The Kitty's Den

[mymistake]

Hey CK, I got a hypothetical question for you. I'm curious to hear your opinion. Imagine that say 20 years from now or so there is a new Pope and one of his first decisions is to declare that priests are allowed to have a wife. If such a ruling came from a new Pope would the RCC accept it? Would the RCC be able to implement it?

 

Then as if that is not bad enough (or good enough) what if that new Pope went further and declared that certain contraceptive methods are acceptable between a husband and wife?

[Denyoz]

Hey C-Kitty, thank you for your reply. Your answers are basically what I was raised to believe:

 

1- God is Love

2- God loves us

3- God fully manifests his love in the afterlife (heaven)

4- God is impersonal

5- Things will get better

 

I remember the problem I had with this perception of reality. If happiness is to be in God's presence, and he's not really present now, then we are just waiting to die and looking forward to the afterlife. Life on earth is insignificant. Do your best not to sin and you'll be alright. Endure and wait. Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, or if you're educated or not. Boring.

 

My father was a hard-working man, and he spent his whole life looking forward to heaven. He never really showed much interest for anything in this life. Everything was stupid to him. He died in 2004, he was 63. I'm sure he was happy to die and that he didn't resist death. To me, this could not be right. This was one of the reasons I was dedicated to finding God now, in this life. Otherwise, I would spend my life looking forward to death. It equals being suicidal. It didn't make sense.

 

I prefer not believing in God, then I can focus on this life and live to the fullest.

[CatholiKitty]

Hey C-Kitty, thank you for your reply. Your answers are basically what I was raised to believe:

 

1- God is Love

2- God loves us

3- God fully manifests his love in the afterlife (heaven)

4- God is impersonal

5- Things will get better

 

Because you asked for them earlier, here are the official-ish Catholic Church answers:

 

1) God is Love.

2) God Loves us.

3) The love is manifested though the afterlife and things like forgiveness and graces and other intangible things.

4) God is not very personal, but grants us spiritual gifts

5) Good people go to heaven regardless of faith.

 

I remember the problem I had with this perception of reality. If happiness is to be in God's presence, and he's not really present now, then we are just waiting to die and looking forward to the afterlife. Life on earth is insignificant. Do your best not to sin and you'll be alright. Endure and wait. Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, or if you're educated or not. Boring.

 

My father was a hard-working man, and he spent his whole life looking forward to heaven. He never really showed much interest for anything in this life. Everything was stupid to him. He died in 2004, he was 63. I'm sure he was happy to die and that he didn't resist death. To me, this could not be right. This was one of the reasons I was dedicated to finding God now, in this life. Otherwise, I would spend my life looking forward to death. It equals being suicidal. It didn't make sense.

 

I wouldn't go as far as suicide, but I have noticed strong death-worshipping trends in a faith that's supposed to be life-affirming. I think this idea (and others, like Justice and Atonement theories) come from back in the dark ages. The peasantry didn't have much going for them in this life, but they were promised happiness if they worked hard and kept the faith. Happiness to them became doing "God's" will until their souls were freed from their dirt-farming existence. Like any idea held by the RCC, this one stuck around centuries longer than it should have.

 

These days, we have a large middle class and ways of thinking inspired by Enlightenment ideals. There are so many people now with both the resources to do good things and social concepts that enable them to consider doing good. I feel that my particular beliefs address this somewhat, giving a process of goodness that one can be a part of and holding to the idea that everything comes from God so everything has some inherent value. Also, degrees of happiness (significant ones, even) are obtainable in this life. My beliefs don't provide any personal incentive for doing good things, but good should be done for its own sake. (Good goodness, I used "good" a lot in that little paragraph.)

 

I prefer not believing in God, then I can focus on this life and live to the fullest.

 

I prefer to believe for more-or-less the same reasons. I wish you a full and happy life, Denyoz.

[Denyoz]

I prefer to believe for more-or-less the same reasons. I wish you a full and happy life, Denyoz.

 

Thank you C-Kitty (I feel like I'm talking to my cat. But he's a smart kitty, like you)

 

I said I prefer not to believe and I am surprised I said that. I guess the God you believe in is not the typical bible-god. It's easy to believe in a God like yours, but then it has little or nothing to do with "accepting Jesus as a personal savior" which so many believe is what being Christian is all about.

