My hope for the future of the American Conservative Christian Church

christiefan915 said:
I know you apologized and I appreciated that and thanked you. I find Catholic bashing just as troubling as Islam bashing because I think both come from a position of ignorance (not directing this at you in particular). Take patriot66's post for example, he's convinced Catholics emphasize Mary more than Jesus and that is totally wrong. And that's just one of his misconceptions. It also raises the question, why wouldn't the Mother of God be honored? I don't think fundamentalists deny that she carried Jesus in her womb for nine months, isn't that worthy of being honored? Read post #64 for some of my other comments.

Rightly or wrongly it seems that some fundamentalists have a visceral hatred of Catholicism that they can't explain. To liberals like me conservative Catholicism is actually closer to fundamentalist beliefs than to my personal beliefs because con Catholics seem to have a single-minded focus on a few topics, mainly abortion, and ignore the larger teachings such as social justice or respect for all life (the "womb to tomb" argument).

Full disclosure, I've been doing a lot of questioning my own beliefs lately and have become more critical of religion in general and Catholicism in particular because IRL as well as cyberspace I don't see that a religious belief automatically makes people more accepting of their fellow man. In fact some people use religious belief as an excuse to be less tolerant.
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Say 10 hail Mary's, and 4 our fathers, (praying in vain repetition to be heard for your many words) and you shall be forgiven my son. The 7 sacraments are a works based salvation.
 
Jarod said:
The message that the world is in steady decline and that there is nothing that can be done, because it is the result of the evil of mankind, and the message that the decline is Gods will and his punishment is soul destroying and simply untrue.


So, Leaning and others... Is mankind in decline? If so, is it due to an angry God?

Are we living in the last days of mankind? Is Armageddon upon us?
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You don't see the world in decline?
 
patriot66 said:
Say 10 hail Mary's, and 4 our fathers, (praying in vain repetition to be heard for your many words) and you shall be forgiven my son. The 7 sacraments are a works based salvation.
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You haven't actually contributed anything by that comment so I guess you're not really interested in discussion. But your lies don't matter because you're not perfect, just forgiven. Right?
 
patriot66 said:
Say 10 hail Mary's, and 4 our fathers, (praying in vain repetition to be heard for your many words) and you shall be forgiven my son. The 7 sacraments are a works based salvation.
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It is my belief that the recitation of prayers such as the above are a form of meditation that leads to personal insight. Its not that the God is listening an was pleased by hearing his name repeated, its that such action, while in the proper state of mind will result in a better life through the transformational power of meditation. The laws of nature, or God, have created such a situation.

But you can recite our fathers, or chant.
 
patriot66 said:
You don't see the world in decline?
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No, in fact, I see the world in great expansion and improvement. If you imagine the world of the 1950's and the evil situation women and black people were in compare to where they stand today... you can see clearly that we live in a MUCH better society than we did then.

If you watch too much cable television, and don't do any independent study, I can see easily how you might see the world in decline, but that is a fiction.

Look at infant mortality rate.
Look at life expectancy.
Look at basic nutrition.
Look at what is considered poor now.
Look at what is considered wealth now.
Look at the type of suffering that is no longer allowed to exist.

Compare all of those things to how it was 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago and you will see that human kind is in a far greater place than we were.
 
Jarod said:
It is my belief that the recitation of prayers such as the above are a form of meditation that leads to personal insight. Its not that the God is listening an was pleased by hearing his name repeated, its that such action, while in the proper state of mind will result in a better life through the transformational power of meditation. The laws of nature, or God, have created such a situation.

