The Religion/Spirituality Thread

[Iron MikeyJ]

@soon, 

Their were many voices, perhaps. But ALL of the early Christian leaders seem to agree on MANY Catholic principals...

Early Christians on CONFESSION...

DIDACHE (as early as 70 AD) -- Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life....On the Lord's Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure. (4:14; 14:1)

TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE (200 AD) -- [Regarding confession, some] flee from this work as being an exposure of themselves, or they put it off from day to day. I presume they are more mindful of modesty than of salvation, like those who contract a disease in the more shameful parts of the body and shun making themselves known to the physicians; and thus they perish along with their own bashfulness. Why do you flee from the partners of your misfortunes as you would from those who deride? The body is not able to take pleasure in the trouble of one of its members. It must necessarily grieve as a whole and join in laboring for a remedy....With one and two individuals, there is the Church [cf. Matt 18:17ff]; and the Church indeed is Christ. Therefore, when you cast yourself at the knees of the brethren, you are dealing with Christ, you are entreating Christ. (On Repentance 10:1,6)

ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA (c. 244 AD) -- In addition to these [kinds of forgiveness of sins], albeit hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penance...when he [the sinner] does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord and from seeking medicine....In this way there is fulfilled that too, which the Apostle James says: "If, then, there is anyone sick, let him call the presbyters [where we get priests] of the Church, and let them impose hands upon him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him [James 5:14-15]." (Homily on Leviticus 2:4)

 

 

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE (250 AD) -- The Apostle likewise bears witness and says: ...."Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord" [1 Cor 11:27]. But [the impenitent] spurn and despise all these warnings; before their sins are expiated, before they have made a confession of their crime, before their conscience has been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest...they do violence to his body and blood, and with their hands and mouth they sin against the Lord more than when they denied him. (The Lapsed 15:1-3)

....Of how much greater faith and salutary fear are they who...confess their sins to the priests of God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience. God cannot be mocked or outwitted, nor can he be deceived by any clever cunning....Indeed, he but sins the more if, thinking that God is like man, he believes that he can escape the punishment of his crime by not openly admitting his crime....I beseech you, brethren, let everyone who has sinned confess his sin while he is still in this world, while his confession is still admissible, while the satisfaction and remission made through the priests are still pleasing before the Lord. (The Lapsed 28)

[DieselDaisy]

3 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

You seemed to care. You seem to care.

The only god I worship is Neil Young.

[soon]

 

2 minutes ago, Iron MikeyJ said:

DIDACHE (as early as 70 AD) -- Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life....On the Lord's Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure. (4:14; 14:1)

This isnt a uniquely catholic practice.  Plus, good sir, it says "break bread" not "eat jesus"

 

[Iron MikeyJ]

4 minutes ago, soon said:

 

This isnt a uniquely catholic practice.  Plus, good sir, it says "break bread" not "eat jesus"

 

So what EXACTLY did Jesus mean when he said "This is my body which is given for you, DO this in remembrance of me"???

[soon]

Just now, Iron MikeyJ said:

So what EXACTLY did Jesus mean when he said "This is my body which is given for you, DO this in remembrance of me"???

The "this" that Jesus held up was bread and wine.  And to do this in remembrance of him.

I dont recall bringing up communion.  If Im not mistaken you did.  I asked about fasting.  Oh, maybe theres the connection 

 

[Iron MikeyJ]

8 minutes ago, soon said:

The "this" that Jesus held up was bread and wine.  And to do this in remembrance of him.

I dont recall bringing up communion.  If Im not mistaken you did.  I asked about fasting.  Oh, maybe theres the connection 

 

So do you believe that Jesus wants us to eat bread and wine and think about him? Or was there MORE he was trying to convey in THOSE passages?

[soon]

Both.

[Iron MikeyJ]

Just now, soon said:

Both.

Do you believe in the actual presence of God within the Eucharist? 

[Iron MikeyJ]

1 minute ago, Oldest Goat said:

Are you saying you consider it paganism when Catholics pretend to literally eat Christ and drink his blood?

