(note to Gods Girl: most of this is addressed to you, just skip to where it says your name)
at
Christian
Eep. I was afraid you'd find me.
But, the Roman Catholic church itself is not a Christian organization
Interesting. What is it then? A chimichanga in a tutu?
I rather cringed when I saw you'd commented here. Now, look, Mr, I've seen the monster posts you made with Aaron (quite well written and fascinating) and I have no intention of being drawn into a mile-long debate with you, especially since you've already said yourself you have no intention of changing your ideas. This post shall already be quite long, I think, and I’m already spending lots of time debating here.
Also, God's Girl's post is more urgent to me right now, so instead of debating with you, I'll just call you real quick on a few particularly irking missteps in your statement.
First, this is just something that bugged me since I'm a big author and fantasy buff, but you said people such as Tolkien must have known little about their faith since they had some sound theology. *buzzer* WRONG. In fact, Tolkien helped CS Lewis on the road to becoming Christian, though Lewis was always strongly protestant. Tolkien was serious and very informed about his faith, and makes that clear in some of his works. CS Lewis has mentioned having long debates with Tolkien over Catholicism and Christianity, and, I believe, even mentions that in his autobiography.
More importantly, I do embrace everything the Catholic church teaches. Incidentally, we don't believe we are saved by works. Only Christ can. In fact, you could be murdering pimp and, if you accepted God's love at the moment you died, you would still go to heaven. *disclaimer: I don't recommend trying this, single-instant conversions can be hard to manage* Indeed, many Catholics don't know a lot of what the church teaches... but that's because rather than going to the Bible and getting our own ideas, (important as the Bible is) we have everything we need to believe written down in hundreds upon hundreds of books. It's a long learning experience. I'm still working on it, and will be all my life. There's much to know. But almost all Catholics know the
basics. It also depends what you mean by teachings. We have a lot of ideas and dogmas that come and go, but doctrines must be accepted. Do you even have any idea what most of the doctrines
are? By the by, it's one thing if someone is having trouble believing something, but if they deliberately reject a doctrine, then they're not Catholic.
Point: I do embrace everything the "heretical" Catholic church teaches, especially doctrines, and I'm proud of it. Everything I've said has been Catholic teaching. (Gasp! Horrors.)
But anyhow, I probably shan't debate with you further. If you reply to this post, I will likely just twiddle my thumbs and pretend I need to check my email. Like I said, I don't want to get involved in an epic battle and write a novel.
Also, well... you've made it pretty obvious you've never opened a Catholic theology book in your life, probably don't even talk to Catholics about their faith, and have no idea what the heck you're talking about. There was almost nothing factual about your post. So, like a lot of protestants, before you can debate on Catholic ideas and expect me to take you seriously, you have a lot of homework.
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Ninja
Okay so why did Jesus die if his blood could not wash away our sin??? I mean logically it doesn't make any sense for a sinless man to die for a bunch of sinners if he isn't able to help then out of Hell. That would be like you going to help someone out of the mud, but you can't walk.
Nice metaphor. But though God washed away our sin, we still have free will. We can accept his gift of purity, or reject it. And confession is one of the ways in which God makes Heaven available to us. But if it wasn't for the crucifixion, we'd be trapped. Our sin would stay with us, no matter what. That being said, one's sins can be taken away by God after we die. Confession is basically like insurance.
As to baptizing babies, again, babies are born with sin, but they can't
sin, the verb.
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God's Girl
You are right, I am not knowledgeable enough to refute this. However, I still do not believe that Mary was without sin.
So, you do realize there's clear evidence Mary was without sin... but rather than research, you're going to automatically reject it? So that you can hang on to a belief that may be erroneous? Pardon, but isn't that called being self delusional?
Okay, while we are on the subject, can animals sin? Seeing as how Paul was writing humans, not cats and dogs or angles, the exceptions don't matter.
Animals have the gift of reason? I may feel guilty when next we're at Wendy's. But I see your point. That was just an attempt to demonstrate there are intelligent beings like humans who haven't sinned. That's a rather weak point, yes. But it was a brief, small one, just a springboard for pointing out that not all humans have sinned either. You may continue to argue this if you wish. But I have no further interest in discussing a side issue.
So, you think that this isn't true? Yes, I think that the heart is wicked and evil, even from birth.
Wow... And since Metal15 agreed with you, apparently this is not uncommon... unbelievable.
That's hilarious.
And very sad.
There’s quite a bit to say here, this will go on a lonnng while, so please read it all if you will, and bear with me.
Your interpretation of that verse is way off. That verse is surrounded by metaphors and similes (eg, “LORD, tear out the fangs of those lions!” The wicked of whom the writer speaks aren’t literally lions, one would imagine.) So why on earth you would take it literally is a mystery. The obvious conclusion is that one may simply misinterpret such things so at to support their personal way of thinking. I’m sure you have many other verses you’d love throw at me, but I’ll tell you in advance they’d all have something wrong with them. There’s no end of stuff in the Bible about wickedness… and lots of things for that matter. Don’t forget, the Bible was used for years in America across the nation to support slavery.
