Questions about the Catholic church

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Qwertyuiop' date='Feb 11 2005, 06:25 AM'][quote name='Qwertyuiop']
my beef is with faith rather than catholism.
[/quote]
No, you know what, correct that. I read some threads here about "SSA", as you call it, and if that's defined as sinning, then yeah, I have a beef with catholism.

Q.[/quote]
Although the homosexual inclination (SSA) is not in itself a sin, it is, like all forms of concupiscence, an objective disorder arising from the fall of Adam; and as a consequence, it must be resisted by the power of God's grace.

[jasJis]

Qwertyuiop,
Fair enough. I understand your beef with 'faith'. Your beef is more fundamental.
Faith is the result of philosophy and logic. If you want to discuss thinks from a logical/philosophical direction, that may be better and more fruitful. I too had a HUGE problem with organized religion/faiths even though I grew up as a Catholic from infancy. I came back to Catholicism much later in life from my core beliefs and understandings of logic and philosophy. Faith is often a development of logic and most people need the logic to have any sort of developed faith.

If you would like, let's drop back to your fundamental philosophy of why we exist OR what humans are. Catholics will often tell you that our religion is the Fullness of Christianity. Despite what many people will want to tell you, what that really means is that Catholic theology can deal with every single aspect of philosophy and science and logic at any level or sophistication or simplicity. As far as the same sex thing you see argued about here. Catholic thought on this is rooted on the heirarchy of Truths that all humanity has dignity as persons as individuals and as a society. The logic tree from that fundamental root derives down to answering questions about the 'ideal' role of a person in society while dealing with imperfections and allowing that some imperfections may be genetic or may be societal influence or may be personal choice and how does that reflect human dignity back into society as a whole. It's not a simple question, and simple answers come up short. In other words, Christianity can identify an "optimum" behavior or role for a human, but also can identify where we ALL fall short, but that is not an excuse to not strive for the ideal or a reason to condemn those who are not at the ideal, but it does condemn those who will not try to better themselves either for the sake of human dignity of that person as an individual or the sake of human dignity of that person as a member of a larger organisim (society).

[Phazzan]

Qwertyuiop, I really like your style. :thumb: You come here, full of enthusiasm, eager to learn about the Catholic faith. So you ask a couple open ended questions, then you set about to debunk every reply... albeit unsucessfully.

Keep it up dude!

[rufiokicks]

[quote name='rufiokicks' date='Feb 10 2005, 02:57 PM'] Remind me to talk about Protestantism and the Bible, someone mentioned that. [/quote]
I remeber someone bringing up Protestants and the Bible but I'm too lazy to go find the original quote so I'll just quote myself. I'm so cool. One of the biggest issues Protestants have with the Catholic Church is the differences in our Bibles. Catholics feature books such as Maccabees (sp?) that can't be found in the Protestant Bible. They aren't included because these books were not found in Hebrew or Greek like the other books in the Bible so the Protestants dismissed them while the Catholics embraced them. I'm glad we did too; we finally found the Dead Sea Scrolls which include this books in Hebrew. This is now used by many Catholics as further proof of the ultimate Truth. If you really want to read up on the Catholic faith, I highly recommend a Catechism. The Catholic Cathecism features the Catholic beliefs on [u]many[/u] issues backed by Scripture and scholars. I hope I just pointed out things you maybe didn't know. Sorry if I made you guys read a bunch of stuff you already know...

[Qwertyuiop]

Seeing that the threads about ssa are closed, I won't talk about it anymore, if it's not appropriate.

[quote name='Phazzan']
Qwertyuiop, I really like your style.  You come here, full of enthusiasm, eager to learn about the Catholic faith. So you ask a couple open ended questions, then you set about to debunk every reply... albeit unsucessfully.
[/quote]

Well I didn't come here just to ask what the truth was and then blindly accept that. That would make no sense; you could have said anything. I came here to understand and consider your POV. How could you accept something you didn't understand, anyway?

Oh, and I'm not a dude. And what do you mean unsuccessfully


[quote name='jisJas']
Faith is often a development of logic and most people need the logic to have any sort of developed faith.
[/quote]

Are you supposed to feel God then? Or Grace or something. Is that the way it begins? I mean, where do you draw the conclusions from?

[quote name='jisJas']
If you would like, let's drop back to your fundamental philosophy of why we exist OR what humans are.
[/quote]

The Big Question: why do we exist? I don't know. How could I, I can barely understand what you are all talking about

What you see in humans is the product of evolution. What you don't see is the soul part, which is unknown by definition, I think.

Ha, a lot of I-don't-knows. Only absolute I know is math

Like I said, I guess I'm pretty agnostic.


[quote name='rufiokicks']
Catholics feature books such as Maccabees (sp?) that can't be found in the Protestant Bible.
[/quote]

Catholics have a different Bible? Didn't know that. Interesting.

I'll have a look at that Cathecism.


Q.

[jasJis]

[quote name='Qwertyuiop' date='Feb 11 2005, 04:55 PM'] Are you supposed to feel God then? Or Grace or something. Is that the way it begins? I mean, where do you draw the conclusions from? [/quote]
It's different for different people. I'm more of a Doubting Thomas type person.

Feelings are part, but not neccesary. For me, it's a bit more logical. If you think there might be a God, some intelligent entity that started existence, the first cause of everything, then look around for evidence. Don't just accept other's opinions. Open your mind and don't be afraid of hind-sight. Does it seem possible that more than chance/coincidence certain things are happening or happened in your life that are significant? Is there any evidence that no matter how often you made a bad decision, there is/was always an opportunity to choose again? etc., etc.

[Guest Aluigi]

He didn't start existance. He IS existance.

[Guest Aluigi]

Like I propose in the other thread, this is not about whether God exists or whether God doesn't exist. So long as we both believe in the philosophy that everything DOES exist (and not the idea that we're all just someone else's dream and will go poof when he wakes up or something) then we are rather disagreeing about what the nature of existance is. us saying it is personal, the athiest saying it is impersonal.

[Qwertyuiop]

Hi, [b]Aluigi[/b].

Are you saying that atheism is the same as pantheism?


Q.