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The Virgin Mary

Mary is not the only spiritual being that really does love and care for us

www.franciscanmedia.org

Feast of the Guardian Angels | Franciscan Media

Angels play an important role in Sacred Scripture as messengers of God. The belief that each person has a guardian angel watching over him or her is an extension of that role, and a reminder of God's never-failing providence.
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PTK said:

The thing being described in the article sounds more like the Anglican doctrine of consubstantiation, rather than the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.​

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Not sure how you're drawing that conclusion. Link please?
 
bcuster said:
Mary is not the only spiritual being that really does love and care for us

www.franciscanmedia.org

Feast of the Guardian Angels | Franciscan Media

Angels play an important role in Sacred Scripture as messengers of God. The belief that each person has a guardian angel watching over him or her is an extension of that role, and a reminder of God's never-failing providence.
www.franciscanmedia.org www.franciscanmedia.org
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Aren't angels destructive? And don't they look terrifying (all eyes and shapes) rather than humans with wings?

How do we know they exist?
 
If you encounter an angel, usually the first thing they'll tell you is 'Be not afraid', so you'd have to assume they look terrifying.
 
I'm a lifelong atheist and I've never considered the bible (or any other religious text) to be anything vaguely authoritative and it's been a lifelong puzzle to me why people do. But having thought about this a good deal, the existence of religious faith tells us things about humanity - not all of it good things but not all of it bad things either. Ie. how we shape and manipulate the texts, how we can reason profoundly but not necessarily rigorously, how we long for a sense of community and how we are influenced profoundly by respected members of our community (or more narrowly family).

And I understand the best predictor of whether you believe or not is whether the people you respect believe or not (citation needed, I know). Not how rational you are or how good you are at asking difficult questions, or how good you are at verbal pugilism. We are, after all social animals, not rational individuals.

Jesus asked a crowd stoning a woman "he who is without sin among you, cast the first stone." This appears only in the Gospel according to John and it's not in the earliest versions, so this story is almost certainly apocryphal. We can do this rational scepticism about this story, and yet it's still somehow powerful.

I think some of the people casting stones on this thread should ask themselves what is the causal (causal not the rational - big distinction) reason they are atheists? What circumstances (not inner ponderings) led you to atheism (or to religion for that matter). I would put it to you if the important intellectual figures in your life were religious, you would be of their religion too. Religious belief is a very human thing you are taking people to task over.
 
Knotted said:
I would put it to you if the important intellectual figures in your life were religious, you would be of their religion too.
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I think the rest of your post is well said. But if the above line was true, religiosity wouldn’t have been on the steady decline over decades that has actually been the case.
 
Knotted said:
I'm a lifelong atheist and I've never considered the bible (or any other religious text) to be anything vaguely authoritative and it's been a lifelong puzzle to me why people do. But having thought about this a good deal, the existence of religious faith tells us things about humanity - not all of it good things but not all of it bad things either. Ie. how we shape and manipulate the texts, how we can reason profoundly but not necessarily rigorously, how we long for a sense of community and how we are influenced profoundly by respected members of our community (or more narrowly family).

And I understand the best predictor of whether you believe or not is whether the people you respect believe or not (citation needed, I know). Not how rational you are or how good you are at asking difficult questions, or how good you are at verbal pugilism. We are, after all social animals, not rational individuals.

Jesus asked a crowd stoning a woman "he who is without sin among you, cast the first stone." This appears only in the Gospel according to John and it's not in the earliest versions, so this story is almost certainly apocryphal. We can do this rational scepticism about this story, and yet it's still somehow powerful.

I think some of the people casting stones on this thread should ask themselves what is the causal (causal not the rational - big distinction) reason they are atheists? What circumstances (not inner ponderings) led you to atheism (or to religion for that matter). I would put it to you if the important intellectual figures in your life were religious, you would be of their religion too. Religious belief is a very human thing you are taking people to task over.
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Good post. Fair points made
 
Santino said:
If you encounter an angel, usually the first thing they'll tell you is 'Be not afraid', so you'd have to assume they look terrifying.
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Yes, I know, so when people describe small children as "little angels" they are using the wrong metaphor.
 
Knotted said:
I think some of the people casting stones on this thread should ask themselves what is the causal (causal not the rational - big distinction) reason they are atheists? What circumstances (not inner ponderings) led you to atheism (or to religion for that matter). I would put it to you if the important intellectual figures in your life were religious, you would be of their religion too. Religious belief is a very human thing you are taking people to task over.
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I've been accused of casting stones, so I'll have a go.

