It depends on if he's convicted.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

He will be called invisible.

And I'm not sure there is an actual title for him.

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Funny and sad because its true.


Hey, Rick, why do you hate The Catholic church so much?

I don't. I'm Catholic.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I hate the Catholic Church precisely because I was raised Catholic.

I dig liberation theology, though.

RPB, are you a Marist alum? I had some rivalries with a couple Marist wrestlers in high school. I despised everything about the Marist team.

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I've been waiting for the liberation theology post for a while.

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I wish I could like it more than I do, but there are just major things that just don't make sense to me given how much we now know. Hopefully they eventually become progressive enough to not feel like a hypocrite for simply buying into the product they are selling.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I was a scholarship kid at a Catholic high school. Two of my religion teachers were far-left closet revolutionaries who emphasized the radical potential of Catholic doctrine. They were major influences on me.

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I find the most basic approach to Catholicism to be incredibly radical in and of itself. It's so counter intuitive to men, especialy in our society, to acknowledge anything other than our "self made" personna.

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of course it is...Jesus said to give up all worldly possessions and leave your family behind to follow him. There is almost none of us that do that.

Even in being radical, it is not so radically different than other religions who recognize that we are bound to this existence by material possessions.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Oh.

You seem to get in shots when you can, that's all I meant.

Just saw this.

Yes, I was a Redskin and briefly a RedHawk

The Wrestling Team was pretty good when I was there.

I didnt wrestle, but I was part of the gym class that brought the legendary Coach Gervais to tears about his alcoholism.

I wish that I didn't find so many stances they have to be hypocritical or counterproductive and I could feel better about being an active one. Things won't change for a long time though.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Oh, yeah I totally get it. Im right there with you, but I dont call myself catholic anymore.

We should start a new religion


BTW, A keeping Score type question...Dont the riches and extravagance of the Vatican and those who work there go against the whole "humble" thing?

I'll always be an American even if I can't stand how the country is being run. All I can do is hope that one day they meet a standard that I can find acceptable to support.

Ultimately, I'm willing to take my chances that being a good person and doing good things is good enough for the next step instead of all the things that the church preaches I must do which almost always have the side effect of making the church more money.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yeah, I think religion is a little different.

I dont say Im not catholic to avoid being labeled, I just dont do enough to warrant the title. I almost never go to church.



Me too.

And If God has a problem with a good person who didnt have enough faith then he can go to Purgatory for all I care.

(He's probably reading this right now)

Couple thoughts/questions:

What is the standard for whether a person is "good"? Is it the 10 Commandments? Is it something else?

I am constantly aware of the fact that I am not a good person. This is what has made Christianity appealing to me because I need something that is bigger than I am, that is not about how good or bad I am. If my faith was based on how good I was, then I would be completely empty. I need something that says no matter how bad I was, God provided a way of salvation that is not about me, but about me trusting in the work of someone else.

I don't know, I don't want to ramble on and get in a long drawn out religious discussion, just somethings I have wrestled with for several years...

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

"Good" has nothing to do with salvation. Sin is binary, damnation is "one and done".

Thankfully, none of that "how good am I" bullshit has anything to do with a given soul getting into heaven .... which is incredibly anxiety relieving and freeing because you don't have to spend you life (or your last minutes on your deathbed) wondering if you've "done enough good" to be in heaven. That's the point of the Gospel, the Good News, the Word of Life, whatever .... you have been forgiven not by your own actions, but by Christ's salvific propitiation - fancy words for His sacrifice by crediting your account with His perfection, essentially.

That's it, phone call ovah.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Much better put than I could DT, thanks.

That is it in a nutshell. That is why is always amazing to me that so many go through this life thinking that it is based on their good or bad works. It is as if they think each man is going to stand before God and God is going to break out this huge scale and weigh out good vs. bad works and if you have a little more good than bad you are in. The reality of that situation is no one would get in. Our bad would far outweigh our good.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I just can't wrap my head around that. It just sounds like a good way to get donations by offering "salvation".

If I'm wrong, and a murderer gets into heaven and I'm sent away then I'll admit my mistake.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So if i sin, I do or don't need to seek forgiveness from God and my fellow human being?

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You don't have to seek anything; it's already there on the table .... like the "take one - free" pamphlets on a diner counter.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Except the idea, at least by the Catholic church, of sin is so illogical that it doesn't make sense. As referenced yesterday, the concept of original sin is that the day you are born you needed to seek forgiveness for acts that happened thousands of years ago. Then, the rules are setup to keep you going to with guilt from "sin" for the rest of your life which just so happens to be a perfect system for soliciting donations.

I'm sorry, I'm not apologizing for being lazy on a Saturday. I'm not a bad person for doing so. While I think the actual stories around the Bible are a great learning tool it's been corrupted by man for profit. If religious scholars can claim not to take certain parts literally so can I.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So, DT, everyone who is or was ever catholic gets into heaven?

So much for justice then.

This is why so many folks dislike the Ray Lewis act, and the likes of jimmy Bakker before him.

I can't be sinning, because God already died for that.

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I haven't the slightest ability to figure out where you got that one from.

However, since it's you (meant complimentary ... I know, it's hard to tell from me), I will answer, but it's qualified, and not for smartass reasons.

There's small-c catholic and capital-c Catholic ... the former refers to all Christians (essentially), the latter are those of the Roman Catholic faith. I will assume that you meant the capital-c type, so the answer is no, with a 'but'.

Said 'but' is this: I have no idea who's in and who's out, nor does anyone, nor has anyone, nor will anyone. We'll find out when we get wherever when we snuff it, of course, but not until then. I mention this because this is all that is meant when we are advised to "judge not, lest ye be judged".

That is to say, it's only said to point out that you don't know who is saved and who is not .... the person you think is the best in the world or the worst in the world could be quite the opposite on the inside for all we know. But we don't have to know, because it's none of our business, frankly.

Therefore, again my answer to your question is "no", but that's only because I'm playing the odds, not because I have any special insight whatsoever into the inner workings of anyone.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

You're going to have to clarify what you mean to say in the bolded part; the following two sentences doesn't indicate very well, at least to me.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Thank you.

Im looking at this very simplistically. I took you saying that God's Son died for all our sins as an indication that all could pick up the pamphlet, because he died for...all.

Then it occured to me that the one requirement would be faith. That's how I got to All Catholics get in.

God is the epitome of a lot of different things. One of them is justice. For folks to go through life making mistakes and not seeking forgiveness from God and others, is unjust as well as unworkable.

I agree that I can do nothing to earn salvation. This doesn't mean I can do nothing, or sin against God and others, without seeking forgiveness.

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I don't really disagree and is part of the reason why I am not a Catholic. But I do have a great respect for their place in the history of Christianity.

It is a lot to consider, and I don't think anyone has it figured out. But it is interesting to dialogue about if folks can refrain from name calling and jumping to conclusions, which I have enjoyed today in this particular discussion.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."