Catholic Church recommending that pro-choice

[Guest Brian]

If God knows everything, doesn't that sorta negate free will? I mean, if he knows what you're doing, what you have done, and what you're going to do (because he is an omnipotent being), I'm not an agent of free will. My choices have already been made.

 

From that perspective, we can take an issue like sin. If we don't sin on our own, then sin comes from God. A purely good being, creating something purely evil. There seems to be a contradiction there.

 

Furthermore, the bible's already ordained that sin and evil loses in the end. So what is the fucking point?

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

If God knows everything, doesn't that sorta negate free will? I mean, if he knows what you're doing, what you have done, and what you're going to do (because he is an omnipotent being), I'm not an agent of free will. My choices have already been made.

 

You are talking about predestination. It is not something that every denomination believes in, and I think the Catholic Church is one of them. I don't know for sure though.

 

Furthermore, the bible's already ordained that sin and evil loses in the end. So what is the fucking point?

 

So you don't end up on the losing side.

[Guest MikeSC]

If God knows everything, doesn't that sorta negate free will? I mean, if he knows what you're doing, what you have done, and what you're going to do (because he is an omnipotent being), I'm not an agent of free will. My choices have already been made.

Nope. You always have the choice to NOT do what you were going to do. God gives you the voice that tells you what you should or should not do. It's up to you to follow it. God cannot MAKE you do the right thing.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

If God knows everything, doesn't that sorta negate free will? I mean, if he knows what you're doing, what you have done, and what you're going to do (because he is an omnipotent being), I'm not an agent of free will. My choices have already been made.

Nope. You always have the choice to NOT do what you were going to do. God gives you the voice that tells you what you should or should not do. It's up to you to follow it. God cannot MAKE you do the right thing.

This is what I believe as well.

 

No. Sin is individual, not collective. A nation cannot sin. That's a privilege reserved for a single, solitary human being.

 

Soddom & Gomorrah. Lot wasn't a sinner, hence he was allowed to survive.

[Guest Brian]

But God knows what you're going to do. It's part of being an omnipotent being. So you're not making a choice.

[NoCalMike 0]

Here is a question: Can you be forgiven for your sins from Christ without loving him, but just knowing you have to ask? Stupid question, I know, but lets just say there are things about God you hate, but you still somehow know you HAVE TO ask for his forgiveness, could you in fact do it reluctantly, and still be saved?

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

But God knows what you're going to do. It's part of being an omnipotent being. So you're not making a choice.

You are confusing omnipotence with omniscience. They are not the same thing. Not all Christian sects do believe (in fact, most don't) that God does know what each individual is going to do. We do have choice. Try to think of Him more as a judge who has all the evidence, rather than an oracle, with regards to this.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Here is a question: Can you be forgiven for your sins from Christ without loving him, but just knowing you have to ask?  Stupid question, I know, but lets just say there are things about God you hate, but you still somehow know you HAVE TO ask for his forgiveness, could you in fact do it reluctantly, and still be saved?

Well, that's not really asking for forgiveness, is it? You can't receive forgiveness unless you are sorry for what you did.

[chaosrage 0]

Nope. You always have the choice to NOT do what you were going to do. God gives you the voice that tells you what you should or should not do. It's up to you to follow it. God cannot MAKE you do the right thing.

He doesn't MAKE us choose, but if he knows everything, then he already knows the outcome. As such, we wouldn't have a choice, because the outcome was determined before we had a choice to make. There would just be an illusion of free-will.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Nope. You always have the choice to NOT do what you were going to do. God gives you the voice that tells you what you should or should not do. It's up to you to follow it. God cannot MAKE you do the right thing.

He doesn't MAKE us choose, but if he knows everything, then he already knows the outcome. As such, we wouldn't have a choice, because the outcome was determined before we had a choice to make. There would just be an illusion of free-will.

He doesn't know everything. He knows everything that has happened, everything that is happening, but not everything that will happen, at least according to most Christian religions. There certainly are denominations out there that believe in the opposite and this issue was a big cause for some of the schisms in Chuch history. Try to understand that Christianity is not unified, and this is one of the big issues that seperate the different denominations.

[Guest MikeSC]

But God knows what you're going to do. It's part of being an omnipotent being. So you're not making a choice.

God offers you different paths. You decide which one to take. God can't lead you to the "right one". He CAN see the future --- but, according to most faiths, he does not do so.

-=Mike

[chaosrage 0]

He doesn't know everything.

Well, I said if. A lot of christians do think he knows everything. I can't remember if it said in the bible or not.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

He doesn't know everything.

Well, I said if. A lot of christians do think he knows everything. I can't remember if it said in the bible or not.

Paul might have mentioned something in one of his letters to the Corinthians. I don't know. He wouldn't know for sure anyways.

 

I doubt there is anything concrete, because like I said, it is a major dividing point among Christians.

[NoCalMike 0]

Here is a question: Can you be forgiven for your sins from Christ without loving him, but just knowing you have to ask?  Stupid question, I know, but lets just say there are things about God you hate, but you still somehow know you HAVE TO ask for his forgiveness, could you in fact do it reluctantly, and still be saved?

Well, that's not really asking for forgiveness, is it? You can't receive forgiveness unless you are sorry for what you did.

No, you can forgive the people to which you have comitted the sin against. For example if you stole something or beat someone up. However I guess that would be a LOT of forgiving, one by one, LOL. But you can be genuinely remourseful and still have a problem with it.

