Posted on 01/14/2014 8:25:45 PM PST by marshmallow
I'm proud of my daughter, but I can't deny that she stopped us in our religiously disinterested, bleeding-heart liberal tracks
For decades, god and religion have played no part in my life. I was baptised as a baby, but didn't make it as far as first communion. That may officially make me a Catholic in the broadest sense, but if it does, I'm one who's not so much "lapsed" as "stalled before I started".
Apart from morning assemblies and weekly hymn practices at primary school, followed by a couple of years of religious education classes at comprehensive (which I dropped as soon as exam options allowed), I have barely considered my immortal soul, much less the direction it may be heading when I die.
Over the years, when I bothered to think about it at all, I came to the conclusion that I prefer the scientific theory of life and the universe to the spiritual one. I'm most likely an atheist, but one leaning to the agnostic side of the spectrum. I know I'm a sceptic, in the true sense of the word. Or shallow. One of the two.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
What courage had it taken for her to tell us what she wanted? It was clear that our brave, sweet daughter had thought about her faith long and hard.
Catholic ping!
Reincarnation?
Try to pay attention.
The question is not committing murder but the belief that it is right or wrong.
Believing murder is not wrong also does not impact anyone else within the context of your premise.
So why not let the child decide when he or she is 18 if murder is right or wrong?
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LOL. You just cannot help yourself, can you?
I simply cannot accept that a sentient being such as yourself is struggling with the distinction between beliefs as they relate to one’s religion, one’s political stance, and one’s position on murder.
You’ve clearly twisted yourself in knots to attempt to make these three things look the same.
The only Pretzel Logic I care for is the album by Steely Dan.
I find this paragraph buried toward the end rather interesting:
“Looking back, we realised we had regularly discussed our differing beliefs. Our daughter brought us Genesis. We gave her the Michael Bay-friendly Big Bang. She brought us the Nativity and peace and goodwill at Christmas. We gave her family, friends and good food. She brought us the crucifixion. We gave her the Easter Bunny. She brought us heaven, god and an afterlife. We gave her 21st-century life and a brief future as worm fodder.”
their daughter learned that there is more to life than ending up as ‘worm fodder’ after our body expires and that our souls continue to live and have a home to go to after exile here. Her parents apparently are content to believe that physical life on this hunk of dirt is the beginning and end.
My cousin’s husband, after a career in the Marine Corps, became a teacher and went to work in a Catholic school near Philadelphia. Eventually he became principal. Even after the school closed and he moved to another, he remained friends with the priest from the first parish, and finally, he and my cousin both joined the Catholic Church.
When my husband and I joined the Church, my mother said, “Thank God your grandpop is in his grave!” He was a bit prejudiced, having grown up Protestant in Northern Ireland. Now, half of his grandchildren and almost all his great-grandchildren are Catholic.
They prefer to be their own authority. They do not wish to admit that there is any greater authority than themselves. It is a close to pure hedonism as you can get.
What a great family story. I bet you laugh about your grandfather’s views when you get together.
In a way, but we all respect Pop’s memory. He was the youngest of 13 children, on a farm in Northern Ireland not much bigger than my house lot. He came to the U.S. in 1920, after joining the British Army for World War I but being kicked out because they found out he was 15. (His mom came to drag him home by his ear!)
It was a different world. Nowadays, most Irish are more concerned about the E.U. and its regulations than they are about whether anyone is Catholic or Protestant.
History is full of men who have claimed that they came from God, or that they were gods, or that they bore messages from God - Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Christ, Lao-tze, and thousands of others, right down to the person who founded a new religion this very day. Each of them has a right to be heard and considered. But as a yardstick external to and outside of whatever is to be measured is needed, so there must be some permanent tests available to all men, all civilizations, and all ages, by which they can decide whether any of these claimants, or all of them, are justified in their claims. These tests are of two kinds: reason and history. Reason, because everyone has it, even those without faith; history, because everyone lives in it and should know something about it.
Reason dictates that if any one of these men actually came from God, the least thing that God could do to support His claim would be to pre-announce His coming. Automobile manufacturers tell their customers when to expect a new model. If God sent anyone from Himself, or if He came Himself with a vitally important message for all men, it would seem reasonable that He would first let men know when His messenger was coming, where He would be born, where He would live, the doctrine He would teach, the enemies He would make, the program He would adopt for the future, and the manner of His death. By the extent to which the messenger conformed with these announcements, one could judge the validity of his claims.
Reason further assures us that if God did not do this, then there would be nothing to prevent any impostor from appearing in history and saying, "I come from God," or "An angel appeared to me in the desert and gave me this message." In such cases there would be no objective, historical way of testing the messenger. We would have only his word for it, and of course he could be wrong.
If a visitor came from a foreign country to Washington and said he was a diplomat, the government would ask him for his passport and other documents testifying that he represented a certain government. His papers would have to antedate his coming. If such proofs of identity are asked from delegates of other countries, reason certainly ought to do so with messengers who claim to have come from God. To each claimant reason says, "What record was there before you were born that you were coming?"
With this test one can evaluate the claimants. Socrates had no one to foretell his birth. Buddha had no one to pre-announce him and his message or tell the day when he would sit under the tree. Confucius did not have the name of his mother and his birthplace recorded, nor were they given to men centuries before he arrived so that when he did come, men would know he was a messenger from God. But, with Christ, it was different. Because of the OT prophecies, His coming was not unexpected. There were no predictions about Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tze, Mohammed , or anyone else; but there were predictions about Christ. Others just came and said, "Here I am, believe me". Christ alone stepped out of that line saying, "Search the writings of the Jewish people and the related history of the Babylonians, Persians, and Romans." Even the pagan, Tacitus, speaking for the ancient Romans, says, "People were generally persuaded in the faith of the ancient prophecies, that the East was to prevail, and that from Judea was to come the Master and Ruler of the world." China had the same expectations, as did the Greeks.
Another distinguishing fact is that once He appeared, He struck history with such impact that He split it in two, dividing it into two periods: one before His coming, the other after it. Buddha did not do this, nor any of the great Indian philosophers. Even those who deny God must date their attacks upon Him, A.D. so and so, or so many years after His coming.
The story of every human life begins with birth and ends with death. In the Person of Christ, however, it was His death that was first and His life that was last. It was not so much that His birth cast a shadow on His life and thus led to His death; it was rather that the Cross was first, and cast its shadow back to His birth. His has been the only life in the world that was ever lived backward.
Indoctrination.
Yes.
The folly lies in the assertion that what cannot be perceived nor rationalized cannot legitimately exist — anywhere.
I was about to say that when you present your daughter for baptism, you promise to raise her as a Catholic....however, now I realize that she is old enough to make her own decisions...support her, love her, and look at it this way, if there is no God, as you believe, no one loses anything, and if there is a God, which there is, she has everything to gain!!!!
I've been on this site for many years....and yours is the most inane and despicable post I've ever sen.....PATHETIC
NO....the name does not make the man!!!!
This girl is only 8 years old. From the article =>
About five years ago, work took me, my fellow-journalist wife and our then three-year-old child from eastern England to southwest France.
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