not trying to generalise, but the main criticism of the catholic church seems to come from their closest kin of faith. this criticism centers around how odd customs and practices were tagged on to catholicism over its long history. christmas trees and easter bunnies, sign of the cross and other odd hand gestures...kneel, sit, stand, kneel, stand, sit. mass produced objects which are rendered holy relics with but a blessing from a priest...all these weird customs which were never taken from the bible.
they say us catholics are silly and have strayed from 'true' christianity. im not sure about the 'true' part, but i think they are correct to a degree. the problem is lack of actual bible education and an overabundance of teachings surrounding the revisions of popes throughout history and their apparent conferences with the holy spirit....that and guilt...lots and lots of guilt.
so with every new "vision", be it genuine, psychotic delusion, for flatout lie, the church was altered and the very core of christian teachings a bit warped. the most glaring examples dealing with lucifer and the lake of fire, but as superficial as the odd customs and supersticions i mentioned.
so i guess the key to not getting too silly like us catholics is to not blindly accept what some people say, so long as they claim the holy spirit told them, right?
after all, popes are only human, so how can they be so blindly trusted?
now i turn on the news and see people like pat robertson claim to have had conversations with the holy spirit, who apprently gives him premonitions about the weather and terrorist attacks. yet he is perhaps the most respected member of the christian community. i see people on this forum justify their opinions based on the idea that the holy spirit enlightened them. so whereas we only allowed one person on the planet to claim to speak to god and rewrite law/scripture/morals, now any shmuck in a 3 piece suit with enough cash and an audience can do the same.
can it be safe to say that the 'holy spirit' is the doom of christianity?
is it safe to assume that christians who bash catholics should consider
that they are committing the exact same folly, and that with time there really is no limit to how silly they might become?
__________________
"Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here."
Last edited by Schecter on Apr 9th, 2007 at 01:49 PM
Without question. Catholicism represented the one christian church, which was established on the dozens of different types of practiced christianity through out the early christian movement. Once it grew so huge that people spoke out against it, it began to fracture. So, now we have the catholics, the protestants, the mormons, the baptists, etc.
Anytime you reject one bureaucracy and then establish your own bloated bureaucracy to replace it, you're a hypocrit. And in this case, each bloated bureaucracy has been attributed to the divine intervention of god. So, despite the centuries of death and lies, the biggest victim of christianity has been god himself...should he exist.
__________________ "If I were you"
"If you were me, you'd know the safest place to hide...is in sanity!
Most people that bash Catholics have little to no understanding of Catholic doctrines. Everything in the Catholic church that is questionable by other denominations is usually not even sinful, just kinda useless or irrelevant like Mary doctrine. However, Protestants have been guilty of equally bad things including moral laxity in doctrine and the removal of books from the canon that Jesus himself used. The deuterocanonicals were wrongfully removed and yet most Protestants are blind to this. Both have their failings and many people like Pat Robertson have their failings, however, the Holy Spirit is promised to all believers in the form of gifts and as a Counselor.
The Holy Spirit has been twisted into a thing that one needs to be saved from an imaginary hell. When in fact all it could be is the leading of a source that is in everybody to guide one in a better path from a lesser longer one.
i think the act of blessing anything is really silly and witch-doctorish. but i digress.
yes its generally harmless and silly. however the holy spirit was used as
a supposed conduit from god to pope which dictated political/social
movement/law over the whole of the holy roman empire.
i dont think thats what god intended. but thats all history.
now...about pat robertson. do you find his actions safe?
or do you think it blasphemy for a man to claim to be god's hired
blogger to the world (or at least america)? im sure at this point you already suspect what i think
__________________
"Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here."
actually catholism{or whatever the noun is} is one of the most well understood and most thought about relegion that critics bash. if theres any faith or relegion{sub relegion} in the world that critics do bash with almost full understanding, it catholicism.
What do critics bash about Catholicism? They call them Mary worshippers... which is not true. They call them pagan which is also not true. They say that they are not infallible because the mistakes they have made but fail to recognize the difference between impeccibility and infallibility that is clearly acknowledged by Catholics. I am not Catholic and disagree with many of their doctrines, but most critics are completely clueless about it.
Well yes, there is a difference between what some people justify by the claiming the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit is. Pat Robertson is generally harmless, but he is an idiot a lot of the time. What he knows and what he says are two different things. I'm not about to judge him, but he is wrong if he thinks he is the one and only messenger of God. However, I am not as familiar with many of the Evangelicals that many of you are because I'm from Canada where the church is much quieter politically and otherwise.
I think you canīt just eliminate the purpose of the holy spirit. Like Nellinator was saying "there is a difference between what some people justify by the claiming the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit is".
If we are trying to eliminate the concept itself because it only brings problem we will be distorting the teachings even more(if that is possible). The thing is, the Holy spirit can be distorted to be used for politics and it is used for that. The meaning is already completely distorted, its meaning was forgotten long ago, and for some even the words "holy spirit" have a different definition now.
Answering your question - I think the holy spirit is not the doom of christianity, but christianity has doomed the holy spirit long ago. About the other christians... they are doing their part of distorting the meaning too.
I said before that we would be distorting the teachings even more by eliminating the Holy Spirit because its always misused, but perhaps its better to do that since people would never understand its spiritual significance(which is only reserved for a few people). The problem is that when we do this the religion doesnīt serves a spiritual purpose anymore. We should try to keep the spiritual function of religion for weaker than it is. And it is very weak.
KMC Community Forums
The Holy Spirit
Apr 9th, 2007 01:43 PM
ill report
