Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

A Convert's Response to Friends
The Coming Home Network ^ | Robert E. Day

Posted on 04/18/2008 11:33:27 AM PDT by annalex

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 161-179 next last
To: Pyro7480

Watch yourself.

Such even temporary slips of humor could be dreadfully dangerous to one’s starchy sensibilities. But your secret is safe. I won’t publicize it . . . much.

Oh, you already did. Wheew, safe I am.


21 posted on 04/18/2008 12:48:16 PM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Pyro7480; Zionist Conspirator

Broadly speaking it is on topic. The article is written to “neutralize prejudices”. Zionist Conspirator’s chief concern is the Catholic doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, which he finds too liberal. I agree with him that it would be among legitimate questions put to Catholics, albeit not in the first tier of questions, because after all Protestant views on Biblical inerrancy range as well.


22 posted on 04/18/2008 12:50:40 PM PDT by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: trisham; Alex Murphy; alpha-8-25-02; blue-duncan; Dr. Eckleburg; ears_to_hear; Forest Keeper; ...

Goodness!

Evidently you didn’t get the RC’s Magicsterical’s

memo

on that MANY months ago.

Please try harder to keep up. I wouldn’t want you to miss the next FLASH BULLETIN

about the

NEXT idolatrous, blasphemous Magnificent Magical Earth-Mother Marion dogma to be formally pontificated and promulgated and horrifically heralded.

BTW, I haven’t been worth a lot for a long time.

I’d ‘only’ Jesus and His Blood that seem to demonstrate otherwise.


23 posted on 04/18/2008 12:51:42 PM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: RabidBartender

I didn’t know Bill Maher was in the RUBBER DICTIONARY.


24 posted on 04/18/2008 12:52:48 PM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Quix

As I said, I have nothing more to say to you. Please direct your hostility elsewhere.


25 posted on 04/18/2008 12:53:36 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Quix

You truly have some baggage don’t you. How sad! I’ll pray to our Blessed Mother for you.


26 posted on 04/18/2008 1:02:14 PM PDT by notaliberal (Christ Our Hope!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Quix
"I didn’t know Bill Maher was in the RUBBER DICTIONARY. "

Not quite certain what that is, unless the folks at Trojan have gone into publishing.

27 posted on 04/18/2008 1:17:39 PM PDT by RabidBartender
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Quix
WHEN the RC magicsterical reps cease posting such brazenly UNBIBLICAL, UNHISTORICAL UNTRUE, SPIRITUALLY DESTRUCTIVE, fantasized magical nonsense about Mary and Christ’s Church Universal.

Such a position would be commendable were you to answer those biblical assertions that you so studiously ignore, such as demonstrations of Mary's unique character and position, proofs the Bible and the "word of God" are two separate entities, rebellion against Church authority, and your own sado-evangelistic style.

28 posted on 04/18/2008 1:18:52 PM PDT by papertyger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: RabidBartender

LOL!


29 posted on 04/18/2008 1:22:29 PM PDT by Pyro7480 ("If the angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion." -M. Kolbe)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Quix
Such even temporary slips of humor could be dreadfully dangerous to one’s starchy sensibilities
As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?

30 posted on 04/18/2008 1:24:08 PM PDT by papertyger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: annalex
Usually, the question is framed in terms of the Bible Alone doctrine

As you well know, I don't do this.

As someone who has been through the shock of converting to Catholicism and having to deal with the evolutionism, higher criticism, and Biblical liberalism of the Church, I am sincerely interested at how other Fundamentalist converts deal with this problem. What I don't understand is pretending the issue doesn't exist.

31 posted on 04/18/2008 1:36:27 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator ( . . . va'akhaltem 'oto bechippazon, Pesach hu' leHaShem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Pyro7480
In this instance, I have to disagree.

I notice there were no questions about evolution, higher criticism, or myths and errors in the Bible. Why is that always left out of such things?

What relevance does this have with the article above?

It's relevant because I'm interesting in learning how other converts to Catholicism from a Fundamentalist background deal with the issues I mentioned. Do they cave in and become evolutionists and errantists themselves? Do they maintain their inerrantism while feeling guilty for "being bad Catholics?" Do they persevere?

I'm genuinely interested and genuinely puzzled at how little Protestant converts talk about this. But you know good and well that they have to deal with it. I just wonder how.

32 posted on 04/18/2008 1:41:40 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator ( . . . va'akhaltem 'oto bechippazon, Pesach hu' leHaShem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Zionist Conspirator

I don’t know for sure. I am a convert, but from the Russian Orthodox Church: I never had to struggle with ANY doctrinal question at all. My wife converted from Protestantism, most recently, of Baptist variety, but her views on the interpretation of the scripture were always orthodox Catholic. We know a nun who once told her that the Old Testament stories were to be understood allegorically, and Ann and I were both apalled. However, we could not be sure what exactly she meant. Ann did tell me that if anyone in a Catholic class told our children anythign like that, that would be the end of that class for them, and I, of course, agree. But that is not something she had to struggle with in order to convert as the fundamentalist creationist views are firmly within the Catholic spectrum on this issue, and in fact, the allegorical view is heretical.

Imagine that someone is considering immigration to the US and he learns that there is a lot of snow in Minnessota. Our prospective immigrant likes warm weather and the idea of settling in a cold climate frightens him. Would that be a reason not to come to the US? Of course not: he can also live in the South and have all the sun he wants to have. People who come to the Catholic Church struggle with things that leave them no option, such as communion of saints or the papacy, or the sacraments. On biblical literalism, they can keep them and be Catholic.

