[Galwayguy35]

Originally Posted by Pushtrak

The point was, I can't say there is a majority who'll continue to defend the cover ups, or that it is a minority. But what I could do was to show some examples of the phenomenon. What tends to happen is if I don't provide a source, I'll be asked for one. So, better to just skip that formality. Especially when it was so easily done.

Fair enough. Personally I think it's amazing that anyone would even try to defend the cover ups.

[1stimpressions]

Originally Posted by 68Murph68

Basically Irish Catholics in my experience believe

1) you get a child baptised to get into school
2) First Communion and Confirmation are 1) so that the kid will get money and wont be left out and 2) to have a day out
3) Marriage - you get married in a church because a church is where people have proper romantic weddings in films/ where your parents got married
4) Funerals - Less hassle to have a church funeral. What the alternative?
5) Christmas - Midnight Mass/ Mass on Christmas morning is a nice ritual but it doesn't mean anything really.
6) Heaven is a nice idea and less scarier than the alternatives even though it doesn't hold up to any sort of critical thinking
7) Religion in schools is fine because you have to teach kids right from wrong
8) Confession is really weird and creepy

Their real opinion on the whole theology business of the church
Virgin birth - pull the other one
Jesus the son of God - no not really
Jesus died and came back three days later - yeah right
Transubstantiation - you're having a laugh
Children are born in a state of sin and thus need to be baptised to be cleansed - feck off

Hardly any Irish Catholics believe that any of the following are in any way actually morally wrong
-sex outside marriage
-contraception
-homosexuality
-divorce

Most believe that
-Priests shouldn't be celibate
-The Pope is not infallible and is a bit of a bollix
-The organisation itself is massively corrupt and there are some serious bad apples.

This is based on my experience with my family (parents, siblings, cousins) and friends. My family would all identify as Catholic (that's what they put down on the census) All have been married in churches. My sister had no problem with me being godfather to her son (even though I told her I believed it was morally wrong to baptism him - her response was "yeah but that doesn't matter" ; I baptised him in the name of Satan, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Batman while babysitting him one day and I reckon that I this baptisms cancel out the other one)

Hopefully this post ends the incessant threads on the subject. Ireland and its Catholicism/religion/culture very accurately described.

[bnt]

There's a thread in the A&A forum about a letter in the Irish Times, here. I'm not going to quote the whole thing here, but I'm curious to know just how representative that is. The author basically says that he's the Pope's servant, and that what the Vatican says, goes.

In my view, there's definitely a major gap between a) the beliefs of the average Christian priest or believer, and b) the
sophisticated theology of intellectual Christians, some of whom have so many rationalisations that you can't tell what they believe any more. Some of them are residents of Vatican City. So much time and effort by otherwise smart people, poured in to debates and analysis of semiotics, hermeneutics, semantics ... such a waste of time and talent.

[tipp_Gunner]

Originally Posted by Penn

It's amazing when you actually start to realise what people are saying in church. I got chills the first time I realised everyone in unison chanted "IT IS RIGHT TO GIVE HIM THANKS AND PRAISE"

Really, how far away is that from chanting "THE LEADER IS GOOD, THE LEADER IS GREAT. WE SURRENDER OUR WILL AS OF THIS DATE"

Na na na na na Na na na na na LEADER!!!!!!