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(It wasn't me that downvoted you BTW). It seems to me, God is interested about whether people are being kind and loving to each other, working for peace , avoi

by nickd2001 4y ago

(It wasn't me that downvoted you BTW). It seems to me, God is interested about whether people are being kind and loving to each other, working for peace , avoiding wars, making sure everyone is fed, housed, clothed, educated, respected etc. This includes ensuring people aren't abused or exploited by others, which unfortunately has happened within the church and has a long way to go to be fixed. When it comes to what takes place sexually between consenting adults, absolutely there are morals in that area, but it seems to me it is humans who have become obsessed with that area of morality at the expense of other areas of life. When there are millions upon millions of people that have become refugees as result of wars, famines, floods etc, surely don't you think God is rather more bothered by that? And, doesn't that mean, humans should be most bothered by that. And Catholics should be working to fix that, rather than wasting time on trivialities? I do not condone priests for pretending to be celibate while seeking gay sex, also if they joined the priesthood with the precise intention of finding sex (gay or for that matter straight although the latter is an unlikely reason) rather than serving others, then that's very bad. However... really... in the big scheme of things.. shouldn't we be first and foremost caring about helping the marginalised and vulnerable. Perhaps the wealthy people that outed those gay priests, might have done better helping refugees instead? I'd imagine that's what God would've preferred.

Eisenstein 4y ago
Why is it taken for granted that God is moral and good? It is more likely he is an asshole. Read the Old Testament.
- nickd2001 4y ago
  Its a fair question :) My understanding is that the vengeful angry God described in parts of the Old Testament reflects the only partial understanding of God by humans at the time that was written. When bad things happened like plagues etc, people assumed that was God punishing people. Later, Jesus spent much time clarifying this and trying to put things straight in people's minds, that in fact God is not vengeful at all but loving and merciful. And by allowing himself to be crucified, Jesus demonstrated that by a powerful action. It is sometimes said that "The Bible is a dangerous book". ;). If you go straight to the Old Testament you may indeed get a terrible impression of God and be turned off christianity for life. Also, some churches build their whole faith on this and go around judging and berating people. One good thing about the Catholic church is it has traditions based on 2000 yrs of theologians studying the bible and trying to make sense of it, so , theoretically , a better understanding should be able to be found by looking at some Catholic teaching than by going straight to the bible. On the other hand, humans are fallible, so there are certainly plenty of Catholics who misunderstand the what the church believe, there is stuff that is still debated within the church or even incoherent still, there are people in the church for the wrong reasons, e:g either using it as a gay dating agency having made a solemn promise to be celibate, or trying to use it to target gays that they hate. (to return to the original subject of this debate :) ) Cos people can sometimes be... well, assholes is a strong word... perhaps, not as kind as they should be would be a better way of putting it.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    Does that mean we nullify the Ten Commandments, or are those still 'the word of God'? Have you read them and thought about them? They are basically three major things: 1. Pay attention to God, a lot, and don't make him jealous 2. Uphold patriarchy 3. Don't murder/steal/lie* None of those things are 'loving', and the only true absolutes (the ones God doesn't revoke when he gets a bit pissed and commands followers to smite whole people's for offending him somehow) are the 'worship God' and 'uphold patriarchy' parts. Jesus was a Great PR guy, but for everything he did to make the big guy look good, he still ended up getting tortured to death for lulz and never got Daddy's love (why hast thou forsaken me?). Honestly a true reading of God is a sadistic narcissist and it makes the most sense. If an omnipotent being actually cared about us he wouldn't give a bunch of conflicting information all the time and watch us hurt each other and let babies die of AIDS...and he damn sure wouldn't have tortured his own kid to death. * Unless God tells you to...
