Posted on 10/30/2013 8:09:25 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Its fascinating, the amount of emotion at least some non-Catholics seem to have about Catholic teaching. I can tell you that when I was in the anti-God period of my life, I did not give one whit what any church taught. I paid them the ultimate diss of not giving a care.
But from what Ive seen on this blog, there are a large number of people who claim to be atheist or some what-not version of what I was in my anti-God period, who appear to think about Christianity, the Catholic Church in particular, 24/7. They appear to be, in a word, obsessed with the minutiae of Catholic teaching.
If you doubt this, go to some of the atheist blogs. All they ever talk about is God, Christian teaching, and the Bible.
There are a few issues in particulate that really rev their engines. They are:
When someone confronts them with the obvious inconsistency implied in their obsessive demands that a Church they claim is a stupid cult alter teachings that they claim are based on a myth, they start denouncing Catholics for using their rights as American citizens to vote and advocate according to their consciences.
Its as if it offends them that Catholics have the same rights to vote, free assembly and to petition their government as other citizens. I suppose its true that it does offend them. Because one takeaway I get from reading the comments from most (not all, there are a couple of clear exceptions) of these people is that they are, at base, bullies.
I also think that the core reason they keep coming around here to drop off their load of insults (most of the truly insulting ones never see the light of day on this blog) is that they are either mental on some level, or, whether they will admit it or not, they are God haunted people who desperately want what the Church offers, which is peace with God, eternal life and a spiritual home. Its just that they cant bring themselves to go to God on Gods terms. They want Him meaning HIs Church to come to them on their terms.
These are people who refuse to be forgiven for their sins. What they want is to have the Almighty ratify their sins. They are obsessed with finding, not absolution, but vindication, from a Church they claim they believe is a fraud.
However, thats just my reaction. Yours may be different. Im going to throw this open for discussion.
Why do you think nonbelievers are so obsessed with the Catholic Church?
Are we talking of World of Churches Christnity that what I sound like to me
They losing membership they are getting old their young people are turn off by their teachings
(Note to Religion Moderator: that's not "mind reading," it's just teasing!)
You got me. Guilty. Unfortunately for Catholic claims of changelessness, it's also true. I advise any religion out there that claims to never change to . . . well . . . never change.
Simple answer is this:
Nearly all Christian denominations are groups that have broken off from Catholicism over disagreements with their cannon, so they are all founded on the Catholic Church is wrong, so any change to the Catholic Cannon is viewed as they were right all along.
End of the day that’s it.
I read most of the religious posts that I see go by. I am particularaly interested in the Catholic v. Protestant posts and the posts about the new Pope. I really dislike the flame-throwing that happens in some of them, but I love to see how well people can defend their faith. That is where I learn the most.
“Why do you think nonbelievers are so obsessed with the Catholic Church?”
I don’t think they are. To me it looks more like the Catholic church is obsessed with itself.
So you So you deny that the Catholic Church (not all Catholics not Catholic organizations, BUT THE CHURCH itself) aids, abets, protects, incourages, welcomes and lobbies (amnesty) for illegal immigrants and illegal immigration?
If so than their no more need for discussion for you are delusional as the Church has repeatedly made clear of their stand.
agnostics = no knowledge (from the Greek?) from the word gnostic
atheists = no God (from the Greek?) from the word theist
HEY NYER look what I found on Al Jazeera english news
Apparently USA NSA spy on the Vatican leading up to Pope Francis election
From what I have read, the anti-circumcision zealots object to circumcision for its (demonstrable) health benefits just as they do to circumcision as a religious ordinance. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth (and quashing of the publicity) when studies showed that circumcision reduced the likelihood of transmission of HIV by more than half.
Interesting questions are raised, the sort that distract us from our search for the missing hot-glue sticks. Is the “prime mover” here anti-Semitism, bleeding over (as it were) to erase common-sense good hygiene? Or is “phallus-worship” itself the point, and anti-Semitism a sub-topic? If an intact penis is a good in itself, why isn’t the female body and its functions equally good-as-created? Did Sally really use a whole quart-ziplock bag full of hot-glue sticks, and if so, what did she do with them?
