[quote]Mr. Chen wrote:
The Inquisition against “heretics” is just such an example of a group exhibiting intolerance, spurred on by their holy book, because they have not got the “the same thing out of scripture”. This was Pat’s answer to Leonna. I think Pat can understand my meaning. It is a fact he doesn’t want to acknowledge.
[/quote]
I love the inquisition. Currently called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or CDF for short (Pope B16 was in charge of the Inquisition before he became Pope).
I’ll tell a quick story, as a private student of Spanish history, I studied the most famous inquisition as part of a professor’s research for two semesters. Spanish Inquisition. The most strange of all inquisitions of all time.
Part of the research, I convinced the professor to pay for me to go interview a theologian that was part of the CDF or Office of Inquisition (boogie-men). Nicest guy in the world, very skeptical though, but very forgiving. He was like Tirib in his strange questions and non-answers, except orthodoxy and about 10x better at identifying at what people believe, almost like a Kamui.
This guy came out with one of three conclusions: orthodox, unintentional heterodoxy and intentional heterodoxy. This is pretty much how it has been. At the time, I came out as unintentional heterodoxy (which I laughed at since I still considered myself a Calvinist and had left the seminary).
The person’s that you can ultimately blame or point at for the lack of tolerance is the Spanish Monarch. Heresy threatened the authority and reign of the Spanish Monarch (Spanish Monarch being the most famous…several Monarch’s were non-tolerant of heretics, Henry VIII was one) and was dealt with accordingly: Capital punishment. Where the Church came to be involved is sending theologians from the office of Inquisition to have someone that knew what they were doing to decide if the person was an actual heretic first and second if they were a heretic because they knew better or because they just weren’t properly taught. The law to torture or kill was one entities law…Spain’s.
The Church has never had a law in which the punishment for heresy was death. Sorry, I know, I was disappointed as well when I found that out. Maybe Tirib does have some ground to say we’re so tolerant of heresy and apostasy. It’s that whole freedom of conscience and free will thing we have going on. However, looking at the historical context of Spain, there were some rather rowdy peasants that liked to protest the Inquisition (the theologians) for their decisions. Strangely, and again disappointing, it was for what the peasants thought was being to lenient on those that went before the Inquisitions.
It is possibly one of the strangest historical events I have ever studied (besides Jesus’s three years of public ministry).
[quote]pat wrote:
Basically, Mr. Chen is trying have a long-dong contest between his flavor of faith and Catholicism. Basically, I am showing my dong to be bigger, by showing the short comings of ‘sola scriptura’ in that, if it were obvious as Luther believed, then everybody would get the same thing out of scripture, but they do not. To the point were people build completely different belief systems on preferred parts of scripture to detriment of others.
[/quote]
Thanks for responding. I didn’t realize I barged in on a long dong contest, so my apologies for that. To take my point a little further, why is it important that everyone ‘get the same thing’ out of the scriptures? People are different. In different phases and stages of ‘spiritual evolution’, if you will. They are going to naturally look for, and get what they need from scripture – whatever that it. That’s the beauty of it.
[/quote]
It’s not important for people to get ‘the same things’ out of scripture. Well to a point, I mean there are some basics on which people should agree, it cannot be completely arbitrary. But it is a diverse text with many diverse things and it is for the many not the few. As Paul says, there are many parts to the body of Christ and each part is as important as another. From the academics to the nurturing, it’s based on a common theme. Love. Love of God, love of neighbor and there are many many ways to do that. A proper examination of faith reveals that their are many rooms in God’s house. He made us all very different for a reason, we are to be united in faith and love.
A lot of people whine about ‘organized religion’ and I have to chalk that up to what I would call a ‘spiritual immaturity’. What I mean by that, is that such a notion hasn’t been carefully examined. To say that one ‘organized’ religion simply emphasizes a different part of scripture vs. another really hasn’t looked into it that carefully. I, and the church, have no issue with Protestants or indeed any people of faith. When we say we are the ‘One True Church’, it’s not a proclamation that we are better than anybody else. Firstly, it’s really just a reaction and a defense. Second, what we are defending is that the Catholic Church is the only ‘church’ that can legitimately trace our lineage directly to the apostles and as for the Roman Catholic Church, can be the only church that can legitimately trace our roots to Matthew 16:18.
The problem is, is that we are constantly attacked. For some reason, we simply cannot live in peace, not even with our Christian brethren. Constantly, daily people want to tear us down. It’s sad really, but we have to defend ourselves. Defend we will. We have to, because our responsibility is great. There are 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, 1.5 Catholics, counting the Russian, Orthodox, and Coptic traditions. We have to defend ourselves against attacks. To many people depend on this church, to let some pseudo-intellectuals to tear us down and attempt to make us irrelevant.
