Religion has always brought bloodshed. Be it from the burning of the priceless books of the Mayan civilization, to the current religious extremists today killing in the name of Allah. Religion creates differences, that create separation, division between humanity. To love is to go beyond organized religion. I see a true religious fellow as one who understands this: Love. That's it. Very simple. I brought up this thread because I wanted to understand what others saw Catholicism as - what they understood and did not. Nobody should blaim all the world's problems on religion, but they certainly can point an answer to the problems, and that is love.
people follow the bible for its most basic of teachings. love thy neighbour. treat those as you would be treated. there's nothing wrong with following it but it should be taken with logical thought also. it wasn't written by historians but people. biased people. though i do not doubt the existance and historical values of the book it self i believe much of is is just what it is. a collection of stories. beside this the point is human nature. killing in the name of catholicism is just that. god did not promote killing and those that did missed his point entirely.love thy neighbour. catholocism is not to blame for murder humans are. just look at the troubles in the north of ireland and the republic. catholics and protestans killed alike. in the name of god? or in the name of power? everyone who has seen the carnage knows what exactly the answer is and it is not brought down to the simple scapegoat of religion. and as for your point on meditation being more beneficial then prayers, i assure you that to those who feel close to god, prayer achieves just as much enlightenment as meditation can because it is meditation. as for sitting in church for hours? you make it sound like a chore and most people only go to church once a week. plus we don't even need to go to church to show our love for god. i was baptized catholic in my family but my mother is protestant and my father is a spiritualist and has taught me a lot of different religions and philosophies such as the tao te ching and budhism and the benefits of meditation. but i suppose when i see prayer as being on par with meditation thats only because from a personal experience i achieved much from both and now see prayer as a form of meditation. gives me inner peace. but as for the ways of catholocism, it teaches much in the way of decency but also it does have some points i would not agree with. other then that, it's a belief structure. as valid as any on this planet. i may not agree with some of the ways it teaches but ultimately, the ways are not wrong. in my opinion anyway.
Nope. God is the basis for God and the belief in God (God is not a he or a she). The bible is merely a description by men of their relationship with God. It is childlike and spiritually infantile (it even says this in the bible). It can be a good starting point to understanding God, but basically, you don't need to worry about it. God will teach you in time.
Don't blame the creation for its actions. It does what it is made to do by its creator. People don't kill people, God kills people.
Like the the Fire bird, Phoenix, reborn in fire. For some reason I doubt religion's turmoil and division is representative of this. Human division branches out to many other aspects, including racism and cultural differences. Humanity as a whole is having a rough time growing up. Hopefully it won't push its luck.
Oh, what a relief! And to think I thought that I was responsible for all my wrong doings! Turns out it was God's fault the whole time. What a relief! It feels great to be irresponsible, doesn't it? But, sadly, this isn't the case. Passing the blame on to someone else is the inauthentic thing to do. I am responsible for all my actions, just me. God can help me deal with that, but I can't ask Him to take responsibility.
While I agree that we are responsible for our actions - I'd disagree that if a God exists, he does not share the same responsibility for what we have become. God is indeed, as has been pointed out already, considered the Creator of humanity. What this means is that God has shaped humanity with a particular nature - and humans are only able to fluxuate in their differences within the boundaries of this nature itself. But yet, by our very nature we have been deemed evil by the holy texts. And by our very nature we do in fact instinctively involve ourselves or desire for ourselves things which are condemned as sinful by Abrahamic religion. There does not seem any escape from the idea that if God exists, he very much shares responsibility for the evil we produce. - Laz
God is responsible for everything. Do you think God would entrust God's labor of love to one who obviously does not understand it (such as yourself)? You have about the same amount of responsibility that a 3 year old 'helping' his dad fix the car does. God made you to do what you do, and whether or not you are aware of this fact is up to God.
god giving us free will is an excuse not a reason...not a cause. what you seem to be ignoring is the concept of choice. the one thing that gives us an option to do the things we do. blaming god is just a way to get out of our responsibilities and yes something that would bring us on par with a three year old. in fact if we could amount all our degenerate acts to god's doing we would have no order and his teachings and the teachings of his son would not have been present to provide a moral path. god created us. in that sense if we fail yes it is his fault. IF you ignore the fact that morality, decency and all other good things inherent in people exist. when god created man god created us with an option to choose the paths ahead of us. we chose whatever one we want. if it involved hatred, that was our fallings. our "human nature" if you will. or the age old "excuse". which begs the question as usual to the matter of choice. is it a choice if ones outcome is always negative etc etc etc. well a better question would be do you believe in god kharakov?
Nope. I choose to do what I do, however this is because God led me towards the choices I make. Recall the pharoah? Umm, well, God is responsible for everything, and if you don't know this, you don't know God. Yup, pretty moral there. Judge not lest you be judged. God makes fags too. And nazis. And Jews. And you. Ignorance (hatred) is eliminated through discipline. Discipline is God's responsibility, not ours. You are claiming man is responsible for God's responsibilities, and you sight human misery (fallings) as man's responsibility providing an 'age old excuse' scapegoat for God. God doesn't need a scapegoat. God doesn't even need honest criticism, although it is fun.... Duhhh.
Our actions are our choice. It is also our responsibility to learn from past mistakes, whether they be our own or our forefathers.
Ok. Responsibility to learn? Nah. We learn when we do and we don't when we don't. It is God's responsibility to make sure we retain the correct information to use at the correct time. In fact, everything is God's responsibility, I'm just here for the Food and the companionship, can't even imagine creating a color, much less a burrito... mmmhh.. out of myself. You might believe it is your responsibility to map out the human genome, and then you accidentally break off a piece of dna that mutates (devolves) back into a retrovirus that destroys the human race. Then again, you did what you were made to do. Good job.
Your brain retains information(ironically I cannot recall the region of the brain), not God. People that say God is responsible for everything simply want to shed the burden off from themselves.
True the brain does retain information. But how do you think the brain retains???Because God helps retain information in the brain. Even your's, whether you want to admit it or not.
Well, he could do a better job of helping me access it then! My memory is perfect. My recall, well............... God helps you to learn that all faiths are equal in Her sight, all equally ethical and moral, and all truly spiritually valid. Evil is not religion specific, it is spread throughout all people. The same goes for goodness.
so you don't believe in god then and you believe its ok to do horrible things as long as you can blame god for your own inablitiy to grow and be a good person? so what is your logic? don't try and be a good person because ultimately we shall all fail because god wants us to fail? hehe. cute. god created possibility. man took advantage of it. and ignorance is not hatred.....though one may preceed the next in certain circumstances not in all though. then arguably if the concept of the christian god does not exist and merely we are scientific creations, who do we blame then? BUT all that said im sure someone out there is ready to shout "PROVE IT" at us both.....*awaits humouringly*
Catholicism actually is more like a stem than a branch... protestantism branched off from catholicism in the 15th and 16th century, spearheaded by Martin Luther in Germany, who thought that the christian religion should be more down to earth than the catholic church had become... according to him and his followers, all the richly ornamented churches, the worshipping of saints, the "rather liberal" social life of church leaders should be changed. Protestantism is more plain than catholicism. In Holland we just say "christian" in either case, as it indeed both are forms of christianity as they both worship Jesus Christ. Later the protestant church would split up into several smaller offshoots of which I don't know a lot of examples except for baptism and reformism, I think.
It seems to me that those who aren't or have never been Catholic do not understand what it means to be a Catholic. Its is viewed often in a critical light because of its beaucracy and history. Perhaps those who are confused about the nature of the religion should read up prior to posting. Oh, and Jeryy Falwell isn't Catholic.
