who was really into the typology.
Oh, my!
I’m a Protestant to my fingertips but stand shoulder to shoulder with my Catholic brothers and sisters on the issue of religious freedom and support Rick Santorum for President.
So while many Christians consider Mormonism to be a cult, it’s also a known fact that Chrissie Matthews can’t find his ass with both hands.
Yeah. My BA is in Biblical Studies, Old Testament and I was fortunate enough to take some classes and be in a colloquium with David Noel Freedman at USD. Typology is one of my favorite areas. Even in my historical research I do a lot with typology in Hagiographical literature. :)
I think I may have found a topic for an ecumenical vanity. LOL!
First of all, I voted for Rick Santorum in my state's primary. I would have been equally happy to vote for Gingrich had Santorum not been available. And my very Fundamentalist Protestant county, the only county in my part of the state with no Catholic church, went solidly for Santorum. It's sad to see Catholics, who depend on Fundamentalist Protestants to vote for their own candidates, continue to fire the guns of Singapore at those "awful" Fundamentalists. If Blacks are still stuck in 1954, it seems American Catholics are still stuck in 1928.
What do Fundamentalist Protestants have to do to get you to stop vilifying them? You complain about how Jews don't trust chr*stians, yet you continue to treat Fundamentalist Protestants as the greatest danger in existence, because htey might, you know, leave a flyer under your windshield wiper!!!! Heavens! What kind of sub-human neanderthals are these?
Honestly, I want to know . . . what is it you want from the people that produced me? You don't want to convert them because they're an embarrassment to you and you don't think they're "smart enough" to join the Catholic Church. So what do you want? Maybe you want to turn them all into mainline liberal Protestants? Would that make you happy? Who would vote for Santorum then??? (Although from one of the posts to the original article, Santorum might wind up being excommunicated if he doesn't kiss a copy of Origin of the Species pretty soon. Maybe he's not smart enough to be Catholic either.
I point out once again the utter hypocrisy of pretending that only Protestants can be bigots. Honestly, do you really want to go there? Do you? Or maybe it's because American Catholicism is an immigrant urban Democrat religion that makes it impossible for American Catholics to be bigots (you know, like Blacks can't be racists)? Honestly, this "victim card" being played by the church of Francisco Franco is getting a little old.
I ask again, what do you want Fundamentalist Protestants to do? You don't want them in your fine, upstanding intellectuals' religion, so what is it then? Do you want them to cease to exist? Or perhaps remain ever on the periphery, "acknowledging" a religion they will never be allowed to join (you know, because they're not smart enough)?
There was actually a time I thought Catholics and Fundamentalist Protestants were friends. Then I joined the Catholic Church, which at the time was in a period of anti-Fundamentalist hysteria. Every magazine, paper, and book available in the church foyer was chock-full of articles screaming "don't interpret the first eleven chapters of Genesis literally!" And then there were silly horror stories about how much Fundamentalists allegedly "hated" Catholics. I had listened to Fundamentalist preachers on radio and television my entire life and heard the Catholic Church mentioned maybe one time, but the Catholic media were convinced that at every Fundamentalist service there was nothing but attacks on rosary beads and "the whore of Rome." Why didn't I ever hear all this stuff???
So Fundamentalists, it seems, are inherently bigoted. Even when they don't try to convert anyone (and some Fundamentalists, like Primitive Baptists, are opposed to trying to convert anyone) they are metaphysically "bigots" simply by virtue of who they are! Is it genes and chromosomes? If so, then simply eliminate them. Honestly, that would be less cruel than the 100% constant total attacks and ridicule they have to endure from every single quarter! Believe it or not, when the voices all say the same things, it doesn't really matter whether they come from northeastern humanists or Catholic FReepers. At least these things from liberals don't constitute a stab in the back.
