What Exactly Is Your Problem With Christianity?

[Benson]

Lots of people say Christians "Are trying to jam religion and God down our throats." Yes, I know how this is a figure of speech. But, I doubt any of these people can say how this actually happens. Nobody is forcing them to do anything about God or religion. Why the complaint?

To help non Believers in God to better understand why Christianity is good for them, here are some reasons:

1.) If you want to have a better life, obey God. Jesus says those who obey His Commands will live better and longer. Such as getting everything they need for life, and living forever.

2.) If you give yourself completely to God, you will not go to Hell.

3.) If you belong to God, you will feel better.

4.) If you become a Christian, you can even accidentally believe the wrong Theology, but as long as you state Jesus is God and He died for you, you can still go to Heaven.

5.) After you become a Christian, you will not go to Hell for not understanding The Bible, because no person alive understands The Bible. That is why every part of The Bible is argued about. After you die, then you will understand everything about it.

6.) If you become a Christian, you will always have someone important to talk to who lives you.

7.) Finally, when you are a Christian, you will probably save a lot of money on useless things. Maybe.

[Haven]

At 800 pages, I wouldn't exactly call the Catechism "brief." But if you'd also like to reference the ecclesiastical texts cited by the Catechism, that would be swell.

Compared to nearly 2,000 years and hundreds of thousands of pages, documents, statements, records, books, and other writings, yes, the Catechism is brief. I'll be happy to cite ecclesiastical texts, where they are relevant.

The problem with this approach, though, is that now we're just debating Haven's impressions ...

No. My impressions are irrelevant. What is under debate is the Catholic Church: its doctrines, its actions (past and present), its beliefs, and its demands of its followers and the rest of humanity. Either certain events happened, or they did not. For example, I could have the impression that the Green Giant is God, and it would make no difference to what has actually happened. Let's stick to the facts here, and give commentary and opinion where helpful. Once we start debating personal feelings and "impressions," the debate takes an inevitable turn toward the uncharitable.

... of what Roman Catholics may have believed in the past, which is problematic on two counts: (a) it's not objective, and (b) your critique in post 66 is framed entirely in the present tense, alleging what conservative Christianity "is," "states," "claims" "considers" and "calls for."

If this were a new religious movement, or one of the Protestant churches with 50 years of history, I'd be willing to let that slide. However, this is the Roman Catholic Church. The one church that claims validity because of an "unbroken chain" -- from today to the first century CE -- going all the way back to Jesus ministry. The one church that claims its doctrines and beliefs have never changed (1). Antiqua lex, antiqua traditio. If there is any church for which past actions, beliefs, and statements matter, it's the Catholic Church.

But this does not, in itself, substantiate the claim that women are "merely objects for male pleasure."

In contrast, the Church's teachings on equality and sexuality (see, e.g., CCC 2360 and following) are expressly designed to counteract such impulses

The inherent inferiority of women, according to your church, reduces us to baby growers, sandwich makers, and essentially objects--having very little agency over our own lives. And since the church specifically teaches women to serve men (that is, be subservient to men), we are essentially being viewed as objects for male pleasure. "Pleasure" does not only refer to sex, although the church's teachings on divorce, contraception and reproduction ensure that a married woman will have little agency over that as well (3).

Perhaps you'd like to rephrase your original critique into the past tense, then.

The Catholic Church is among the world's most ethnically diverse religious communities, and it's teachings on the equality of all people and social justice are quite clear (see CCC 1928 and following), and thus cannot rightly be called "racist" toward non-Western peoples.

And none of this undoes the atrocities committed by the Catholic Church during the colonial period. None of it excuses the genocides, holy wars, slave trading, occupation of others' homelands, installing racist dictators. Yes, it is a step in the right direction, but the church must own its past (4 [a pro-Catholic source]).

[Roman Catholic] doctrine in no uncertain terms calls [homosexuals] evil,

.
Please do not change my non-hateful words to slurs against my own community. "Homosexual" is a slur against gay, bisexual, and lesbian people [2], and I find changing my words to reflect that noxious slur highly offensive.

