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The Catholic Church: "The parts of the bible we don't like, aren't true" (pg. 2)
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| NeoPhono |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
Just doesnt make sense. I would be okay with someone interpreting the bible unliterally, but then ffs don't interpret some parts literally!!! |
Point of the bible (to a Catholic).
There is a God.
Believe in Him.
He loves you.
If you are a good person and live in a "God-like" (or, more appropriately, "Christ-like") manner, you'll go to heaven.
So, God showing his existance to Moses falls within those guidelines, God telling women why they have pain during childbirth, or that they should be slaves to their husbands doesn't. |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
Point of the bible (to a Catholic).
There is a God.
Believe in Him.
He loves you.
If you are a good person and live in a "God-like" (or, more appropriately, "Christ-like") manner, you'll go to heaven.
So, God showing his existance to Moses falls within those guidelines, God telling women why they have pain during childbirth, or that they should be slaves to their husbands doesn't. |
Well okay, but what is it based on? Simply what sounds good to ppl, and that's the point...
And why is it that the church doesn't give about some rules, but start wars for others? For example, why doesn the church live by:
| quote: | | Exodus 31:15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. |
But strongly enforce:
| quote: | | Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. |
This is the hipocricy of the church. |
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| Arbiter |
| The church and its followers are akin to goats and goat-herders: neither is particularly bright. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
Actually, this doesn't make sense at all! I mean either you follow the damn thing literally, or you dont. To take some parts literally and some not, that just doesn't make any sense to me...
I guess it's not supposed to make sense tho, it's realigion after all... |
Babysteps ... |
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| NeoPhono |
I'll tell you right now that to Catholics most of the old Testament is not taken literally. Obviously, as seen by the original article, there are still portions that are important to those core Catholic beliefs in the bible that I posted, but unlike fundamentalist religions, the "rules and regulations" that are overflowing from the old Testament are not treated as the "law" by Catholics. We don't exile women during their periods, we eat pork products, we don't enslave our wives, etc., etc. With a writing that is thousands of years old, you're going to find traditions and customs within it that don't work with modern practices. Throughout its history, the Catholic church has has congresses and meetings to discuss and re-evaluate what is said in the bible. This is really nothing new.
And as far as gays and the Catholic church...I know it has a bad rep, but this is taken straight from the Catholic Catechism.
| quote: | | The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. |
You may laugh at me, but when it comes to the Catholic church and modern social issues and science, I'd aruge that it tends to be more progressive than people think. |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
Point of the bible (to a Catholic).
There is a God.
Believe in Him.
He loves you.
If you are a good person and live in a "God-like" (or, more appropriately, "Christ-like") manner, you'll go to heaven.
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Isn't that a little over simplified? :p
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
If you are a good person and live in a "God-like" (or, more appropriately, "Christ-like") manner, you'll go to heaven.
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Whatever happened to salvation? Actually, that's one question I have for catholics and since you're one I suppose you could answer it. As far as "going to heaven" in concerned, what part does salvation play v.s accountibility? To me those seem like two condradictory concepts, salvation and accountibility that is. Becuase the ultimate implication of salvation is that no matter what you do, you're still going to heaven since you've accepted Christ as you saviour, whereas accountability has nothing to do with salvation. And sorry in advance if I offended you or something. :p |
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| NeoPhono |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Whatever happened to salvation? Actually, that's one question I have for catholics and since you're one I suppose you could answer it. As far as "going to heaven" in concerned, what part does salvation play v.s accountibility? To me those seem like two condradictory concepts, salvation and accountibility that is. Becuase the ultimate implication of salvation is that no matter what you do, you're still going to heaven since you've accepted Christ as you saviour, whereas accountability has nothing to do with salvation. And sorry in advance if I offended you or something. :p |
Don't worry, you haven't offended me at all.
As far as salvation vs, accountability, the Catholic church actually does teach "accountability" in the form of justification. I just got done with a 12 hour night shift at the hospital, so here's the quick version...
If you're "saved" then you should live your life as a "saved" person and therefore your works will justify your salvation. If you do crappy, horrible things then you're not saved, because a person who has devoted themselves to God wouldn't do such things.
