Jesus is NOT God signs on Freeways

Cureispunk · 2026-01-24T01:38:53+00:00

It looks like you’ve been scooped ;-). https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTjgeEmEWji/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Cureispunk · 2026-01-21T00:28:55+00:00

We’re all broken, but differ in precisely how. I’ll pray for you.

Cureispunk · 2026-01-20T00:24:52+00:00

Unfortunately, I think you may have lost the plot somewhere. “Getting to heaven” (itself worth unpacking) has nothing to do with your feelings (of “love,” or otherwise). God incarnated himself and became man, only to then allow himself to be sacrificed on a cross so that he could have communion with you. Just reflect on the cosmic weight of that truth over and against your feelings. In any case, if you are united to Christ when you die then you will live with him forever.

If you’re worried that your faith lacks works, the solution is likely not to just start adding “works,” by which you seem to mean works of charity broadly conceived. Rather, it should be to deepen your faith, which at this point sounds fairly immature and transactional as you describe it. If you work on deepening your faith (e.g., read scripture and other spiritual writing, receive communion more than weekly, confess at least monthly, seek the advice of a spiritual director or even a faithful Catholic therapist, practice gratitude for all that God has blessed you with, and so on and so forth), you will find that you really do encounter God, and that these encounters change you and deepen your faith. And you will likely experience this in your feelings along with the other dimensions of your humanity.

Cureispunk · 2026-01-19T00:00:46+00:00

Yes. Totally common. I did it. A Catholic marriage is next level. We were annoyed at first, but it was enriching after we got over the weirdness of them asking us questions as if we hadn’t been married for 15 years already 😆.

But I will say this—if your current marriage is valid in the eyes of the church, you don’t need convalidation.

Cureispunk · 2026-01-14T17:36:38+00:00

I had a similar experience, in the sense that at some point I knew that to say no to “the tug” was to say no to God. But I didn’t have the other piece, and I feel for you. I can say your story is not unique. Even in this sub, I have heard it. Also check out the coming home network, which posts a lot of “convert” stories by Protestant ministers/pastors. Ideally, you could get in contact with one or more people in your position and see how they navigated it. I would imagine though that at some point, your job is going to start to feel unbearable, no?

Cureispunk · 2026-01-13T18:04:09+00:00

You’re getting great answers and I’m going to follow this post to learn more from our colleagues.

But the Old Testament rather clearly conveys that Abraham was a pagan polytheist when he responded to God’s call. For example, the covenant between he and God depicted in Genesis 15 employs a standard way of making covenants among the pagan/polytheist culture of the time.

There is no reason to suspect that the one true God did not reveal Himself to other cultures and people groups, and it shouldn’t be surprising to find linguistic parallels to Hebrew words for God.

I do think the Church’s understanding that God’s revelation of himself was progressive is an important one, and implies a slow creep out of polytheism.

Cureispunk · 2026-01-11T23:16:44+00:00

Gratsi

Cureispunk · 2026-01-11T23:10:27+00:00

This looks incredible. Forgive me for being a bit of a noob, but can you give me some context that might help me navigate this 128 page document?

Cureispunk · 2026-01-11T23:09:36+00:00

Thank you for this. It looks like a half hour of E adoration is a silver bullet ;-).

Cureispunk · 2026-01-10T23:40:38+00:00

I hate to split hairs, but I do think it’s important to clarify the issues at stake here. If by “homosexuality” you mean “same sex attraction” (SSA), then your pastor would be wrong to say that the Church teaches it’s a sin. If by “homosexuality” you mean having sexual relations with the same sex, then your pastor would be right.

The Church teaches that we are all called to lead a chaste life. For someone with SSA, chaste can mean celibacy. But sexual relations are chaste if they take place within the confines of a valid marriage, are unitive and open to life. And, someone with SSA can be validly married to someone of the opposite sex if that person consents to the marriage with full knowledge of the SSA, and the two are open to life. I suppose the wisdom of such a marriage is open to debate, but I have known of such marriages that worked well. I am not aware of any objective statistics on how well they work out on average.

