Pros and cons of Catholicism.

[columbus]

Personally, I don't understand how one can consciously choose a religion. If it doesn't grab your heart and mind, why bother?
It seems that some people select a religion the way they do a haircut or something. I don't get that.

But I have noticed that you are a lot more fun and easier to get along with on RF when you're a pagan or Satanist or something. When you reconvert to Catholicism you're consistently less happy and more judgmental. When I first joined RF you were a raging Satanist and you and I got along like houses on fire. Then you converted to Catholicism and started putting me on ignore whenever you didn't like what I said, and got me booted out of the Catholic DIR.
I cannot help but think that Catholicism doesn't work for you, as much as it does for me. YMMV. I am certainly not telling you what to do, just expressing my observations over the last few years.
Tom

 

[meghanwaterlillies]

It's just sad, because I'm out as being trans in all areas of my life except to the parish I go to. It really shouldn't have to be like that. I suppose I could find a more liberal parish, but that might only last as long as the hierarchy doesn't find out. Ugh.

I am very drawn to the Hellenic pantheon. I could easily integrate my gender identity and sexuality with it, because most of the Hellenic Gods are queer and there's trans figures in it, too. Queer and trans people were considered holy in ancient Greece. So that's another thing to consider. I'm also interested in Druidry and Buddhism. Heathenry too, to an extent, but not as much as before.

Well maybe that's because somebody screwed up Greece.
What if I went out and I don't know cut off someone's finger and said people with four fingers are considered holy.
Or I pulled out sponge bob and said sponges are holy, rely and worship it, because it will be considered holy by a group in the near future whom I'm likely also to screw up.
Sometimes I'm just not a fan.

 

[Aberamentho]

Personally, I don't understand how one can consciously choose a religion. If it doesn't grab your heart and mind, why bother?
It seems that some people select a religion the way they do a haircut or something. I don't get that.

But I have noticed that you are a lot more fun and easier to get along with on RF when you're a pagan or Satanist or something. When you reconvert to Catholicism you're consistently less happy and more judgmental. When I first joined RF you were a raging Satanist and you and I got along like houses on fire. Then you converted to Catholicism and started putting me on ignore whenever you didn't like what I said, and got me booted out of the Catholic DIR.
I cannot help but think that Catholicism doesn't work for you, as much as it does for me. YMMV. I am certainly not telling you what to do, just expressing my observations over the last few years.
Tom

I don't think you choose a religion but that the religion chooses you. It might seem like it is a decision based on examination of every religion and then the choosing, it seldom works this way.

I was a Christian until I discovered that Christianity is loosely based on the Bible. That Paul was a fraud. Then Islamophobia started raging and I said I am going to convert to Islam because it's theology is closer to the Gospels than is Christianity's, is true Monotheism and the most reasonable theology of the 3 Abrahamic religions.

It was my decision to convert but I was born a Muslim, I just didn't know it until God told me.

 

[Aberamentho]

Ask yourself: why are you saying this? By you doing the urging, you're not really letting the will of your god be done. No one would be "doing it right" unless they're in your religion, even if that's not what their conscience - as you believe, your god - is telling them to do. So are you saying this for them, or for you?


No, it's... really not. Mimicry might be the most sincere form of flattery to some, but to others is just empty pretending.

Sounds like your opinion. That's fine.

But "Universal" it is. Why you think syncretism is bad I can only guess, but it really is not. All religions have elements that other religions do. There are no exceptions.

Giving it a negative critique makes you negative and them tolerant, ironically!

And ever since they declared it "official" that all religions can go to Heaven, that all Abrahamic religions (obviously) worship the same God and that Jews don't have to accept Christ to go to Heaven...

They have been more tolerant. Improvement is good. Protestants aren't so tolerant.

And pagans today are more copying them than how it was originally. They just remove the Bible but it's the same thing. Paganism is paganism. They don't say they are pagan (RCC) but it's obvious they are.

At least if you pay attention.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Do you choose metaphysical beliefs based on what you agree with?

Ciao

- viole

If it agrees with logic and experiences.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

I do not see why you could not just like the concepts of Zeus and Jesus without trying to force yourself into believing one or the other is real.

 

[meghanwaterlillies]

Personally, I don't understand how one can consciously choose a religion. If it doesn't grab your heart and mind, why bother?
It seems that some people select a religion the way they do a haircut or something. I don't get that.