You think my anti-Catholicism is groundless. But I joined the Catholic Church. That Church claims to be "unchanging" and "universal" when it is neither. Everything the "church fathers" taught on the first eleven chapters of Genesis has been thrown out with the garbage (because it was embarrassing and they were "men of their time") while everything they taught that is hard or difficult for Fundamentalists to understand is brandished like a weapon. How is dismissing the fathers' as ignorant pre-scientific yobs and changing their teaching an example of an "unchanging" religion? And it is most assuredly not the church of all peoples, because the intellectuals who run it (like liberal and leftist intellectuals) cannot find room in their hearts for simple rednecks while celebrating every exotic illiterate country in the world. We get the picture, guys: you don't like us!!! You can quite screaming it now. We don't belong in the intellectuals' bosoms along with such worthy peoples as Sudanese escaped slaves, Mohawk "lilies," French little flowers, Aztec peasants, Mayan "cargo" workers, Filipinos, and all the other members of the human race. Maybe you (along with the liberals) don't view us as human at all? Why else would both ideologies go to such lengths to ridicule and demonize one solitary people while embracing everyone else so you can "celebrate diversity?"
How do Fundamentalist Protestants avoid bigotry? Is it bigotry for them to merely have their own religious beliefs? They're "not smart enough" to share yours, so what are they supposed to do . . . believe absolutely nothing? Would that make you happy? Fundamentalist Protestantism disagrees with Catholicism because it's a different religion than Catholicism. Religions that are different are going to disagree! It's the way these things work! If you're so smart why haven't you figured that out?
Maybe you want them to all show up for mass every week and sit in the back so they can hear about what awful, inherently un-Catholic people they are? That sounds like something John Calvin would do. I guess the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.
This may get pulled, and it may get me suspended (and I've said it before anyway), but if I had managed to remain in the Catholic Church till I came here, I would have left anyway on meeting most of you Catholic FReepers. There is in you no sympathy, no milk of human kindness, no understanding for one solitary people out of all the earth. You adopt totem poles but the Hebrew Bible has to go. You insist that the events of Genesis 1-11 are uniquely impossible while accepting every other miracle you can even so much as hear about (the acceptance of but one destroys your precious "uniformity of nature"). You laugh at Fundamentalists for their anti-nomianism and "faith only" while your own "saints" ranted and railed against the G-d-breathed Hebrew ceremonial as "fulfilled" and something to be replaced by a Roman calendar created by pagans. And you don't get it. You literally can't see your hypocrisy in each and every instance. You love everyone but "rednecks," you accept every miracle except for the ones in those chapters, and you simultaneously condemn Biblical ceremonial while ridiculing those who aren't comfortable with post-Biblical ceremonial. If you would just use that logic you're all supposedly so skilled at, you'd see that that last one is a clear violation of logic by itself.
You think you're very good at winning arguments here. But I have seen you win precious few of them. I have seen you ridicule, insult (sometimes ethno-culturally), and boast of your superior intellects, and above all, label any and all disagreement as "bigotry." If I were still in the Church when I met you lot, I'd have been so ashamed I would have left at once. You call yourselves "conservatives," but you sound just like a Harvard intellectual putting down the hicks.
And all this after Fundamentalist Protestants have enthusiastically voted for Catholic candidates again and again. Still they're not good enough for you. I honestly believe that you can't be satisfied. Your demands can't be met because you don't have any. All you have is contempt for your fellow countrymen, fellow conservatives, and alleged co-religionists.
And to top it all off, if a sincere Catholic ever does come here who actually believes Catholic doctrine is supposed to be as unchanging as it claims to be, you gang up on him and run him off as a "Protestant" and "anti-Catholic." I believe such people's term for you is "Neo-Catholic."
You occasionally publish articles condemning Freemasonry for its rationalism, but your Church is far to the left of American Freemasonry in its attitudes. Indeed, your anti-Masonic articles clash sharply with your otherwise ultra-modern, ultra-"tolerant," ultra-rationalist, ultra-intellectual poses. The only things I can see about Freemasonry that you would object to would be either it being too "Biblically literalist" or else allegedly wanting to rebuild Solomon's Temple! (Is that why you are so suspicious of the Hebrew Bible? You think it's the "rationalist bible" of Freemasonry? On what grounds do the followers of Raymond Brown (which is what most of you are) to accuse anyone of rationalism!
