I agree with KFC in her discussion with Lula. But then Lula is the most atypical Catholic I have ever met, and I am surrounded by Catholics here.

Generally, I like the Catholic Church and their teachings.

LW, I think what we've seen is exactly what several of us were talking about.  Faith is pretty much the ONLY common ground after that it leans upon one's understanding of how they should live. 

I don't know of two people that live and believe exactly alike on ALL (that's 100%) aspects of walking out their faith.

It is always interesting how people focus on the areas they disagree rather than agree. 

LW, yeppers, a discussion is not about finger pointing.  Many people seem to have trouble drawing the distinction, including myself at times.  I think its when we are loaded with emotional baggage that we are prone to this sort of thing.  When I got to the Refuge Friday, on the fence gate, tucked in the chain, was a flier regarding coming to Jesus. At home a couple of weeks ago somebody came to the door trying to win my wife's soul for Jesus. At some point I just get, well, pretty frustrated.  I have to be very mindful.  I do have a ragged around the edges vet background to hold at bay.

Be well.

Understand, the fence gate is 13 miles of dirst road off a two lane highway in the middle of no where. Oy.

I agree Sodaiho. 

Lula and I are friends both on JU and off.  We agree on many things but she knows when she pushes the CC on me I will respond in a negative way. She gets that but she likes to keep trying anyhow.....LOL.  She's just being a good Catholic.  I am an ex-Catholic with a very Catholic background on both sides so I see things a bit differently. 

She thinks I'm off because I've been brainwashed by Luther and his cronies and I think she's been deceived by her CC's teachings.  As long as we are both dealing with only scripture most of the time we're ok.  It's only when she gets into CC's tradition do we hit heads, so to speak. 

LW...be honest.  You're just looking for another reason to bash us.  You've written as much here as I have. In the last 13 postings above...I see your postings twice and me once and mine was a joke to AD having nothing to do with Lula! 

 We're all having a conversation here....MM, AD, Leauki, Sodaiho, Lula and KFC.....and it is a religious blog so it's on topic.  Instead of bashing us almost everytime you can, why not add to the discussion in an honest way?  If you can't  take it or more like it...... Lula and I, then just don't get involved. 

It's getting tiresome LW. 

LW, for all your complaints about KFC and I defending our strongly held positions, you are barking up the wrong tree....and this is the main point which you've identified.....it's MM's blog, written about religion, posted in the religion category and so it's obviously his choice!  

MM posts #48

MM posts:

 I truthfully answered MM's question....and defended against his accusation (which KFC agrees) that the Church and I commit the grave sin of idolatry by having religious images and statues in all Catholic Churches.

Of Christ, Pontius Pilate ironically quipped, "What is truth?" not understanding that Truth was staring him in the face.

KFC and I agree ...the truth matters ...good things arise from the grasp of truth and evil things from a rejection of it.

I started out admitting that I'm religiously religious and a strong defender of the Church and Cathoilicism. I'm here  becasue I like discussing religion which is the most important subject of all.

It should be noted that your Catholicism is quite different from the philo-Semitic rational Catholicism I am used to here in Ireland.

For example, I totally agree with the Catholic Church's official position on evolution; but I hardly agree with your view.

Plus all the Catholics I know respect Judaism, while in your case I still remember your hateful statements about the Talmud.

me too, I just try not to drag in old wounds. I really am a live and let live kinda guy.

In my class I'm teaching at Temple Beth El on Contemplative Judaism, I have six students, four are Catholic.  Go figure.  Be a blessing.

Nice to see a different religion interested in another point of view.

If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.

Lenny Bruce said that. 

(sorry for the hijack. I just thought that was kinda funny, lol)

This is nothing unusual.  Catholics have been looking for something ever since Luther opened the door.  Go into any Protestant church and you'll find probably a third to a half are former Catholics.  Every Church I've been involved in has quite a bit of Ex-Catholics in them.  They're all looking for the same thing......substance. 

On the other hand there are a few who (very few in comparison) who, as adults, go into the Catholic Church but when they do, much is made of them.  Quite often they're written up in some Catholic periodical. 

So it's typical behavior, converts make big news, people who leave make hardly a ripple.

MM POSTS: #25

By "religion", I mean binding acts by which we render to God, both privately as individuals and publically as social beings, the honor, gratitude, obedience, and worship due to Him, and in the way prescribed by Him.

MM WRITES:

Now, you take your own belief as the standard and proceed to find other people like me condemnable when measured by it. It often happens that those who practice no religion hold themselves up while regarding religious people with whom they disagree sinners and hypocrites.

KFC POSTS: #15

This begs the question....is the practice of religion necessary? Do we have religious duties or not? Evidently, you would both say no. I'd answer Yes. 

God has definite rights which no one is justified in ignoring. We know He definitely commands us to adore and serve Him. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God..." is the first and greatest commandment. A person with no relgion and one who thinks she doesn't need to do anything is far from filling the commandment of love.

KFC POSTS:

Christ predicted that heresies would arise, but distinctly forbade men to abandon the Church and originate them.

So, yes, unlike St.Paul, many Catholics left the true faith of Christ preferring the false teachings and errors of Arianism, Manicheism, Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Monothelitism, Protestantism and Modernism which St.Pius X called "the summation of all error".

Christ did not say, "Thou art Luther, and upon this rock I will build My Church." (or "Thou art Calvin, Knox, King Henry VIII, etc., by the thousands).

These Catholics who leave the faith forget St.Peter's warning about destructive heresies which are riddled with false teachings...like Baptism isn't necessary for salvation, no such thing as the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist and no problem with divorce and using contraception. He says becasue of these heresies, the way of truth will be reviled.

KFC,  MM may not know much of this, but you sure should really study St.Peter's teachings about false teachers.

 "Luther opened the door" all right!!  He apostized from the one true faith and together with his cronies (your word, not mine) started his own new religion, Protestantism, to his own destruction and those who foolishly follow it,  fallen away Catholics included.

All of the Protestant Churches exist becasue Luther and his followers right down the line arrogated to themselves the right to coin new doctrines and set up Chruches of their own.

Name something substantive that is pecular to Protestantism and I will tell you when it started and who started it....Christ certainly did not begin it.

Yet his followers abandoned each other and each group claim for themselves to be the true heir of Jesus' original church.

Well done, Christians.

Its interesting, isn't it, that this Christian-specific pursuit of a fore-ordained "truth" causes such suffering?  Perhaps we should include Islam there, as well.  I don't know much about it, (I suppose I should take Leauki's advice and read the Koran.) Jewish and Hindu violence is, in the main, not ideological or theological, its about self defense. Christian violence has been in the main about spreading the Word.  In such ways, truth becomes a sword to attack enemies, to undercut other faiths, and to destroy other cultures (as in the Christian attempt to destroy Native American culture). Many faiths have a live and let live philosophy, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism. Islam and Christianity, on the other hand, seem to have this need to spread themselves at other's expense. Then they wonder why people get angry at them.  It certainly is an interesting situation.

Be well.

Have you ever noticed that in Europe only Judaism survived the arrival of Christianity while in the middle east even today there are countless religions (most with very few adherents)? All surviving religions in the middle east are those that Islam acknowledges as either true or true enough.

This is a very interesting historical point, thank you.

This blog is starting to remind me of the terminator movies just when you think it's dead, Nope, it comes back to lifwe one more time!

 But see, MM, you gotta say something that gets someone's dander up just a little. 

I'll start with this:  how it is that you can identify yourself as a Jew and not be more liberal than you apparently are? 

A discussion of Jewish liberalism or its focus on social action might encourage a renewal on this thread!

sort of like the resurrection!!

Yes, and this fact alone tells me the scripture is what it claims to be.  The fact that the Jews are here are a great testimony to the truth of God.  He promised that from the beginning.  They would be a protected group and will be here right up to the end.  While many other groups and cultures are long gone or assimilated into other cultures, the Jews are still here even tho they were the most persecuted of all people groups.  If anything they should not be here today because of what they have endured. 

That's not true Leauki.  I wouldn't attend any church that claimed such a thing.  While that's true of the cults your mainstream churches will claim no such thing.  Also if you're talking of Jesus' immediate followers they stuck together.  They never abandoned each other.  They abandoned him at the first but they as a group stayed together. 

Jesus original church had nothing to do with denomination.  What he called the church was "ecclesia" or called out ones.  It was never about a building or a denomination, nor a creed, pope or pillar.  Many have taken his words and claimed it was meant only for their little (or big) group, but it was never so. 

nor did he say it about Peter.  The rock is Christ....not PETER......Luther was not about building a church.  Luther was a RCC priest who just wanted the truth to be known.  He did not set about building an empire called Protestism.  He opened up the scriptures and read for himself the truth and confronted his religion with it. 

Every single time rock is used it's used of God.  Not a man.  Christ is the bedrock of our faith.  Not Peter.

If you don't believe me, get a concordance and look up every single reference on ROCK.  There are many.  What the RCC did was take this one verse in Matthew and build a theology around it claiming they come from Peter which is so far from history it's not even funny. 

Peter was NOT Roman Catholic.  Nor was Paul.  And you cannot prove it otherwise. 

We've been here Lula.  You have not given one iota of proof on this.  So why do you keep bringing this up? 

Really?  Hmm, I thought the temple was still intact during his life and when Jesus referred to the 'church' he was referring to the Temple? 

Note: Called out translates back to Hebrew word for english word Hebrew (ivree) which means 'called out' or 'crossed over.'