But I have noticed that you are a lot more fun and easier to get along with on RF when you're a pagan or Satanist or something. When you reconvert to Catholicism you're consistently less happy and more judgmental. When I first joined RF you were a raging Satanist and you and I got along like houses on fire. Then you converted to Catholicism and started putting me on ignore whenever you didn't like what I said, and got me booted out of the Catholic DIR.
I cannot help but think that Catholicism doesn't work for you, as much as it does for me. YMMV. I am certainly not telling you what to do, just expressing my observations over the last few years.
Tom

His Word and His Holy Spirit knows.

in part though I can see clearly where someone changed that.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I do not see why you could not just like the concepts of Zeus and Jesus without trying to force yourself into believing one or the other is real.

I think they're both real. Like I said, I respect Jesus and his teachings but I'm discovering that I'm not a Christian. It's not for me.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

I think they're both real. Like I said, I respect Jesus and his teachings but I'm discovering that I'm not a Christian. It's not for me.

Do you think they're both real or do you feel that their both real?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Do you think they're both real or do you feel that their both real?

What's the difference, really? I think Jesus was a real person, who has been deified. You could look at him as a deity (or sage) of love, compassion, mercy and anti-authoritarianism.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

What's the difference, really? I think Jesus was a real person, who has been deified. You could look at him as a deity (or sage) of love, compassion, mercy and anti-authoritarianism.

Well if you would allow me to indulge in a personal anecdote, when I was going through my crisis of faith, I FELT that Wicca was true but THOUGHT that it was likely not.

My feelings can be wrong, but properly applied logical thinking is rarely so.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Well if you would allow me to indulge in a personal anecdote, when I was going through my crisis of faith, I FELT that Wicca was true but THOUGHT that it was likely not.

My feelings can be wrong, but properly applied logical thinking is rarely so.

I don't think that Christianity is true for me, no. But you can respect it from outside of it.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

I don't think that Christianity is true for me, no. But you can respect it from outside of it.

I respect aspects of it yes.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

I don't think that Christianity is true for me, no.

So do you mean to say that you think truth is subjective?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

So do you mean to say that you think truth is subjective?

Pretty much.

 

[Kenny]

How do you change yourself to be who you are when you are that person in the beginning? If you're male, how do you change yourself to be male and go with your own desire to be one, when you have been male sense birth?

That's my question.​

I was a person who had a disposition that said "I am this type of person" since birth. It contained its paradigm of thinking and living.

When one is "Born again", my spirit ceased being what it used to be. Spiritually, I was no longer was what I used to be along with its foundational construct.

However! I had a 28 year thought pattern that I have to destroy and metamorphose into the new creature I have become? It is a lifelong journey culminating at the death of my body when the process is complete.

But during this journey there is grace and mercy every second for every failure as I press into becoming more like Him.

 

[Kenny]

in part though I can see clearly where someone changed that.

Don't understand

 

[Kenny]

Ask yourself: why are you saying this? By you doing the urging, you're not really letting the will of your god be done.

Not really when one Christian speaks to another - its biblical

 

[Kenny]

I can't be transformed into something I'm not. Or rather, I don't agree with the idea of being transformed into something other than I am.

Jesus said you can be born again - that in and of itself is a transformation

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I was a person who had a disposition that said "I am this type of person" since birth. It contained its paradigm of thinking and living.

When one is "Born again", my spirit ceased being what it used to be. Spiritually, I was no longer was what I used to be along with its foundational construct.

However! I had a 28 year thought pattern that I have to destroy and metamorphose into the new creature I have become? It is a lifelong journey culminating at the death of my body when the process is complete.

But during this journey there is grace and mercy every second for every failure as I press into becoming more like Him.

How does this have to do with telling Frank that he can change his desires regarding transitioning when that means you are telling him to change who he is when he has been male sense birth?

How can you change who you are sex/gender if you have been like that since birth?​

I've always been female both sex and gender and have sexual orientation to members of my own gender since birth. So, a similiar question, how can I (or Frank) change who we are since we have been like this since birth?

Why would you compare it to "doing what one wants" and relationship to sin as if aligning one's sex with one's gender (or if I could make myself straight) is a choice?