Where in the Catechism (or related encyclicals and conciliar texts) does it say that people with same-sex attraction are "evil" and "in league with the Devil," that people who do not identify with their biological sex don't exist, or il.that merely being born a certain way means one will "burn in Hell for all eternity?"

It seems an uncharitable reading of my post to believe that I claimed otherwise? I specifically implied those of us who live openly as who we are, marry partners we love, transition if that's what is right for us, and so on. I also did not intend "in league with the Devil," and so on to be direct quotes from your Catechism. They were simply paraphrasing, which is reasonable when referencing a text or set of texts.

You seem to be using weasel words here to avoid a very strong point: if we LGBT+ people do anything other than cower in the closet and live lives presenting as straight, cisgender people (celibate or married to someone to whom we are not attracted) your church calls it sinful and, direct quotes "gravely depraved" and "intrinsically disordered" (3 [yes, from the Catechism]). It also implies that we are destined for Hell unless we agree to live closeted, miserable lives as (for all intents and purposes) people we are not.

Your creative phrasing and indirect language don't change this simple fact.

(1) http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congr ... es_en.html
(2) https://www.glaad.org/reference/offensive
(3) https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/ ... s2c2a6.htm
(4) https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/vi ... 20possible.

[1213]

...Christianity claims to be monotheistic by claiming Jesus is God. If not for the trinity even Christians would know they were idolaters. Father/ son/ holy ghost. All equal huh? ... And they have no respect for God. Depicting him nearly naked hanging up. If you think he's God cover him up. What's wrong with you!!?

I think it is wrong to say so about all Christians. “Christian” meant originally a disciple of Jesus and they remain in the words of Jesus. By those words, there is only one true God that is greater than Jesus.

This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
John 17:3

…the Father is greater than I.
John 14:28

But, I agree with you, many Christians don’t really respect God, nor Jesus, because they have replaced God’s teachings with their own doctrines. And because of that, by what Jesus says, they are not even really Christians.

Jesus therefore said to those Jews who had believed him, "If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
John 8:31-32

It is tragicomic that some Christian sites ban you, if you tell and believe what the Bible tells about these matters.

[nobspeople]

I find modern Christianity a disgusting and vile, barbaric ritualization that has no place in society that values the individual and fosters independent thought.

And yet, ironically, a major reason why the society in which you live does value the individual and fosters independent thought is due to Christianity.

Immaterial to my opinion of it.
People can take almost anything and contort it to serve their purpose. Christianity isn't immune to this.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying your problem is not with Christianity, but rather people who "contort it to serve their purpose"?

The 'why society', in which we live, has evolved to do this or that is immaterial or irrelevant to my opinion of modern Christianity.
In other words, I don't care about the 'why'. It has little to nothing to do with my current opinion of said religion as it's practiced today.

That much I understood. And I appreciate the fact that you don't care that you are judging Christianity according to values that you ultimately inherited from Christianity itself. Feelings don't need to be rational.

I just didn't understand what you were referring to when you said people can "contort it to serve their purpose." Perhaps that was just a bit of a non sequitur.

Meaning people taking a belief system and bending its rules and ideals to serve their own purpose. Rather or not it's a non sequitur.... sometimes my mind does jump around

[Haven]

It is tragicomic that some Christian sites ban you, if you tell and believe what the Bible tells about these matters.

I don't think it's the belief in them, only the interpretation and praxis. One can believe in these things in different ways. Literal belief is not the only form of credence.

[historia]

My impressions are irrelevant.

Agreed.

Let's stick to the facts here, and give commentary and opinion where helpful. Once we start debating personal feelings and "impressions," the debate takes an inevitable turn toward the uncharitable.

Doubly agreed.

However, this is the Roman Catholic Church. The one church that claims validity because of an "unbroken chain" -- from today to the first century CE -- going all the way back to Jesus ministry. The one church that claims its doctrines and beliefs have never changed (1).

