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So, I wasn't incorrect, you just don't like the fact that I mentioned hell and judgement without reference to salvation?

Fair enough. It's also there, I nebet intended to pretend it was not. We could have come to this quite awhile ago if instead of just saying, "you obviously don't know what you're talking about" and instead answering me directly a while back.

 jasper76 wrote:
I don't have any reason to believe you know more about Catholic teaching than I do, beyond your blanket assertions that it is so.

You've made one clear assertion ITT about how you think the catechism should be used. I told you that was incorrect and explained why. You went to the catechism and found the same explanation there as I already gave you.

You then said that you would use it the wrong way anyhow and that you think the book is more reliable than some Catholic telling you things but unfortunately here is an instance where what it says in the book and what the Catholic guy told you are the same thing. So the truth is that you don't care what I say, you don't care what the book says, you only care about what you thought before this conversation happened.

 jasper76 wrote:
So, I wasn't incorrect, you just don't like the fact that I mentioned hell and judgement without reference to salvation?

That's not the only thing I don't like (how could you think so, read any of my posts) but it is fair to that comment is a good example of your disregard of context in favor of your pre-committed position.

I understand your opinion that the Catecism should not be used as a reference for non-Christians. I just don't agree with it.

There is no better document available as a reference for Catholic teachings, end of story.

As I said, it I'd more reliable than Catholics in general, because Catholics in general reject many of the teachings of the Catholic Church.


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Damn dude....you asked me why I thought 'sin' was immoral, and I answered. I didn't leave out Jesus to be dishonest, I didn't mention him because he is not relevant to why I personally think 'sin' is an immoral concept.

 jasper76 wrote:
I understand your opinion that the Catecism should not be used as a reference for non-Christians.

First, that is not my opinion. It can be used as a reference by non-Christians. In that context, it can be used to reference the catechetical framework bishops may use when teaching the faith.

The catechism is NOT a rule book for Catholics. By the way, that is also not an opinion; it is a fact as disclosed by the document itself in words you have already quoted ITT.

 jasper76 wrote:
Damn dude....you asked me why I thought 'sin' was immoral, and I answered. I didn't leave out Jesus to be dishonest, I didn't mention him because he is not relevant to why I personally think 'sin' is an immoral concept.

You can't really leave out Jesus when you talk about the Christian concept of sin. I mean, you can -- and you did -- but it just amounts to showing your own bias/ignorance.

Well that's good. I'm not interested in a rulebook, I'm interested in a reference of Catholic teachings.


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Ok, except my opinion on why sin is an immoral concept really have nothing to do with Jesus at all. You asked for my opinion, remember?

 jasper76 wrote:
I'm not interested in a rulebook, I'm interested in a reference of Catholic teachings.

Great. When you reference those teachings, please keep in mind the bibliographical notes and then you can go learn about the relevant documents and the time periods they are from and what was going on in the world back then and so on. You still won't be using the catechism for its intended purpose but that's the closest you're going to get -- using it as a starting point for further research.

 jasper76 wrote:
Ok, except my opinion on why sin is an immoral concept really have nothing to do with Jesus at all. You asked for my opinion, remember?

Here's what I asked:

 Manchu wrote:
what specifically do you think is immoral about the Catholic understanding of sin and why?

The reason I asked is because you wanted me to tell you (by guessing) what you had wrong about Catholicism. You answered a question about the Catholic understanding of sin without reference to Jesus. Now you say that the answer has nothing to do with Jesus at all.

So is it clear to you yet that your opinion has nothing to with Catholicism at all?

Well, if you had ulterior motives for the question, perhaps it would have been better just to ask me what you really wanted to know.

In any case, I do find the doctrine of 'sin' to be immoral, both with and without regard to salvation. That is the only reason I did not mention Jesus...because he is irrelevant to why I think 'sin' is immoral. That may not be the question you wanted an answer for, but that is the question you asked.

 jasper76 wrote:
Well, if you had ulterior motives for the question, perhaps it would have been better just to ask me what you really wanted to know.