[Spicy McHaggis 0]

Marney, I think you've clearly shown the ineffectiveness of most non-Catholic Christian "Bible is my only guide" philosophies.

[Guest Goodear]

I never understood the point of studying the bible as a historical document where two people actually named Adam and Eve eat from an apple and sinned and such and such. No sir, to me the bible (specifically the Old Testement) is series of stories that try to bundle together a morality under a bunch of fables like the ones Jesus would tell all the time when he was doing the prophet thing. Surely no one was really around when God created everything yet there is a biblical time lime for a such a thing. And AMAZINGLY enough it happened in just about the simplist to understand time frame imaginable.

 

Anyway I refuse to believe that God would damn or send to purgatory a little Hindu baby that died a day into his or her life because they weren't baptised or some such. No sir, God just wants us to love each other and I'm sticking to that philosphy.

[Firestarter 0]

Thanks, Spicy.

 

I'm not trying to attack everyone who doesn't share my religion in a broad-based way, or claim that they're all following false doctrines and are thus damned to hell (as some evangelicals might - not to name names) - I'm just trying to show that honest theological debate isn't a simplistic, irreducible matter of faith. It really does matter if the Bible contradicts itself. It matters if it appears to say that God commits horrific genocides one minute, and commands you to turn the other cheek the next. You can't dismiss it by saying "He must have been right to kill all those people because he can't be wrong." It's not that easy. Some acts can't be justified; it doesn't matter if you're God or a short Austrian painter.

 

If you posit that

1. God committed genocide (because the Bible is the inerrant word of God), and

2. God is always right (because he's God, and God can't be wrong)

 

then you are nothing more or less than an apologist for a mass murderer. Frankly, if a Christian attempts to reconcile such cowardice and degenerate evil with a megalomaniacal view of himself as "Christ's ambassador," he ought to be recalled. Such hypocrisy is bad for public relations.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I never understood the point of studying the bible as a historical document where two people actually named Adam and Eve eat from an apple and sinned and such and such. No sir, to me the bible (specifically the Old Testement) is series of stories that try to bundle together a morality under a bunch of fables like the ones Jesus would tell all the time when he was doing the prophet thing. Surely no one was really around when God created everything yet there is a biblical time lime for a such a thing. And AMAZINGLY enough it happened in just about the simplist to understand time frame imaginable.

 

Anyway I refuse to believe that God would damn or send to purgatory a little Hindu baby that died a day into his or her life because they weren't baptised or some such. No sir, God just wants us to love each other and I'm sticking to that philosphy.

From a historical point of view, the earlier books (notably Genesis & Exodus) are treated similar to that of the Greek myths and so on. Ie. Something happened that served as a basis for the myth and then the Hebrews took over from there. There is no proof of the Garden of Eden, but there certainly was massive flooding 5000 years ago during the hypsithermal (the warmest point of the Holocene, the epoch we currently live in and roughly the mid-point of the interglacial). We know this from geologic records. Was it worldwide? No, of course not. There isn't enough water on the planet. The Great Flood isn't only mentioned in the Bible, pretty much all Middle Eastern cultures (and the Egyptians) have flood myths from this time as well. The Exodus is being studied now, and although the timeframe is argued quite a bit (the most accepted is during the reign of Ramses II) most historians agree that it did occur, just in a different way that is portrayed in the Bible.

 

The later stuff, such as Kings, is considered to be more accurate, and when we say about the Bible as a historical document, that is usually the part we are referring too. Much of what happens in the Bible, like the Babylonian Captivity, can be verified from other sources.

[EricMM 0]

I guess this all goes back to whether or not one believes in original sin, or the no-errors nature of the good book.

 

I for one disagree w/ both of those.

 

 

 

Oh and Marney, weren't you calling God 'her' for a while? What happened to going down on God???

[Firestarter 0]

I can't imagine a woman demanding innocents be slaughtered in her name.

[Guest Brian]

Bless yee, Marney.

[Ripper 0]

I can't imagine a woman demanding innocents be slaughtered in her name.

Shiiiiiitt. How often did you date before you got hitched.

 

 

Sounds like a woman to me.

[Dr. Tom 0]

Wrong. The Church Hierarchy has kicked out the Priests responsible and is using commitees of lay people to look into records of priests who have been accused in the past. In my diocese alone 4 priests have been placed under investigation.

This is what should have happened:

 

The entire Church hierarchy, from the Pope to the College of Cardinals, to the individual archbishops and bishops, should have unequivocally condemned these men. The pedophile priests should have then been excommunicated and left for the police and the court system. Investigations should have been launched into how far up the chain knowledge of these activies went -- there were cases where problem priests were shuffled around, their activities known by their superiors. If a bishop, archbishop, cardinal, or even the Pope, had a hand in covering anything up, those people should have suffered the same fate. Then the Church should have enacted a policy that there will be ZERO tolerance for this type of aberrant behavior.

 

Instead, you have some fellows who are "under investigation." Tremendous.

 

Some priests were expelled, yes. More were simply shuffled around again. "Three tykes and you're out" took the place of zero tolerance. A lot of lip service was paid, and a lot of hands were wrung, but in the end, the actions taken were wholly lacking. The Church should be ashamed of itself.

 

The clergy IS trying to make good on it's mistakes.

Their efforts so far appear to be half-hearted and lacking.