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Doomforge
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posted April 13, 2007 11:07 AM |
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Catholicism
Hey, guys.
We have a lot of religion-talk already, I see. But I want to talk about something different than "do I believe or not, and why".
I use to be a catholic for very, very long time.. like everybody in my country. Poles are catholics or atheists, the rest is simply in strict minority. I accepted it as something normal, obvious.. well, until I've read bible. I was severly shocked. So many things seemed wrong, completely different, or totally opposite to Bible's teachings.
Catholic priests never really talk about that much. They read short parts of the Bible, and immediately focus on political matters.. well, at least here. Surprising how well they avoid answering simple questions when asked..
1. Why do catholics worship Mary?
Yes, that's a good question. The bible is utterly silent about that part. Mary is not an important figure there.. She isn't Ok, she gave birth to Jesus, but has He ever told us to worship her, to threat her differently than, say, Apostles? No. The Apostles also don't say anything about her role, or her holiness. So, why the cult? It puzzled me quite a long time. The whole Mary-cult has jumped out of nowhere, without any strong ground in the Bible.
2. Why Catholic Priests live in celibacy?
The Bible states: "Bishop should be a husband of one wife". Yeah, priests were never meant to live in celibacy. The custom was "invented" when one of the popes in the middle-ages feared that the riches of Roman Catholicchurch will be inherited by the sons of high priests, therafore, wasted. The celibacy seemed the best way to de-legalize any means of inheritance - the sons were illegal, and the riches remained as the church's property.
OK, so why do catholics keep that stupid custom? The church no longer has influences and riches it used to have: If the Pope wants to follow the Bible, he shouldn't really follow some human-invented parts of the relligion, and threat them equally to God's demands. Bah, God clearly wants them to have normal families: WHy do they still oppose him? Afraid to change the customs?
3. Why Catholics worship the first day of the week instead of the seventh?
According to the Bible, God wanted humanity to worship the seventh day. Catholics worship the first day of the week (sunday), instead. Wtf? It may be the remnant of pagan holiday in honor of the slavic god (Światowid), which took place on that day, and it remained that way since paganism and christianity's merging in the europe, but why it has been kept that way?
4. Why the confession looks so weird?
Why the confessionals, whispering the sins to Priest's ear, "penance" given by the priest? What for? There's nothing such in the Bible. What do Catholics follow then, Bible or some strange, taken-from-nowhere ritual?
5. Why the saints?
Praying to so-called "saints" is somewhat weird, the recent beatifys look even weirder. According to Bible, people that die remain dead until the judgement day, when they will be ressurected or remain dead forever. If so, why do Catholics call them saint, and pray to them? They can't hear them. They're dead.
6. Purgatory?
No such place is mentioned in the Bible.. It doesn't exist, literally.
7. Hell
Endless torments? Huh? it's stated people will either come back to life, or die forever. Dunno where the "endless torments" part comes from.. perhaps from middle-ages. They needed to scare the poor, stupid people some way.
8. Pope?
The "Pope" was created many, many years after Christ. It descends from the Romanian Bishop authority, and has no real support in the Bible: A "Christ's Substitute" was never meant to exist. The very idea of the head of the church is wrong: according to the Bible, Christ is the head of the Church, and no Popes should exist.
Awww, I could go like that for ages. Catholicism is full of pointless things, customs taken from paganism and so on. Bah, do you know that the decree of Pope's infallibility was never anulled?  so ridiculous. Any Catholics here that can explain a bit of these things? I'm not a religious fanatic, or something like that: Just a protestant that doesn't understand those things.
Go ahead and try to explain it 
regards
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baklava
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posted April 13, 2007 12:39 PM |
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Ok, I'm not catholic so I'll try to answer those by common sense:
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1. Why do catholics worship Mary?
Why not? Besides, many pagan peoples worshiped female goddesses so that is some sort of a continuation of those customs.
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2. Why Catholic Priests live in celibacy?
Cause making love with little boys would be extremely hard to explain to their wives.
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3. Why Catholics worship the first day of the week instead of the seventh?
I have no idea. Here in Serbia Sunday IS the seventh day in the week, so we skipped that problem 
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4. Why the confession looks so weird?
Well it was invented so that
1) people feel better for themselves
2) priests get more cash
However the second part was lost throughout the ages (basically when Martin Luther got pissed and found his own church)
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5. Why the saints?
Remnants of paganism. As you could see, many saints are 'protectors' of something. St Nicolas is the protector of the sea, St Valentine of love etc. Much like the pagan gods.
There is an interesting story about the conversion of Celts to the Church. Mainly, they couldn't drop their old gods so the priests told them their gods were actually real persons who lived a long long time ago. The Celts said "OK, there's this really kind goddess (I forgot her name) and she deserves to be sainted". The church had to agree in order to convert a larger number of Celts and so today there is a Celtic goddess which is formally recognized as a saint.
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6. Purgatory?
7. Hell
You got it pretty right. "You don't follow our rules, you burn in hell or suffer in purgatory". As simple as that. They found that the easiest way to keep the populace under control.
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8. Pope?
