3 ms·

I appreciate your candor. You seem to have pretty set views, but I think they're caricatures. In particular, while pro-life work that is most visible is someone

I appreciate your candor. You seem to have pretty set views, but I think they're caricatures. In particular, while pro-life work that is most visible is someone praying at a planned parenthood (and of course, the ones that harass are typically not even Catholic, since it's not just catholics in this 'movement'), the bulk of pro-life work is exceptionally boring things like collecting bottles, diapers, baby clothes, putting together mum and baby classes, etc. No one talks about this because it's not polarizing. Or take the issue of 'homophobia'. No doubt many Catholics will say insensitive things, but almost anything about the potential of homosexual acts being wrong is today conflated with homophobia. And you ask for Christ's statement on sexual orientation, but they are abundant in the gospels. You seem familiar with them, so let's start: Matthew 19:5: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?". As you yourself said, Christ was certainly not afraid of breaking social norms of his day. Heterosexuality was a major norm at the time. Don't you think Christ would have said 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? Oh yeah, and sometimes a man will leave his father and dad and be united to his husband, because that's the same thing'. The lack of teaching on that speaks volumes, as does Christ's strictifying of existing Jewish sexual ethics, rather than loosening (in his ban on divorce). The second thing that I see is a lack of understanding of repentance. Christ preventing the prostitute's punishment was because she had repented of her sin, not because sin is irrelevant. The same is true of the female priest. Should she repent, I'm sure she'd be welcomed back (otherwise your Gospel passage would be quite relevant). The priests who corrupted children... well this is a very long story and I know of no lay Catholics who really support the church's handling on this. But the existence of sinners doesn't take away from the utility of church. However I'll point out that the reason that happened was that the church bought too much into the mercy rhetoric that you seem to want it to buy into further. A lot of justification for moving priests was based on the assumption that (1) they had repented, (2) the church should be merciful, and (3) based on psychological understandings of sex in the 60s and 70s which were more radical than today, pedophilia was a condition that could be cured. Anyway, I'm guessing this will fall on deaf ears and that there is an impenetrable barrier that will keep either of us from convincing the other. So to end, I'll just wish you the best. I mean that. Thanks for the response.

edmundsauto 5y ago
> Heterosexuality was a major norm at the time. Inaccurate - the Greeks, for example, had institutionalized pederasty disguised as building bonds between generations. The Romans had... problematic beliefs about heterosexual sex as well. > The lack of teaching on that speaks volumes It speaks volumes about how incomplete the historical record is, but very little else. Did the person who wrote this passage ever even meet Christ? I'm under the impression that Chris-as-singular-historical-figure is accepted based on lighter evidence than we require for other historical figures. And that the Bible was mostly written hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly existed. That's not much of a basis for strict interpretation based on what isn't present, nearly 2000 years later.
- alentist 5y ago
  > I'm under the impression that Chris-as-singular-historical-figure is accepted based on lighter evidence than we require for other historical figures. You're under a false impression, and are spreading a myth [0][1]. In fact, your claim is exactly backwards: Certain laypeople (you seem to be among them) demand more evidence for the historicity of Jesus than for other famous people of antiquity. > And that the Bible was mostly written hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly existed. First, this is complete nonsense, given that ~77% of the Bible is the Old Testament, whose books have been dated to centuries BCE [1]. Second, if we charitably reinterpret your comment as referring to the New Testament, it is also false. The Book of Revelation is generally accepted by traditional scholarship to have been written during the reign of Domitian (81–96 CE) [1]. A handful (3-4) of other books are dated to 110 CE at most. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    My understanding is based on the wikipedia article called "Historical Jesus", which confusingly is different than the "Historicity of Jesus". Also, a book I read a long time ago, called "Who Wrote the Bible". I'm not purporting to be a biblical scholar, but it's clear to me that the evidence for Jesus is not as strong as, say, the evidence for Julius Caesar. The fact that there is no direct evidence points to at least some haziness about the character. The same could be said for a number of other historical figures. It's pretty clear there are limitations to the evidence, from Wikipedia: "The historical Jesus scholarship is bound by the following limitations: - There is no physical or archaeological evidence for Jesus; all existing sources are documentary. - The sources for the historical Jesus are mainly Christian writings, such as the gospels and the purported letters of the apostles. - All extant sources that mention Jesus were written after his death. - The New Testament represents sources that have become canonical for Christianity, and there are many apocryphal texts that are examples of the wide variety of writings in the first centuries AD that are related to Jesus.[33] The authenticity and reliability of these sources have been questioned by many scholars, and few events mentioned in the gospels are universally accepted.[34]" So it seems that no writings about him survive from his life, by or about him. There is no physical evidence of his existence. Most of the evidence was written by early Christians, and few of the events they write about are universally accepted. And given the propensity of religious followers to exaggerate, I don't personally put a lot of stock in much of the motivated reasoning exhibited. His is a resume with some holes in it. Smarter and better informed people disagree with me, but I'm just processing the evidence as I see it.

