It’s funny how religious people don’t understand the religion they are worshiping. Or even their very prophet or in this case the chief messenger which is how I like to call the pope.
Belief and religion is whatever you want it to be because it is man made and maintained by man.
Modern Christianity, especially modern American Nationalist Christianity is based on the belief that you can literally do whatever you want in life, even the most despicable, immoral, selfish and disgusting things … and their modern belief is based on the idea that if God doesn’t like what you are doing, they you will be severely punished for your behaviour, in this life before you go too far … or in the next life after you die. However, if you do those terrible, disgusting things and nothing terrible happens to you and you continue to lead a good, happy, healthy life … then it is a sign that God has allowed you to continue and that you are part of a grander plan where you should be allowed to continue doing the terrible things you are doing in order to fulfill some sort of prophecy or master plan.
If you hoard wealth, destroy the poor, ignore moral values and continue down a path where you just literally want to destroy everything and everyone for your own greed and you get away with it all … then God is complicit and wants you to get away with it … he allowed it all, which makes it sacrosanct … it is God’s will.
Sounds more Old Testament than New, where God’s chosen people get their own set of rules and women seem to be punished disproportionately. Jesus is fairly clear about what happens when your hoard wealth.
The moral basis of Christianity can seem a bit shaky at times though. You must believe Christ is the only path to salvation and live a good life but everyone is born with sin and forgiveness can be granted through genuine repentence. That sounds a lot like you can live a bad life and if you’re repentent in the end, despite the harm you’ve done, all good in the neighbourhood.
In the case of Catholicism in particular, this is a feature and not a bug. Catholics famously and proudly don’t read the bible, but rather have its presumptive contents preached at them — with various degrees of translation, omission, or addition to suit the current whims of the Church — by their deacon.
A significant portion of what people assume to be modern Christian belief among multiple sects and denominations is not supported scripturally, to put it mildly. But the Catholics manage to institutionalize that phenomenon to a degree that makes all the others look like a monthly book club.
The catholic church was very much against distribution of the Bible in English (rather, not in Latin) because then people might read it themselves rather than having it delivered to them and interpreted by the clergy.
Yes, and this type of thing is exactly why. The Catholic church has always been all about control — seating kings, selling indulgences, owning land, financing crusades, all that kind of malarkey — and any religious effect imparted on the world in the process has kind of been ancillary side effect.
The church didn’t want any laymen reading the book and coming to their own conclusions, because the end result of that as has often been seen throughout history is that once people do that, they tend to stop being Catholics.
It’s funny how religious people don’t understand the religion they are worshiping. Or even their very prophet or in this case the chief messenger which is how I like to call the pope.
Belief and religion is whatever you want it to be because it is man made and maintained by man.
Modern Christianity, especially modern American Nationalist Christianity is based on the belief that you can literally do whatever you want in life, even the most despicable, immoral, selfish and disgusting things … and their modern belief is based on the idea that if God doesn’t like what you are doing, they you will be severely punished for your behaviour, in this life before you go too far … or in the next life after you die. However, if you do those terrible, disgusting things and nothing terrible happens to you and you continue to lead a good, happy, healthy life … then it is a sign that God has allowed you to continue and that you are part of a grander plan where you should be allowed to continue doing the terrible things you are doing in order to fulfill some sort of prophecy or master plan.
If you hoard wealth, destroy the poor, ignore moral values and continue down a path where you just literally want to destroy everything and everyone for your own greed and you get away with it all … then God is complicit and wants you to get away with it … he allowed it all, which makes it sacrosanct … it is God’s will.
Sounds more Old Testament than New, where God’s chosen people get their own set of rules and women seem to be punished disproportionately. Jesus is fairly clear about what happens when your hoard wealth.
The moral basis of Christianity can seem a bit shaky at times though. You must believe Christ is the only path to salvation and live a good life but everyone is born with sin and forgiveness can be granted through genuine repentence. That sounds a lot like you can live a bad life and if you’re repentent in the end, despite the harm you’ve done, all good in the neighbourhood.
In the case of Catholicism in particular, this is a feature and not a bug. Catholics famously and proudly don’t read the bible, but rather have its presumptive contents preached at them — with various degrees of translation, omission, or addition to suit the current whims of the Church — by their deacon.
A significant portion of what people assume to be modern Christian belief among multiple sects and denominations is not supported scripturally, to put it mildly. But the Catholics manage to institutionalize that phenomenon to a degree that makes all the others look like a monthly book club.
The catholic church was very much against distribution of the Bible in English (rather, not in Latin) because then people might read it themselves rather than having it delivered to them and interpreted by the clergy.
Turns out they had nothing to worry about.
Yes, and this type of thing is exactly why. The Catholic church has always been all about control — seating kings, selling indulgences, owning land, financing crusades, all that kind of malarkey — and any religious effect imparted on the world in the process has kind of been ancillary side effect.
The church didn’t want any laymen reading the book and coming to their own conclusions, because the end result of that as has often been seen throughout history is that once people do that, they tend to stop being Catholics.
All the trappings of a cult.