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Where are all the Catholics???

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    #92
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    Run_to_da_hills wrote: »
    Was it Jesus himself that started the Catholic Church? If I were you I would go back through my history books, It was infact Emperor Constantine and not Jesus that started the Roman Catholic Church and that was well into the 3rd century. Constantine legalised "Christianity" and formed his church mixing up a cocktail of old tradition, Christianity and politics.
    How do you know that Constantine corrupted the Church? What source do you have for this? And if this were true, what happened to the Church about which Christ promised that the gates of Hell would never prevail against it? You're claiming the opposite!
    Run_to_da_hills wrote: »
    Noel, have you ever personally ask Christ to come into your life and be your mediator?
    Only several times a day.


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    #93
    JimiTime
    Registered Users Posts: 7,418 ✭✭✭JimiTime


    kelly1 wrote: »
    How do you know that Constantine corrupted the Church? What source do you have for this?

    He didn't corrupt it, he created it. It was corrupted before that. Paul had already told of the corruption coming into the congregations. It wasn't one big happy family. There was division, Constantine united them under one roof and then proceeded to outlaw the naysayers.
    And if this were true, what happened to the Church about which Christ promised that the gates of Hell would never prevail against it?

    As I said previously Noel, you need to look at the language and what was meant by ekklesia, which is the word you would translate 'church'. That 'ekklesia, is alive and well in the hearts and minds of all 'followers' of Christ. Not hypocrites who pay lip service etc, but in the actual 'followers' of Christ, ekklesia.
    Only several times a day.
    So you don't need your church to mediate! Gr8, thats a start.


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    #94
    Bottle_of_Smoke
    Registered Users Posts: 9,770 ✭✭✭Bottle_of_Smoke


    Just back to the rearing a child as an Athiest. I'd imagine I'd tell my kids about how people believe different things happen when we die & different things about who made us.

    I'd tell them I'm 99% sure there is no God/ And I'd have no problem with a Christian/Muslim etc telling them they're 90% sure their belief is true.

    I'm not getting into the indoctrinating as child abuse but I will say telling your kids that your beliefs ARE true is utterly pathetic. You know you'll get a convert with them so you make sure they believe.
    I reckon the reason I'm 1% unsure about god is to do with being taught the garden of eden in the same manner I was my multiplication tables. Little seed planted during a period when adults don't say things that are wrong.

    Also on faith.

    I have faith that if I go down to the bank machine I'll be able to withdraw fifty euro. I have this faith because I just checked my account online & I have enough funds to withdraw.

    When you ask a Christian why they believe in God they say Faith, though no logical explanation as to why they have it.


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    #95
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »
    When you ask a Christian why they believe in God they say Faith, though no logical explanation as to why they have it.
    Christians should know this and reason is that faith is a God-given grace.


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    #96
    condra
    Registered Users Posts: 3,849 ✭✭✭condra


    How convenient.


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    #97
    Bottle_of_Smoke
    Registered Users Posts: 9,770 ✭✭✭Bottle_of_Smoke


    kelly1 wrote: »
    Christians should know this and reason is that faith is a God-given grace.

    So why doesn't everyone have it?


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    #98
    BrianCalgary
    Registered Users Posts: 3,196 ✭✭✭BrianCalgary


    Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »
    Just back to the rearing a child as an Athiest. I'd imagine I'd tell my kids about how people believe different things happen when we die & different things about who made us..

    I tell my kids the same.

    I
    Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »
    I'd tell them I'm 99% sure there is no God/ And I'd have no problem with a Christian/Muslim etc telling them they're 90% sure their belief is true..
    How are you 99% sure that there is no God? What is your proof behinfd that statement?
    Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »
    I'm not getting into the indoctrinating as child abuse but I will say telling your kids that your beliefs ARE true is utterly pathetic. You know you'll get a convert with them so you make sure they believe.
    I reckon the reason I'm 1% unsure about god is to do with being taught the garden of eden in the same manner I was my multiplication tables. Little seed planted during a period when adults don't say things that are wrong..

    You are telling your kids that what you believe is 99% true. So you are indoctrinating your kids. Pot calling th ekettle here?

    Difference here is that what I am telling my kids I am 100% sure about.


    Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »
    I have faith that if I go down to the bank machine I'll be able to withdraw fifty euro. I have this faith because I just checked my account online & I have enough funds to withdraw.