This is really a HUGE contention between the Catholic church and Protestant churches in that the later strongly believe in "salvation through grace" (if you believe, you're saved) vs. the Catholic idea of "salvation through grace and works" (yeah, you have to believe, but you also have to act like a "Christian").
I hope that makes some sense. |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
the Catholic idea of "salvation through grace and works" (yeah, you have to believe, but you also have to act like a "Christian"). |
Ok, but then by that logic, isn't the Catholic version of salvation the way you put it equivilant to accountability then? (that being the ultimate implication of "salvation through works"). :conf:
If that is the case, then why do so many catholics (even those who are serious about their faith) not observe certain religious values/morals/rules found in the bible then? The first example that comes to my mind is premarital sex/sex out of wedlock. As far as my understanding goes, the bible isn't vague about it and forbids it explicitly. Again, I'm not trying to criticize or judge anyone here, but trying to understand.
So I guess my question translates to:
"So if salvation through works = accountability, then what part does salvation play at all?"
There's one more thing I'd like to add which isn't directly related to my question. Eventhough I'm not Christian (catholic or otherwise), I find many "liberal" reforms to Chritianity (regardless of denomination) inconsistent with the bible/original teachings and a watering down of the Christian faith (I guess this is kind of related to my example of pre-marital sex/fornication). |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
Actually, this doesn't make sense at all! I mean either you follow the damn thing literally, or you dont. |
Actually, I think that's a little bit unfair. If you hold that the Bible is the word of God and is a text from which metaphysical and moral absolutes can be drawn, then I agree - it's going to require a fair degree of cognitive duplicity to claim that some parts are true and others aren't. However, I find that those most likely to claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of God are also those least likely to understand and follow it's teachings. There is a considerable amount of metahpor, mythology and contradictory moral teachings within the pages of the Bible and trying to reconcile all this with the belief that the Bible is absolutely inerrant isn't going to get you very far. These Biblical literalists, however, don't seem to encounter too many problems with this, because they tend to be happy to refer to Biblical passages when justifying their prejudices, but go strangly missing when they're called upon to perform all that pesky "love thy neighbour" . It is, afterall, easy to be a literalist when you only pay attention to the parts of the Bible that you like.
If, however, you are able to recognise that the Bible is the work of men - as fallible, or probably even more so - than we are today and recognise, therefore, that there are some parts of the Bible that are going to be "untrue" then I don't think that the dichotemy of "you either believe it or you don't" really applies. It is still possible, for instance, to take inspiration from Christ's teachings while recognising that the gospels were written 40 - 70 years after he died, are inherently contradictory and were written with the express purpose of converting "non-believers" (i.e. Jews and Gentiles), which - naturally - throws the veracity of the accounts right up in the air. It is still possible to take inspiration from the story of Job even though the book was almost certainly intended by the author as a literary device rather than as a factual account of something that he actually believed to have happened, or to take inspiration from the wisdom of King Solomon even though such a figure almost certainly never existed. I think that so long as you can recognise the Bible for what it is (the flawed mythology of a people living between about 1850 and 3000 years ago) then it still has much to offer. Fortunately, many Christians can recognise this (and, based on the article, increasingly so the Catholic Church as well) and these are people that I really don't have any qualms with at all. It's the fundamentalists that get to me.
Of course, the only problem with this perspective (Biblical fallibility) is that if you remove God from the pages (that is, you recognise it as the words of men and not of a deity) then the Bible loses most of its authority. If it was written by men, then, ultimately, we should be no more inclined to follow its teachings than the teachings of any other book written by men. This is going to be an issue for most Christians, sure, but I think it's also something that's going to have to be acknowledged at some point if you're going to be intellectually sincere in your pursuits. There's nothing wrong with believing in God or taking inspiration from the Bible, but it's still important to understand that the latter was, at best, "inspired" by God and that it is clouded everywhere by the attitudes and prejudices of an ancient people. The Bible is a flawed guide and not much more.
