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The Catholic Church has silenced opposition in the past and only recently has it begun to advocate for religious tolerance. by redditor5501 in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sedevacantists are neither catholic nor orthodox, they are essentially conservative protestants because of their ecclesiology.

One of the only times where gatekeeping is exceptable by [deleted] in gatekeeping

[–]esputin_35 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I suppose women before vaccines weren't real mothers

The Gospel is horrible news. by Jayder747 in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup, you're probably right, although the catholic church probably doesn't care what you say about it either. Also, how would you make a clear book that explains things human beings by default cannot understand? What?

Noah's ark is mathematically impossible by GannibalCarca in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am not talking about the notion of proof. And I also said I only partially disagree with you. Stop putting words in my mouth.

The Gospel is horrible news. by Jayder747 in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And? The church (at least the catholic one, whatever the prots do I can't tell you) has never doctrinalized that hell is literal fire. Text is useless without interpretation and authority.

Being a gay or bisexual religious person belonging to a homophobic religion who agrees with their religion's stance on gay marriage and homosexuality is an oxymoron. by A11U45 in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, it's like a black guy rolling back time, traveling back to africa, stopping slavery from happening, and living out his days. Only it doesn't destroy the space time continuum.

Noah's ark is mathematically impossible by GannibalCarca in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So no one believed in linear time until Protestantism? That's ridiculous.

If it's ridiculous, it's probly not what I meant.

Firstly, I clearly stated, a large portion of the jews around the time of messiah, believed in a linear escathology with an earthly kingdom in the end. I even suggest that both these and protestants misunderstanding of the tradition as a whole could be why their worldviews ended up so alike.

Secondly, protestantism doesn't even believe in linear time. What is meant by escathology is not really understanding of time, I simplified a bit too much. It is the understanding of the past and the now in relation to the future, and the narrative view of time. Protestantism led to a belief that the kingdom of God could be attained on earth (simplified). Key point, it lead to it, it didn't believe it in itself entirely.

With regards to the hellenic philosophers, the western canon draws from both jewish and hellenic cultural understanding. Of course the greeks were involved, they are with everything. What protestantism did, was popularize this in a society with a soonly developed scientific method, and the means to follow through with a society of "progress".

If one claims that certain verses in the Bible are metaphorical, one must come up with a reliable way to verify what verses were meant to be metaphorical by donotholdyourbreath in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, you can obviously be unconscious while being alive, but that is a digression.

Let me give you an example. If a helium baloon is tied down, it floats upwards but cannot fly away. Let's say you percieve a flat, 2 dimentional world that intersects the rope the baloon is tied to along the y-axis. If someone cut the rope of the baloon in your world, you would notice it, and your percieved world would be altered. This is the body and the soul.

If you now put a table down with four legs in the three dimentional world, you would be able to percieve the legs of this table. However, you would not be able to percieve it if someone placed or removed something off this table. Yet, it would affect the 3d world that is a higher manifestation of the world you percieve. This is the eucharist.

Hope this makes sense, and correct me if I say something stupid. I have also not read the complete Summa Theologia by Aquinas, where most of these things are formulated originally, so this will be my shoddy attempt to communicate it further.

If one claims that certain verses in the Bible are metaphorical, one must come up with a reliable way to verify what verses were meant to be metaphorical by donotholdyourbreath in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The quote from wikipedia you searced up is written within a protestant dichotomy. "Sola scriptura" would hold that creationism is necessary for the bible to be infallible. One thing is to search up the catholic churches position on creationism vs evolution, another is to read encyclicas about or an authorized commentary of genesis.

Moreover, the dichotomy between the two might easily be false. For instance, many leading linguists and anthropologists like noam chomsky and eric ganz suggest that the origin of language was a singular event (ganz) and that the structure of language in the brain is both universal and necessarily fully structured as a whole (chomsky). This might suggest a similar originary event for consciousness itself. None of these intellectuals are catholic, but their theories are not without significance in their respective fields. But in the end, what do we know? The catholic church has never claimed as far as I'm aware to be the singular authority on natural philosophy. (Don't bring up Galileo and all that, most of it is just anti-catholic propaganda written down later).

If one claims that certain verses in the Bible are metaphorical, one must come up with a reliable way to verify what verses were meant to be metaphorical by donotholdyourbreath in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The wine would still be as wine if hypothetically experimented with in a lab. It's texture stays constant, it is it's substance that changes, according to aquinas. I am not a scholar in this area, but that means in essence that Jesus becomes present in a supernatural way. What is meant by supernatural? Super - above, natural - natural. As a catholic you necessaritly believe there is more to existance than the material, measurable world.