I understand the point you're trying to make here, but you're veering into a straw man argument.

The Roman Catholic Church does not hold that everything it has ever done, said, or believed is infallibly true and fixed from all eternity, for two reasons:

(a) "In Catholic doctrine there exists an order or hierarchy of truths, since they vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith" (CCC 90); i.e., not all teachings are deemed equally authoritative or unchangeable.

(b) As the source you cited here notes, the Church draws a distinction between "change," by which they mean a radical break from the past, and "development," by which they mean changes that are in keeping with a core truth expressed in the foundation of the Christian faith.

The Roman Catholic Church has clearly changed (or "developed" if you prefer) over time, a fact recognized in its own documents. So any argument predicated on the idea that it cannot should be discarded.

But this does not, in itself, substantiate the claim that women are "merely objects for male pleasure."

In contrast, the Church's teachings on equality and sexuality (see, e.g., CCC 2360 and following) are expressly designed to counteract such impulses

The inherent inferiority of women, according to [the Roman Catholic] church, reduces us to baby growers, sandwich makers, and essentially objects--having very little agency over our own lives. And since the church specifically teaches women to serve men (that is, be subservient to men), we are essentially being viewed as objects for male pleasure.

But, again, you have not substantiated either of these points, you're merely asserting them.

Mulieris Dignitatem does not say that women are "inherently inferior" or that they are "subservient to men" -- just the opposite, in fact.

Perhaps you'd like to rephrase your original critique into the past tense, then.

The Catholic Church is among the world's most ethnically diverse religious communities, and it's teachings on the equality of all people and social justice are quite clear (see CCC 1928 and following), and thus cannot rightly be called "racist" toward non-Western peoples.

And none of this undoes the atrocities committed by the Catholic Church during the colonial period.

Nor did anyone say it did. It just means your critique on this point should be phrased in the past tense.

[The Roman Catholic] church calls it sinful and, direct quotes "gravely depraved" and "intrinsically disordered" (3 [yes, from the Catechism]).

Yeah, that much is clearly accurate. This is why it's important, I think, to ground your critique in the Catechism, as that provides the surest foundation for what Roman Catholicism is.

I also did not intend "in league with the Devil," and so on to be direct quotes from [the] Catechism. They were simply paraphrasing, which is reasonable when referencing a text or set of texts.

The problem here, though, as we've seen above, is that your "paraphrasing" often misses important nuances in the text you are citing and directly contradicts others, and therefore too freely mixes the facts with your opinions and impressions, which I've been reliably informed are irrelevant and make for an uncharitable discussion.

[Avoice]

[Replying to Benson in post #1]

You say obey God for a good life. Then you say to obey jesus. You cant obey both because they have different commandments. Ehen jesus is asked about the commandments he omits the first four

Whats the problem with Christianity?
You could be the poster child for the reason Christianity is a problem. Because your relationship with God is not about what God wants. Its all about your desire to live forever...not go to hell. Look what you wrote. Its all about you.

Christianity is Gods way of rounding up his children that refuse his laws. All they want from Gid us to live forever. So much so that if jesus/ god were alive right now theyd hunt him down so fast and have him killed just to save themselves.
They like that idea. The fact is this: God knows that in their heart they would be willing to do just that rather than obey him.

Christians have a low opinion of God. That hed let himself be spit on and die to save them. Save them for what? So they can disobey him in the next world and have him die again.
As if man can kill God. Rolling my eyes.

You missed the grand lesson in Eden. Dont listen to anither voice besides Gods voice. Especially when that voice gets you to believe that gods laws dont matter. And when the voice has promised eternal life. Mans greatest temptation - eternal life. Aaaah...the oldest trick in the book.
Big mistake putting your desire first. To live forever. Thats the big bribe with christianity. If death was not in your future the church has nothing to offer.

If you think for a minute that God would kill himself fir you then you really do think you are more important than god. That is your death certificate. Youve faced the greatest temptation and failed