Again -- you asked me to tell you what you didn't know about Catholicsm. How was I supposed to do that considering you had not explained anything about Catholicism at that time? Now you have made some statements about sin and some statements about the catechism. It's all been incorrect so you are 0 for 2.

 jasper76 wrote:
That is the only reason I did not mention Jesus...because he is irrelevant to why I think 'sin' is immoral. That may not be the question you wanted an answer for, but that is the question you asked.

No it's not. I asked you what you thought was immoral about the Catholic understanding of sin and at the very center of that understanding is Jesus and the topic of salvation.

As to your question, no. My opinion is still relevant to Catholicism (and other Christian sects as well). I believe that introducing the very concept of eternal torture to children, and even to impressionable adults, is immoral. The reasons should be obvious. It is immoral if Jesus died for our 'sins'. It would be immoral if salavation did not even enter into the mythology.

 jasper76 wrote:
I believe that introducing the very concept of eternal torture to children, and even to impressionable adults, is immoral. The reasons should be obvious.

The reasons are not obvious. But that is the trouble with you, you are always assuming everything you believe is obvious.

I can agree that willfully upsetting children for its own sake is immoral. I mean, that's just torture. But teaching about hell is not that. Whatever the secular mythological image of hell might entail, the theological point of hell (taken strictly apart from salvation) is to communicate the idea that immoral actions can have permanent consequences.

But really hell is most important theologically because it is the answer to what we are saved from. Again, you can dress it up in pitchforks and lakes of lava but the theological point of hell is nothing to do with all that. Rather, hell is death -- the nonexistence of the person, infinite distance from God, the fear that suffering in life is meaningless, the anguish that there is no justice in the world. Sin and hell cannot really be understood outside of the context of salvation.

OK, I will spell it out. The threat of eternal torture is used in the indoctrination process as a method of psychological control, as is the concept of a constant overseer. A child is less likely to disbelieve something, even something they can't even see, if there is a horrible threat held over their head if they do not believe. Threats don't get more horrible than eternal

I don't believe parents who teach their kids about sin and hell are intentionally abusive, but I do believe it is abusive behavior.

Sin and hell are not supposed to be used to psychologically manipulate people into subservience.

Doing so would be an abuse of the concepts as well as an abuse of the people.

I am not saying they are intentionally used that way.

I am saying the very concepts themselves are inherently pyschologically manipulative, and this is why I believe they are immoral. It's nothing to do with the people who believe them. It's the concepts themselves.

At least I think you now understand my opinion.

 jasper76 wrote:
I am saying the very concepts themselves are inherently pyschologically manipulative, and this is why I believe they are immoral.

They really are not. I mean -- your concept of God as a Peeping Tom keeping a record of everything you do to justify torturing you later -- yeah that is messed up. Fortunately, that has nothing to do with Catholicism.

It is not my concept. Hell as eternal punishment for 'sin' (offense to God). God as an omniscient overseer. These are mainstream Christian and Catholic concepts. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

I don't even think any of it's real for Pete's sake!

I'm very sorry if sin and hell were taught to you without the context of salvation and Jesus dying for the sins of the world and were instead used as a means to get you to behave. That sounds terrible. It's a shameful bastardization of scripture, too.

I wasn't raised that way. My Catholic experience occurred in the left wing of the US church. Hippies and so forth....it was all peace and love. Think Jesus Christ Superstar. I didn't really know what the Catholic Church taught on issues like hell (even abortion) until I was about 14 iirc, and I was already a non-believer well before that.

 jasper76 wrote:
It is not my concept. Hell as eternal punishment for 'sin' (offense to God). God as an omniscient overseer. These are mainstream Christian and Catholic concepts.

The omniscience of God is not the same as God recording everything you do to justify torturing you. The notions of hell and sin are not the same as psychologically conditioning people to obey religious authority. I can't see how you have the gall to talk about being disingenuous while making these kinds of false equivalencies.

 jasper76 wrote:
I wasn't raised that way. My Catholic experience occurred in the left wing of the US church. Hippies and so forth....it was all peace and love. Think Jesus Christ Superstar. I didn't really know what the Catholic Church taught on issues like hell (even abortion) until I was about 14 iirc, and I was already a non-believer well before that.

That..ehhh....that really doesnt sound like you were raised catholic at all then......

 cincydooley wrote:

 Manchu wrote:


Cincy -- keep in mind that the prospective spouses being of the same sex is more than a mere impediment.