 

So I'm probably still catholic deep down, but then according to the Catholic Church, everyone is catholic. The word catholic means universal, so there you go. You can't exclude yourself from something that is all-encompassing. They got it pretty well figures out. No wonder the Pope is so pompous ha-ha!

 

I feel that my particular beliefs address this somewhat, giving a process of goodness that one can be a part of and holding to the idea that everything comes from God so everything has some inherent value. Also, degrees of happiness (significant ones, even) are obtainable in this life. My beliefs don't provide any personal incentive for doing good things, but good should be done for its own sake.

 

This is interesting. Ever since I lost my faith, I always feel that being good is kind of useless, but being bad is risky, so I'm left with being neutral which is boring. If a God exists and he is good, then you can feel like you are "acting like god, or god is working through you" when you do good. It gives you a sense of importance, it gives value to your life. I can see the advantages of believing this.

 

Who would have thought that joining an ex-christian website would rekindle my faith. You're a bad kitty, CatholiKitty!

 

Hey, "kindle" is a collective term for a group of kittens. Cool.

 

Now let's play Skyrim.

[♦ ficino ♦]

This is interesting. Ever since I lost my faith, I always feel that being good is kind of useless, but being bad is risky, so I'm left with being neutral which is boring. If a God exists and he is good, then you can feel like you are "acting like god, or god is working through you" when you do good. It gives you a sense of importance, it gives value to your life. I can see the advantages of believing this.

 

 

Doesn't "being good" enhance your life in ways that simply being neutral do not? Like the difference between loving someone vs. just leaving that person alone? Of course it's a big question what "good" is and entails... Anyway, I don't feel any need for hypotheses about God to give a sense of importance and value, because it seems that those hypotheses bump the search for meaning up to a higher level. But what about dropping the question about the meaning of life as a pseudo-question and just living the best, most harmonious life?

[Denyoz]

Doesn't "being good" enhance your life in ways that simply being neutral do not? Like the difference between loving someone vs. just leaving that person alone? Of course it's a big question what "good" is and entails... Anyway, I don't feel any need for hypotheses about God to give a sense of importance and value, because it seems that those hypotheses bump the search for meaning up to a higher level. But what about dropping the question about the meaning of life as a pseudo-question and just living the best, most harmonious life?

 

Hi ficino,

 

You ask interesting questions. I'm asking myself these questions right now. When my spiritual plug was pulled, everything went out: faith, love, hope, meaning. Now I feel that my life is empty and realize I threw away the baby along with the water. I guess I want my baby back, but the smell of the water makes me puke, so the challenge is to get back the "good" stuff and not the bad, and to know the difference between the two.

 

The word "good" to me looks and sounds too much like god, and I don't like it. All my life, good was defined as "not sinning" and "being a servant to all." If it's not that, then what is it? When I meet someone, I'm faced with choices: I can compliment the person, or not compliment the person, be very polite or not so polite, show interest or not show interest, you know what I mean? If my purpose is to "enhance" my life experience, there are many ways to do that, good or bad. I can say to the person "You're ugly and stupid!" and watch his reaction, and find it entertaining, and then talk about it to entertain others at parties.

 

Maybe I'm influenced by role-playing video games. In Skyrim, you control your character in an open world that looks much like the real world. You can help people or ignore them or hurt them or kill them. Ignoring them is the least interesting. I'm experimenting at whether it's more fun to help them or to hurt them. I noticed that whatever you do, sometime it turns to your advantage and sometime it doesn't, and it's not based on being good or bad, the game is not biased toward good. And I wonder if it's the same in real life. We think being good is more advantageous, religion certainly teaches that, but is it? Most big corporations that make millions do a lot of damage, and they are considered successful. Makes you wonder. There are many happy criminals in the world.

 

The problem is you can't encourage criminal activity. It's in the guidelines of all public forums. We keep our mouths shut when it come to "being bad". Everyone is forced to encourage "good" behaviour. The solution, in video games anyway, is to join a criminal organization. The same is probably also true in real life. In fact, I would consider many of those big corporations as criminal organizations. Even government. Taxing the people is nothing more then stealing their money legally.

 

Enough said

[CatholiKitty]

UPDATE: You can tell it's dramatic because of the caps....

1) Work is getting serious for the first time in... half a year about, so I can't spend that time on posts anymore.

