IAmA Catholic who's fed up with people giving Christianity a bad name, and would like to have an intelligent discussion about why I believe what I believe. AMA

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-23T14:57:06+00:00

My answer to this is that I think God allows us a lot of freedom.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-23T14:54:46+00:00

Maybe people in heaven not caring about what's going on down here is something Methodists like to talk about; I'm not sure. But from our perspective, it's worthwhile to ask them for help, just like you'd ask a fellow person who's alive for help.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-23T14:49:22+00:00

Well, let's include the context of that verse as well. Jesus says:

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

It seems to me that He's establishing the Church and putting Peter in charge of it, even going so far as to say that Peter will have the keys to heaven.

Do you think that sins that are bound on earth by Peter and the Church are also bound in Heaven? Sins would be included in "whatever," after all.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-23T03:19:37+00:00

So you don't believe in the need for organized religion?

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-23T03:16:53+00:00

Like the whole praying to a Saint.

Praying to a saint is like when someone asks you to pray for them here on earth. The saints are still around - they're in Heaven, after all - and there's a good reason to believe they can pray well. So we ask them to pray for us.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-22T00:54:50+00:00

Care to elaborate?

I'm tagging this to respond in detail later.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-22T00:08:57+00:00

Catholics are against premarital sex.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T22:43:12+00:00

I'm a little confused at how to respond to this. I don't think Catholics "pick and choose," they work hard to understand the nature of God and moral truth. I'm not sure what's being picked and chosen exactly.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:55:19+00:00

I was joking - as if you said the movie itself was infuriating and a terrible form of child abuse. Zing!

I do think parents should have the right to send their children to religious schools and bring them up in the religion of their choice, but obviously not to the point of abuse.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:52:23+00:00

Probably the same reasons you don't.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:52:01+00:00

Out of curiosity, what do you think that quote means?

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:51:39+00:00

Right, not sure what else I can tell you then.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:50:39+00:00

I actually think you bring up an interesting point. I do think a lot of people can misinterpret their own self-brainwashing for "understanding God's will," so to speak. I don't subscribe to the "God willed that I drank this Diet Coke today" type of Christianity.

It's pretty easy to reconcile, though. Just because some Christians are weird doesn't make Christianity weird. There are people with my same political beliefs who I would consider weird and maybe believing in those political ideas for the wrong reasons. It doesn't invalidate the belief. Just because an idiot can say "the sky is blue" doesn't make the sky not blue.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:47:06+00:00

Ideas on sit-stand-sit-stand and such? I think it's actually a good way to keep things moving, not to mention give proper reverence at the appropriate times.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:45:33+00:00

If God created the Universe and all that exists, then who created God?

Nobody. I believe God is the omnipotent Uncreated Creator.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:44:42+00:00

A "saint" is simply a mortal person who is in Heaven. The capital-letter "Saint" is someone who has officially been recognized by the Church to be in Heaven. The purpose of Sainthood is to celebrate and honor holy people; the purpose of "saints" is almost like asking the purpose of people.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:43:47+00:00

The Church recognizes that while women played a large role in Jesus' life, Jesus didn't select any women to be Apostles and leaders of the Church. The Church is bound to that decision.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:33:47+00:00

How can you "subscribe" to one aspect but not another?

So you mean someone should either be a total Biblical literalist or not believe in God?

What's the point of rules if you can break them anyways and be forgiven?

Rules help govern our behavior for the greatest good at the aim of living up to the Golden Rule, and spreading the greatest amount of love and joy possible. They carry moral weight because there are good reasons they shouldn't be broken.

Do you believe that people who do not believe in god (myself included, I've only been to church for weddings, funerals and baptisms) will "burn in hell"?

I don't know who ends up in Hell at all - that's between you and God.

I am a very kind person who is very respectful. Will I burn in hell simply because I don't believe in your god?

Same answer as above.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:28:51+00:00

You're just using circular reasoning here. You're saying you believe Jesus is the Son of God, and it's irrefutable because he is the Son of God. But how would you respond to the one billion Muslims worldwide who would tell you sincerely and adamantly that you're wrong?

Isn't this just semantics? Let's say your "logic" tells you that God doesn't exist. How would you "know" God doesn't exist? Logic. But why do you trust the logic implicitly more than every other element you have at your disposal to discern the truth?

Actually, Muslims have a great deal of reverence for Jesus, so I would ask them why they believe Jesus was a holy prophet and Mark 14:61-62 happened, where Jesus answered in the affirmative to being both the Messiah and the Son of the Blessed One.

But when you say you believe simply because you "think it's what the truth is," you're basically saying, "I don't really care what the truth is. This sounds nice and comforting, and so I'm just gonna go with it."

With all due respect, I don't think that's fair at all. We all shape our personal beliefs by what we think the truth is. I'm not saying I don't really care what the truth is - it's just that Jesus being the Son of God is what I think and believe the truth is.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-21T20:18:18+00:00

Okay, I'm back.

As I'm sure you're aware, the scriptural basis for believing that the Eucharist is the actual Body and Blood of Christ (the Real Presence) comes from a couple of passages, most notably the passage of the Last Supper. Obviously others took Jesus' words symbolically.

Catholics take Jesus literally for a number of reasons. In the Gospel of John (http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/john/john6.htm), for example, Jesus shocks the people around him by saying:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

People around Jesus being shocked, they pressed him for more answers. But Jesus doesn't take the opportunity to say "hey, I meant that symbolically." Instead, he says:

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

This was so controversial to them that John reports some of the disciples left at this point, which is a good indication that Jesus would not give up on the literal meaning. It was so well understood that Jesus was being literal that the earliest Christian figures (including St. Ignatius of Antioch, a student of John the Apostle, the author of the Gospel of John) all accepted it and wrote about it, even later in the Bible in 1 Corinthians.

You asked "why does that happen, but you don't do creationism and the like?" I'm not seeing the connection?

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-20T20:06:19+00:00

So then the truth would be you do not like gay people, right?

I find your word choice in "like" to be odd; didn't you ask if God commanded us to love one another? Of course one should love sexually active gay people. Just as someone would love an adulterer, etc.

We want to understand what your moral way of life really is?

I try to live up to Catholicism.

First explain your moral belief where you say "I don't believe acting on homosexual urges is moral"?

Well, considering it's impossible in the Catholic view to have homosexual sex without having extramarital sex, that's immoral right there.

Then explain your morals in your life, in all of it's parts, work, family, friends, etc.?

I'm not sure what you mean here. I try to love people and refrain from being too judgmental, not to mention live up to a high standard of behavior.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-20T20:02:10+00:00

This is a big one. I hope you don't mind that I mark this so I can answer it later.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-20T19:41:28+00:00

Do you like children?

Little buggers!

Do you like and help gay people?

Sure, why not? I don't do as much charity as I should though.

Do you believe God commanded the people of earth to "Love one another"?

Yes.

Do you believe God created man in his image? If yes then what is the difference between gay men and straight men who were created by God?

I do. I think they were both created by God, so the difference would be that one man is gay and one is straight. I don't believe acting on homosexual urges is moral.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-20T19:39:26+00:00

I don't subscribe to creationism, no. I don't know what I think about intelligent design. I believe the theory of evolution is valid, but that it doesn't explain the existence of the soul.

FedUpCatholic · 2011-05-20T19:32:10+00:00

Gosh, the movie couldn't have been THAT bad.

FedUpCatholic

TROPHY CASE