P.S. @Iron MikeyJ You're being incredibly arrogant and disrespectful to my friend here. He's fucking bothering to talk to you with so much patience. This really drives home to me that I am right in being blunt and forthright so to not waste my breath.

How am I being arrogant and disrespectful exactly??? 

[Dazey]

5 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

There is potentially a great comedy scene about Moses when he chucks the Ten Commandments and has to re-write them, a scene reminiscent of that Black Adder episode in which Baldwick burns the only manuscript of Johnson's dictionary and the two of them have to re-write the thing. Written as one would fake their mother's handwriting when penning a school sickness note. ''Do you think he'll (god) notice?''. 

 

A bit like the time that the wife of one of his early  disciples chucked Joseph Smith’s first draft of the Book of Mormon in the bin. Funnily enough he couldn’t reproduce it. Wonder why. 

[soon]

1 minute ago, Iron MikeyJ said:

Do you believe in the actual presence of God within the Eucharist? 

I believe in the indwelling of the Spirit.  One way to say that is: I believe God is present within me.

The Eucharist is a powerful event.  It requires zero embellishment.  It is clearly bread and wine.  Sometimes I make both of them, so then Im really certain of this.  

 

[soon]

9 minutes ago, Oldest Goat said:

Are you saying you consider it paganism when Catholics pretend to literally eat Christ and drink his blood?
 

Thanks for asking for clarification.  I should have been more clear.

I wasn't saying that.  But I can definitely see how it was perhaps taken that way.

They were meant as two separate points.

Glad you noted my lazy writing!

 

[Iron MikeyJ]

Just now, Oldest Goat said:

Your tone for one thing. You are so catty and he's being very respectful and patient, when in my opinion, you don't really even deserve it.

How am I being "catty" exactly??? As a Catholic I have been mocked and laughed at this entire thread. Every time I spoke about something I believe in, I got mocked or called out for "scriptural evidence". So all I'm doing is defending my faith, sorry if you dont like that, but at NO point did I attack others faiths. But because I have provided a TON of evidence to back my beliefs, that makes me "catty"? 

Look everybody, all I'm trying to do is help you all see what Catholisim is really about. So many people get hung up on what happened in 1564 or whatever. Or they focus on priests doing bad things, or whatever. But their are certain truths held within the Church that are HARD to deny when they are presented. If MY tone has been poor, well for that I apologize.  

[Iron MikeyJ]

7 minutes ago, soon said:

I believe in the indwelling of the Spirit.  One way to say that is: I believe God is present within me.

The Eucharist is a powerful event.  It requires zero embellishment.  It is clearly bread and wine.  Sometimes I make both of them, so then Im really certain of this.  

 

So you think Catholics and Orthadox "embellish" the Eucharist? 

What about ancients rituals that were handed down by Christ himself? The early church was quite clear on not just anybody has the "rite" to perform these rituals. 

[soon]

1 minute ago, Iron MikeyJ said:

So you think Catholics and Orthadox "embellish" the Eucharist? 

 

yes

[Iron MikeyJ]

20 minutes ago, Oldest Goat said:

Are you saying you consider it paganism when Catholics pretend to literally eat Christ and drink his blood?
 

So I am the "catty" one, when I have read countless comments similar to this one. How many times has Catholisim and Paganism been linked in this thread??? We ARE NOT pagans. 

Or comments like "pretend" to literally eat his flesh...

3 minutes ago, soon said:

yes

Even though Christ himself speaks of it?

[soon]

Jesus handed out bread and wine.

Never winced in pain as it was consumed.  I think thats gotta be the real bench mark.  

"Here, eat me."

"Sure, thanks Jesus"

[Iron MikeyJ]

1 minute ago, soon said:

Jesus handed out bread and wine.

Never winced in pain as it was consumed.  I think thats gotta be the real bench mark.  

"Here, eat me."

"Sure, thanks Jesus"

I don't want to come off as "arrogant" "catty" or anything else that Oldest Goat might charge me with, so I'll just say I encourage you to contemplate the last supper some more.