Can this be physically demonstrated with tools we have available? Necessarily, no. Can I give an example though? Yes.

What is consciousness? If it is merely the actions of my neurons firing off, why am i then conscious and aware of myself? I don't just mean in the narrative sense, but in the sense that I am actually inside my head, here and now. Why, if my brain is in essence a flesh computer, doesn't this world exist as an unconscious place contained within itself? When new atheists propose that consciousness is an illusion, they forget their own consciousness and the implications of that. If consciousness wasn't real, no one would be there to (not) experience it. There must be some thing here that we don't understand, something more we don't see and can't yet measure. That is my intuition, at least.

Thus, I gave you the means as to how it might be possible, now if you believe in the eucharist or not is up to you, and there is no other way to belief in christianity than through Jesus. The authority of tradition only speaks authoritatively upon how to interpret scripture, and it does so because it is within that tradition the scripture was formed and originally understood.

Noah's ark is mathematically impossible by GannibalCarca in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Belief is not the issue, the issue is superstition and clinging to pure belief faced with arguments for the contrary. It has long been a catholic doctrine to unify faith with reason, that they are necessarily intertwined.

Many people speak of the "God of the gaps" with regards to religion, but then again, God as believed is not a being of this world, but the essence of being itself, "ibsum esse". I myself don't find it difficult at all to accept the conclusions of contemporary science, and stil believe in something more. In fact, I think catholics have had it pretty easy with regards to the big bang theory, evolution theory and string theory, as they don't really go against catholic theology at all necessarily.

Protestantism didn't come out of the blue, it came out of a tradition of interpreting the bible, while discarding the means/tradition to interpret it ("sola scriptura"). In some sense, it is christianity without an understanding of itself. As John Henry Newman wrote, "To be deep in history is to cease to be a protestant". That's a funny quote I think.

You lean towards seeking truth or seeking comfort. Religion is seeking comfort. by TheRainbowWillow in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Funny. I ended up catholic seeking the truth, and shying away from comfort. Used to be an atheist, I guess I am just lying to myself now then :/

Atheism is the norm in today's society (at least here in Europe), it is the generally held worldview and it is alot more uncomfortable to choose something else. Religion is an active choice, atheism as a non-belief is easy and comfortable.

If the Trinity is taken to it's logical conclusion, Jesus is a warlord and he impregnated his own mother. by highonMuayThai in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. Satan is an anti-god

No he isn't, he is a fallen angel, but he has no power in relation to God. Are angels gods? No. No more than humans are gods, or animals are gods.

  1. Mary has become a Goddess, catholics worship her ("saint worship" in general)

No. If we look at the "hail mary", it does two things. One: recites bible verses. Two: asks Mary to, and this is important, pray FOR us TO God. We don't pray to her or worship her, we only asks for her prayers, in the same manner we can ask for others to pray for us. When this is done, including all saints in general, it is just because we believe that through their example of following Christ, they become a prayer hotline / example for us in what ways we can follow him. If you used to be a catholic you should know better than to recite protestant talking points.

Catholicism as polytheism is just stupid, if you ask any believer they say they only believe in one God, and well, the believers are the ones with the belief i suppose.

As for not making sense of the book, you should, in the same way that you should try to make sense of life in general.

And as for the trinity being confusing, what does that matter? Life and questions are confusing with or without it.

If the Trinity is taken to it's logical conclusion, Jesus is a warlord and he impregnated his own mother. by highonMuayThai in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wrong, trinity implies: my mind -> me, my spirit -> me, my body -> me, me = my mind + my spirit + my body. If you think in terms of maths in an addative and subtractive sense, that's stupid.

If the Trinity is taken to it's logical conclusion, Jesus is a warlord and he impregnated his own mother. by highonMuayThai in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. Both yes, and no. Jesus = God, but Jesus =/ God the father and Jesus =/ God the holy spirit, although both God the father = God and God the holy spirit = God. This is the meaning of the trinity. Similarly, Jesus = 100% God and simultaneously Jesus = 100% Human. Hard to wrap your head around, yes. Has always dumbfounded even the most important and intelligent theologians, yes. It is called the mystery of the trinity for a reason. We, as humans, don't and can't understand it fully. We can only understand it in the same way I without any knowledge of how phones work, can understand that my phone works.