    When you ask a Christian why they believe in God they say Faith, though no logical explanation as to why they have it.


    I have faith that if I ask God to look after me, He does. He has in the past shown His faithfulness to me and I knoe He'll continue to do so.

    What you are talking about isn't really faith. That is concrete. A Christian puts their faith in God to run their lives. I hope you're noit trusting the ATM with your life?


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    #99
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »
    So why doesn't everyone have it?
    grace doesn't force us, it *tends* to turn us towards God.


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    #100
    SubjectSean
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭SubjectSean


    kelly1 wrote: »
    Maybe you need to read the bible a bit more. "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church" Mt 16:18. In the Douay-Rheims bible there are 77 references to church in the NT.

    Anyway most of the Gospels were written in Greek, I think Matthew was written in Aramaic originally and later translated into Greek.

    On the contrary Noel, it is useless me reading the bible a bit more, maybe you will need to explain to me what Aramaic word was used in place of 'Church' because at the time there wasn't one. It seems to me that people can't talk about things unless they have the words and concepts to underpin them. How can I order that something be built if nobody has ever heard of the structure I want and I myself do not have the word for it?


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    #101
    condra
    Registered Users Posts: 3,849 ✭✭✭condra


    kelly1 wrote: »
    grace doesn't force us, it *tends* to turn us towards God.

    Have you any evidence for this?


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    #102
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    SubjectSean wrote: »
    On the contrary Noel, it is useless me reading the bible a bit more, maybe you will need to explain to me what Aramaic word was used in place of 'Church' because at the time there wasn't one. It seems to me that people can't talk about things unless they have the words and concepts to underpin them. How can I order that something be built if nobody has ever heard of the structure I want and I myself do not have the word for it?
    I don't know what word was used in the Aramaic, do you know? But it was translated into ekklesia which means assembly/community apparently.
    SubjectSean wrote: »
    Paul established your Church not Jesus.
    Huh? Paul established a Church? Maybe you mean Constantine as has been suggested.


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    #103
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    bottle-of-smoke wrote:
    I'd imagine I'd tell my kids about how people believe different things happen when we die & different things about who made us. I'd tell them I'm 99% sure there is no God/ And I'd have no problem with a Christian/Muslim etc telling them they're 90% sure their belief is true.
    Our family's in such a situation -- between my brother, my sister and I, we've three mostly grown kids and three young ones, the latter who will believe pretty much whatever you tell them. And that places a huge responsibility for honesty and accuracy on our part. So when, for example, the topic of what happens when you die arises, we tell them that the body goes into the ground, and becomes part of the cycle of life on the planet. And that some people believe that even though your body stops working, your mind stays alive and goes somewhere else and some of the many variations on that.

    We don't tell them that our own personal beliefs (all atheist, as it happens) are absolutely true and that they're playing a dangerous game, or they'll go to hell or whatever, if they don't believe us. Personal beliefs are personal and are labelled as such. We do not view our kids as many religious people seem to, as willing and innocent vessels for one's own beliefs, whose trust we can easily manipulate to make them think the same. They're independent human beings and have a right to develop their own opinions as freely as we can let that happen and especially without being guilt-tripped by anybody.

    Quite apart from anything else, the last thing I want as a parent is my kid to come up to me in twenty years time and tell me that I lied to her.


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    #104
    Bottle_of_Smoke
    Registered Users Posts: 9,770 ✭✭✭Bottle_of_Smoke


    BrianCalgary wrote: »

    I How are you 99% sure that there is no God? What is your proof behinfd that statement?

    When people say "I am 99% sure" they mean "I believe there's a 99% chance" Or at least I do.


    You are telling your kids that what you believe is 99% true. So you are indoctrinating your kids. Pot calling th ekettle here?

    I think you've misunderstood, I'm not telling them it's 99% true, I'm telling them I believe it to the extent that I'm 99% convinced. There is a difference.
    Difference here is that what I am telling my kids I am 100% sure about.

    I can't prove it but I believe you're lying.
    Though I believe you're 99% sure.
    I have faith that if I ask God to look after me, He does. He has in the past shown His faithfulness to me and I knoe He'll continue to do so.

    What you are talking about isn't really faith. That is concrete. A Christian puts their faith in God to run their lives. I hope you're noit trusting the ATM with your life?