History is on our side, for most of Christianity’s history, ‘Catholic’ was “Christianity”. ‘Catholic’ means ‘Universal’ which came from the greek ‘Katholikos’, meaning, universal. And that’s really the point. It’s for all people who hold Christ at the center. It’s not to alienate people or to be above or beyond anybody. It was conceived originally to call all man to the feast and to share in the Glory of Christ. It was never the intention to alienate people. But enter man in to the equation and quite frankly, man screws it up. There is no doubt, that people with in the church have done great damage to the church, to people, and to God. We cannot help what others have done, we can only apologize and try to do better.
[quote]
Now, on another note there is something
Of course, if you can expand the definition of ‘One True Church’ to mean the conglomerate of all God-loving, God-respecting and God-obeying (the basics) peoples, irrespective of denomination…then, perhaps we start to see things as God may see them - Being the Overall Kahuna and all. [/quote]
Well, I can say from a Christian perspective, one cannot not only stand back and respect the good nature of God’s grace on all his creatures.
What you speak of, is not about church. Church is more narrow than that. But to whom God has shown his good nature to, and for those who do the will of God, I have no doubt that all men of good will are pleasing to God. Those of us ‘elect’ who have received the ‘Good News’ are both fortunate in the wisdom imparted, but also hold a greater responsibly to live it and show it to our fellow man.
I know what you are getting at here, how can non-Christians be ‘saved’, and how can that be reconciled. There are a few ways, but I’ll give you a couple examples, it’s a matter of reconciling John 3:16-18 and then also with Matthew 25:32-46. Go look that up. Then understand that knowing Christ, loving your neighbor and to love your neighbor is to know Christ. If you don’t know his name, you can know Christ.
NOW NOTE, there are those here who will not only projectile vomit at what I just said, but will totally go nuts and tell you all kinds of insults about me and about this truth. That’s fine. If you are interested in knowing the truth, look it up, do your research and see. The truth is on my side, I know it and I am not ashamed. You then can decide the truth.
Don’t take my word for it, put what I said to the test. I am not afraid.
[quote]pat wrote:
Turning the crowd loose with a Holy book can be dangerous…See Islam and their current struggles with violence.
In other words I am responding to attacks, not preaching that everybody should have the same beliefs.[/quote]
You mean like if a certain group thinks they can require all to submit to their beliefs or be stretched on the rack until they recant and embrace mother church? If I don’t think Mary was a perpetual virgin, can I have freedom of worship? I can now, thank God for courageous Christians who were willing to suffer for the freedom to maintain their own opinion.[/quote]
What are you talking about?[/quote]
The Inquisition against “heretics” is just such an example of a group exhibiting intolerance, spurred on by their holy book, because they have not got the “the same thing out of scripture”. This was Pat’s answer to Leonna. I think Pat can understand my meaning. It is a fact he doesn’t want to acknowledge.
[/quote]
I have addressed the inquisition. It’s far less mysterious when you know the truth.
[quote]pat wrote:
Maybe you should take a hike until you are interest in fair honest dialog. For a religious person, you have been anything but fair and honest, here. [/quote]
I thought you said we were going according to the rules on the street. On the street only substance counts Pat, and no whining. You make a post, then I make a post. We take turns; it’s fair.
Did I lie? I missed that. Did you point it out to me? I mean with detailed facts? Not just your interpretation remember, and I explained what that means. If you disagree, go back to that post and show me how I was wrong.[/quote]
You haven’t dropped any facts proving your side, so your demand for facts on the part of Pat is laughable at best. [/quote]
This is getting a little tiring. This thread has gone on along time, and we have talked about a lot of stuff, some with more detail, some with less. Now Pat wants to say I’ve been dishonest. Let him go back and tell me what he is referring to. Didn’t I go back and get into more facts from the John Jay report? I can pull up a post I responded to and Pat, or “your side”, or whatever didn’t answer with facts. I would like to go back and get into it, but it’s Pat’s turn to deal with this first. It’s his accusation, let him answer.
[/quote]
It’s getting tiring to try and produce facts? Are you serious?
[quote]pat wrote:
Maybe you should take a hike until you are interest in fair honest dialog. For a religious person, you have been anything but fair and honest, here. [/quote]
I thought you said we were going according to the rules on the street. On the street only substance counts Pat, and no whining. You make a post, then I make a post. We take turns; it’s fair.
