Originally Posted By cmpaley I guess my taking seriously the thing I'm going to be saying publically when I join the Catholic Church is a bad thing: "I believe everything the Catholic Church teaches to be true." Or something to that effect. I'm becomeing Catholic because, after examining the claims the Church makes and looking at the historic data, I've come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church is the Church Jesus founded and still guides through the means He established (the bishops and the Pope). I guess that actually believing in what you believe because it's true is considered a weakness?
Originally Posted By StillThePassHolder "I guess that actually believing in what you believe because it's true is considered a weakness?" What are you responding to, 31-33 or the later posts?
Originally Posted By cmpaley RE Post 34. Those are laws for the Hebrew nation under the Old Covenant. Christians live under the New Law instituted by Christ. While everything in the Bible is true, not everything applies to Christians and the Church. How do we know the difference? That's what the Church is for.
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>What are you responding to, 31-33 or the later posts?<< Take it as you like. I'll just say that I take things like religion very seriously. I'm not going to become this or that because it's convenient or because it makes it easier to fulfill my life choices. I know a lot of people become Catholic so they can get married (I've met people who convert to get a membership discount in parochial school). I can't think that way. If God says something, I believe He means it, period. End. THAT is why I'm becoming Catholic and that seems to be considered a bad thing. If that appears to be in response to 31-33, you decide.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I guess my taking seriously the thing I'm going to be saying publically when I join the Catholic Church is a bad thing<< Not at all. But gossipy and judgemental phrases like "cafeteria Catholic" gives the appearance that you are a superior member of the church (superior in a holier than thou way). It's a dismissive and devisive phrase. And if you hear people within the church using it, then they're acting like snippy old biddies. Having been a Catholic my entire life, I can tell you that there is a wide, wide variety of opinions on all sorts of official church positions, and especially in the realm of family planning, many of the things the church teaches are widely ignored by Catholics who don't lose any sleep over that.
Originally Posted By cmpaley And when you pick and choose which parts of Catholic moral teaching you will observe and which you will ignore, what else would you call that? The interesting thing is that it really does all fit together. Pull one thing that looks minor out and things stop making sense because it's all interrelated.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>And when you pick and choose which parts of Catholic moral teaching you will observe and which you will ignore, what else would you call that?<< Being a human being. And choices that are between said human being and God. No one else.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Doesn't the Catholic Church intercede between people and God, though? Aren't the approved interpretations issued from the Holy See?
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>Doesn't the Catholic Church intercede between people and God, though?<< No, Christ does that. >>Aren't the approved interpretations issued from the Holy See?<< That's an oversimplification but essentially, that's correct. As an example, you know that creed you say every Sunday (the Nicene Creed)? That was issued on the authority of the Holy See.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer To be fair, the Council of Nicea was called by Emperor Constatine, and the Archbishop of Rome was but one of several Archbishops at the council who created and decided on the creed. It may have been issued for dioceses under the Archbishop of Rome by him, but the Archbishops of the other Archdioceses would have issued it themselves for their dioceses. This was long before the Great Schism.
Originally Posted By cmpaley And the Bishop of Rome signed off on it. It's interesting how the Bishop fo Rome, as Successor of St. Peter, the one who signs off on all the big conciliar documents. And, of course, the Bishops would promulgate the official doctrine ot the faithful. That's their job as teacher and pastor even today.
Originally Posted By cmpaley Oh, and the vision you use most likely includes the filioque (qui ex patri FILIOQUE procedit -- who proceeds from the Father AND THE SON -- )...which was put in there solely on the authority of the Pope.
Originally Posted By ecdc "How was my post #2 sloppy ecdc? It wasn't." No, it wasn't - my post was. I was just correcting it - sorry for the confusion. cmpaley, you're discussing issues that religious philosophers have been dealing with for centuries. It isn't fair to label anyone anything over their faith just because they don't agree with everything the Church says. Good luck with what the new pope is saying about gays, btw. I admire people like Wahoo far more than those who swallow everything that comes out of their faith, hook, line, and sinker. People who do everything their Church tells them, no matter how minor, remind me of Mohammed Atta. The world would be a better place if more people bothered to ask a few questions about their faith. It doesn't mean you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but c'mon.
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>Good luck with what the new pope is saying about gays, btw.<< Why? It's nothing that the Church hasn't been saying since its founding by Jesus Christ.