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
If that is the case, then why do so many catholics (even those who are serious about their faith) not observe certain religious values/morals/rules found in the bible then? |
Because they're human. Not even the most pious religious adherent can live or will want to live by the letter of most religious laws. Most religions (and religious denominations) tend to place different emphases on different aspects of religious law and this has gone on since the beginning of time. Within Christianity, the highly secatarian nature of protestantism and the re-emphasis on the Pauline doctrine of "Jesus loves me no matter what I do!" has led to a pick-and-choose approach to Christian morality. Don't like some of the teachings? Hey, just join a different denomination where they tell you exactly what you want to hear!
Now this approach wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that the most wishy-washy, inconsistent religious adherents also seem to be the first to use religious texts to further their questionable positions. If you want to believe that the Bible has any sort of authority, then you should follow it as an authoritative text, not merely as a catch-all device to fall back on when you get called on your bull.
With regards to your question specifically, and its follow-up:
| quote: | | The first example that comes to my mind is premarital sex/sex out of wedlock. As far as my understanding goes, the bible isn't vague about it and forbids it explicitly. Again, I'm not trying to criticize or judge anyone here, but trying to understand. |
The Biblical condemnation of fornication is only relevent if you believe that this condemnation actually stems from the mouth of God and not from the moral attitudes of the ancient Jewish authors who allowed them to spill over into their "holy" text when they wrote it down 3000 years ago. With regards to Catholicism specifically, I believe that a fairly rigorous adherence to scriptural law is mandated by the Vatican (perhaps NeoPhono would be better placed to answer this) but the emphasis is, naturally, placed more on the morality of the NT (which says very little, if anything, about sexual relations) than the morality of the OT. Pre-marital sex has been (and probably still is) considered a mortal sin by the church, but I'm not sure that this perpective is really supported in the Bible outside of the more kooky, "old-school" books of law (Deuteronomy, Leviticus etc.). In any case, the great thing about Catholicism is the doctrine of repentence: do whatever you want and so long as you confess your sins to a priest and feel "sorry" for what you did, you'll still be alright with Jesus.
| quote: | | There's one more thing I'd like to add which isn't directly related to my question. Eventhough I'm not Christian (catholic or otherwise), I find many "liberal" reforms to Chritianity (regardless of denomination) inconsistent with the bible/original teachings and a watering down of the Christian faith (I guess this is kind of related to my example of pre-marital sex/fornication). |
Every generation and culture interprets its religion in different ways. As I have said, this isn't a problem so long as you recognise that the Bible (or any other holy text for that matter) isn't an absolute authority on divine revelation. If you do believe that the Bible is of divine origin, however, then you're going to have a hard time explaining the shifts in emphasis and attitudes that you're talking about. |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Actually, I think that's a little bit unfair. If you hold that the Bible is the word of God and is a text from which metaphysical and moral absolutes can be drawn, then I agree - it's going to require a fair degree of cognitive duplicity to claim that some parts are true and others aren't. However, I find that those most likely to claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of God are also those least likely to understand and follow it's teachings. There is a considerable amount of metahpor, mythology and contradictory moral teachings within the pages of the Bible and trying to reconcile all this with the belief that the Bible is absolutely inerrant isn't going to get you very far. These Biblical literalists, however, don't seem to encounter too many problems with this, because they tend to be happy to refer to Biblical passages when justifying their prejudices, but go strangly missing when they're called upon to perform all that pesky "love thy neighbour" . It is, afterall, easy to be a literalist when you only pay attention to the parts of the Bible that you like.
If, however, you are able to recognise that the Bible is the work of men - as fallible, or probably even more so - than we are today and recognise, therefore, that there are some parts of the Bible that are going to be "untrue" then I don't think that the dichotemy of "you either believe it or you don't" really applies. It is still possible, for instance, to take inspiration from Christ's teachings while recognising that the gospels were written 40 - 70 years after he died, are inherently contradictory and were written with the express purpose of converting "non-believers" (i.e. Jews and Gentiles), which - naturally - throws the veracity of the accounts right up in the air. It is still possible to take inspiration from the story of Job even though the book was almost certainly intended by the author as a literary device rather than as a factual account of something that he actually believed to have happened, or to take inspiration from the wisdom of King Solomon even though such a figure almost certainly never existed. I think that so long as you can recognise the Bible for what it is (the flawed mythology of a people living between about 1850 and 3000 years ago) then it still has much to offer. Fortunately, many Christians can recognise this (and, based on the article, increasingly so the Catholic Church as well) and these are people that I really don't have any qualms with at all. It's the fundamentalists that get to me.