Did I lie? I missed that. Did you point it out to me? I mean with detailed facts? Not just your interpretation remember, and I explained what that means. If you disagree, go back to that post and show me how I was wrong.[/quote]
You haven’t dropped any facts proving your side, so your demand for facts on the part of Pat is laughable at best. [/quote]
This is getting a little tiring. This thread has gone on along time, and we have talked about a lot of stuff, some with more detail, some with less. Now Pat wants to say I’ve been dishonest. Let him go back and tell me what he is referring to. Didn’t I go back and get into more facts from the John Jay report? I can pull up a post I responded to and Pat, or “your side”, or whatever didn’t answer with facts. I would like to go back and get into it, but it’s Pat’s turn to deal with this first. It’s his accusation, let him answer.
[/quote]
It’s getting tiring to try and produce facts? Are you serious?
[/quote]
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:<<< Not as easy to argue against an intellectual than an evangelical preacher. [/quote]Is that so dearest Christopher. Not very “charitable”. Shame on you. I’m tellin.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:<<< The Church has never had a law in which the punishment for heresy was death. >>>[/quote]The Church doesn’t tolerate rank flagrant godless sinners in her midst either, BUT, there they are.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:<<< Hitchens was an incredibly eloquent man. If only that formidable mind had served the spread of the Kingdom…[/quote]I couldn’t possibly agree more. He was brilliant, simply gripping in his powers of analysis and communication and absolutely wrong about anything that really matters. Christopher Hitchens Dies - Politics and World Issues - Forums - T Nation
[quote]pat wrote:
Basically, Mr. Chen is trying have a long-dong contest between his flavor of faith and Catholicism. Basically, I am showing my dong to be bigger, by showing the short comings of ‘sola scriptura’ in that, if it were obvious as Luther believed, then everybody would get the same thing out of scripture, but they do not. To the point were people build completely different belief systems on preferred parts of scripture to detriment of others.
[/quote]
Thanks for responding. I didn’t realize I barged in on a long dong contest, so my apologies for that. To take my point a little further, why is it important that everyone ‘get the same thing’ out of the scriptures? People are different. In different phases and stages of ‘spiritual evolution’, if you will. They are going to naturally look for, and get what they need from scripture – whatever that it. That’s the beauty of it.
[/quote]
It’s not important for people to get ‘the same things’ out of scripture. Well to a point, I mean there are some basics on which people should agree, it cannot be completely arbitrary. But it is a diverse text with many diverse things and it is for the many not the few. As Paul says, there are many parts to the body of Christ and each part is as important as another. From the academics to the nurturing, it’s based on a common theme. Love. Love of God, love of neighbor and there are many many ways to do that. A proper examination of faith reveals that their are many rooms in God’s house. He made us all very different for a reason, we are to be united in faith and love.
A lot of people whine about ‘organized religion’ and I have to chalk that up to what I would call a ‘spiritual immaturity’. What I mean by that, is that such a notion hasn’t been carefully examined. To say that one ‘organized’ religion simply emphasizes a different part of scripture vs. another really hasn’t looked into it that carefully. I, and the church, have no issue with Protestants or indeed any people of faith. When we say we are the ‘One True Church’, it’s not a proclamation that we are better than anybody else. Firstly, it’s really just a reaction and a defense. Second, what we are defending is that the Catholic Church is the only ‘church’ that can legitimately trace our lineage directly to the apostles and as for the Roman Catholic Church, can be the only church that can legitimately trace our roots to Matthew 16:18.
The problem is, is that we are constantly attacked. For some reason, we simply cannot live in peace, not even with our Christian brethren. Constantly, daily people want to tear us down. It’s sad really, but we have to defend ourselves. Defend we will. We have to, because our responsibility is great. There are 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, 1.5 Catholics, counting the Russian, Orthodox, and Coptic traditions. We have to defend ourselves against attacks. To many people depend on this church, to let some pseudo-intellectuals to tear us down and attempt to make us irrelevant.
History is on our side, for most of Christianity’s history, ‘Catholic’ was “Christianity”. ‘Catholic’ means ‘Universal’ which came from the greek ‘Katholikos’, meaning, universal. And that’s really the point. It’s for all people who hold Christ at the center. It’s not to alienate people or to be above or beyond anybody. It was conceived originally to call all man to the feast and to share in the Glory of Christ. It was never the intention to alienate people. But enter man in to the equation and quite frankly, man screws it up. There is no doubt, that people with in the church have done great damage to the church, to people, and to God. We cannot help what others have done, we can only apologize and try to do better.