Dear Fundamentalist Protestants, please continue to vote for Ric Santorum and every other worthy Catholic who runs for office, regardless of what their Church thinks of you. This is called "nobility" and obviously you have a lot more of it than some people (and the True G-d, unlike the Catholic/chr*stian "gxd," will see and understand). And finally, I beg you to do something I know you're far too stubborn to ever do: give the claims of Torah (Noachism and Orthodox Judaism) a hearing. I know you believe your religion is a "restoration" of "primitive chr*stianity" but it is not. These people who continually defame you are indeed the true representatives of that faith. G-d help you.
G-d help us all!
Chris Matthews says, “Let’s watch you and him attack each other!”
Hey Brother, I am stunned at that that reply.
I’m just a bible believer who thinks the Roman Catholic Church is preaching a false gospel.
I may have to step it up a notch. I pray you don’t blow a gasket.
—Is it really that unbelievable that God wanted his Son to be born of a person without sin and that people can go through life without having sex?—
There are two separate things there. The first: “Is it really that unbelievable that God wanted his Son to be born of a person without sin”
God clearly says what happened. Jesus is both Son of man and Son of God. He was perfect. The lineage from which He came was not. Every single one of His ancestors, from Adam and Eve all the way to Mary, were imperfect beings. The bible says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. The only non-sinner to ever live was Jesus, according to His word. Humanity is in two groups: Sinners, and Jesus.
The second: “...people can go through life without having sex?”
Sure they can. You infer something that I did not say. I was not talking about single people or even people in general. I was speaking of Mary, specifically. Generically speaking, the bible teaches that when you are married, your body is no longer your own, but your husbands (if you are a woman). Paul teaches on this very, VERY clearly in 1 Corinthians. Is it possible Mary never had sex? You bet. But it’s highly unlikely. It is like claiming the donkey on which Jesus rode was a very rare color. It would be absurd to claim such a thing. Better to say it was a donkey and leave it at that.
Likewise with Mary. Better to say she obeyed her clear instructions to not have sex until after Jesus was born and leave it at that. What happened afterward is between her and Joseph. It is not relevant to us.
The second: and that people can go through life without having sex?
Actually, I agree with everything in your post. It’s why I said “the jury’s out” regarding Catholicism. With Mormonism it is very, VERY clear cut. With Catholicism, often I find myself saying “It depends”.
—Mary had no other children.—
There is no evidence to make such a ridiculous claim. You can claim that the word for “brother” is the same for “cousin”. Does that mean that, therefore, the word mean’t cousin when used in the bible? No. And the scripture to which you refer is not the only reference to Jesus brother(s).
There is plenty of evidence in the bible that whould cause a reasonable person to say Jesus probably had brothers. There is not one shred of evidence that would cause one to say Jesus could not have had any brothers.
—Aren’t you familiar with the Ark of Old Covenant and how the person who touched it died instantly?
Well, Mary is the Ark (in her womb) of the New Covenant — Jesus Christ. I believe that anyone who would have tried to touch her in the way you are thinking (sexually) would have died instantly.—
Did God tell them not to touch the ark? Yes. Did God tell them not to touch Mary? No. They are two completely different things. People died for touching the ark because they were expressly told not to. Joseph was told not to have sex with Mary while she carried Jesus. It is very, VERY clear. He was not told to NEVER have sex with her.
You, or whoever helped form your opinion on this, are being too smart by half. You are reading information between the lines that is not there while ignoring what is in the lines themselves. You are literally suggesting that there is some magical “unspoken” reason that people died when touching the ark while ignoring God expressly said NOT to do it, and you are saying that a person could touch Mary all they wanted but not in “that way” because of some magical power of God, while he gave no instruction to not do it.
See the difference?
—Read about St. Joseph and how he and the Blessed Virgin Mary lived celibate lives.—
It’s not in there. Nowhere. It is also not relevant. Whether Joseph or Mary had sex after Jesus’ birth is no more relevant to us than the frequency of their bowel movements. They were a married couple and all that that implies. Read about it in 1 Corinthians, or the old testament for that matter.
Arguing whether or not Mary had sex with her husband AFTER Jesus’ birth is like arguing the color of the donkey Jesus rode. It is irrelevant to Christianity.
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