[Iron MikeyJ]

@Oldest Goat,

@soon, asked me a question, to which I responded. Then Soon said this:

BH, Im tempted to Scripture test all these claims only because you have such a focus on their supposed roots in Scripture.  I will avoid that as much as possible though. Because I asked about your experience of fasting.

Im not sure how the "fully human" aspect of Jesus relates to the timeless God head.  'God made flesh' remained outside of time?  To me entering into the flesh is one and the same as entering into time.  The presence of the sun is what provides the conditions for creation to thrive.  Our orbits around the sun is time and time inevitably leads to the death of the flesh.  Its kinda the whole deal, no?

Thats a fascinating reasoning.  Helping Jesus think happy thoughts while he, in this reasoning; fully God, is tortured.  I dont understand why Jesus wouldn't think about his return and peace on Earth, oneness with God and Creation?  Not eating meat makes him happier?  Why didn't redeeming humanity make him happy, but living like vegetarians do year round does?

Then he said this:

The Catholic church did not begin in the 1st century community.

so I then provided facts to back up everything I said. 

But I get called the "catty" one? Or that I am being disrespectful. I'm just trying to correct misinformation here.

[soon]

Still seem like reasonable questions to me.  Never got answers to a lot of those honest questions.

[Iron MikeyJ]

1 hour ago, soon said:

yes

@soon,

Clearly we have a different definition of what Jesus was, that's why I asked the questions I asked. I was trying to gauge your beliefs, not dodge the questions. So here goes...

For starters we believe Jesus was FULLY God and FULLY man, all at once. We don't subscribe to the idea that once God became man, he abides by the same laws as the rest of us. For if he did, how could he have done so many miracles? So we don't dare to try and understand what God can and can not do, even as a man. So many of the questions you asked, I feel, can be answered there. 

As for fasting, it's not just about "helping Jesus think happy thoughts". It's about service, sacrifice, suffering, and obedience.  We do these things to please him. He gave up SO much for us, what's a little sacrifice for him? Besides Catholics still hold the OT laws as in place, unless Jesus specifically addressed them. Also Jesus himself DID place importance on fasting. 

Finally, Catholics place importance on suffering. Any earthly suffering we experience, if we offer them up to the Lord (by prayer) and accept them, they are pleasing to God. It doesn't matter how big or small the suffering is, could be a hurt toe. But by doing this, it sorta frees you from the burden of the suffering. Obviously the pain still exists, but the worry is gone. So I suppose fasting is related to this in some regards. By giving up things, we ARE making a sacrifice, we ARE suffering by going without certain pleasures, and by doing them for the Lord, it pleases him. 

I don't have time at the moment to get into more detail here (my phone is about to die). So hopefully these braid strokes will help you understand a bit better. 

[soon]

11 hours ago, Iron MikeyJ said:

@soon,

Clearly we have a different definition of what Jesus was, that's why I asked the questions I asked. I was trying to gauge your beliefs, not dodge the questions. So here goes...

For starters we believe Jesus was FULLY God and FULLY man, all at once. We don't subscribe to the idea that once God became man, he abides by the same laws as the rest of us. For if he did, how could he have done so many miracles? So we don't dare to try and understand what God can and can not do, even as a man. So many of the questions you asked, I feel, can be answered there. 

As for fasting, it's not just about "helping Jesus think happy thoughts". It's about service, sacrifice, suffering, and obedience.  We do these things to please him. He gave up SO much for us, what's a little sacrifice for him? Besides Catholics still hold the OT laws as in place, unless Jesus specifically addressed them. Also Jesus himself DID place importance on fasting. 

Finally, Catholics place importance on suffering. Any earthly suffering we experience, if we offer them up to the Lord (by prayer) and accept them, they are pleasing to God. It doesn't matter how big or small the suffering is, could be a hurt toe. But by doing this, it sorta frees you from the burden of the suffering. Obviously the pain still exists, but the worry is gone. So I suppose fasting is related to this in some regards. By giving up things, we ARE making a sacrifice, we ARE suffering by going without certain pleasures, and by doing them for the Lord, it pleases him. 