Hunger for power. A guy comes, says God sent him, and becomes the ruler of the world. Quite ingenious, I think you would agree.
There is no point in trying to explain it. Religion as such should not be taken literally; each religion however has its own philosophy that deserves to be studied and understood. The problem starts when people start blindly following it. I believe that catholicism and Islam have proven to be the most radical monotheist religions throughout history and their problems lie deeply in the roots of their beliefs. However, they have some good sides which can be watched, understood and learned from. A man shouldn't be tied to solely one religion; he should combine the best from all of them to find a sort of philosophy that best suits his personality and views. However if we were supposed to fully comprehend the meaning of God, people wouldn't have butchered each others for 2000 years arguing about which storybook is better; the Bible or the Koran, while neither of them is actually true.
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Doomforge
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posted April 13, 2007 12:53 PM |
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Yeah, well, I wrote this because Catholics usually say something like "protestants are heretics, WE are the true christians, WE are right, our pope is next to GOD". Wtf? For a faction that was created 1000 years after the christianity, they surely are confident.
And they say they follow the rules.. but which rules? Those on Popes' decrees? 
btw, good and logical post, Baklava
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baklava
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posted April 13, 2007 01:12 PM |
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Quote:
Yeah, well, I wrote this because Catholics usually say something like "protestants are heretics, WE are the true christians, WE are right, our pope is next to GOD".
Yes I know... Trust me I know...
You know, if the catholics say they are the best religion, that's fine with me, but the problem begins when they try to force that opinion on others. Crusades, forceful conversions, inquisition, stuff like that...
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And they say they follow the rules.. but which rules? Those on Popes' decrees?
Of course. It's easiest to follow the rules they wrote themselves... Makes sense.
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btw, good and logical post, Baklava
Thanks 
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Colonel_here
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posted April 13, 2007 05:19 PM |
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The saints and St. Marie are basicly could be attributed to paganism's influence on Christianity. So the idea that they will speak on your behalf with God is the backing for praying to them, but the point about them being dead is right so it is slightly contradictory.
Saints are not all worshiped some are just people who church consider to have done good things.
Pope is a creation of after the facts in the Bible. However he is considered to be a head of church in terms of understanding and interpretations of the Bible without him than each bishop and priest would interpret things differently causing coherence to be lost in religion. Pope is succesor of St. Peter who is considered to be the first Pope.
And make no mistake Catholic Church is still very rich organisation whether that is enough to support continuation of celebacy I don't know
I'll check about hell.
Purgatory was created during Middle Ages to prevent people getting sacred for their loved ones from being unable to go to heaven. So purgatory was solution to that and confessions were created as a means of skipping purgatory. And yes during Middle Ages there was an active sale of special "forgivness scrolls" for sins done by church.
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baklava
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posted April 13, 2007 06:11 PM |
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However he is considered to be a head of church in terms of understanding and interpretations of the Bible without him than each bishop and priest would interpret things differently causing coherence to be lost in religion.
I don't see any coherence failure in Islam, Buddhism or any other religion in the world that doesn't have one supreme earthly ruler...
The sole system of mortals (cardinals) choosing a 'God's messenger on Earth' is pointless. That means that the college of cardinals equals God which is absurd.
By the way I misunderstood you in this part:
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And make no mistake Catholic Church is still very rich organisation whether that is enough to support continuation of celebacy I don't know
What does money have to do with celibacy? Or did you mean something else by 'rich'?
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Elvin
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posted April 13, 2007 06:37 PM |
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An interesting read I must admit. My knowledge on the subject is limited so this confirmed some things for me but also showed me some I didn't know. Yes, while hell is a widespread notion it was more of a middle ages remnant which conveniently appeared with confessions, or rather buying from the pope papers that gave 'forgiveness for sins'...
I don't know the terms in english...
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Colonel_here
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posted April 13, 2007 06:42 PM |
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Buddhism does have Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. They are head athorities on things of reiligion for Buddhists specifically Tibet Buddhists. However there are other Buddhists that do not agree with them and number of points. Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama are supposed to be the reincarnated versions of Buddha. I think Dalai Lama is the "Gentle Buddha" and Panchen Lama is "The Wise Buddha".
Islam has problems too. There are large number of Islamic schools of law that interpret Koran for legla purposes differntly and do not agree. The Zakat system (economic system proposed for Muslims in Koran) also differs from school to school in understanding and interpretation of it.
Finally there are Sunnis and Shiates in Islam who also interpret things differently. The Koran interpretation is taught through centralised system of special universities however even there one could find disagrements between them.
As for celebacy. It was said that celebacy was introduced to prevent priests from passing on the wealth accumilated by the Catholic Church to their children. Than it was said that Catholic Church is no logner rich so it has no need for it. I said that Catholic Church is still very rich, it even has its own financial departments in Vatican.
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"The job of saving the lives of those who are sinking is the task of those who are sinking" - Ostap Bender
"Only a fool fights a battle he knows he can not win" - Ghengiz Khan
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Doomforge
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posted April 13, 2007 07:27 PM |
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Quote:
rather buying from the pope papers that gave 'forgiveness for sins'...
