My Imaginary GF posted:

One nitpick about women being unable to lead a church: its roots are anti-patrilinialist, not anti-gender equality. Women have children, a fact which cannot be denied. A male priest who has children could always have doubt sown upon his seed before paternity tests came about. So, you don't have women as priests because you don't want them to pass down the office to their children, making religious office a heriditary position with corresponsing title and grants of privliges.

So if you want to divorce your church structure from human inclination, your best method in historical times would be to ban women from holding priestly office.

How this shapes the revelations of the christian church, well, there's something to be said about the cult of mary and its historical context by someone more informed on early christian history. There's disagreement because religion is ultimately a means by which to codify and justify the status quo inequality and power structures. When you examine the development of religious practices as the development of a class intent on maintaining its privileges and status within various historical societies, the route of development and the 'why' of how things developed becomes a bit more clear.

We trust that 'gut feeling' because humans are not born with an innate understanding that correlation does not equal causation, and therefore attempt to explain the world within an iterative process through the frameworks provided to us. That, and by going with those 'gut feelings,' one is often rewarded by the community in which they reside and given an escape from moral culpability for their actions.

My Imaginary GF posted:

Banning women from priesthood isn't about women being unequal to men; its about accumulating capital and property under a church hierarchy. Greed>hate is usually a good rule when analyzing doctrinal policy development.

VitalSigns posted:

The best part about this reasoning is it fits any faith. How do we explain that a few billion people are Muslim/Catholic and are going to hell because the Catholic/Muslim God didn't give them a religious experience to change their minds? Um uh, oh he totally did but Muslims/Catholics hate God and secretly loooooove to worship the devil but they'll never admit it!

Also a handy justification for butchering the infidels. You can't save those who hate God so much they make themselves be Muslim/Catholic despite knowing the only true religion is Islam/Catholicism!

VitalSigns posted:

Okay then we can't trust any supposed revelations either if our monkey-brains are too dumb to comprehend god, since there's no way to tell a true incomprehensible revelation from a false one.

We'll just have to hope God isn't the kind of nutcase who holds us to an impossible standard of behavior with a get-out-of-hell free card only for those who choose the true revelation by sheer luck.

BrandorKP posted:

Have you ever experience real communication with, kinship with, understanding with, possibility intimacy with a other person? Those all can be revelatory experiences. The way I explain. In a service, when every one shakes hands and says "God be with you" if they mean it and there is real connection, that's a revealtion!

BrandorKP posted:

Yes that's definately one way to resolve it. I'm also being scriptural.

So Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." 22And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

Our real encounters with others, when we accept them unconditionally as who and what they are (forgive), are revelatory.

quote:

revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities.

Kyrie eleison posted:

There is nothing "anti-Catholic" about the supremacy of holy Scripture. You guys really think Protestants own the Bible or something? We have four readings at every Mass. Again, I remind you all that Catholics compiled the Bible, and are the only ones who have interpreted it holistically.

Mr. Wiggles posted:

The Bible is very different from other religious texts, though, which is why I maintain you can't look at it from a literalist perspective. That's what I keep trying to get across to you - it's an entire library of books, each needing to be taken on its own merits. This is different from the Book of Mormon or the Koran by the self-definitions of those books on the very face of it. Seriously, stop thinking of the Bible as a unitary work for just a moment.

V. Illych L. posted:

God is the Utility Monster, IMO

Kyrie eleison posted:

I'd consider replying to this thread, but I already have a thread about Christianity, and see this thread as redundant (as well as the other one about God). I regret writing the earlier reply on the first page.

Black Bones posted:

So you gonna post evidence that "the Catholic Church and Protestants overwhelmingly (emphasis mine) claim the Bible is infallible and completely true" or what?

QuoProQuid posted:

i don't think a non-denominational blogger from miami has any institutional authority to the catholic church interprets the bible.

QuoProQuid posted:

A non-denominational pastor in Wheaton, Illinois would also probably not be considered a strong authority for Catholicism.

The words inerrant and infallible have different meanings in the Protestant and Catholic traditions.

QuoProQuid posted:

I really don't know what to tell you except that Protestantism and Catholicism are different religions. You keep quoting sources that really have no relevance or applicability to Catholic teaching. That last source is an online evangelical encyclopedia. You might as well quote the Dhammapanda at this point.

quote:

'Inerrant' means there are no errors; 'infallible' means there can be no errors.

neonchameleon posted:

"About Theopedia

Theopedia is a growing online evangelical encyclopedia of biblical Christianity, a network of interconnected pages, constantly being refined and updated."

Once more you are using Evangelical sources to talk about Roman Catholic understandings. What next? Citing Jack Chick?

Seriously, it isn't hard to find out what Roman Catholics believe. Unlike most denominations they have a pretty detailed catechism, making it easy to find out what the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church are. (And most things outside the Catechism? Aren't official teachings, merely opinions that Catholics don't have to take seriously even officially).

quote:

'Inerrant' means there are no errors; 'infallible' means there can be no errors.

neonchameleon posted:

Roman Catholicism no more claims that the Bible is literally true than it does that any given parable is referring to historical events. Jesus had reasons for telling each of his parables. This doesn't mean that every single detail of them can be treated as accurate in every way. Merely that there is a point to each of them. That is all the Roman Catholic Church claims (although some Roman Catholics claim more).

Black Bones posted:

You've uncovered our secret, Vatican Karate Gorillas have been dispatched to your location

Black Bones posted:

Silly, gorillas don't exist, haven't you read, The Bible?

Black Bones posted:

Post more links that go against your argument, it's really funny!

QuoProQuid posted:

Black Bones posted:

ya don't want to end up looking like CommieGIR. Reading carefully is key to understanding.

Black Bones posted:

I reject Hell and Biblical literalism because from my perspective, they are foolish nonsense.

Black Bones posted:

Yes, of course. You are actually correct here. I'm sure that's a new experience for you, but don't be frightened! Embrace it, learn from it, become it.

Mornacale posted:

Impressive, could you share your secret for reading a text without interpretation? You could probably make a real name for yourself, since it would be the first time in all of human history that someone has managed it.

Mornacale posted:

As other than what? Could you explain how you arrived at a conclusion about what a text "is" without interpreting it?

Separately, it's pretty impressive to become the foremost authority on the whole of an anthology of over 50 separate pieces of literature after reading approximately three of them, presumably in the absence of any other criticism or scholarship. I imagine that demonstrating this sort of preternatural acumen really impresses Christians and Jews when you try to browbeat them into deconversion.

Cavaradossi posted:

No you don't. Very few of your actions are consciously arrived at by logical thought. Logic is difficult to do, limited in its application, and only under special circumstances is the result of using it an improvement.

Today I have done thousands of things. I've thought logically about a handful of them.

Helsing posted:

How are you defining "logic"?

Mornacale posted:

I am saying that all literature is subject to interpretation, and therefore getting smug about people discussing their hermenuetic is laughably ignorant and your own hermeneutic as illiterate.

Mornacale posted:

e: Meanwhile, a fundamentalist uses the exact same reading as you but since they assume that Huck can't ever be racist in any way, they decide that saying "friend of the family" is okay, if not commendable. Pro tip: if you find yourself agreeing with a fundamentalist about textual interpretation, you done hosed up.

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

And if not - if you recognize that many people have to be wrong about many things, despite their certainty - why do you trust the conclusions you've drawn over any other?