    - nickd2001 4y ago
      Ok this is going off-topic and getting complicated, but I'll try to give a helpful response. :) First of all, if you're looking at the bible and trying to understand where Christians are coming from, (or make sense of our apparently nonsensical religion, if you want to look at it like that ;) ), if I were you I'd forget about the Old Testament for now and look at the New Testament first. Going direct to the Old Testament, without the benefit of anyone knowledgeable to explain it, whether a sensible person from within a church or by reading some decent theology books, is likely to give you all sorts of inaccurate notions about God. The idea that he smites people down and calls others to do so, is an example. It seems to say that in the Old Testament, because, as I said, the authors lacked full understanding, but later Jesus cleared this up. Of course its a problem that there are some Christians today who believe precisely that, because they too have a messed up understanding IMHO. Which is why the Catholic church despite its many faults has something better - 2000 yrs of attempting to think about this. As for God letting us do bad stuff to each other and babies dying of AIDS etc, these are valid Qs and extremely difficult to answer. Many Christians wrestle with these till their dying day. The failure to be able to answer them easily doesn't in itself invalidate the religion though IMHO. If you have no religion, you are left with other. "worse", unanswered Qs e:g what's even the point of our existence. The church teaches that God gives us free will, and that if we follow Jesus' teachings to look after each other everything will be OK. Dealing with cancer, disabilities etc in a world where people look after and devote resources to caring for people in that situation is different from a world where people don't give a ** about others' suffering. Also we are taught that God feels our suffering too, he suffers with us. As for God torturing his own kid to death, Catholics believe in the trinity, that Jesus was God in human form, therefore he suffered himself. It wasn't God that did the torturing, it was humans that did that. He allowed people to do that, in order to "take the hit" , basically accept punishment himself for our failings so that we get to be forgiven. Which is an amazing act of self-sacrifice and a demonstration of how much God actually cares about us. Well, that's what I believe anyway. :). You're welcome to tell me you're sure its complete nonsense. All I would suggest in return is to keep an open mind. :)
decremental 4y ago
I understand what you mean but homosexuality is not a trivial matter in Christianity, to God, to the Catholic church, or to adherents of the faith. It's one of the big ones. Outing homosexual priests does not exclude the people doing the outing from also working to address other issues, should they have the resources and the inclination. All other important aspects of the religion don't fall to the wayside because there are hungry people in the world. The poor will always be with us.
- nickd2001 4y ago
  Do you really feel that, if one takes homosexuality to be wrong, its really a big deal to God, compared to people starving or lacking basic medical care while others are rich, or people shooting at each other? Also, why do people make such a big deal about gay sex being wrong, when far more people, including many Catholics , are having sex outside of marriage which is equally against the teaching of the church? What is "specially bad" about gay sex in that context? To me, it'd be a cruel God that creates people who find themselves to be gay and then condemns them for being something they did not choose for themselves. It seems to me, since God is caring and merciful, he must make allowances. Which leads me to question the church's official teaching on homosexuality. I have friends in both camps BTW - friends and colleagues that are gay, and Catholic friends who lean towards traditional/conservative. At least 90% of married Catholics use contraception, so there must be a lot of devout Catholics who have decided the church has got it wrong on that rule for example. It is such a mess. A friend years ago wrestled with this as he came from a traditional Catholic upbringing and then discovered he was gay. I think it comes back to "judge not lest thy be judged".

