Why I'm Not Catholic

[jasJis]

Chris,
I like the fact that you have stated that you don't believe in blindly following other's beliefs. I agree with you 100% that we are to form our own conscience. The Catholic Church agrees with you too. [u][b]BUT[/b][/u] you cannot choose to ignore other facts, logic, and reasonableness when forming your opinion and making a decision of conscience. For your benefit (and dairy's), here is a brief synopsis of what the Church teaches about forming a conscience. It's from the Catechism, which is available on-line. You can use the links in the Reading Room on this site to hook up with it.

[quote]IN BRIEF
1795 "Conscience is man's most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths" (GS 16).
1796 Conscience is a judgment of reason by which the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act.
1797 For the man who has committed evil, the verdict of his conscience remains a pledge of conversion and of hope.
[b]1798 A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. Everyone must avail himself of the means to form his conscience. [/b]
1799 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.
[b]1800 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.
1801 Conscience can remain in ignorance or make erroneous judgments. Such ignorance and errors are not always free of guilt. [/b]
1802 The Word of God is a light for our path. We must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. This is how moral conscience is formed. [/quote]Christ's Peace be with you.

[Chris Zewe]

I don't [i]have[/i] a conscience, though. Thus, God's voice can't echo anywhere.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]Maybe this is something that you can believe what you want until it's later doctrinally developed and defined.[/quote]

I did mean that with some sinerity. But then it was half said out of sarcasm. Don't ask me to explain all that, I'm a girl what do you want from me??

The sincere part came in that I do understand that development is good and anything apart from that is probably evil. Development is good for the Church, I'm just not too sure about it occuring in a legitimate infallible way as occuring in the Catholic Church according to the Catholic Church. (amoung other things I'm not too sure about but those are other threads all together)

The sarcasm came because I don't see a legitimate infallible development occuring in the Catholic Church. Because of words such as what ever pope it was that said that those who die outside of the Catholic Church (in either the general or limited sense.. I will explain if you want) will something to the effect "go to the fire and brimestone prepared by the devil and his angels".

Even though when I typed that statement, I meant it more sincerly than sarcastically, right now I'd go for sarcastic. I know it's double think, but what can you expect, Catholics do it all the time, and as a former Catholic, I know firsthand how I and my fellow RCs did it. Take that infallibe statement about going to the place prepared for the devil or saying that non Catholics cannot be saved and then changing it. You might argue that you could technically develop onto that stuff, but just look at the wording, or look at the Traditionalists who oppose Vatican II. Did RCs drift from the intent or the purposeful ambiguity of the popes who said "no salvation outside of the Catholic Church"? By looking at what was wrote itself, I would think not. That wouldn't even hold up in a court of law because it denied the intent of the law. (but then in our system you could just change the law but let's stay focused)

Maybe the concept of hell or the concept of the Catholic Church is all that matters and everything else is personal beliefs held by the pope? I don't know, it seems fishy trying rationalize it because you can rationalize anything to make them mean things completely different than they originally did. But enough of my ranting.

We're all guilty of double think; I just don't want to make a religion out of it.. (now cue your rants)

Edited July 24, 2004 by dairygirl4u2c

[catholicguy]

Dairy Girl, the Church teaches that there are two pains of Hell: pain of suffering and pain of loss. Your post above asserts that justice is the same as facism. That is completely erroneous. In any event, the Pope's personal opinions are not important. He cannot re-interpret the Church's teaching simply because he wants to. If the Pope ever said something like what you wrote above, he would be wrong and would be contradicting Church teaching. He would be wrong at best and a heretic at worst. This does not change the Church's teaching. You cannot re-interpret the Church's teaching. Those in Hell feel the pain of burning in Hell, the fires of Hell, as well as the pain of loss of God because they are separated from him. What you stated was a Modernist "interpretation" of Church teaching. It is not an interpretation; it is heresy. Those who believe this are wrong at best, heretics at worst. This is not Church teaching. God bless.

[DancesforLove]

:rotfl:
Silly Flowery!

[Sammy Blaze]

[quote name='Chris Zewe' date='Jul 24 2004, 09:37 AM'] I don't [i]have[/i] a conscience, though. Thus, God's voice can't echo anywhere. [/quote]
so not only is my Christian belief wrong.... but my college education as well.... Psychology class my butt!!!

[Chris Zewe]

Eh...

[Quietfire]

[quote]so not only is my Christian belief wrong.... but my college education as well.... Psychology class my butt!!![/quote]

Word

[Theoketos]

Well Chris might be correct in saying that he does not have a conscience, if he he means that he has a really poorly formed conscience. This would means that he does what ever feels good at the time. Is that where you were headed?

[BeenaBobba]

Hi Chris,

Post more, and you'll probably get a sign.

It seems you're quite bitter towards the Church. From your original post, it seems you're not too interested in dialoguing with us here. That said, I'll pray that you'll come around and join in our discussions -- and, hopefully, you'll make a few friends here as well.