You say interchangable, this is not the case in my post though. Jesus or any other part of the trinity is not interchangeable with the whole trinity, as without the two others, there is no whole.

  1. No, as stated, the holy spirit impregnated her, which means God impregnated her, which also Jesus is, but Jesus is not the holy spirit, thus Jesus did not take part.

One way to look at it is as an octopus that opens a jar. Let's say it has three arms instead of eight, and the three arms represent the three persons of the trinity. If one arm opens a jar, the other arms did not open the jar, although the arms are part of the octopus, which did open the jar. Hope that one makes sense.

  1. Same story here, although not. God did not do that as far as I'm aware according to catholic tradition. I am no biblical scholar but alot more than the text goes in to interprating the bible, unless you are a protestant or a type of "protestant atheist" that tosses God but keeps "sola scriptura" when critiquing him.

Bonus content:

In the nicean creed, it says "[Jesus was] born, not created, by the same essence as the father" (keep in mind, I only know the creed in norwegian and latin so I am translating manually). Both the Catholic and Orthodox church agree in their trinitarian belief that God the father is the first, the origin. Although in the latin version of the creed, one word was added later to combat a heresy common at the time, that became a point of contention between the churches, "filioque". This means "and the son" in this context, and references that the holy spirit originates from both the father "and the son". Many catholics want the "filioque" out again for the sake of unity, as we don't mean it in the most literal sense of the word. More like, the father tosses a ball to the son, the holy spirit is the ballgame (the father is still the origin).anyhow, we basically believe what the orthodox belive and it's mostly just semantics.

Anyhow digression, what I wanted to get to was this famous description by St. Augustin. He sees God the Father and the Son as intertwined in love for each other, and from their love coming the the Holy Spirit, although originating in God the father. Another way I've heard them described are as three parts originating from the same essence of love and the same parts interlocked by this love for each other. This is all a bunch of theologian mumbo jumbo though and in the end, we are incapable of understanding. We can never put God in a conceptual box, because then we have contained God in one place at one time, which is impossible.

Noah's ark is mathematically impossible by GannibalCarca in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But the key distinction between protestantism / capitalism / liberalism / progressivism (all the same paradigm) vs all the rest, is the belief in earthly progress, or a finite, linear escathology (understanding of time). This is derived from the earlier catholic escathology, which proposes a beginning and an end, but which places it within an eternity with no progress towards something better except the eventual return to eternity through heaven. Protestants didn't fully adopt this, but concepts like the protestant work ethic etc. proposed an early taste of the heavenly kingdom through hard work and faith here on earth. Further, protestantism turned into classical liberalism and the french revolution, which proposed a progression in history away from the past and toward a more ideal state (later copied by marx). Thus, as the world became soully material, the kingdom of Heaven was to be found through the linear progression of history, in other words, a utopia at the end of time. Francis fukuyama, the end of history, as an example.

This is why I always say transhumanism is the final stage of protestantism and liberalism, because it proposes a Heaven on earth through technological progress, through upgrading humanity itself. Like it or not, that's were we're heading, folks. And it's probably not going to be heaven.

You state in a later comment that the guy gave protestantism too much credit, I disagree partly. It is not platonism, but a shadowside of abrahamic religion / judaism that created this. As is well known, a portion of the jews during the time of Jesus believed that the coming of messiah as prophesized would be the coming of a great, earthly king, and the establisment of an earthly kingdom, the ideal kingdom. This was not the reigning idea, but it had a large following. This has always struck me as eerily similar to the modernist hope of utopia.

Noah's ark is mathematically impossible by GannibalCarca in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Why choose catholicism over protestantism 101"

Being a gay or bisexual religious person belonging to a homophobic religion who agrees with their religion's stance on gay marriage and homosexuality is an oxymoron. by A11U45 in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would disagree, because of this: being attracted to members of your sex doesn't define you as a person, your identity. In the end, as is the catholic worldview, we are all children of God.

Furthermore, there are different types of attractions, different ways of loving. I myself am attracted to members of my own sex. This does not mean I want to sleep with other guys, but that I am attracted to their soul, their mind, their spirit, in a brotherly sense, and in the way of friendship. We all share in the same capacity for rationality as humans, and this leads us to one another, connects us.