2) I'm working on moving myself and my out-of-state friend into an apartment together over the next two weeks, and I'll have no internet access for a good portion of that period.

3) This is all terrible timing.

 

Why you may possible care:

I won't be able to answer questions much (unless I find time in the next two evenings), and I already have three question posts and some follow-ups to reply to. If nothing else, I'll print out whatever has been posted here by Thursday and work on it during my trip to/from Dallas. I wish everyone the best.

[CatholiKitty]

AND THEN I GOT SICK. And then my office moved.

 

Sorry for the wait. I hope that I won't let things go on this long again.

Most of the following was written late at night and may show some sleep deprivation. Please ask me to clarify and/or expand upon anything you still have questions about.

[CatholiKitty]

And a "Meow" to you too, Sir!

 

Hello Catholikitty,

 

I know there is a range among Catholics of how literally they believe the Bible. I don't think there are many literalists as there are among Protestant fundies. Can you talk about what Catholics commit themselves to if they are "orthodox" about Scripture? Bible contradictions are worrisome to fundies, but Catholics seem to shrug them off because they get their beliefs from the church's magisterium, not directly from the Bible. Still, it seems to me that contradictions on matters of fact in the bible should be a concern to Catholics, since a) the church holds that the bible is inerrant in some sense, right? and if the bible can err in some assertions, then it can err in others, and ultimately where does the individual believer draw the line? Just saying "Rome has spoken, the topic is closed" is really no more satisfying than saying "the bible says it, I believe, that settles it." Or is it? Stuff like Ray Brown's books about the infancy narratives go pretty far down the path of genre argumentation, so maybe that's an "out" for enlightened, scholarly Catholics who still want to adhere to all the church's teachings.

 

As far as I can tell, "orthodox" can change from time to time. Then teachers and priests had been taught in previous decades and don't always get or follow the updates, so it can be kind of hard to pin down orthodox. I can tell you what I got from my fairly liberal Catholic education, though; orthodox shouldn't be too far off from there:

 

Old Testament: A lot of it makes for good stories. Starting with Abraham, it gets historical but with widely varying accuracy. There's bits of wisdom to be found throughout mostly with the prophets and the wisdom books.

 

Gospel: Jesus mostly did/said all the things written in the four gospels, but none of the gospels are an entirely accurate description of his life.

 

Rest of the New Testament: Acts more-or-less happened. The messages in the letters are important; they're actually directed at Christian churches, so they're pretty much only secondary to the Gospel messages. Revelations was an allegory, but there will be an end of the world of some kind.

 

I feel like, as a Catholic, it's good to know the scripture, but the actual beliefs come more directly from Tradition and the official interpretation of the scriptures.

 

Contradictions... I'll try to explain the RCC's view of scripture.

First, the bible is inerrant when it comes to principles/message, but the actually language is limited and open to copy and translation errors. Catholics roll their eyes at christians that interpret the bible literally.

Catholics do have a literal sense for understanding the bible, but that's about understanding the authors' time, culture, audience, intent, etc. There is also a spiritual sense that deals with how parts have relations to Christ, eternal significance, and moral teachings.

Scientific and historical contractions just don't apply. Moral contradictions are mostly resolved by lessening the significance of the Old Testament.

 

This is mostly (and officially) left to people that have gone through seminary training. A lot of it of course boils down to "Rome says this", but an interested Catholic can find the reasons for various doctrines, and with 1.5 millennia of practice, there is some interesting theology. A more independent Catholic can look at the reasoning and decide how he/she feels about a particular doctrine.

 

Especially after all the time you had to wait, I feel like I haven't really provided a satisfying answer. The thing is, the bible is just a part of what goes into Catholic doctrine and thought; trying to pull out just the bible parts gets a bit messy.

[CatholiKitty]

If anyone has a question about Catholic beliefs/practices/doctrine, I'll do my best to answer them. Questions about my personal beliefs and experiences are acceptable, but I may not answer some.

 

Being that this is in the Lion's Den, it's fine to post comments, rants, accusations, etc,. Please don't expect a reply unless there's an explicit question(s) at the end of post.

 

I suppose that, to a large degree, I'm doing this out of curiosity. I'm interested in knowing what people will ask and comment on regarding the subject. I also hope to clear up a misconception or two I've noticed while browsing the forum; I think everyone here agrees that knowledge is better than ignorance.