    Okay I understand what you mean now. I'm not gonna waste time arguing about this type of faith as it won't do either of us any good!

    Also I just want to clear something up - I said

    "I'd tell them I'm 99% sure there is no God/ And I'd have no problem with a Christian/Muslim etc telling them they're 90% sure their belief is true.."

    Perhaps a freudian typo but it should have been 99% for both.


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    #105
    BrianCalgary
    Registered Users Posts: 3,196 ✭✭✭BrianCalgary


    Thanks for the clarification. :)


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    #106
    SubjectSean
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭SubjectSean


    kelly1 wrote: »
    I don't know what word was used in the Aramaic, do you know? But it was translated into ekklesia which means assembly/community apparently.

    Huh? Paul established a Church? Maybe you mean Constantine as has been suggested.

    Community and Church are two different things. I think Jesus and his first followers would have known all about one but not the other. So far as I am aware the first followers of Jesus did not subscribe to the religious doctrines of your Church. As I have said elsewhere the doctrines of your Church are Pauline, that is what I mean by saying he establised a Church. Jesus on the other hand established a community of Jews.


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    #107
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    SubjectSean wrote: »
    Community and Church are two different things. I think Jesus and his first followers would have known all about one but not the other. So far as I am aware the first followers of Jesus did not subscribe to the religious doctrines of your Church. As I have said elsewhere the doctrines of your Church are Pauline, that is what I mean by saying he establised a Church. Jesus on the other hand established a community of Jews.
    I have to say, I find a lot of your ideas a little strange.


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    #108
    SubjectSean
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭SubjectSean


    kelly1 wrote: »
    I have to say, I find a lot of your ideas a little strange.

    That's OK, it's probably because you've never encountered them before. If you start to think critically about the birth of your religion you will learn that much of what I am saying is entirely plausible.


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    #109
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    SubjectSean wrote: »
    Community and Church are two different things. I think Jesus and his first followers would have known all about one but not the other. So far as I am aware the first followers of Jesus did not subscribe to the religious doctrines of your Church. As I have said elsewhere the doctrines of your Church are Pauline, that is what I mean by saying he establised a Church. Jesus on the other hand established a community of Jews.
    Yes community and Church are very different.

    A community is a group of believers and so is the Church but the Church has divinely given authority.

    Jesus established a Church, not just a community of disciples. Did you not read Matthew 16:18?
    And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

    Jesus also sent the Holy Spirit to the apostles to teach and remind them of the truth revlealed by Jesus.
    John 14:26 But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.

    What basis do you have for saying that Paul's teachings were different from those of Jesus?

    God bless,
    Noel.


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    #110
    ryoishin
    Registered Users Posts: 754 ✭✭✭ryoishin


    Where have all the Catholics gone, well they re prob fed up with the posts going off topic and turning into "the Bible is this or that, How can you believe in God etc". Im not having a go but all the topics seem to drift this way after the 2 page mark.


    It is commonly believed that the church began with the coming of the Holy Spirit after the resurection (at least in Catholicism).

    Church in the sense of the greek word has many meanings and St Paul applies it differently depending to whom he is speaking. While you can have community without church you cant have church without community, I think that is a common theme in Paul.


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    #111
    SubjectSean
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭SubjectSean


    kelly1 wrote: »
    Yes community and Church are very different.

    A community is a group of believers and so is the Church but the Church has divinely given authority.

    Jesus established a Church, not just a community of disciples. Did you not read Matthew 16:18?

    Yes when I read 16:18 I think, but surely this has to be a redaction, neither Jesus or Peter would have had any concept of a Church. If Jesus ever did say any such a thing he would have used the aramaic word for community and that is exactly what he would have meant by it. In fact after Jesus died there was exactly such a community centred around the Temple in Jerusalem. They were led first by Peter and then by James. They were not members of the Catholic Church and had not even heard of many of its doctrines. They were a community of Jews who observed the sabbath and the passover, some called them Nazarenes (which may come from the fact they took Nazarite vows) and some Ebionites (which is Hebrew for 'the Poor' I believe.) They are all mentioned variously in Acts. If Jesus established anything, and I believe he did, then it was with these people, his own brother and the people closest to him. Not with some rabid zealot who had hitherto been murdering people.
    kelly1 wrote: »
    What basis do you have for saying that Paul's teachings were different from those of Jesus?

    Paul never met Jesus in the flesh and throughout Acts is all the way at loggerheads with those who had. In the Ebionite tradition it said he was a Greek convert to judaism who went apostate like other hellenistic Jews in Jerusalem at the time. As I have said to you elsewhere it shows in Acts that these people were run out of town, ironically by Paul, whilst the people who knew Jesus the best were not. Does that not seem a little odd to you? Surely if the followers of Jesus at this point were all one and the same, then logic dictates they would all have been run out of town. The fact remains they weren't and you have to ask why is that? It is these people that Paul goes to minister to and the author of Acts can barely cover the cracks that appear between Pauls churches and the Jerusalem Church. I think ths is very good evidence to suspect the teachings of Paul. If I am going to put all my faith in a man then I will do it on the strength of his own words alone. I do not need to trust what a suspect character who never met him might say. In addition to these objections Pauls letters are not even all his own and those which he did originally author exist only as a patchwork of redactions.


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    #112
    condra
    Registered Users Posts: 3,849 ✭✭✭condra


    ryoishin wrote: »
    While you can have community without church you cant have church without community

    I would like you to expand on this please if you get time.


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    #113
    ryoishin
    Registered Users Posts: 754 ✭✭✭ryoishin


    hey,

    The Church is a community enterprise by its nature. We can see this in the life of the early Church with the idea of table fellowship. The mass of the early Church was called the agape, where all members of Roman society met together for a ritualised meal to celebrate the dying and rising of Jesus Christ, tax collectors, merchants, soldiers, beggers etc. The idea being that all were one in Christ. However you can guess what happened.... rich people would make sure that the poorer would arrive after the higher members of society had eaten, others got drunk etc. However it does illustrate the community nature of the Church and the method of celebration set out by St Paul and the early Christians.

    God himself is a community. Christians believe that God is trinitarian (the critera set by the world council of churches inorder for a faith to call itself Christian). He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All though all members are one they are also individual (yeah I know, its the most difficult doctrine in Christianity and your interpritation of it depends on your view of what it means to be a "person"). For believers to live in communities is to be more akin to the divine reconciling the problem set by origional sin. But its important to realise that this is a process and not just do A to acieve B.

    Jesus' message was for everyone not just to one person, one geographical group or one set of believers. For me to live as a Christian (a process) I need others to help me to interpret what my existance is about, what Scripture is saying and how it relates to me and my circumstances etc. For example Im a 23 year old male Ill never know what it means to be a single mother. By interacting with the community of believers and others I can be allowed to share in what thats like from the experiences of single mothers and more fully understand and benifit from the life of Mary as a single mother raising Jesus. Its the same for the story of St Joseph and adopting a son.

    Sorry if this is to long/short. If it does nt make sense ill try and dig out my college notes.


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    #114
    BrianCalgary
    Registered Users Posts: 3,196 ✭✭✭BrianCalgary


    Makes sense ryoishin.

    I'll also add thet Jesus made the statement that all the laws and prophets hange on two:

    Love God with all your heart soul and mind.
    Love your neighbour as yourself.

    Christianity is about relationship. Along with that goes the need for community. Including a community of believers for support and learning.


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    #115
    Spyral
    Closed Accounts Posts: 885 ✭✭✭Spyral


    reetings brothers and sisters in Christ!

    I often wonder that in a country which is supposedly mainly Catholic (86%?) that there are so few active Catholics on this forum!

    I seem to be the only one around here actively advocating and defending Catholic teachings. There are many times when I could do with some moral support when "battling" with several Protestants/non-catholics.

    Why is this?

    I thought it might be a good idea to have a catholic sub-forum under Christianity but would there be any point?

    I really think it's a poor reflection on Catholics at the end of the day. While I think that infant baptism is perfectly valid, being a sacrament, adult baptism has the advantage that the "candidate" has consciously made the decision to be a disciple of Christ. I feel that many Catholics don't appreciate their faith and fall away from the Church due to poor education/misunderstandings in/about the faith, bad and often unfair media, apathy and the usual worldly snares/lures.

    So Catholics out there, why are you in hiding!? Come out and be counted!

    (And I need more support )


    lol I'm a catholic but I've been so busy. I'm also a bit bumpy with some church things at the moment lol. maybe they are all on forums.xt3.com or catholic answers or something ( tho the latter is full of nazi style traditionalists in my opinion !)


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