I don't have time at the moment to get into more detail here (my phone is about to die). So hopefully these braid strokes will help you understand a bit better. 

Yes, about 95% of the world believers believe in Christ as fully God and Fully man.  Fully man maters as much as fully God and does suggest a different manner of being God.  But Im starting to get the impression that you dont intend to actual address things Im saying, but rather you are here to teach us.

Why do you think your suffering makes Jesus pleased?

[soon]

14 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

I disagree that the early church was not the Catholic Church, albeit with certain qualifications. In fact many of the first seven ecumenical councils are acknowledged by the Protestant denominations, as is the Latin calendar and many of the earliest Saints. That does not predispose that the Catholic Church remained static after the Patriarchal Era had ended; it too also developed into something else, particularly during the 16th Reformation/Renaissance during which it became (what historians call) ''Tridentine Catholicism''. Consequentially historians prefer the term ''Western Christendom'' to describe the pre-Reformation Catholic Church. This is not just in order to acknowledge the changes that happened in Catholicism, but also to acknowledge the uniqueness of the Medieval Church; there was for example a greater de-centralised/regional character than under Tridentine Catholicism.  

If you look at the history of Christianity it is basically like a family tree with various schisms over the ages; each one of those schisms sees a breakaway branch from its root branch, but they crucially, as well as repudiating their reason for the schism and everything that would come after the schism, also gained an inheritance of everything that arrived before their own particular schism. 

During that early period, before Ephesus, everybody was ''Catholic'' (Universal).

(In actual that that is not really true as that graph is simplified. There were the Hebraic Nazarenes who disagreed with Pauline Christianity, and who were destroyed when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD. There were also the Gnostics who believed in this weird mystical Christianity involving ''emanations and aeons''. Continuous schism is a feature of Christianity!)

This info graphic has the Catholic church starting at the latest possible point in the time frame that Ive been saying.  And it doesnt indicate it starting in the Apostolic era.

So Id like to ask for clarification.  Given this info graphic, are you saying you're behind the idea that because the early church was seen as universal (with out sects) to mean that the Roman Catholic Church has always been? Just because they adopted the word Universal?  

It was the official Church of the Empire.  Thats where words like Universal have meaning.  Also it is a sect - and has paganism with in it for one - which would mean it could not exist in a pre-sectarian, universal Christian world.  

Then theres the definition of Orthodox.  Orthodox meaning "true" "right" "traditional" "original" "ordinary or usual type; normal"

To me, and many others, it looks like those two hyper institutionalized sects went head to head finding powerful and authoritarian names when they came into being through newly emerging definitions at the ecumenical councils.  Because by defining their identity from one another, they in a sense lost half their congregation. 

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by soon

[DieselDaisy]

29 minutes ago, soon said:

This info graphic has the Catholic church starting at the latest possible point in the time frame that Ive been saying.  And it doesnt indicate it starting in the Apostolic era.

So Id like to ask for clarification.  Given this info graphic, are you saying you're behind the idea that because the early church was seen as universal (with out sects) to mean that the Roman Catholic Church has always been? Just because they adopted the word Universal?  

It was the official Church of the Empire.  Thats where words like Universal have meaning.  Also it is a sect - and has paganism with in it for one - which would mean it could not exist in a pre-sectarian, universal Christian world.  

Then theres the definition of Orthodox.  Orthodox meaning "true" "right" "traditional" "original" "ordinary or usual type; normal"

To me, and many others, it looks like those two hyper institutionalized sects went head to head finding powerful and authoritarian names when they came into being through newly emerging definitions at the ecumenical councils.  Because by defining their identity from one another, they in a sense lost half their congregation. 

 

Well if you're Catholic you believe that it all begins with St Peter and ''rock of my church'' statement so we are dealing with something very early indeed. 

[soon]

6 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Well if you're Catholic you believe that it all begins with St Peter and ''rock of my church'' statement so we are dealing with something very early indeed. 

Catholics believing something internally doesn't really mean anything though.  I don't understand why you posted an info graphic that doesnt support your words?

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by soon