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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:36
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quote:
I have to ask this does anybody findit hypocritical for me to allow my ex husband to continue teaching my children the ways of the catholic church when i no longer accept or really believe in them any more
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I had no problem with having children brought up in the Catholic faith, even when I was still in the Mennonite church, just because I knew they could be happier inside a church than without any faith at all.
I never had that, and I don't want my kids to feel deprived like I did. If you believe your kids will be happier inside the church, than I see no conflict.
The question I think you need to ask, is why do you feel that your church doesn't have the answers for you any more. What discouraged you so much as to be unsure of what the church teaches?
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i was married in the church i also got divorced for my ex husband to be remaried in the church he and i must denounce our children and marriage and for a small fee his new mariage would be recgonized. Course then my children would not be recgonize.
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You've remarried, and if he still practices, it's a tough spot that you've put him in.
Last edited by Ben Kenobi on 06-03-2005 at 11:31
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:36
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quote:
The problem, Mrs. Tubes, is that religious people do not generally make rational decisions about their religion. That's why the country is 95% religious. The only way to raise your kids to be capable of making their own decisions is to either not talk about it at all around them (and since your husband is doing that, it's not an option for you) or raise them to think criitically about everything.
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I challenge the first statement, as one who was taught to think critically. For me, it didn't make sense to accept the teachings of Aristotle and the accounts of Roman historians as true, while rejecting the accounts of Christ in the Gospels. The Gospels have better manuscript evidence, than any other historical evidence we have for that particular period in time.
I agree that they should be taught to be critical, but also, that such critical thinking need not lead to doubt. The problem is that most people teach this out of a desire to debunk Christianity, while a balanced view, would also affirm.
The challenge of critical thinking, is not to doubt everything, but to form a basis for which we can trust things.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:36
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quote:
evil is not in the action, but more in the person... someone can be evil and not sin... and likewise, one can sin and not be evil. BTW, I have probably a different idea of what evil is than you do.
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Interesting. In what case would you see the former? Someone who is evil, and yet does not sin? And for the latter, how can one sin, and yet not be evil?
Is it possible to distinguish between the sinner and his sin?
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I don't agree that we are all sinners. I also don't agree with Christianity's definition of sin. I don't think premarital sex is a sin. I don't think homosexuality is a sin. I don't think working on a sabbath day is a sin.... etc...
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And neither am I talking about any of these. I'm talking about hurting other people, either through insulting them, or lying to them, or gossiping about them behind their back.
This is all sinful behaviour and hurts the people around us, and hurts ourselves. I have a really hard time with lying, and it's still hard for me to trust people enough to tell them the truth without holding back.
You can sin through omission, in not doing what you ought to have done too. It's not a matter of 'avoiding evil', but as Christ tells us: to cease to do evil, and to learn to do good.
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Speak for yourself. I am strong. I don't commit what I consider to be sins. I don't commit evil acts.
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I'm weak. I do what I ought not to do, and I do not do what I ought to be doing.
Do you consider lying to be a sin?
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Is murder the worst sin one can do?
I don't know, if a sniper just picked you off from long range, instantly killing you, that would be murder. But a quick, painless death is a lot better than getting severely raped and beaten, IMO. I believe the key to understanding the worst "sin" is all grounded in the amount of suffering one endures. BTW, I also don't believe that simply causing death is a sin. I do think that abortion, which causes death, and doctor assisted suicide for the terminally ill, are not sins. So it's more about suffering, IMO.
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What if I told you that the primary agent involved in sin, is not the other people, or even ourselves, but God? How can God suffer from our sins that we commit against him in hurting others?
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cia
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Far away from here
Apr 1999
time: 05:36
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M-O-N-E-Y. To pay my bills off and let me and my family go about living, not sweating it.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Renowned as liars? Hardly so. Just because they wrote a long time ago does not make them liars.
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Rot. They are renowned because it comes out of their own mouths:
" There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation."
St. Jerome, Epistle. lII, 8; page 93.