edmundsauto 5y ago

> Heterosexuality was a major norm at the time. Inaccurate - the Greeks, for example, had institutionalized pederasty disguised as building bonds between generations. The Romans had... problematic beliefs about heterosexual sex as well. > The lack of teaching on that speaks volumes It speaks volumes about how incomplete the historical record is, but very little else. Did the person who wrote this passage ever even meet Christ? I'm under the impression that Chris-as-singular-historical-figure is accepted based on lighter evidence than we require for other historical figures. And that the Bible was mostly written hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly existed. That's not much of a basis for strict interpretation based on what isn't present, nearly 2000 years later.

alentist 5y ago
> I'm under the impression that Chris-as-singular-historical-figure is accepted based on lighter evidence than we require for other historical figures. You're under a false impression, and are spreading a myth [0][1]. In fact, your claim is exactly backwards: Certain laypeople (you seem to be among them) demand more evidence for the historicity of Jesus than for other famous people of antiquity. > And that the Bible was mostly written hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly existed. First, this is complete nonsense, given that ~77% of the Bible is the Old Testament, whose books have been dated to centuries BCE [1]. Second, if we charitably reinterpret your comment as referring to the New Testament, it is also false. The Book of Revelation is generally accepted by traditional scholarship to have been written during the reign of Domitian (81–96 CE) [1]. A handful (3-4) of other books are dated to 110 CE at most. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  My understanding is based on the wikipedia article called "Historical Jesus", which confusingly is different than the "Historicity of Jesus". Also, a book I read a long time ago, called "Who Wrote the Bible". I'm not purporting to be a biblical scholar, but it's clear to me that the evidence for Jesus is not as strong as, say, the evidence for Julius Caesar. The fact that there is no direct evidence points to at least some haziness about the character. The same could be said for a number of other historical figures. It's pretty clear there are limitations to the evidence, from Wikipedia: "The historical Jesus scholarship is bound by the following limitations: - There is no physical or archaeological evidence for Jesus; all existing sources are documentary. - The sources for the historical Jesus are mainly Christian writings, such as the gospels and the purported letters of the apostles. - All extant sources that mention Jesus were written after his death. - The New Testament represents sources that have become canonical for Christianity, and there are many apocryphal texts that are examples of the wide variety of writings in the first centuries AD that are related to Jesus.[33] The authenticity and reliability of these sources have been questioned by many scholars, and few events mentioned in the gospels are universally accepted.[34]" So it seems that no writings about him survive from his life, by or about him. There is no physical evidence of his existence. Most of the evidence was written by early Christians, and few of the events they write about are universally accepted. And given the propensity of religious followers to exaggerate, I don't personally put a lot of stock in much of the motivated reasoning exhibited. His is a resume with some holes in it. Smarter and better informed people disagree with me, but I'm just processing the evidence as I see it.