 

Yeah...saw the funniest photo the other day of the Pope with his huge miter and HUGE GOLD CROSS staff deal. The caption read....

 

"YOU PRAY FOR ALL THE STARVING CHILDREN AND I'LL HOLD THIS HUGE GOLD CROSS."

 

I almost wet my drawers!!!!

 

So the question at the end of my post is this...... WHY WOULD ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND GIVE A FUCKING FARTHING TO A FOR PROFIT BUSINESS THAT TRAFFICS IN LITTLE BOYS ASSES AND HANDMADE RED ITALIAN LOAFERS ALL THE WHILE REASSURING THEMSELVES THAT THEY ARE ON THE PATH TO "HEAVEN"?

 

*** Former Southern Baptist turned Catholic when mom married a Papist, then saw the light about Catholics on a trip to visit The Daughter's of St. Paul during college, but continued on, deluded as a "real Christian" until about six months ago when the LIGHT came on, and here I am***

 

Heya. I don't tithe, so I can't really fully answer why someone would tithe, but I'll try and provide what insight I might have.

 

I’d like to state before I start that the Church was not trafficking little boys. I'm certainly not saying that what did happen was any better, but it wasn't trafficking.

 

Possible reasons for tithing: Sense of obligation; they like some of the Church's better works; they just feel that they are supposed to; tax deductions?; to help with a specific

 

project; It's what people do; bible, something, tithing..; It's something you do as a Catholic.

 

Possible reasons tithers seems to ignore the bad stuff: Not part of their personal experience (it feels removed from the church they grew up with); they feel that the bad stuff is

 

only a smaller fraction of the church, not representing the whole; consider the more ostentatious objects to be old wealth and/or currently priceless; it's still god's church even

 

if some members of it have done wrong; some might just not think about it.

 

I'm sure that there are more reasons for both lists, but I think this gets the general idea across.

[CatholiKitty]

Hey CK, I got a hypothetical question for you. I'm curious to hear your opinion. Imagine that say 20 years from now or so there is a new Pope and one of his first decisions is to declare that priests are allowed to have a wife. If such a ruling came from a new Pope would the RCC accept it? Would the RCC be able to implement it?

 

Then as if that is not bad enough (or good enough) what if that new Pope went further and declared that certain contraceptive methods are acceptable between a husband and wife?

 

Hello and thanks for the question. I enjoy reading your posts in the forum.

 

Typically, as far as I know, the pope can only make declarations on issues of faith and morals. Clerical celibacy is more of an institutional policy and falls under the Code of Canon Law, not the Catechism. There have even been exceptions made when married Anglican priests convert to Catholicism.

 

It's generally accepted that the policy can be changed but is unlikely to be.

 

There is some talk about this, and I'm split on the issue. On one hand, it would make things easier on the clergy and possible bolter their numbers; priests coming from Europe and the US are in decline. On the other, I hear almost nothing good about the spouses of clergy, especially from this site, and being tied to a priest’s livelihood

 

 

Contraception is considered to be a moral issue and is discussed in the Catechism. Basically, any contraception that isn't the "rhythm method" is considered evil. I see a few ideas going into this doctrine: complementarity of the sexes (I hate this one); outdated views of the sexual process; an idea that sex is a "gift" from god for the purpose of creating children. In high school, a religion teacher told us that the Church admitted that sex is also for the pleasure of couples, but child-creation can't be pushed aside just to enjoy the pleasurable aspects.

 

The doctrine has been clearly stated by a very important ecumenical council, and is (should be) infallible. That said, there's always a way to talk around things, and I hold out hope that the Catholic Church will someday accept the useful and sometimes-disease-preventing modern contraceptives.

 

Technically, the pope can't make a declaration, at least not an infallible one, that goes against existing infallible doctrine. Again, though, if a pope is competent and persistent, some kind of work-around may be found.

[CatholiKitty]

I prefer to believe for more-or-less the same reasons. I wish you a full and happy life, Denyoz.

 

Thank you C-Kitty (I feel like I'm talking to my cat. But he's a smart kitty, like you)

 

I said I prefer not to believe and I am surprised I said that. I guess the God you believe in is not the typical bible-god. It's easy to believe in a God like yours, but then it has little or nothing to do with "accepting Jesus as a personal savior" which so many believe is what being Christian is all about.