Babies are a sign of innocence, pure, a source of light. Their unblemished state is a sign of hope to the world. That you would accuse them of corruption… is terrible.
In the first place, this is just instinctively silly. When a baby smacks an older sibling, and then the sibling smacks the baby back, does the mother punish the baby or the sibling? We know without thinking that a baby just doesn’t have the reasoning ability to realize things are wrong. This is one of those purple sky things again (Arkan said a long time ago in a topic that arguing with protestants is like one person arguing the sky is blue, and another saying it’s purple. You know the sky is blue, but how to prove it? You know without thinking the sky is blue, how do you prove it logically?) No one would think without such ideas as human nature being evil shoved into their head that babies are capable of sin. If you think me wrong, try saying babies can be “wicked” to some people who don’t know about your ideas. They’ll give you an odd look and laugh.
But if I must try to answer this logically, (though frankly this absolutely ridiculous) then… Well a baby doesn’t have experience with the world, nor is its brain developed much. It doesn’t know what’s safe and unsafe. How in Heaven’s name then could it sin!? If it doesn’t have an elementary hat’s harmful to it or anyone or anything else, it can do things that are wrong, but it can’t sin! It’s not sinful for a tree to fall on a car. But this is all obvious enough… so you must have considered this before. I’m just curious how you can possibly get past such basic common sense.
A person who hasn’t been brought up with beliefs like yours just instinctively knows babies are innocent. If some wild flowers bloomed on in a field, you’d think they were lovely. But in a fallen world, the same wild flowers could grow all over your yard, and then you wouldn’t be so happy. But the flowers would still be beautiful. They would just be in an imperfect world, where they, by their nature, can DO imperfect things.
But that doesn’t make the flowers themselves bad.
They’re just bad for your yard.
The imprint of Adam’s sin is on all of us, but that doesn’t make US, our nature, sin. We are still humans. And humans are a good thing, as all things created by God are.
Our nature isn’t evil.
Our nature is… well…
A mother cannot be a mother without a baby. Just as the baby cannot exist without the mother, a mother cannot be if there is no baby. In a typical paradox of love, the baby and the mother create each other.
And there cannot be a mother without a man. And would you say a woman is a wife if she’s never had husband?
And when another child comes, they make each thus into siblings. A sibling cannot exist without a the other.
And this goes on. It’s true of everything and everyone. An aunt can’t be an aunt without a nephew or niece. A doctor can’t be a doctor without a patient. A fireman or woman can’t be a fireman or woman without people who need them to stop fires. A teacher can’t…
And what motivates all that? What, ideally, makes us who we are? What makes our true, God given vocations?
Love.
It’s love that brings a man and woman together.
It’s love that creates a child.
It’s love that makes a family.
It’s love that makes a vocation.
Love is our nature.
God made us. God is love. God is who we are. Love comes from God. God loves. We give love to others. We create each other and give each other identity. It’s a cycle.
That’s who we are.
Not sinners.
We are sinners, to be sure. But that’s not our core. That’s not our nature. We are not fallen from birth, capable of wrong no matter what. The world is not so black. We may sometimes grow over people’s yards, but we are still beautiful flowers.
Alright, you say. But a baby can come from rape, that’s hardly love. Yes, but a mother has to “come to terms” with being a mother in such an instance. It takes more than a pregnancy to create the identity of a true mother. The name “mother” describes the fact of pregnancy, but it is not an identity, in the same way the name “wife” is not the identity of a woman forced into marriage. Why else would so many pro-lifers say abortion is alright in the case of rape? What’s needed is an outpouring of love between mother and child so they can create each other.
(Having said that, a baby tends towards a creative act of love. This can be beautiful, as when a mother desires reunion with the child she gave up for adoption, or painful, as when the baby is killed by abortion and the mother, later in life, begins to count the would-be-birthdays. This is love. It may manifest itself as regret, as repentance, as reconciliation, or as bitterness, but it is ultimately a claiming of the child, a gift of identity that makes his existence matter.)
So the complex reality of those conceived outside of love actually proves my point. Love creates our identity and makes it dependent on another.
The question “Who are you?” is only ever answered — if it is to be answered in a way that means anything — with an identity given in love. We are sons, daughters, siblings, spouses, friends, students, lovers — relation, relation, relation.
Now, this may all seem rather absurd to you. Maybe you are already thinking of more verses to throw and thinking you see holes in the logic. But take a deep breath. This is important.
It’s about you.
And God.
And love.
Either your identity is love, tending towards beauty and goodness, or you’re natural state is wickedness.
There’s a big difference between the two. This is it. You can pus all this out of your mind easily. You can choose to go on believing what you believe. And, who knows, maybe there’s a lot of truth in what you already believe.
But you’ve got to think logically.
Think.
You’ve been handed the idea that “the human heart is wicked”, and you’ve accepted it. It’s not easy to reconsider realities you consider basic. But please try. Blondie, this about… Who. You. Are.
You’re a star convinced you’re the darkness.
Try. Think. Even if it takes a few days, give all this a chance. Try. In the name of God, try.