Haha, he's lucky I'm not the pope. I would have had him burned at the stake, on pay preview.

In the lords name of coarse. <-- That's my get out hell free card there.

 

EDIT: opps, mod login

myphistopheles

I'm sorry you think you're an incubator to pass man's seed along.  If you read the Bible, you may be able to discern women's purpose better, but most likely you would just get pissed off that they may, in fact, have a different role in the way a church functions, due to the Creator, God, creating them differently from men.  

Since you don't believe in any of that though, perhaps you should just not bother sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.

Yeah, it's a person who hates me because of my religious beliefs.

Women are not to have authority spiritual over men, but they could still teach men if they have the authority of the elders of a church, who should be men.  That's what the scriptures say.  So when you quibble over what the Catholic Church does, you are dealing with what God wants.  This is independent of what the culture says.  Culture right now says that anything men do, women should do.  The Bible says that in a marriage, there are certain roles.  In a church, there are certain roles.

From a woman's perspective on Christian marriage:

However for the record the spiritual authority I would happily submit too would be one that is modeled on a full Christian marriage not the traditionally paternalistic self serving one so often modeled in our society under the umbrella of a traditional marriage.  
I would happily give myself in marriage to a man willing to love me as Christ loves the Church and willing to lovingly empower me in a partnership modeled on Christ's relationship with the Church.
Please note that Christ does not dominate nor subjugate His followers. He lovingly works in partnership with them, accepting their free will gift of voluntary submission to a process to help them reach their full potential though the medium of loving and committed relationship with them.  If my husband were to be as fully committed in his submission to Christ's spiritual authority as I am, I will joyfully step under the umbrella of his authority for the purpose of establishing a spiritual union/family on earth.

 

 

This was regarding marriage but spiritual authority in the church follows a similar pattern - males have the main teaching authority, and the responsibility and accountability for that lies on them. 

The beauty of faith is that it is personal. So no 2 need be alike.  The beauty of religion is to share your faith with others which are similar.  So there are a multitude of religions, especially Christian.

My step father was married by a female minister.  I see no problem with that.  But I am Catholic, left the church, and returned.  One day, women will be ordained in that religion.  Until that time you can either accept the structures of the religion, or find another better suited for your needs. 

But as long as you profess to be a member of that religion, you must live by its rules.  And the rules state that women cannot be ordained.  But as I indicated previously, you have choices.  There are religions, similar to Catholicism, that allow the ordination of women.  And the beauty of it is, no one can force you to profess a faith in any religion.  So you are free to chose.

Or abstain.

I don't agree with the Catholic Church about a lot of things.  But male leaders is something we do agree on.  Tell God he's a chauvinist - I'm just following his design.

I agree Doc, The pastor of our baptist church was the kindest and most understanding religious person I ever knew personally ... and when he was screwed by the church 'elders' it broke my heart and this played a part in my rebellion against the bible and the church. Of course many other things were involved too. Are you a YEC Doc or just a religious person of the Catholic persuasion like the scientist Ken Miller (see Dover trial) for instance?

ID (not necessarily biblical in nature) is a topic that can be discussed endlessly.  Why are homo sapiens self aware, and no other species?  So I am not one to dismiss it out of hand.  But I believe we did evolve.   What we must remember is that while "evolution" is a fact, the "Theory of Evolution" is not.  IN time it may become a fact.  But I am open to all new data, in the quest to know the answers.

Was there ID in the evolution of man?  I do not know.  What I do not know dwarfs what I do know.  And the more I know the more I know how little I know.  I am not an evangelist (and unsure of what YEC stands for), but I do have faith.  As such, I know I can disagree with the Church on administrative matters (such as the ordination of women) and still be a member of the religion.  What I cannot do is violate the rules (doubting is not against the rules or there would be no Apostles), and that is what happened with the Priest.  Just as Lefevbre violated the rules, so did this Priest.  At some time in the future, he may be regarded as a great man.  For now, he just is a man who stepped over a line.

You can debate with the teachings of the church.  You can question them.  And you can cajole, persuade, and try to convince them of their errors.  What you cannot do is violate the rules.  That will not prevent you from being a Christian.  But it will alienate you from your religion.

The beauty of faith is that no one can take it from you.  When you leave a religion, you still take your faith with you.  So if a religion is not for you, find one that is.

Well said Doc, but you have made the assumption that we all somehow need religion and that I don't agree with. I don't have faith in anything that I am aware of but I do have varying levels of confidence in things to function as advertised ... statistics. YEC stands for young earth creationists and that is pretty much what I have been arguing against for the past year. I can deal with the bible; I just cannot comprehend a literal belief in it because of its barbarity and cruelty particularly the OT. By any standard a miracle is by far the most unlikely event possible because all natural causes must be exhausted first and we do not have nearly enough knowledge nor are we foolhardy enough to pretend otherwise. The Christians I have been talking to insist on knowing everything just like they have been insisting for thousands of years and they are still insisting and waiting. And they are still claiming magic as their guiding light because they are not looking for anything else or any other explanation, why should they? Without magic, the bible is just an old book with even less meaning.  I cannot ever remember getting up in the morning to ponder from whence I came because I know and there was no magic involved and I was not born in ‘sin’ based on a book and that is pretty much the rest of the story.