God bless,

Jen

[BeenaBobba]

[quote name='Chris Zewe' date='Jul 24 2004, 11:37 AM'] I don't [i]have[/i] a conscience, though. Thus, God's voice can't echo anywhere. [/quote]
You have a conscience. It might be poorly formed, but you definitely have a conscience. Think of the person you love the most in this world. Now, think of him or her being raped and murdered. If you feel even a pang of sadness and injustice at the thought of him or her getting raped and murdered, you have a conscience.

God bless,

Jen

[Guest JeffCR07]

dairygirl, while I sympathize with you in regards to running into a lot of catholics who do not correctly follow or understand the faith, I do not think that is a reflection of the faith itself. Even from an objective standpoint, one must admit that the Catholic Church probably has more enemies than any other faith out there, besides maybe the Falun Gong, and these enemies are both within and without. That, combined with the far too many lukewarm and indifferent catholics, means that it may very well be hard to find the Truth of the Church, which the Holy Father and the bishops who are in communion with him teach.

But that doesn't mean it isn't there, and it doesn't mean it isn't the Truth.

Even if the needle in the haystack is hard to find, it is still there.

The only advice I can give you is to try your hardest to find those people who are orthodox in their beliefs, for they walk the straight path of truth. The theological liberals will try to lead you off somewhere to the left, telling you that the Church's teaching is actually over there. The Traditionalists (especially the radicals) will try to lead you off somewhere to the right, telling you that the Church's teaching is actually over [i]there[/i]. The orthodox catholic will try to take you hand and go for a stroll, and before you know it, you've ended up at the Truth of the Catholic Church. And you've had a nice walk

- Your Brother In Christ, Jeff

[Chris Zewe]

No, see, telling me that you'll pray that I'll post here will just make me even more reluctant to do so.

[Edited by Ice Princess: profanity]

Edited July 25, 2004 by IcePrincessKRS

[jasJis]

[quote name='Chris Zewe' date='Jul 24 2004, 09:37 AM'] I don't [i]have[/i] a conscience, though. Thus, God's voice can't echo anywhere. [/quote]
Your conscience exists and it's real existence is being made evident to me as a poster here in the same manner that the reality of you as a person is being made evident by you posting.

We can deny the obvious, but it doesn't make our denial a truth.

[Quietfire]

I have put alot of thought into responding to this thread again.

It seems as though it isnt a question of questioning the Church as it seems more a questioning of both of your current situations in your own personal lives.

There is alot of dissatisfaction with parents, or understandings.
Chris, you openly show (at least here on this phorum) your dissatisfaction with your parents. Maybe because they do not attend Mass on a regular basis, maybe because they do not practice their faith on a daily basis. Whatever the reason, and only you truly know the reason, I cannot see the correlation between them and the Church. You are judging the whole faith based on their actions, or lack of.

This is far too commonplace today.
Judge a race by the actions of one person, one group of persons.
Judge a country by the actions of one person, one group of persons.
Judge a company by the actions of one person, one group of persons.
Judge a religion by the actions of one person, one group of persons.

Pushing the entire world aside for a moment, removing all other people from your thoughts, I would like to know specifically what your problem with the Church is?

I, for too long, only saw 'sin' in people who claimed to be Catholic. How many would say or do one thing, then do something totally 'wrong' in my book. Or do something that seemed to contradict anything worthy of a christian person. Then have the nerve to go to Mass, receive the eucharist, never went to confession, etc. I figured the entire faith was filled with hipocrites.

This is a big mistake. If all your complaints have to do with things like "my parents", "every Catholic I know", etc, then the problem is not them or the faith, the problem is you. Think about this. Without any anger or resentment, just think about this for a while.
This is something that I had to do myself, and it has lead me not only here but also wanting to be confirmed in the Church.
My problems or reservations were not with the Church, but with those 'lukewarm Catholics' you hear or know about.

I looked into the Wicca thing, but there wasnt one bit of substantiality there for any sane person. Reasoning that all things are created by God, held into existance by God, then it made no sense to worship the very things created by God (again, no substance, for all things created shall pass away) But it made better sense and more understanding to my spirit to worship the very being that created everything.
If God created a tree, then why worship the lifeforce or self of tree? Doesnt it make more sense, locically, to worship the being who created the tree? The tree came from somewhere, therefore not the sapling or the nut or the previous tree did this but going back to the first tree, then where did it come from....God.
Since this logic applies to all things, including you and me, it seemed that the only course is to bow down to the one and only creator.

And, you do have a conscience. Trying to admit otherwise implies you have no sense whatsoever. This is elementary and contrary to all logical forms of thought. If you can think and rationalize, you have a conscience. If you understand the difference between right and wrong, then you have a conscience.
Otherwise, you'd be the type of person to kill another with no remorse, no care at all. I do not sense that from you.
The very fact that many here have sensed an anger within you toward your parents, implies that there is a conscience within you.

If praying for you will cause you to post less, then you fear truth. For many do.
I urge you to do some serious thinking on this. The fact that we will pray for you should be of some comfort that there are people who care about you, who wish you well being, who are concerned for your soul and the condition of your spirit.
I myself will be praying for you also. And I hope this doesnt scare you.

God loves you Chris, He really does. Are you willing to love Him in return?

Peace Brother.