Eisenstein 4y ago

Why is it taken for granted that God is moral and good? It is more likely he is an asshole. Read the Old Testament.

nickd2001 4y ago
Its a fair question :) My understanding is that the vengeful angry God described in parts of the Old Testament reflects the only partial understanding of God by humans at the time that was written. When bad things happened like plagues etc, people assumed that was God punishing people. Later, Jesus spent much time clarifying this and trying to put things straight in people's minds, that in fact God is not vengeful at all but loving and merciful. And by allowing himself to be crucified, Jesus demonstrated that by a powerful action. It is sometimes said that "The Bible is a dangerous book". ;). If you go straight to the Old Testament you may indeed get a terrible impression of God and be turned off christianity for life. Also, some churches build their whole faith on this and go around judging and berating people. One good thing about the Catholic church is it has traditions based on 2000 yrs of theologians studying the bible and trying to make sense of it, so , theoretically , a better understanding should be able to be found by looking at some Catholic teaching than by going straight to the bible. On the other hand, humans are fallible, so there are certainly plenty of Catholics who misunderstand the what the church believe, there is stuff that is still debated within the church or even incoherent still, there are people in the church for the wrong reasons, e:g either using it as a gay dating agency having made a solemn promise to be celibate, or trying to use it to target gays that they hate. (to return to the original subject of this debate :) ) Cos people can sometimes be... well, assholes is a strong word... perhaps, not as kind as they should be would be a better way of putting it.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Does that mean we nullify the Ten Commandments, or are those still 'the word of God'? Have you read them and thought about them? They are basically three major things: 1. Pay attention to God, a lot, and don't make him jealous 2. Uphold patriarchy 3. Don't murder/steal/lie* None of those things are 'loving', and the only true absolutes (the ones God doesn't revoke when he gets a bit pissed and commands followers to smite whole people's for offending him somehow) are the 'worship God' and 'uphold patriarchy' parts. Jesus was a Great PR guy, but for everything he did to make the big guy look good, he still ended up getting tortured to death for lulz and never got Daddy's love (why hast thou forsaken me?). Honestly a true reading of God is a sadistic narcissist and it makes the most sense. If an omnipotent being actually cared about us he wouldn't give a bunch of conflicting information all the time and watch us hurt each other and let babies die of AIDS...and he damn sure wouldn't have tortured his own kid to death. * Unless God tells you to...
  - nickd2001 4y ago
    Ok this is going off-topic and getting complicated, but I'll try to give a helpful response. :) First of all, if you're looking at the bible and trying to understand where Christians are coming from, (or make sense of our apparently nonsensical religion, if you want to look at it like that ;) ), if I were you I'd forget about the Old Testament for now and look at the New Testament first. Going direct to the Old Testament, without the benefit of anyone knowledgeable to explain it, whether a sensible person from within a church or by reading some decent theology books, is likely to give you all sorts of inaccurate notions about God. The idea that he smites people down and calls others to do so, is an example. It seems to say that in the Old Testament, because, as I said, the authors lacked full understanding, but later Jesus cleared this up. Of course its a problem that there are some Christians today who believe precisely that, because they too have a messed up understanding IMHO. Which is why the Catholic church despite its many faults has something better - 2000 yrs of attempting to think about this. As for God letting us do bad stuff to each other and babies dying of AIDS etc, these are valid Qs and extremely difficult to answer. Many Christians wrestle with these till their dying day. The failure to be able to answer them easily doesn't in itself invalidate the religion though IMHO. If you have no religion, you are left with other. "worse", unanswered Qs e:g what's even the point of our existence. The church teaches that God gives us free will, and that if we follow Jesus' teachings to look after each other everything will be OK. Dealing with cancer, disabilities etc in a world where people look after and devote resources to caring for people in that situation is different from a world where people don't give a ** about others' suffering. Also we are taught that God feels our suffering too, he suffers with us. As for God torturing his own kid to death, Catholics believe in the trinity, that Jesus was God in human form, therefore he suffered himself. It wasn't God that did the torturing, it was humans that did that. He allowed people to do that, in order to "take the hit" , basically accept punishment himself for our failings so that we get to be forgiven. Which is an amazing act of self-sacrifice and a demonstration of how much God actually cares about us. Well, that's what I believe anyway. :). You're welcome to tell me you're sure its complete nonsense. All I would suggest in return is to keep an open mind. :)

decremental 4y ago

I understand what you mean but homosexuality is not a trivial matter in Christianity, to God, to the Catholic church, or to adherents of the faith. It's one of the big ones. Outing homosexual priests does not exclude the people doing the outing from also working to address other issues, should they have the resources and the inclination. All other important aspects of the religion don't fall to the wayside because there are hungry people in the world. The poor will always be with us.

nickd2001 4y ago
Do you really feel that, if one takes homosexuality to be wrong, its really a big deal to God, compared to people starving or lacking basic medical care while others are rich, or people shooting at each other? Also, why do people make such a big deal about gay sex being wrong, when far more people, including many Catholics , are having sex outside of marriage which is equally against the teaching of the church? What is "specially bad" about gay sex in that context? To me, it'd be a cruel God that creates people who find themselves to be gay and then condemns them for being something they did not choose for themselves. It seems to me, since God is caring and merciful, he must make allowances. Which leads me to question the church's official teaching on homosexuality. I have friends in both camps BTW - friends and colleagues that are gay, and Catholic friends who lean towards traditional/conservative. At least 90% of married Catholics use contraception, so there must be a lot of devout Catholics who have decided the church has got it wrong on that rule for example. It is such a mess. A friend years ago wrestled with this as he came from a traditional Catholic upbringing and then discovered he was gay. I think it comes back to "judge not lest thy be judged".