I don't know the terms in english...
it's indulgence 
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baklava
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posted April 13, 2007 09:37 PM |
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True, you've got the point about Buddhism and Islam, although I personally believe that religion must be as decentralized as possible in order for it to reach any level of higher spirituality.
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As for celebacy. It was said that celebacy was introduced to prevent priests from passing on the wealth accumilated by the Catholic Church to their children. Than it was said that Catholic Church is no logner rich so it has no need for it. I said that Catholic Church is still very rich, it even has its own financial departments in Vatican.
I don't think that's the true reason for celibacy... For example, all monks live in celibacy and they do not care about money at all (none that I know of anyway). And although Church is greedy I still don't think it's greed reaches SUCH scales as to forbid marriage just to keep the cash...
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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TitaniumAlloy
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posted April 14, 2007 04:30 AM |
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In your calendar, Sunday is the first day.
In the bible, Sunday is the sabbath, the seventh day on which God rested after creating the world.
But why didn't God create the world in one day?
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John says to live above hell.
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Colonel_here
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posted April 14, 2007 05:19 AM |
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Why did not God create a world in one day?
Well if we assume that God is a kind of programmer for a world or a sculpture. It is possible to argue that he created one thing at a time to see how it would look or how it would function and than got an idea about how to improve it. Thus the stages of creation and seven day process.
However this of courses puts on an assumption of God possessing traits in the character close to a human.
Ok now about Hell being mentioned in the Bible
Revelation, Chapter 20, 10-15
"10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
Well I guess that more or less is reference to Hell.
____________
"The job of saving the lives of those who are sinking is the task of those who are sinking" - Ostap Bender
"Only a fool fights a battle he knows he can not win" - Ghengiz Khan
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Doomforge
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posted April 14, 2007 08:37 AM |
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Quote:
In your calendar, Sunday is the first day.
In the bible, Sunday is the sabbath, the seventh day on which God rested after creating the world.
It is not.
Have you ever been to catholic church? The priests say "we gathered here to worship the first day of the week"
wtf?
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TitaniumAlloy
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posted April 14, 2007 09:23 AM |
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@Colonel_here:
Quote:
Why did not God create a world in one day?
Well if we assume that God is a kind of programmer for a world or a sculpture. It is possible to argue that he created one thing at a time to see how it would look or how it would function and than got an idea about how to improve it. Thus the stages of creation and seven day process.
However this of courses puts on an assumption of God possessing traits in the character close to a human.
If he is all powerful he should know exactly how it would turn out, and that in creating the world the phenomenon of time would manifest as he created it, so he would have created it in an instant, hence creating time with it.
But no, he created it bit by bit day by day for 6 days...
Even though each 'part' only took an instant to create ('let there be light' he said, and there was light), he had to wait before he could make more.. Doesn't sound too powerful.
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Ok now about Hell being mentioned in the Bible
Revelation, Chapter 20, 10-15
"10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
Well I guess that more or less is reference to Hell.
Read the first post, he doesn't deny that the the bible mentions hell, he says the bible doesn't mention purgatory, a different thing altogether
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John says to live above hell.
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Doomforge
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posted April 14, 2007 12:31 PM |
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Yes, I've mentioned there's no purgatory in th Bible.
Another thing, the fragment you cited speaks about "second death", just as I said.. so, why the endless torments part in catholic church? Ok, they wanted to scare the people to control them in middle ages, but now?
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baklava
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posted April 14, 2007 12:52 PM |
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The priests say "we gathered here to worship the first day of the week"
wtf?
Uhm does it really matter? When you think about it.
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Why did not God create a world in one day?
No, uhm, the point is he neither created it in one nor in seven days... Discussing about something that is obviously untrue and, to say so, made up does not have a point.
If God exists, the universe was created in eons anyway. But if you accept the metaphorical opinion of the church, there is no point in trying to prove it physically. Am I right?
I believe that should bring an end to that discussion...
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14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
By the way, what happens after the second death? That was never mentioned. Do you disappear or return to Earth as another chance to correct yourself or what?
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Doomforge
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posted April 14, 2007 12:56 PM |
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after second death, you just die. You know, like atheists say you do: you vanish forever
The day doesn't matter, ofc. Just another discrepancy in between catholic church and Bible.
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feluniozbunio
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posted April 14, 2007 01:48 PM |
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I use to be a catholic for very, very long time.. like everybody in my country.
Yeah, me too. Full support Doomforge
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baklava
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posted April 14, 2007 09:29 PM |
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Well if I suddenly started yelling beeeeeh I'd hear sheep too
Ironically, most believers DO consider themselves merely God's flock of sheep...
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Colonel_here
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posted April 14, 2007 09:34 PM |
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Another point to add to the discussion which applies all Christian religious movements is that no where in the Gospels did Jesus ever said that he was the Messiah, God or explicitly the Son of God.
He mentions that all men are children of God so when he talks about himself as a son of God he could just mean that he is all all other men.
The sacred image of Jesus was added to him by his followers.
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"The job of saving the lives of those who are sinking is the task of those who are sinking" - Ostap Bender
"Only a fool fights a battle he knows he can not win" - Ghengiz Khan
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