I grew up in a secular family. This was unusual at that place and time. Everyone I knew had some religion, even if they rarely or never went to a place of worship, and most did at least on special occasions. I was brought up to respect all religions, but it just wasn't something we did. And that bothered me. They were all so attractive in their way -- the rituals, the music, all the rest of it.
To my childish mind, there was obviously a god, and this god must have given us a correct religion to live by. But which one was it? I knew Jews, and Catholics, and Protestants of various flavours; I didn't know any Muslims or Hindus or members of other faiths, but I knew they existed, and there was no reason to think that a particular religion wasn't the right one just because I didn't happen to be around its adherents.
I went through agonies between the ages of maybe eight and 12 or so. One week one set of beliefs and rituals seemed the right one, next week it was another. I prayed to this god or gods to give me a sign. How about a dream? That's the sort of thing gods do, in many cultures. But it never happened.
Then I read a novel where a character says that expecting humans to pick the right religion from all the ones that were available was a pretty sloppy way to run a universe. And I suddenly felt liberated; the scales fell from my eyes. Of course it was sloppy. The whole thing was really very silly.
Some years later, I learnt about the textual transmission of the Bible, which crushed any potential tendencies for taking it seriously as the revealed word of a supernatural deity. (You're the only person to bring up the problem with the story about the woman taken in adultery; I've never met a believer who was aware of the issue.)

So my question to those who are committed to a particular form of religion is: there are dozens of creeds positing things for which there is absolutely no evidence. If yours is right, they have to be wrong, at least in the literal sense. To take one glaring example: either Jesus is the son of god and the way to eternal life, as the Christians say, or he's one of the prophets, but not the last or the most important one, as Muslims say, or nobody in particular, just an unconventional preacher, as everyone else says. They can't all be right. What reason do you have for deciding to believe your particular set of improbable and unprovable teachings?

They never really answer that one.
 
bcuster said:
You could easily research this to understand that is not what is going on at Catholic Mass.

A link (shocking content)

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/are-catholics-cannibals
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In cannibalism, only part of the victim is consumed. One does not eat the bones, sinews, etc. In the Eucharist, we consume every bit of the Lord, eyes, hair, blood, bones, etc. But again, I emphasize that we do so under the appearances of bread and wine. This is essentially different than cannibalism,
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Does that mean I'm swallowing his cum as well when I have communion?
 
ouirdeaux said:
I've been accused of casting stones, so I'll have a go.

I grew up in a secular family. This was unusual at that place and time. Everyone I knew had some religion, even if they rarely or never went to a place of worship, and most did at least on special occasions. I was brought up to respect all religions, but it just wasn't something we did. And that bothered me. They were all so attractive in their way -- the rituals, the music, all the rest of it.
To my childish mind, there was obviously a god, and this god must have given us a correct religion to live by. But which one was it? I knew Jews, and Catholics, and Protestants of various flavours; I didn't know any Muslims or Hindus or members of other faiths, but I knew they existed, and there was no reason to think that a particular religion wasn't the right one just because I didn't happen to be around its adherents.
I went through agonies between the ages of maybe eight and 12 or so. One week one set of beliefs and rituals seemed the right one, next week it was another. I prayed to this god or gods to give me a sign. How about a dream? That's the sort of thing gods do, in many cultures. But it never happened.
Then I read a novel where a character says that expecting humans to pick the right religion from all the ones that were available was a pretty sloppy way to run a universe. And I suddenly felt liberated; the scales fell from my eyes. Of course it was sloppy. The whole thing was really very silly.
Some years later, I learnt about the textual transmission of the Bible, which crushed any potential tendencies for taking it seriously as the revealed word of a supernatural deity. (You're the only person to bring up the problem with the story about the woman taken in adultery; I've never met a believer who was aware of the issue.)

So my question to those who are committed to a particular form of religion is: there are dozens of creeds positing things for which there is absolutely no evidence. If yours is right, they have to be wrong, at least in the literal sense. To take one glaring example: either Jesus is the son of god and the way to eternal life, as the Christians say, or he's one of the prophets, but not the last or the most important one, as Muslims say, or nobody in particular, just an unconventional preacher, as everyone else says. They can't all be right. What reason do you have for deciding to believe your particular set of improbable and unprovable teachings?

They never really answer that one.
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I can answer that question. Catholicism is the ONLY religion founded by (a) God, that is Jesus Christ. All other religions were founded by human males
 
bcuster said:
I can answer that question. Catholicism is the ONLY religion founded by (a) God, that is Jesus Christ. All other religions were founded by human males
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Why should I believe your unprovable assertion that Jesus is this god? Because your church says it is? How do you know? Other churches say other unprovable things.
 
Jesus told him to do it. He even made a pun on his name, and puns were solemn back then, because they revealed something true, not funny in the manner of our degenerate modern times.

But again, circular logic. It's true because it says it's true.
 
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