Of course, the only problem with this perspective (Biblical fallibility) is that if you remove God from the pages (that is, you recognise it as the words of men and not of a deity) then the Bible loses most of its authority. If it was written by men, then, ultimately, we should be no more inclined to follow its teachings than the teachings of any other book written by men. This is going to be an issue for most Christians, sure, but I think it's also something that's going to have to be acknowledged at some point if you're going to be intellectually sincere in your pursuits. There's nothing wrong with believing in God or taking inspiration from the Bible, but it's still important to understand that the latter was, at best, "inspired" by God and that it is clouded everywhere by the attitudes and prejudices of an ancient people. The Bible is a flawed guide and not much more. |
I totally agree with everything you said, however, I don't think it contraddicts what I said. If you do like that, you don't follow the bible literally at all, which is totally fine with me. But when you think that half of the bible is god's words (ie the parts you like), and the other half is human errors (the parts you don't like), then you doesnt make sense imo.
My point is - follow the bible literaly, or use the bible as a (flawed) guide for life, not a law book. |
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| NeoPhono |
Okay...I'm back.
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Ok, but then by that logic, isn't the Catholic version of salvation the way you put it equivilant to accountability then? (that being the ultimate implication of "salvation through works"). :conf:
If that is the case, then why do so many catholics (even those who are serious about their faith) not observe certain religious values/morals/rules found in the bible then? The first example that comes to my mind is premarital sex/sex out of wedlock. As far as my understanding goes, the bible isn't vague about it and forbids it explicitly. Again, I'm not trying to criticize or judge anyone here, but trying to understand.
So I guess my question translates to:
"So if salvation through works = accountability, then what part does salvation play at all?"
There's one more thing I'd like to add which isn't directly related to my question. Eventhough I'm not Christian (catholic or otherwise), I find many "liberal" reforms to Chritianity (regardless of denomination) inconsistent with the bible/original teachings and a watering down of the Christian faith (I guess this is kind of related to my example of pre-marital sex/fornication). |
It may be a bit difficult to describe, but the way I put it, is unlike most Protestant religions, Catholicism is not a "cook book" religion. By that I mean that there is no "follow step A through Z and you go to heaven," in Catholicism. In many Protestant churches, the requirement for salvation is that you believe in God, and that you proclaim Jesus as your savior. In the Catholic church, it's not quite that simple, salvation is a goal you work towards.
Yes, you have to believe in God and Jesus, but you also have to live a life in which you try to emmulate your beliefs through your actions. It is also realized that we are human, and that we will make "mistakes" (e.g. pre-marital sex), but that if we are truly sorry for those mistakes, we are forgiven for them. The sacrement of Reconciliation is a big part of the Catholic church for that reason.
In the end, there is no one path to salvation for Catholics. Each individual has their own struggles and adversity they must overcome to reach that goal. The bible, the church and for some, maybe even God can be a guide to that ultimate goal, but it's not going to mean the exact same thing for each person.
Some Catholics I'm sure will agree with parts and disagree with others, but this is the way I was raised, and they way I continue as a Catholic. I personally believe that there are many paths to salvation (if salvation exists) and the only real requirement is to be a good person. If you want to use organized religion as an aide on your journey, so be it...but it's not mandatory in my book. (Blasphemy, I know. :D ) |
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| shaolin_Z |
| Cool, thanks for responding :). I understand Catholisim (atleast the aspects I specifacally asked you about) and your position on stuff alot better now (although I still don't quite understand the harmony/consistancy between salvation and accountibility :D). I also tend to agree with you on "if you're a good person, you'll probably go to heaven regardless of your religious orientation/or lack of." I mean, both Christianity and Islam mention one attribute of God as being all fair and forgiving and stuff, and if someone didn't have exposure to "the right path" or a fair exposure/understranding of it, can they really be held accountable for not believing "the right religion." You're going to find good people in every religious/secular group. Ofcourse, it not my place or anyone elses' to say who goes to heaven and who doesn't (only God makes that decision). Anyways, it's late, enough of my rant. :p |
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