But you can recite our fathers, or chant.
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Exactly! And in the past I've been to prayer groups and bible studies with fundamentalist Christians and there was certainly a lot of repetitive praying going on, it just wasn't formalized like the Our Father or Hail Mary.
 
christiefan915 said:
Exactly! And in the past I've been to prayer groups and bible studies with fundamentalist Christians and there was certainly a lot of repetitive praying going on, it just wasn't formalized like the Our Father or Hail Mary.
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Its basically the same thing, but it works internally, not because some external God was happy with what you said or did.
 
christiefan915 said:
Exactly! And in the past I've been to prayer groups and bible studies with fundamentalist Christians and there was certainly a lot of repetitive praying going on, it just wasn't formalized like the Our Father or Hail Mary.
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Except when experience is white-hot and extremely challenging, repetition is bound to appear. I used to attend Quaker meetings, and often found that the Spirit had been reading the Guardian or Wordsworth assiduously. The important question is what people DO.
 
Jarod said:
No, in fact, I see the world in great expansion and improvement. If you imagine the world of the 1950's and the evil situation women and black people were in compare to where they stand today... you can see clearly that we live in a MUCH better society than we did then.

If you watch too much cable television, and don't do any independent study, I can see easily how you might see the world in decline, but that is a fiction.

Look at infant mortality rate.
Look at life expectancy.
Look at basic nutrition.
Look at what is considered poor now.
Look at what is considered wealth now.
Look at the type of suffering that is no longer allowed to exist.

Compare all of those things to how it was 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago and you will see that human kind is in a far greater place than we were.
Click to expand...

Infant mortality plus or minus abortions?
With the population what it is I would wonder if that skews the life expectancy rate.
Basic nutrition, you mean all the chemicals that now pass for nutrition?
Poor where?
Wealth is fleeting!
Suffering where? many parts of the world still have starvation, genocide, disease, Africa has an aids epidemic.
And the lack of Morals that exists today proves you wrong.
 
Jarod said:
It is my belief that the recitation of prayers such as the above are a form of meditation that leads to personal insight. Its not that the God is listening an was pleased by hearing his name repeated, its that such action, while in the proper state of mind will result in a better life through the transformational power of meditation. The laws of nature, or God, have created such a situation.

But you can recite our fathers, or chant.
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except that is exactly what the Bible was speaking of.
 
christiefan915 said:
I know you apologized and I appreciated that and thanked you. I find Catholic bashing just as troubling as Islam bashing because I think both come from a position of ignorance (not directing this at you in particular). Take patriot66's post for example, he's convinced Catholics emphasize Mary more than Jesus and that is totally wrong. And that's just one of his misconceptions. It also raises the question, why wouldn't the Mother of God be honored? I don't think fundamentalists deny that she carried Jesus in her womb for nine months, isn't that worthy of being honored? Read post #64 for some of my other comments.
Click to expand...

Yes, I remember that conversation very well. And I do not disagree with you that this attitude is troubling.

Rightly or wrongly it seems that some fundamentalists have a visceral hatred of Catholicism that they can't explain.
Click to expand...

I think "wrongly" and I agree.

To liberals like me conservative Catholicism is actually closer to fundamentalist beliefs than to my personal beliefs because con Catholics seem to have a single-minded focus on a few topics, mainly abortion, and ignore the larger teachings such as social justice or respect for all life (the "womb to tomb" argument).

Full disclosure, I've been doing a lot of questioning my own beliefs lately and have become more critical of religion in general and Catholicism in particular because IRL as well as cyberspace I don't see that a religious belief automatically makes people more accepting of their fellow man. In fact some people use religious belief as an excuse to be less tolerant.
Click to expand...

And here is a problem that a lot of us have making our religious beliefs and political stances gee-haw. Take me for instance. I am adamantly opposed to abortion and consider it to be murder. I am active in fostering/adopting and seeking other to do the same if I think their family situation can handle it. Not every family is suited to hold up to the strains of fostering and adopting. But I am only one man and we are only one family. My heart hurts for all of those kids out there in DHS and those kids who are born to an uncaring family situation. Sometimes, for a brief moment, I think maybe abortion would have been a better choice. But then I come back to my belief that life begins at conception and that every baby deserves a chance at life. This is just one thing. I am for social programs that care for the poor. I am for oversight to find a users of the system but then these a users have kids oftentimes who are adversely affected when they are caught. (This is a real struggle where I live and it is a sad cycle that we can't seem to break here.) Obviously there is more but politics and religion are hard to mesh.