"I will only mention the Apostle Paul. ... He, then, if anyone, ought to be calumniated; we should speak thus to him:
‘The proofs which you have used against the Jews and against other heretics bear a different meaning in their own contexts to that which they bear in your Epistles.
We see passages taken captive by your pen and pressed into service to win you a victory, which in volumes from which they are taken have no controversial bearing at all ... the line so often adopted by strong men in controversy – of justifying the means by the result.' "
St. Jerome, Epistle to Pammachus, xlviii, 13; N&PNF. vi, 72-73
Bishop Eusebius:
the 32nd Chapter of his 12th 'Book of Evangelical Preparation' is entitled:
"How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived."
Eusebius again:
"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity."
'Ecclesiastical History', Vol. 8, chapter 2.
St. John Chrysostom:
"Do you see the advantage of deceit? ...
For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind ...
And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."
'Treatise On The Priesthood', Book 1.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:36
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molly:
quote:
" There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation."
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If you read on, Jerome argues why the congregation ought to be educated, so that they do not waver to the right or to the left.
Education is not the enemy of Christians, rather it is a steadfast ally.
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‘The proofs which you have used against the Jews and against other heretics bear a different meaning in their own contexts to that which they bear in your Epistles.
We see passages taken captive by your pen and pressed into service to win you a victory, which in volumes from which they are taken have no controversial bearing at all ... the line so often adopted by strong men in controversy – of justifying the means by the result.'
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He's challenging the arguments made by Apostle Paul, but suprisingly, not his account of Christ appearing to him on the Damascus road.
The issue here, is not whether Paul is right in everything he said, rather, it is the historical truth of his testimony.
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In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind
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Resourcefulness is a virtue, provided it is balanced by compassion.
Look at it this way, does not Christ tell us to be as wise as serpents, and as innocent as doves?
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"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity
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Do we really want to hear about what Paul ate for breakfast every day in his journal? All historians do this, and the Christian Gospels are no different. Each writer writes for an audience, and each Gospel is different from the others as a result.
BTW, I disagree with Chrystostem, that it is necessary to decieve people to draw them into Christ. I think a straightforward presentation can often be more effective than the cleverest homily.
Paul even goes into this in his Gospel, that he is to preach Christ crucified, and not his own wisdom, so that he might not hinder the message of Christ.
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:36
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my guess is that it wasn't so much directed at your thinking, but that it fits into familiar patterns of certain parties.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:36
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quote:
Bias in ancient historical writers is the first fact you learn when you study them.
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No, bias is the first fact you learn about history period. The ancients are not that different from the moderns in that regard. The only difference between us and them can be summed up in the other three tests for reliability.
First there is the distance from the event. The ancient historians writing on the history of the Roman empire write anywhere from 50 to a hundred, or even several hundred years after the event. It would be like us writing an account of the British empire under Queen Victoria now.
Second, there is the amount of manuscripts that we have, as in what is the earliest copy that we have of these historical documents. We are very fortunate to have any copies whatsoever, within a thousand years of the original with respect to ancient history.
Third, you have the corroboration with other evidence. Often, because of the ages, we won't have any other writers talking about an event in Roman history, even one as seminal as Caesar crossing the Rubicon.
Gaging the Gospels, they are superior in all three accounts to all the histories of Herodotus, or any of the Roman historians.
They are superior even to Plato, and any of the ancient Greeks. We have earlier copies; back to about 200 AD, rather than 1 thousand years after the original, we have corroboration, in not one, but 3 accounts, written by different authors at different times, even if we discount John's Gospel, and limit ourselves to the synoptics, and finally, we have the Gospel authors writing within 25 years after the death of Christ, which is well within the lifetime of those who witnessed the event. If the Gospels falsely recorded the event, surely the living eyewitnesses would condemn their record.
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Sure, it's likely Jesus lived - just another insane Jewish carpenter. Nothing to see there.
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That must be the case when Christ tells us to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us. What could be more insane than that?
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Yes, but when Caesar was stabbed, he didn't supposedly rise from the dead.
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Did not the heavens shake?
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05-03-2005 23:03
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