 

So I'm probably still catholic deep down, but then according to the Catholic Church, everyone is catholic. The word catholic means universal, so there you go. You can't exclude yourself from something that is all-encompassing. They got it pretty well figures out. No wonder the Pope is so pompous ha-ha!

 

I feel that my particular beliefs address this somewhat, giving a process of goodness that one can be a part of and holding to the idea that everything comes from God so everything has some inherent value. Also, degrees of happiness (significant ones, even) are obtainable in this life. My beliefs don't provide any personal incentive for doing good things, but good should be done for its own sake.

 

This is interesting. Ever since I lost my faith, I always feel that being good is kind of useless, but being bad is risky, so I'm left with being neutral which is boring. If a God exists and he is good, then you can feel like you are "acting like god, or god is working through you" when you do good. It gives you a sense of importance, it gives value to your life. I can see the advantages of believing this.

 

Who would have thought that joining an ex-christian website would rekindle my faith. You're a bad kitty, CatholiKitty!

 

Hey, "kindle" is a collective term for a group of kittens. Cool.

 

Now let's play Skyrim.

 

Haha, nice one with the "kindle" thing. I didn't even know that.

Don't say the rekindling thing too loudly, heh, but I should be safe if you stop at Deism. Actually, through answering your questions, I've realized that I theologically lean more towards Deism than Christianity. Catholicism is just something like my preferred flavor of Deism.

 

I wish I had time for something like Skyrim right now.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Thanks for your views about the Catholic take on sciptural problems. It's consistent with what I thought and what I was exposed to as a Catholic. I remember a priest's giving me a book (w/ imprimatur) on scripture that said that the Exodus did not occur as presented in Exodus - that it's basically a "saga" and not history as we think of history. My priest (different priest, diff. conversation) said that the historicity of the resurrection is non-negotiable but a lot of other stuff in the Bible has to be taken through lenses of genre, etc. So contradictions and historical inaccuracy aren't seen as a problem.

[CatholiKitty]

Thanks for your views about the Catholic take on sciptural problems. It's consistent with what I thought and what I was exposed to as a Catholic. I remember a priest's giving me a book (w/ imprimatur) on scripture that said that the Exodus did not occur as presented in Exodus - that it's basically a "saga" and not history as we think of history. My priest (different priest, diff. conversation) said that the historicity of the resurrection is non-negotiable but a lot of other stuff in the Bible has to be taken through lenses of genre, etc. So contradictions and historical inaccuracy aren't seen as a problem.

 

You are quite welcome. I'm actually glad to hear that there is consistency with this outside of my local area.

[★ Citsonga ★]

Greetings, CatholiKitty.

 

2) The saints thing is walking a thin line. We don't technically pray to the saints (or at least we're not supposed to). We ask the saints to pray for us on our behalf basically because they're closer to God. It gets muddled further because each saint has a realm that he relates to. (Maybe they hear better when you talk about something they care about?) The whole system is really a hold over from the convert-the-pagan days when we needed substitutes for heroes and demigods.

 

This reminds me of an event I was at last year. Pennsylvania Nonbelievers invited a Catholic Bishop from Harrisburg to speak and answer some questions, which he agreed to do. He was courteous enough, but he dodged some of the questions. I submitted one of the questions that he was asked, and it was based on the topic of asking the saints to pray for us (I had been to a Christening recently and was surprised at how long they kept reciting "pray for us" after various saints' names), but it really applies to the larger topic of praying for others. I don't remember the exact way I worded it, but it was something like this:

 

What is the point in asking saints to pray for us? Does God need coerced to help his followers?

 

In reply, the Bishop rambled on about what the saints mean to the church and something about intercession, but he never once addressed the real point of the question. How do the saints' prayers affect God's interaction with his followers? Would God really not help his followers without people other than those followers praying for them? I mean, surely a prayer would not inform an all-knowing God of something, nor would it empower an all-powerful God to do something he could not have otherwise done, which in turn leaves only the option of God choosing not to help someone (at least in the same amount) without the involvement of someone else in prayer. Yet, how can this be? Is the Catholic God not all-loving? Is the Catholic God more concerned about how much adulation he gets than about the needs of his creation?

 

->True Christians: There is no True Christian. We're all just trying to get it right and hoping for the best.

 

Well said. That's a great approach to the subject.