As to religious belief making people more accepting of their fellow man ... It doesn't...and probably won't ever. As long as there is religion and as long as there is a belief that there is right (moral) behavior and wrong (immoral) behavior, there will be this tendancy to point out the wrong or immoral.
 
patriot66 said:
Infant mortality plus or minus abortions?
With the population what it is I would wonder if that skews the life expectancy rate.
Basic nutrition, you mean all the chemicals that now pass for nutrition?
Poor where?
Wealth is fleeting!
Suffering where? many parts of the world still have starvation, genocide, disease, Africa has an aids epidemic.
And the lack of Morals that exists today proves you wrong.
Click to expand...

1. Infant mortality. Fetuses are not infants. You are confusing two very different issues.
2. Chemicals or not, its a basic scientific fact, people are better nourished now than ever in recoded history.
3. Poor all over the world. There is less of it worldwide now than ever in recorded history.
4. Suffering now worldwide, there is less of it now than in any time in recorded history.

The world is moving from darkness to lightness. The world is better every day. The world is moving from conservatism to liberalism. Eyes are opening.
 
leaningright said:
Yes, I remember that conversation very well. And I do not disagree with you that this attitude is troubling.



I think "wrongly" and I agree.



And here is a problem that a lot of us have making our religious beliefs and political stances gee-haw. Take me for instance. I am adamantly opposed to abortion and consider it to be murder. I am active in fostering/adopting and seeking other to do the same if I think their family situation can handle it. Not every family is suited to hold up to the strains of fostering and adopting. But I am only one man and we are only one family. My heart hurts for all of those kids out there in DHS and those kids who are born to an uncaring family situation. Sometimes, for a brief moment, I think maybe abortion would have been a better choice. But then I come back to my belief that life begins at conception and that every baby deserves a chance at life. This is just one thing. I am for social programs that care for the poor. I am for oversight to find a users of the system but then these a users have kids oftentimes who are adversely affected when they are caught. (This is a real struggle where I live and it is a sad cycle that we can't seem to break here.) Obviously there is more but politics and religion are hard to mesh.

As to religious belief making people more accepting of their fellow man ... It doesn't...and probably won't ever. As long as there is religion and as long as there is a belief that there is right (moral) behavior and wrong (immoral) behavior, there will be this tendancy to point out the wrong or immoral.
Click to expand...

I know you call yourself one, but you are not, in my opinion, a fundamentalist.

There are people who hold strong religious beliefs that do not see right and wrong as clearly black and white, or as moral absolutes. I consider myself a Christian and don't believe that there are many, if any, moral absolutes.
 
Jarod said:
I know you call yourself one, but you are not, in my opinion, a fundamentalist.

There are people who hold strong religious beliefs that do not see right and wrong as clearly black and white, or as moral absolutes. I consider myself a Christian and don't believe that there are many, if any, moral absolutes.
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Well you hold high opinion of yourself.
 
Jarod said:
1. Infant mortality. Fetuses are not infants. You are confusing two very different issues.
2. Chemicals or not, its a basic scientific fact, people are better nourished now than ever in recoded history.
3. Poor all over the world. There is less of it worldwide now than ever in recorded history.
4. Suffering now worldwide, there is less of it now than in any time in recorded history.

The world is moving from darkness to lightness. The world is better every day. The world is moving from conservatism to liberalism. Eyes are opening.
Click to expand...

You are just wrong Immorality is on the rise, Pestilence, violence, starvation, homosexuality. Anyone who says abortion is not murder is not a Christian, covetousness is not christian.
 
Jarod said:
I know you call yourself one, but you are not, in my opinion, a fundamentalist.

There are people who hold strong religious beliefs that do not see right and wrong as clearly black and white, or as moral absolutes. I consider myself a Christian and don't believe that there are many, if any, moral absolutes.
Click to expand...
Christ however, sees it the other way.
 
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