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bringingmanlyback:

electric-being:

bringingmanlyback:

the-last-crusade:

patron-saint-of-smart-asses:

sir-chamomile:

electric-being-deactivated20160:

I don’t necessarily agree with that. I mean, it is comforting in a lot of ways, like the fact that we have Christ and Heaven and so on, but there is also punishment and Hell. For you, you don’t have to worry about Hell or anything since you don’t believe in it. Where as when I commit sin, or if I were to live in a way that was against the Church, then I would know that I’m going to face the consequences and worry about punishment and the fact that I offended God. The Catholic Church is not like Protestant churches that just focus on how religion make you “feel” and being “high on Jesus” or whatever. The Catholic Church tells it like it is, even when it’s hard. We’re expected to go against our own flesh and do what’s right. And that means sometimes not feeling good. That means sometimes not being happy because we have to say no to a certain sinful pleasure. 

The Catholic Church is not about feelings. Faith is not a feeling. As humans, we are flawed and have error in our judgment. If faith was only an emotion, it wouldn’t be constant- it would just come and go depending on where we are at in life. God knows this, so He makes rules for us for our best interest. If we were to base our religion off of our feelings, we would make a lot of mistakes and possibly hurt others in the process, since we’re often selfish because of our emotions.

Being a Christian isn’t easy. I love my faith so much, but my life is definitely more difficult because of it- and that’s a good thing. It challenges me to be a better a person- to be more loving, patient, pure, and humble. Without my faith, I wouldn’t be as driven as I am to be better.

Also, not every word in the bible is meant to be taken literally. There are some parts that are meant to be literal and others that aren’t. The Catholic Church teaches this, but a lot Protestants think that every single word is meant to be taken literally. And as far as contradictions go, it could be 1) that you’re taking it too literally and 2) it could be your personal interpretation is incorrect. Say you interpret one passage a certain way, and then you interpret a related passage a different way, so that makes you think that it’s incorrect because you’re thinking of it differently or out of context. I would recommend getting a Catholic student bible, but I doubt you would be interested because of your disbelief.

Have a good evening,

Jocelyn

I’ll jump in and say a word about biblical interpretation: the books of the Bible were composed as literature. Biblical narrative is rich with artful nuances and literary subversions that make a lot of contemporary literature seem pedestrian at best. In some cases, those who compiled certain texts put them together BECAUSE of how they seemed to contradict each other (a prime example of this being the first and second creation story in Genesis 1 & 2). They knew they were combining contradictory ideas. It’s the development of theology–taking opposing ideas because they both seem to be true and putting them in conversation with each other in order to reconcile them. Those contradictions are designed to prompt readers to wrestle with the very questions that the Israelites were asking.

Biblical literature is one of the most complex and masterful kinds of literature we have access to. We do ancient people a disservice when we assume they were too naive, simplistic, and unsophisticated to compose a consistent text. In reality, we are the ones who are naive if we expect to understand what the Bible is truly saying without careful study.

I hope this was at least somewhat insightful.

I don’t see how Genesis 1 and 2 contradict one another?  Genesis 1 is
the creation story as a whole, and Genesis 2 focused on the details
surrounding the creation day of man in specific.  I actually had to point this out once to people claiming that Genesis 1 referred to the creation of Adam and Lilith, and Genesis 2 about the creation of Eve (and how a secret part about Lilith was kicked out in between because muh christian patriarchy).

The only real contradiction is that in Gen 2:18-19 God creates the animals after He creates Adam, whereas in Gen 1:25-26 they are created before him. But there is no real contradiction because the purpose of Genesis 1 and 2 is pretty obviously to show Creation’s common, divine, and peaceful origin, and not to give a mere sequence of events.

@electric-being You mentioned that the Catholic Church teaches truth while the Protestant Churches only teach feelings and emotion driven faith. How then have I been raised in the Protestant Churches and have been taught everything you have said? I agree with you, and I think you expressed yourself very well. In fact, I take up issue with Protestant and Catholic churches that I have witnessed put far too much teaching in emotion.

@bringingmanlyback thank you for your nice comment.

It sounds to me then that you had a better church than most Protestants I know. And I would just like to mention that a lot of Protestants are taught those things I mentioned, but the ones I know don’t actually live it that way. The same could go for Catholics, though. I’ve just noticed more Protestants seem to have the philosophy that faith is a feeling and to just go with what feels right instead of what is. I have never thought the Catholic Church puts too much into teaching in emotion. On the contrary, people have often told me that we’re not emotional enough.

The Catholic Church has never changed. Its doctrine and precepts have always been the same. While the Protestant churches have changed to fit society and became more and more secular. So what I meant about the Catholic Church teaching the truth is that, she has been teaching the same thing for 2000 years, while Protestant churches change. The truth shouldn’t change just because of the times. A lot of Protestant churches agree with abortion and divorce and all these things that are against God’s laws. So they are thereby not teaching the right things. But since I’m Catholic I’m bound to think my faith is right.

@electric-being, I agree with you completely. Protestants can be more apt to change their beliefs. I think some Protestant churches lack the structure and constancy that the Catholic Church epitomizes. However, I do not think that the solution is in an unchanging institution, but rather in the unchanging Word of God. Christians who do not maintain or practice their belief in the sufficiency and truth of scripture are the ones who will fall to false teaching. There is room for change in institutions, but there is no room for change in the Word.

Thank you for clarifying. I appreciate people who are willing to discuss topics such as these.