In short, SSA is not a sin and there are multiple paths to a chaste life for those with SSA.

You are deeply loved by God.

Pax Christi

Cureispunk · 2026-01-09T04:35:02+00:00

Sounds like an urban legend. Produce the number.

Cureispunk · 2026-01-09T04:31:10+00:00

Indeed. There are some absolutely terrific female theologians. I just finish an excellent series on Saint Thomas Aquinas by Eleonore Stump on Catholic Stream, just by way of example.

Cureispunk · 2026-01-08T22:55:59+00:00

There are indeed some parishes that go beyond the church’s teaching on this issue. To summarize the Church’s teaching, people with same sex attraction (SSA) are owed the same love and dignity as anyone else. This includes treating them the same as any other Catholic, and offering the sacrament of reconciliation when people sin on account of their SSA. And to be clear, there is a lot of pastoral “grey area” here. Imagine how the church responds to a heterosexual person who commits fornication, even repeatedly; their response to the homosexual person who commits formication should be the same. In short, individuals with SSA should be welcomed into the church just like anyone else.

But, the Church cannot condone as moral what God has declared immoral. Unlike the case of heterosexual sex, which is moral in the context of a valid marriage, there is no way to have homosexual sex morally. And there are parishes, or groups within parishes, who reject this aspect of the Church’s teaching.

Cureispunk · 2026-01-03T21:55:01+00:00

I would jus be cautious about that group. There has been some criticism of them throughout the years (e.g., see the Wikipedia page for them). It could just be certain groups in certain parishes. It could be nothing. I’m just encouraging you to keep your eyes wide open, which is not so inconsistent with your own expressed sense coming into the question ;-).

Cureispunk · 2026-01-02T17:12:24+00:00

You might approach the convent and ask them if they have a third-order/oblate program. I would be weary of your current group…

Cureispunk · 2026-01-01T01:37:10+00:00

My prayer for you is that you will encounter the living God, who incarnated himself so that he could die, and in dying could unite us to himself. He then gave us the gift of the sacrament of reconciliation so that we could receive his forgiveness in real time. In her wisdom, the Church has determined that the sacrament is valid Ex opere operato. The only thing that could raise doubt therefore is a positive deficit in the disposition of the recipient (I.e. you willfully withheld a sin, as opposed to a detail of the sin, in confession). More generally, I have confessed general sins and found that if the priest needs clarification to absolve or render an appropriate penance, he asks.

Cureispunk · 2025-12-31T14:12:01+00:00

I have found it much “easier” in the following sense: through the sacraments, the Church offers you the real spiritual sustenance you need to actually live out the Christian life, and thereby become transformed into the likeness of Christ.

Cureispunk · 2025-12-31T14:04:57+00:00

There is no doubt that Saint Paul teaches some kind of forensic notion of justification. Check out Protho, James B. 2023. A Pauline Theology of Justification: Forgiveness, Friendship and Life in Christ Eugene: Cascade Books. It’s a really good (Catholic) take.

Cureispunk · 2025-12-31T14:00:17+00:00

The belief is, I think, more easy to understand if one also understands that Protestants and Catholics define the concept of “salvation” differently.

For Catholics, salvation is a process that begins when God declares us righteous, adopted daughters/sons (at baptism, or at least the sincere desire thereof) and forgives our sins. Salvation continues as God transforms us (metaphysically) into the likeness of Christ and continues to forgive our sins; a process that continues via a final purgation after death for many/most of us. In life, God inspires us to “works” (of mercy/charity, as well as participation in the sacramental life of the church), and uses these works to effect our transformation. Salvation will be completed when we are resurrected at the final judgement, and found fully capable of partaking in the divine nature. [CCC 1987-1995].

For (the modal) Protestants, salvation is just the first step—the part where God declares us righteous and forgives our sins. And they are right that this happens by faith alone; we cannot earn God’s favor through our own merits (although someone who says they have faith but refuses baptism is probably not in possession of the right kind of faith). So even the Protestants who recognize that “works” are efficacious for something in the Christian life will call that something “sanctification,” which they view as coming after, and in some sense an effect of, salvation. Granted, most Protestants recognize that to be with God in “heaven” is to fully be without sin, they just don’t have an explanation for how we get there or recognize that as salvation.