 

My error Doc sorry. I guess I see them as one and the same. Got to get my head out of the RCC if I can just to have a discussion with people of faith without the RCC baggage and a verbatim bible. As to gods and such, there is absolutely no way I can just pick the christian god over any of the others all with exactly the same justifications. I think peoples gods are established by their culture and their parents. If where one is born, their culture and their upbringing is the only way to choose the proper god then I see no need for me to pick one of them for myself, besides I wouldn’t know how. Deism is a different set of circumstances and much more latitude can be had there … there just isn’t a need for a god IMO unless one feels they themselves inadequate just because it says so in a book. If a person is sane and stable, what do they need a god for … to tell them how to be human … or to tell them what to do to have faith in the invisible?

Well shucks, I never looked at it this way ... I just took them at their word ... the whole world, thanks for this perspective. And yea, that is what it means.

Atheism is a faith … now here we have a genuine disagreement and I would like to continue this discussion. It never ceases to amaze me when christians explain what an atheist is and what they must believe and what to call it … regardless of the fact that it has been simply and well defined. Not saying you too Doc, but this has been my experience.

the existence of supreme being cannot be proven or disproven ... If you want to take this further, there is virtually nothing we can determine absolutely without the least bit of doubt (tea pots unicorns etc.) but we get on with our lives because we have learned to deal in probabilities too. Nobody is born with any appreciable knowledge at all (religious or otherwise). That means that everything we think we know about the world, the fauna and flora and everything else is learned from other people and we know how unreliable they can be … everything. If we are taught we are born in sin because of a belief, most will grow up believing all humanity is debased just by being born human. And if we are told that god is the only solution for the blight called humanity … well most will believe that too. And so on till there is little of the individual left. For the simple cost of not misinforming children (based on hearsay) these children retain their natural atheistic state and continue to adulthood free to make their own minds up instead of having it made for them. If miracles are the least likely explanation by definition … then what does that say about the miracle maker … less likely than the least likely of explanations?

 

WOW!  Just WOW.  While I have long said something similar, most of the time it goes right over people's head.  I approached it from a different angle.  And that is we do not live in reality, but in perception-ville.  In other words, the way we interact with our world is how we live, not how the world is.  I think we are saying the same thing, but from different angles.

Original sin is a problem.  But I guess it is like life.  In other words, contrary to today's teaching (secular), you are not "born" great.  Your worth is determined by your deeds.  So in order to "merit" anything, you have to "earn" it.  That is half the place that "original sin" came from.

The other was to prove to the common man that no one, not king or emperor, was without fault.  Religion does codify that (and hence were we get original sin from), but the concept is a valid one.  Charles Phillip George Arther (whatever, all I remember are those 4 of his names) is the same as the lowliest person when you strip away the veneer.

So again, it is simply a life lesson, and not necessarily a death sentence (for unbaptized babies).

As far as Atheism being a faith, it is.  Actually though, you appear more agnostic than atheist.  But it does not matter. Taking you at your word, you have a belief that there is no higher being.  You do not need a religion built around the faith.  Many atheists do have that (as demonstrated by their supreme phobia of anything Christian - they confuse the word from for of).  But even though doubts are part of life (in your words), you have faith that your belief is the correct one.  Just as I do.  You live your life as if it was the truth.  (my allusion to perception).  That is your faith.  Everyone has it.  Some call it an ideological frame work (I heard Greenspan use that one day when talking to Nostrilitis and realized he was saying the same thing I do).  Whatever it is, it is our intersection with reality.  for most, it is mostly based in reality.  But since we can never know everything, we must assume, perceive, doubt, or "framework" the missing pieces in order to operate in a world where there are more questions than answers.

That is my statement about faith.  Faith is the framework.  It does not have to be lit candles and statues.

I am talking about absolutes here as in, inviolate. You know, I am not sure what to say here. It has been quite a while since I chatted with a Gandhi vision of a true Christian. In a broad sense I have but one rule (commandment) and that is the Golden Rule. If everyone practiced that and incorporated it into their religious practices or life in general or any practice, I hazard the world would be a much better place to live in and I wouldn’t feel so murky for just being American. What I believe has nothing to do with what you believe because I don’t have any religious ones. As far as I can tell, besides being older and prettier than you (oh yea, one other important thingy) our only apparent difference is that you believe in a higher power and I don’t … what the hell ... friends?

Jythier, do you look up anything for yourself? The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is a maxim, ethical code, or morality that essentially states either of the following:

(Positive form of Golden Rule): One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

(Negative form of Golden Rule): One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated.

This concept describes a "reciprocal", or "two-way", relationship between one's self and others that involves both sides equally, and in a mutual fashion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule