Despite the scandals in the Church

branie

Does anyone here still have their faith?

Zombrex

branie wrote: »

Does anyone here still have their faith?

Is that supposed to be a joke?

branie

No, It's a serious question

Zombrex

branie wrote: »

No, It's a serious question

You are seriously asking has everyone on the Christianity forum have lost their faith because of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal?

Do they look like they have lost their faith? Have you read any of the other threads on this forum? Any of them?

antiskeptic

It hasn't even made me loose faith in the Catholic church (which is but a part (if at all) of the whole). I'd figured it smelled to high heaven - and had given it a wide berth - long before I ever became a Christian.

gimmebroadband

Like many christians everywhere, some of the clergy didn't practice what they professed, so they are sinners like the rest of us (those who are without sin cast the first stone). They're sinfulness has nothing to do with belief in our faith, that has been handed down to us for 2000 years!

prinz

Faith in what? Faith in Roman Catholicism? No, because I didn't have it to begin with because there's some stuff I don't agree with them on. Faith in Christianity? Nope, the actions of people don't have any bearing on the person or message of Jesus or Christianity. To me that would be like looking at the many horrific crimes against humanity carried out by democratic countries and losing faith in democracy. You don't turn your back on democracy because of corruption and scandal. You strive to improve it and make it stronger, I'd see reaction to the Church scandals in a similar vein, you don't turn your back on your faith, you strive to cleanse, improve and strengthen it. I have admiration for the people not who run away in despair but who actually dig in and want to take their Church back from the scum who have ruined it.

Faith in humanity itself? Yeah that has been shaken. Often is.

hotmail.com

Wicknight wrote: »

You are seriously asking has everyone on the Christianity forum have lost their faith because of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal?

Do they look like they have lost their faith? Have you read any of the other threads on this forum? Any of them?

+1

Die-hard fans on here.

I can't fathom what faith actually means. It seems like code for a belief in a god is it?

Onesimus

branie wrote: »

Does anyone here still have their faith?

The scandal of Judas didnt shake the apostles faith such as St.Peter ( Christs vicar ) so I dont see why it should shake mine or yours.

Brainie your posts are always just one liners and they seem to get on everyones nerves LOL you crack me up.

gimmebroadband

Onesimus wrote: »

Brainie your posts are always just one liners and they seem to get on everyones nerves LOL you crack me up.

Yeah, he puts the cat among the pigeons and walks away!

Monty.

I've found the scandals have made my faith in Catholicism stronger.

alex73

branie wrote: »

Does anyone here still have their faith?

If Scandals were to effect your faith.... Then nobody would believe... Every Religion has people who have tainted.

I for one have my Faith in Christ who is represented in all its members in the Church.

antiskeptic

hotmail.com wrote: »

I can't fathom what faith actually means. It seems like code for a belief in a god is it?

It depends on which dictionary you consult. Richard Dawkins would define it as belief in God in the face of no evidence. A kind of blind thing. The bible has a definition too - one that happens to stand at loggerheads with Dawkins definition (unsurprisingly).

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen*.

*Clearly the bible authors weren't empiricists

CiaranMT

antiskeptic wrote: »

It depends on which dictionary you consult. Richard Dawkins would define it as belief in God in the face of no evidence. A kind of blind thing. The bible has a definition too - one that happens to stand at loggerheads with Dawkins definition (unsurprisingly).

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen*.

*Clearly the bible authors weren't empiricists[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]

Frankly, I don't see any difference between the two.

Onesimus

CiaranMT wrote: »

Frankly, I don't see any difference between the two.

Faith means both belief in trust in something. Someone can have faith in gossip but Faith in the unseen God is where faith truly is at its peak and most perfect.

This is what I believe Antiskeptic was trying to convey with his quote from scripture.

georgieporgy

Long live the church (catholic church) . Where would we be without it?

antiskeptic

CiaranMT wrote: »

Frankly, I don't see any difference between the two.

Spoken like an empiricist.

antiskeptic

Onesimus wrote: »

Faith means both belief in trust in something. Someone can have faith in gossip but Faith in the unseen God is where faith truly is at its peak and most perfect.

This is what I believe Antiskeptic was trying to convey with his quote from scripture.

It wasn't actually.

I was merely pointing out that belief-in-God is based on evidence. And that the particular kind of evidence that produces belief in God, the substance which results in conviction ... is called faith. From the bibles perspective that is, if not Richard Dawkins perspective.

Faith is the fuel which drives the engine of belief as it were. Without it, belief would grind to a halt.


The empiricist will have trouble with that stemming from an allegience to that same philosophy. Quite where he gets the evidence to undergird his belief in empiricism is anyones guess. Safe to say, his faith is necessarily blind.

CiaranMT

Onesimus wrote: »

Faith means both belief in trust in something. Someone can have faith in gossip but Faith in the unseen God is where faith truly is at its peak and most perfect.

This is what I believe Antiskeptic was trying to convey with his quote from scripture.

It still reads the same for me.

CiaranMT

antiskeptic wrote: »

Spoken like an empiricist.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

antiskeptic

CiaranMT wrote: »

You say that like it's a bad thing.

It's neither bad nor good. Your being one merely defines the tint of the spectacles you wear. It's good to recognise that you do wear tinted spectacles rather than suppose "that because I can't see it, it mustn't be there". That's a philosophy with any firm ground supporting it.

MrPudding

georgieporgy wrote: »

Long live the church (catholic church) . Where would we be without it?

Where would we be? In a country with a lot less raped children. That's where.

MrP

ISAW

MrPudding wrote: »

Where would we be? In a country with a lot less raped children. That's where.

MrP

That's rubbish! Clearly less than a percent of children who were raped were raped by clergy.
the vast majority of child abuse such as sex between adults and pre pubescent children is/was by non clergy. And by "vast majority" I mean over 99 per cent! To paint the church in Ireland as a bunch of Child rapists is a clearly baseless anti-catholic attack!

raymon

branie wrote: »

Does anyone here still have their faith?

Faith in what ??

Faith in the Catholic church ? Absolutely my faith is gone . I have no faith in the institution of the catholic church any more. I am horrified at their actions.

Faith in clergy ? Absolutely my faith is gone. Again horrified by their actions.

Faith in god . My faith in god is very strong . Stronger than when I was a practicing catholic ( never did believe a lot of the man made rituals and hocus pocus .) I realised that when you strip away catholicism that god and Jesus message is less distorted.

Faith in people , definitely more suspicious of people .

Faith in media , yes my faith had been restored in mainstream media. Their work in reporting crime has been excellent.

raymon

ISAW wrote: »

That's rubbish! Clearly less than a percent of children who were raped were raped by clergy.
the vast majority of child abuse such as sex between adults and pre pubescent children is/was by non clergy. And by "vast majority" I mean over 99 per cent! To paint the church in Ireland as a bunch of Child rapists is a clearly baseless anti-catholic attack!

Please provide a reference for this statistic.

ISAW

raymon wrote: »

Faith in what ??

Faith in the Catholic church ? Absolutely my faith is gone . I have no faith in the institution of the catholic church any more. I am horrified at their actions.

What actions?
I think you are misinformed.

Faith in clergy ? Absolutely my faith is gone. Again horrified by their actions.

By the actions of less than a tenth of a percent of clergy and by less tan a hundreth of a percent of bishops?

Faith in media , yes my faith had been restored in mainstream media. Their work in reporting crime has been excellent.

The media have misreported the issue of child abuse for example and painted it as a clerical thing when in fact the stats show the opposite. Swing on over to the clerical abuse thread for information on that.

ISAW

raymon wrote: »

Please provide a reference for this statistic.

Again in the other thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73175554&postcount=1346

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65567124&postcount=879

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65583906&postcount=884

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66652367&postcount=8

As I stated you seem to be taking a biased media view above the church view and the actual statistics.

raymon

ISAW wrote: »

Again in the other thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73175554&postcount=1346

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65567124&postcount=879

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65583906&postcount=884

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66652367&postcount=8

As I stated you seem to be taking a biased media view above the church view and the actual statistics.

Please provide a single link to this one percent statistic.

Links to links to discussions containing links is not a valid response

PDN

This thread is supposed to be about whether people still have faith (which obviously huge numbers of people do).

It is not the Child Abuse thread Mark II.

Therefore locked.