As I like to repeat: we take the scripture — all of it — literally, but we take it in historical, cultural and linguistic context. Anyone who reads the Bible under these principles will be Catholic or Orthodox.

My other guess is that Protestantism taken as a whole has its doze of biblical liberalism. The idea to share his faith with others who disagree on biblical literalism should not be foreign to a Protestant.


33 posted on 04/18/2008 1:56:42 PM PDT by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: annalex
Thank you for understanding the reasons for my post, Annalex. I really didn't mean it as a "hit and run" but am honestly puzzled about how converts from Fundamentalism handle Catholicism.

Imagine that someone is considering immigration to the US and he learns that there is a lot of snow in Minnessota. Our prospective immigrant likes warm weather and the idea of settling in a cold climate frightens him. Would that be a reason not to come to the US? Of course not: he can also live in the South and have all the sun he wants to have. People who come to the Catholic Church struggle with things that leave them no option, such as communion of saints or the papacy, or the sacraments. On biblical literalism, they can keep them and be Catholic.

Now you see, I can't understand why Biblical inerrancy is less important than papal infallibility or communion of the saints.

34 posted on 04/18/2008 2:12:04 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator ( . . . va'akhaltem 'oto bechippazon, Pesach hu' leHaShem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Zionist Conspirator

We don’t say it is less important; it is just not in the deposit of faith “once delivered to the saints”. We have no record or institutional memory of Christ discussing cosmology with the disciples, or evolution, or lack of it.

He did one thing that is related. More than a few times He said something that gives a certain contrast between what He taught and what the Old Testament writes. In the Sermon on the Mount the recurring theme is “it is written ... but I say to you ...”. He never contradicts the Old Testament directly, but He explains and expands the meaning beyond the literal. For example, the literal is “thou shalt not kill” but Christ explains that even an expression of anger, or an insult is already a violation of the spirit of that commandment. Then He goes over most of the Decaloge in that fashion.

Another time Christ is accused of working on the Sabbath, and again he teaches a reasoned, analytical approach to scripture, giving an example of a work on an emergency (a donkey in distress), and an example from another passage of the scripture where King David acted in seeming contradiction to the literal commandments. “Sabbath is for the man, not man for the Sabbath” Jesus concluded.

These are examples we have to go by. They do not give a conclusive picture of whether the six days of creation were literal 24 hour days or something else; whether Adam was shaped from literal mud as a clay scuplture or if it was some lengthy process with intermediate stages of theistic evolution. They do allow the use of reason and going beyond the immediately literal in approaching this, or any other scripture.

Not that these issues are unimportant, they are simply not in the Church’s job description to dogmatize about. For the Church to proclaim a dogma she needs a definite insight into the sacred deposit of faith given the apostles. We don’t find sufficient material there to form a single doctrine. Hence, this matter is open to speculation.

There are certain things that inhere to the deposit of faith. They are God as the single first cause of creation, Adam and Eve only parents of man, man having dominion over the rest of the creation, original sin etc. So, for example, on random undirected evolution hypothesis we say a definite, resounding NO. To theistic evolution or to old earth we cannot say a No, but we welcome young earth and non-evolutionary views as well.


35 posted on 04/18/2008 3:17:40 PM PDT by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Zionist Conspirator
As someone who has been through the shock of converting to Catholicism and having to deal with the evolutionism, higher criticism, and Biblical liberalism of the Church, I am sincerely interested at how other Fundamentalist converts deal with this problem. What I don't understand is pretending the issue doesn't exist.

I, for one, do not pretend the issue does not exist.

I handle it the same way I handle my recognition the Constitution of the United States is not universally viewed through the eyes of "original intent."

A President who does not nominate constructionist jurists to the Supreme Court is still the President, exercising all the powers thereof.

To my knowledge, the Holy Father has not declared those who hold my views on biblical inerrancy, or evolution, to be heterodox, and so long as he does not, while I accept he has the authority to do so, there is no existential crisis whereby I must choose between my convictions and the Catholic Church.

I regard my fellow Catholics who feel differently about such issues to be simply, genuinely, and HONESTLY, mistaken.

36 posted on 04/18/2008 4:43:05 PM PDT by papertyger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: papertyger
Excellent summary, papertyger. I'd have said the same thing, if I were having one of my Fully Coherent days.

I regard my fellow Catholics who feel differently about such issues to be simply, genuinely, and HONESTLY, mistaken.

Exactly! And my fellow Christians of the non-Catholic persuasion.

37 posted on 04/18/2008 7:24:27 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("It's hard to be stressed out over your spouse while you're in a bathtub drinking wine together.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: papertyger

So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour

= = =

I may be brutally candid . . . but deception is of no interest to me.

except . . . of course . . . the many centuries of deception on the part of the RC magicsterical . . . particularly about Christ’s Church Universal and about the Magnificent Magical Earth-Mother Mary caricature.


38 posted on 04/18/2008 7:48:15 PM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: papertyger

Given the facts . . .

Post 30 comes across as rather . . . deceptive.


39 posted on 04/19/2008 4:39:03 AM PDT by Quix (GOD ALONE IS GOD; WORTHY; PAID THE PRICE; IS COMING AGAIN; KNOWS ALL; IS LOVING; IS ALTOGETHER GOOD)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Quix

Why is everybody talking like Yoda on this thread?


40 posted on 04/19/2008 4:43:11 AM PDT by ovrtaxt (This election is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if McCain wins, weÂ’re still retarded.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 161-179 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson