Religion - a respectful discussion, for those interested

WOW talk about twisting my words! .... it seems it doesn't matter what I say, because you will just twist it to attack me. That's not being open-minded, that's pre-judging someone and then finding a way to twist his words in an attempt to discredit him.

BTW, you only highlighted that one sentence I said in your reply, and called that "bullshit", so don't try to change it now, after I called you out on it. Own up to what you said, and if you made a mistake then admit it...that makes you human. No shame in that.

I said that "nobody had a problem with the Catholic Church for the first 1000 years of its existence", which is true, since nobody split with the Church until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500's......but you just claimed that I said that "everyone is happy with the church", thus taking only a part of what I said, twisting my words, and then attacking me for something I never said. Nice. .... and I never said that "the only reason the church split....", but I was referring to just one example, again you twisted my words.

And all of my comments are welcoming people to the Catholic Church, by pointing out all of the wonderful benefits that devout Catholics enjoy. I couldn't be more welcoming! So for you to claim the opposite is just plain untrue!

Again, you are reading my posts, then twisting my words, misquoting me, and then attacking me. Please stop with your personal agenda and try and respond to what I actually said, then maybe we can have an intelligent debate.

You said you are Catholic, so why don't you start by talking about why you made that choice, and what you like about the Catholic Church. Something positive, instead of picking apart my posts and attacking me...

 

"wrong. it's God as "you" understand god to be, not what another mans perception of what god is and then told to you that this is what god is."

So what you are saying is that there are billions of "gods" out there, each one corresponding to what an individual "understands God to be"....yeah that makes a lot of sense lol. So I should stop with this silly talk of one absolute God, one Supreme Being that created the one universe we all experience and live in...in other words, we all experience the sky as blue, clouds as white, trees, grass, birds, etc, that all look the same to all of us, but this common universe is the result of countless "gods" that is different for each of us ...... see how ridiculous what you just said is when you really think about it? There is one objective reality, one universe that we all live in...to claim that each of us is the center of our own personal "universe", that what is all around us is only the result of our own subjective experience, of our own unique brain, is the most egocentric and narcissistic thing anyone could possibly say! That is, what you are arguing is that there are billions of competing "realities" out there, that there is no common universe but only us human beings and our senses, each different because our brains each work completely differently so that we each experience something different and unique, and have our own personal "gods".....yeah that makes a lot of sense! That's totally different than what science teaches us, btw, so if you really believe that then that's your own personal fantasy.

"and are you seriously kidding about "we cause our own addictions when we ignore god's teachings"??? it's a disease, a sickness, an allergy if you want to call it that.
nobody chooses to be an addict or an alcoholic..."

That's not what I said....I never said that anybody "chooses to be an addict or an alcoholic"....what I actually said is that people become addicts as a result of their choices.
Nobody is born addicted to alcohol or heroine (unless maybe their mother was drinking or abusing drugs during her pregnancy). People may be born with a genetic tendency to eventually become an alcoholic, but they only become an alcoholic if they start drinking. If they never take a sip of alcohol, they will never be addicted to it and crave that next drink (same thing for drug addiction). And with hard drugs, there's less of a need for a genetic predisposition, so it's almost entirely the free choice of the individual to experiment with drugs. Same with pornography addiction; if pornography did not exist, or if the individual did not view it, he would not become addicted. The same could be said for any addiction; they result from the choices that we make.

Religion, in its timeless wisdom, helps us to avoid these addictions, keeping us free to enjoy true happiness and joy, as opposed to the shallow and fleeting pleasures that addictions ensnare us in. Religion helps us to make healthy choices in our lives, both physically and psychological. This is well-documented by secular, scientific sources, btw. Just research the emerging field on the science of happiness, and you will find the sources of what I'm saying. I'm not making any of this stuff up.

 

Um, link? Most of that is just plain untrue, like when it actually refers to Hitler as a "Catholic dictator"....WOW, that's just laughable! No wonder there are people so confused about the truth of history when clowns post things like that on obscure websites that look official. smh. ... And I love how some people attack the Church for the Crusades, but ignore the fact that it was an attempt to defend Christians from attack by Muslims, and from Muslims seeking to take over Christian lands.

I suppose you would also claim that the U.S. and its allies "brutally slaughtered" millions of Nazis in Hitler's Germany? Or that we "brutally slaughtered" the Japanese who were attacking us at Pearl Harbor? LOL....your attempts to change history, and twist the truth, is shameful and ridiculous. But then again, you also claim that you can just say what you want about the Jets or the NFL without backing it up with any facts, which you call "talking points" lol...

"Islam threatened more than Byzantium. From the time of Jesus' death, Christians had made pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and Frankish knights had defended Christian pilgrims on the dangerous journey. In the later chaos of the Dark Ages, the Arabs ravaged and destroyed the
Holy Sepulchre and every Christian institution in Jerusalem. In 1027 the Byzantines intervened to guard Christian holy sites and pilgrims. It lasted less than 40 years, before Jerusalem was again submerged under Islam. Islam had a creed of Holy War that attracted the nomadic tribes of the desert, who could now raid and pillage in the name of God and of divine conquest. Under Islam, a man was allowed as many as four wives at a time, and any number of concubines. Divorce was allowed if any of those wives were deemed "undesirable". The afterlife promised to Muslims was a 'Trump Tower of luxury', with a virtually inexhaustible supply of houris to satisfy one's every sexual desire, even a heavenly overflowing of intoxicating liquors. Islam spread by the sword, but it also found converts - which, given its promises and its simplicity, is not surprising." ~H.W. Crocker III

So that is what Christianity had to deal with....persecution by attacking Muslims. The Crusades were an attempt by Christians to defend themselves and their territory.

 

This is the "History of the Catholic Church" from Wikipedia, which you seem to respect more than any potentially biased sources:

"Christianity spread throughout the early Roman Empire, despite persecutions due to conflicts with the pagan state religion. In 313, the struggles of the Early Church were lessened by the legalisation of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine I. In 380, underEmperor Theodosius I, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire by thedecree of the Emperor, which would persist until the fall of the Western Empire, and later, with the Eastern Roman Empire, until the Fall of Constantinople. During this time (the period of the Seven Ecumenical Councils) there were considered five primary sees (jurisdictions within the Catholic Church) according to Eusebius: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch,Jerusalem and Alexandria, known as the Pentarchy.

After the destruction of the western Roman Empire, the church in the West was a major factor in the preservation of classical civilization, establishing monasteries, and sending missionaries to convert the peoples of northern Europe, as far as Ireland in the north. In the East, the Byzantine Empire preserved Orthodoxy, well after the massive invasions of Islam in the mid-7th century. The invasions of Islam devastated three of the five Patriarchal sees, capturing Jerusalem first, then Alexandria, and then finally in the mid-8th century, Antioch.

The whole period of the next five centuries was dominated by the struggle between Christianity and Islam throughout the Mediterranean Basin. The battles of Poitiers, and Toulouse preserved the Catholic west, even though Rome itself was ravaged in 850, and Constantinople besieged. In the 11th century, already strained relations between the primarily Greek church in the East, and the Latin church in the West, developed into the East-West Schism, partially due to conflicts over Papal Authority. The fourth crusade, and the sacking of Constantinople by renegade crusaders proved the final breach.

In the 16th century, in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Church engaged in a process of substantial reform and renewal known as the Counter-Reformation.[7] In subsequent centuries, Catholicism spread widely across the world despite experiencing a reduction in its hold on European populations due to the growth of Protestantism and also because of religious skepticism during and after the Enlightenment. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s introduced the most significant changes to Catholic practices since the Council of Trent three centuries before."

"Monasteries became major conduits of civilization, preserving craft and artistic skills while maintaining intellectual culture within their schools, scriptoria and libraries. They functioned as agricultural, economic and production centers as well as a focus for spiritual life."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Catholic_Church


So despite being persecuted, the Catholic Church survives and preserves intellectual culture and the arts in its monasteries. In the 16th century, the Catholic Church reformed itself of corrupt practices such as the sale of indulgences, and consequently spread widely across the world. And no word of any of the "bloody history of the church" that you claim, despite the fact that this is Wikipedia, edited by people outside the church. Interesting.

 

And the Catholic Church is rarely given the credit it deserves for opposing Hitler's Nazi regime, and helping to save Jews from execution. ...again, an unbiased account from Wikipedia:

"After repeated violations of the Concordat, Pope Pius XI issued the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge which publicly condemned the Nazis' persecution of the Church and their ideology of neopaganism and racial superiority.[236]

After the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland and subsequent 1940 Nazi invasions.[237] In the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII directed the Church hierarchy to help protect Jews and Gypsys from the Nazis.[238] While Pius XII has been credited with helping to save hundreds of thousands of Jews.[239] the Church has also been falsely accused of encouraging antisemitism[240] Albert Einstein, addressing the Catholic Church's role during the Holocaust, said the following: "Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks... "Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." This quote appeared in the December 23, 1940 issue of Time magazine on page 38.[241] Other commentators have accused Pius of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[242] Debate over the validity of these criticisms continues to this day.[239]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Catholic_Church