One could go on ... but it looks as if one has to go to Walmart for more hot-glue sticks (and milk, and cookie mix, and spinach).
**Why Do Non-Catholics Want So Desperately for the Catholic Church to Change Its Teachings?**
So they know that the contraception (and end of the human race in the USA and elsewhere) will be OK?
There are a lot of Catholics that want Catholics to change their teachings. I was Catholic. There are aspects I do not agree with, but it is not mine to demand a denomination change to meet my criteria. I am no longer Catholic.
First, Galileo: Even after Galileo's first trial (1616) natural philosophers like Riceloll were well aware --- and openly declared--- that neither the pope nor any Church agency had made an anti-Copernican definition of doctrine. In other words, the geocentric theory was never "dogma," and the heliocentric theory per se was not heresy, let alone blasphemy. (After all, Copernicus, a Polish Catholic cleric, had taught it freely 80 years before Galileo.)
At the outset, the Church (meaning, in this instance, Card. Robert Bellarmine) said Galileo could teach any concept of the sun, planets and stars he wanted, as long as he presented it as a hypothesis supported by mathematical evidence; he was not to make claims of absolute philosophic or theological truth.
Since Galileo was teaching that the sun was the center of the Universe (not just of our solar system, but of the Universe) and that the ocean tides were caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis (tides are in fact caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon), from a scientific point of view, Bellarmine had the better of the argument.
There was a later trial (I think it was in the 1630's?) when Galileo was found "in vehement suspicion of heresy," but it was an unjust trial based apparently on intense academic rivalry and a fraudulent document --- for those peculiar people who are interested in the facts, it's in the court records --- and Galileo was unjustly sentenced to house arrest.
That's it. No reversal of doctrine.
Second, Darwin: similarly, the Church had never made a definition of doctrine declared that the creation of the World, "the origin of species and the descent of man", all happened in one 144-hour period and without God's use of secondary causes. I know you object to this, ZC, because we've been over this before, but the Church was always open to a symbolic reading of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, (possibly going back, St. Jerome says, to the St. Mark the Evangelist, and the Catechetical School of Alexandria, 1st century AD, but at least from the 4th century AD, St. Augustine, who argued against a literal reading of the early books of Genesis.)
The Catholic Church has no dogma supporting Genesis as literal astrophysics, geology, and fundamental biology --- therefore, no argument with Darwin --- except inasmuch as he may well have been wrong in his biological specifics (much as Galileo was wrong on the astrophysical specifics.) That's as far as science goes.
As for Darwin's philosophy, that's a different matter altogether. He held a materialistic and deterministic view with an exclusion of the Divine origin, guidance, plan and purpose of the world ---that, a totally materialistic view, is unacceptable to Catholicism.
I know very well that our views differ on this (are you a geocentrist, too?) (sincere question) but your point was that the Catholic Church had supposedly changed her dogmas with regard to Galileo and Darwin: and this is not the case.
Again, I appreciate the chance to explain these few salient points. Not interesting to many, for sure; but possibly interesting to some.
Atheists like to attack because they
like to bolster the public fiction that
Catholics are weird demon exorcists.
This fiction helps to keep people from
considering the Catholic or any other
church.
Evangelicals want to change the Catholic
Church’s doctrines about sacraments and
other must-do’s for salvation. This fiction
helps keep people from seeking and receiving
everlasting life.
Cool. It takes an unusual serenity or good-will to ignore the flamewar aspect. I myself am disturbed by it, but am trying (despite my own obvious faults) to be an influence for more respectful encounters.
Interesting! That's just what Pope Francis has been saying lately. "Church, don't get all tied up in knots around yourself!"
I observed CityCenter on a woman-bashing thread last night. “Unusual serenity and good-will” seems accurate. I myself walked off to drink wine and read Kipling.
Now I must get the hot-glue sticks, before teh byos destroy my incomplete Day of the Dead costume!
These USCCB types are influential. They are numerous. They are clerical. They are also, however, in violation of Catholic doctrine as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
As usual, the huge head-splitting problems come whenever Catholics are "not Catholic enough."
That's absolutely true. I could give you a dozen more hair-tearing, maddening examples.
Yeah, I think he was, though. Not simultaneously; sequentially.
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