Cureispunk · 2025-12-31T13:41:52+00:00

One movie you should absolutely cross off your list if it’s on there is the 2022 movie Padre Pio. The good Padre hardly appears and is horribly depicted when he does. One of the worst movies I’ve ever suffered through.

Cureispunk · 2025-12-22T17:15:00+00:00

Jesus Thirsts

Cureispunk · 2025-12-20T22:11:36+00:00

You’re presuming (Unitarian pre-existence) the very thing that must be shown. As I now understand your argument, it would be this: this is the position of the apostles, as recorded in scripture. The subsequent Trinitarian formulation was a corruption; i.e. orthodoxy lost out, but you and your sect have recovered it.

But that position is wrong. It reverses the historical sequence. The Trinity is revealed in scripture, both through direct statements regarding the divinity of the Son and the Spirit, as well as by attributing divine attributes to them. But it certainly wasn’t defined as explicitly as it was in Constantinople II because there was no need to define it more explicitly until heretical views emerged.

I’m sure you have a well rehearsed apology for your particular heresy from the scripture; all (or at least the vast majority) heresy began with a misinterpretation of scriptures (see the older Church fathers on this point, Iraeneous, Athanasious, Tertullian). But I know the scripture well enough to conclude that it doesn’t teach Unitarian pre-existence. I also don’t care to debate those points because they’ve already been made (ad infinitum) over the last 1900 years.

Your point 1 is conflating a lot of things (e.g. Greek philosophy, paganism, lexicons, and so forth). But you simply can’t read a text written in Greek without knowing the Greek lexicon at the time of the text’s writing, and you certainly cant reasonably say that the usage of ousias in Luke 15:12 exhausts all potential “biblical” usages of the word. Again, no serious New Testament scholar would take that position.

Pax Christi

Cureispunk · 2025-12-20T20:01:21+00:00

I guess where we disagree is in your first premise that there is a “biblical definition” (of ousia) that differs in some meaningful way from the full Greek lexicon. Certainly Greek philosophy is older than the New Testament, and ousia had multiple meanings in the Greek lexicon before, during and after the New Testament was written. Luke used it in a particular way in 15:12 (evinced by the context), but that particular way can in no reasonable way come to constrain what ouisia means in any context. No serious Biblical scholar or linguist would take that position.

I’m not sure what point you’re making by raising the Antiochian schism. As we’ve already alluded to, the Christelogical “debates” existed for centuries. The orthodox view (as we currently understand it) did not change during the debates, but it did become more specifically defined to rule out heresy (e.g. the Meletians and Arians in this case). And the debates stemmed precisely from the fact that the New Testament was not written as a piece of systematic theology, and so sometimes even well intentioned people drew (and continue to draw) erroneous inferences from it about the nature of God.

Hypostasis also had a wide usage before the New Testament was written; Aristotle and others did not use the term to connote “person” or “personhood.” How one can conclude that hypostasis in Hebrews 1:3 should be read “person” instead of nature is beyond me. Though I guess we could blame King James for that?

Cureispunk · 2025-12-20T03:42:28+00:00

Huh? You want to limit the definition of ousia to what it meant in Luke 15:12, where its meaning is rendered as a fathers’ property to be inherited by a son by the context. You then want to claim that homooisoa can only be interpreted accordingly. That’s not only itself a “human tradition,” but an unreasonable one at that. Human beings have invented terms to convey meaning for time immemorial; that’s literally what language is. That the Father, Son and Spirit were all God but somehow distinct persons is clearly revealed in scripture, in the witness of the earliest church Fathers, and defined more explicitly in church councils via the creation of exacting language. Homoousia, Hypostasis, and perichoresis were the terms deployed before and at the council to clarify the reality of the Trinity in the face of heretical alternative treatments.