Well, you're right there.

I think what I'm trying to say that I do believe there is a path to acceptance by the Catholic church if they want it to be. Not an easy one, mind you, but I think you could argue it canonically, especially if science was to able to prove homosexuality was an evolutionary measure for population control.

Well, that will never happen because it isn't the way evolution works; evolution by natural selection has no "end game" and cannot make decisions.

 cincydooley wrote:

I have to agree here. It's quite insulting.

But its nothing I, sadly, haven't become accustomed to, particularly from aggressive areas of atheism (and yes, I know this doesn't account for all atheists).

I know everyone likes to harp on the atheists, but I think it's fair to say the overwhelming majority of ant-Catholicism has come from other Christians.

As I said, I believe the concepts of he'll and omniscience are inherantly psychologically manipulative, and the institutions that espouse to them (obviously not just christianity) have survivded in no small part because they are so potently manipulative that they help the larger institution survive.

In other words, hell and sin are good memes.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
I know everyone likes to harp on the atheists, but I think it's fair to say the overwhelming majority of ant-Catholicism has come from other Christians.

100% correct. But to be fair, Protestants had quite a head start on the current generation of atheists.

 Manchu wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
I know everyone likes to harp on the atheists, but I think it's fair to say the overwhelming majority of ant-Catholicism has come from other Christians.

100% correct. But to be fair, Protestants had quite a head start on the current generation of atheists.

No doubt, and that's not to say that New Atheism especially isn't aggressive toward Catholicism, because it is.

But I'm of the opinion that criticism from atheists is less offensive than a lot of what is levied against the Church from other Christian denominations... But that is just me, so take it with a huge grain of salt.

I'd like to think things like "I happen to stridently disagree with your worldview about the Cosmos" is alot better than "Papists will burn in hell for all time for accepting a false messiah" and the like.

 jasper76 wrote:
I'd like to think things like "I happen to stridently disagree with your worldview about the Cosmos"

Actually what you gave said again and again ITT is we psychologically torture children to brainwash them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
But I'm of the opinion that criticism from atheists is less offensive than a lot of what is levied against the Church from other Christian denominations... But that is just me, so take it with a huge grain of salt.

Yeah I dunno see above.

Does your stance on psychological torture extend to Santa Claus and the naughty or nice list too

 Manchu wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
I'd like to think things like "I happen to stridently disagree with your worldview about the Cosmos"

Actually what you gave said again and again ITT is we psychologically torture children to brainwash them.

Well....no... I....d---ah never mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:
Does your stance on psychological torture extend to Santa Claus and the naughty or nice list too

I actually don't know what my opinion is on that. We don't have kids so it's never come up personally. Do/did you have any qualms about Santa?

 cincydooley wrote:
Does your stance on psychological torture extend to Santa Claus and the naughty or nice list too

If so, he is not alone. BEHOLD!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus

For every carrot, there is a stick.

Cheer or Fear? Belschnickle is here!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
I wasn't raised that way. My Catholic experience occurred in the left wing of the US church. Hippies and so forth....it was all peace and love. Think Jesus Christ Superstar. I didn't really know what the Catholic Church taught on issues like hell (even abortion) until I was about 14 iirc, and I was already a non-believer well before that.

That..ehhh....that really doesnt sound like you were raised catholic at all then......

Haha....I missed this. I think you're right!

But it's a legit Parish (still). St John something or other in Columbia, MD. I bet things have changed. It was people who grew up in the 60s and 70s raising kids in the 80s amongst my age group. Everybody loved JPII and the Second Vatican Council, and Jesus Christ Superstar was always a big hit at the local theater.

 cincydooley wrote:

~~~Semi Antagonistic, but meant in a playful way, reply incoming:~~~

Do you mean all those starting people in Africa that Catholics, more than anyone else, are trying to help through mission work and charity

Lol, again... not my argument... but the argument I hear most from the "militant atheist" is that God is immoral for even "allowing" that level of famine in the first place.


To put it another way: Why should there be a need for missionaries/volunteers to even go to Africa/elsewhere in the first place? I thought God is good and takes care of his people?