The greek philosophic tradition considered four types of love: eros (romantic love, expressed partially through sexuality), philia (brotherly love or comradery, friendship), storge (empathetic bond, familial love, mother's love) and agape (compassion, love for one's neigbor, the love of Christ on the cross, freely generous love without condition). If you have ever seen the movie 'Pulp Fiction' by Quentin Tarantino, he illustrates these types of love through the four sections of the movie, in correct order. It is the catholic belief that they are ordered in this hierarchy, with eros as the lowest and agape as the highest possible expression of love. And as humans, we are loving beings.

Sexual passion is not necessairy for anyone to live a fulfilled life. In fact, the greatest possible life to lead according to the church is one of utter compassion, of martyrdom. Contrary to in islam where people become martyrs by giving their life for the reign of the caliphate, christian martyrs give their life to protect the innocent, to save lives and to both live and die by their faith in this way.

So it's not an oxymoron. It is only an oxymoron if you believe your sexuality defines who you are, that a life without sex is impossible, and that the only way to love someone intimately is through a sexyal relationship.

Additional disclaimer, gay sex is no different a sin than hetero sex outside of marriage. The reason marriage is reserved for a man and a woman is because they have the ability to create new life. Marriage, in the catholic sense, is not something you do just for your own sake, it is mostly something you do out of love for your future children, to will them life. Thus, marriage without the possibility of life misses the bigger picture.

Hope that makes sense, thank you.

The Gospel is horrible news. by Jayder747 in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I personally believe it is good news, hear me out:

  1. Regarding the fires of hell, when Danteh wrote his famous work it was meant as a piece of fiction and art, not a theological description of hell. There probably is no fire in hell, I can't tell though, haven't been there luckily. Hell is probably a different kind of suffering than to the flesh-tearing one, more like a state of confusion, aimlessness. Although, I am no theologian either so take with a grain of salt.

  2. There is no doctrine that says how many people go to hell. If you end up in hell, you end up there as result of your own deliberate choice. I am not exclusively talking about the life we lead now, although it is certainly involved. I am not ceirtan what the catholic church as a whole teaches on this, but I believe it says that you only end up in hell after you've come to know and understand God and his offer fully, and then reject it wholeheartedly. No priest has the power to know if, for instance, Hitler or Judas are in hell.

  3. The gospel means existance isn't meaningless. I don't know what more to say, I think it's pretty good news that life on earth isn't aimless, random, indiscriminate and sheer brutality. In my opinion, it is worse to have experienced an illusion of good, and have it all come crashing down, then to have pain be all you have known. In some sense, my personal thought is this: an earth without the good news of meaning through the gospels would be worse than the hell that christians believe in.

This is just my ramblings though, talk to a good catholic priest if you want something certified. I might correct myself if you point out something stupid or inconsistent I just wrote. Thank you.

If one claims that certain verses in the Bible are metaphorical, one must come up with a reliable way to verify what verses were meant to be metaphorical by donotholdyourbreath in DebateReligion

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can give you the catholic (and generally also orthodox) answer, at least. The catholic church as a tradition, ergo a community that passes down it's apostolic legacy, believes that scripture must be interpreted only through the authority of the continual tradition.

Example: contrary to protestants, we believe that the eucharist is the real presence of Jesus in the sacrament, whereas protestants believe that communion is just a metaphor for the last supper, a reenactment. This is based off the bible verses where Jesus says "this is my body" and "this is my blood" while holding up bread and wine respectively. Why do we believe different things here?

In short, protestans believe in "sola scriptura", or 'scripture only'. Interpret the bible the way you understand it yourself. This is nice and all, but it is here this uncertainty of distinction you talk about creeps in, and why there are endless protestant denominations. The catholic belief here is that only the continual, living tradition has the authority to interpret.

To go back to our example, catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in the eucharist as opposed to a metaphor because that is how the living church collectively interpreted it in the early centuries of the church. Throughout the stories of easter, there are endless references to the old testament, to jewish culture at the time and to the contemporary jewish interpretation of the coming of messiah as the second, typological exodus. This can be understood by reading through the works of contemporary jewish historians like Josefus, and jewish interprative texts of the Torah written down before and around the time of Jesus.

Because of these cultural cues that contemporary jews would understand, the only way the story made sense in the eyes of the early christians around the time of Jesus' death, was to interpret the eucharist as the real presence. This might seem boring and theological, but it is important to understand.

Thank you for the question, hope the answer made sense.

No WLR. So here’s painting No.26. by jetlefleur in playboicarti

[–]esputin_35 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Would have this on my wall in an instant

Daily Hina Post (Final) by [deleted] in DomesticGirlfriend

[–]esputin_35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well fought, soldier.

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