[quote]
Now, on another note there is something
Of course, if you can expand the definition of ‘One True Church’ to mean the conglomerate of all God-loving, God-respecting and God-obeying (the basics) peoples, irrespective of denomination…then, perhaps we start to see things as God may see them - Being the Overall Kahuna and all. [/quote]
Well, I can say from a Christian perspective, one cannot not only stand back and respect the good nature of God’s grace on all his creatures.
What you speak of, is not about church. Church is more narrow than that. But to whom God has shown his good nature to, and for those who do the will of God, I have no doubt that all men of good will are pleasing to God. Those of us ‘elect’ who have received the ‘Good News’ are both fortunate in the wisdom imparted, but also hold a greater responsibly to live it and show it to our fellow man.
I know what you are getting at here, how can non-Christians be ‘saved’, and how can that be reconciled. There are a few ways, but I’ll give you a couple examples, it’s a matter of reconciling John 3:16-18 and then also with Matthew 25:32-46. Go look that up. Then understand that knowing Christ, loving your neighbor and to love your neighbor is to know Christ. If you don’t know his name, you can know Christ.
NOW NOTE, there are those here who will not only projectile vomit at what I just said, but will totally go nuts and tell you all kinds of insults about me and about this truth. That’s fine. If you are interested in knowing the truth, look it up, do your research and see. The truth is on my side, I know it and I am not ashamed. You then can decide the truth.
Don’t take my word for it, put what I said to the test. I am not afraid.[/quote]
This is the most charming description of Catholicism I have ever heard. Personally, I’m really not that concerned about non-Christians being ‘saved’ because they may or may not need ‘saving’. They are in God’s hands, whether they know it or like it or not.
My favorite part of your post:
‘Then understand that knowing Christ, loving your neighbor and to love your neighbor is to know Christ. If you don’t know his name, you can know Christ.’ I believe you are on very solid ground there, Pat. Anyone who would disagree with that is more concerned with their own particilar rendition of manmade dogma than Christ’s greatest commandment of Love One Another. I think Love trumps dogma by a longshot.
[quote]Leanna wrote:
This is the most charming description of Catholicism I have ever heard. Personally, I’m really not that concerned about non-Christians being ‘saved’ because they may or may not need ‘saving’. They are in God’s hands, whether they know it or like it or not.
My favorite part of your post:
‘Then understand that knowing Christ, loving your neighbor and to love your neighbor is to know Christ. If you don’t know his name, you can know Christ.’ I believe you are on very solid ground there, Pat. Anyone who would disagree with that is more concerned with their own particilar rendition of manmade dogma than Christ’s greatest commandment of Love One Another. I think Love trumps dogma by a longshot.
[/quote]
Have you ever read Theology of the Body or the Catechism?
[quote]Leanna wrote:
This is the most charming description of Catholicism I have ever heard. Personally, I’m really not that concerned about non-Christians being ‘saved’ because they may or may not need ‘saving’. They are in God’s hands, whether they know it or like it or not.
My favorite part of your post:
‘Then understand that knowing Christ, loving your neighbor and to love your neighbor is to know Christ. If you don’t know his name, you can know Christ.’ I believe you are on very solid ground there, Pat. Anyone who would disagree with that is more concerned with their own particilar rendition of manmade dogma than Christ’s greatest commandment of Love One Another. I think Love trumps dogma by a longshot.
[/quote]
Have you ever read Theology of the Body or the Catechism?[/quote]
[quote]Leanna wrote:
This is the most charming description of Catholicism I have ever heard. Personally, I’m really not that concerned about non-Christians being ‘saved’ because they may or may not need ‘saving’. They are in God’s hands, whether they know it or like it or not.
My favorite part of your post:
‘Then understand that knowing Christ, loving your neighbor and to love your neighbor is to know Christ. If you don’t know his name, you can know Christ.’ I believe you are on very solid ground there, Pat. Anyone who would disagree with that is more concerned with their own particilar rendition of manmade dogma than Christ’s greatest commandment of Love One Another. I think Love trumps dogma by a longshot.
[/quote]
Have you ever read Theology of the Body or the Catechism?[/quote]
nope[/quote]
Well, I would recommend Christopher West’s beginner guide. Awesome explanation of Catholic theology. It encompasses more than just the sexuality.
I was confused why you posted a link to a 25 post thread as the answer to my question, but I finally saw your response in post 23 (of 25). Was that intentional?
Anyway, your response was more or less that God completed his work, in Genesis 2.
So, just to be clear, are you saying that God does not continue to create? Because He was complete in Genesis 2? Hasn’t God continued to Create from Genesis to NOW?