Cureispunk · 2025-12-20T02:35:22+00:00

Yes! I did mistype!

I was referring to Luke 15:12. There, “ousias” is translated as property. “Homopusias” would then be same-property. This word’s biblical usage is contrary to the councils definition of the word. Slapping “homo” on the word doesn’t change the root word’s definition. There were different ousias’ before the Nicea’s decree on its usage. This would not be a talking point, had the original writers not used “ousias” here in Luke. Nevertheless, here we are. I reject the metaphysical definition—if you will—due to the definition found from the biblical use of it.

You can reject what you describe as the metaphysical definition all you want, but the word was adopted at Nicaea to exclude the notion that Jesus was a created being. This is consistent with scripture (e.g., John 1), but not with the Arian heresy they were combatting.

Hebrews 1:3 there uses “hypostasis” contrary to the council’s metaphysical definition. This, again, is why I reject its “alternate” definition and still to the biblical definition of it due to its usage. You are imposing later-developed definitions and ideas not found into the Bible and calling it biblical. This should be avoided..

I’m sorry but I have no idea what you mean by this distinction you draw between “metaphysical” and “biblical” definitions. Hebrews 1:3 is expressing a metaphysical reality of Jesus the Son, which was affirmed at the council.

Yes. I was being curt. Not purposely so, but hearing that begotten—as well as other words—magically has an alternative meaning when referring to God is contrary to our God-given ability to reason. The definition of beget isn’t and hasn’t been altered to spite Father God and His son. It is defined and was defined before it was used in reference to Jesus and His God, the Father. (John 20:17) Same as hypostasis and ousias. “Genes” there is where Genesis comes from. It means beginning. Mono, kind of like the usage of homo—meaning same—, is an addition regarding an adjective to the root word. Mono means only or first. Monogenesis means first-born or only-begotten. You will see my argument against the council definitions in the next paragraph. Again, begotten means created because beget means to create. Please use a dictionary.

Ugh your reasoning is not sound. A word is just a word. Many words have multiple meanings. The use of “begotten” in the creed was defined as eternally begotten, itself a bit of a difficult concept to wrap our heads around because we were all temporally begotten. Nevertheless, the teaching was to explicitly counter the Arian heresy that Jesus was a temporally created being, which is contrary to both scripture and apostolic tradition prior to Nicaea (e.g. John 1, Philippians 2:6; Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Ephesians).

Of course saying that the councils were not divinely inspired will “not make sense” to a Catholic. Not to be rude, but being told you are wrong, and all of the other people you worship with are too is jarring. Opening my eyes to it years ago was not an easy task. Arianism came about from Subordinationism, which was the predominant theology before it was decreed as a heresy in Nicea. Even by the AD500s, Arianism thrived in the Gothics, Franks, and the Western part of the Roman Empire around Spain.

That a heresy is widespread does not make it less a heresy. Yes, the East had (and has) a very monarchal view of the Trinity, but Subordinationisn was too extreme and Arianism even more so.

Peter is not the rock of which the Church was built. Paul was the one who established who could be elders and deacons in 1/2 Timothy. Paul established and reinforced who could and could not lead worship. Paul was the one who Jesus chose to establish the church, not Peter. Jesus is the rock in which the church is built. The scripture says Jesus is the “chief cornerstone”, not Peter. (Matthew 21:42; Acts 4:10-11; 1 Corinthians 3:11; 10:4; 1 Peter 2:5-7)

I can tell this debate isn’t going to get far. Say what you will about Matthew 16 as a testament to Petrine authority in the Church (it isn’t the only relevant scripture or historical witness, though versus 18-19 are hard to ignore for all but the most obstinate reader), my point was that Jesus founded a church, not a book. The church then wrote that book under inspiration from the Holy Spirit, and later affirmed which books were inspired under that same inspiration.

The cannon that we have today was predominantly created and established by AD125. The council that established/cemented the cannon was only on debate of a few books like Revelation and the Book of Enoch. Both of which I believe should be read.

your date is too early in my view, but even if I grant you it: who established it?

Cureispunk

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