>mfw I realize the truth is either catholicism or orthodoxy
>mfw I'd just prefer no god
if you prefer it then wouldn't that work best for you? It would be completely irrelevant if you are right or not
>>7797062
What do you have against Catholicism, anon?
>>7797062
>the truth
Please elaborate.
>>7797304
The correct religion
>>7797072
Not OP, but Catholicism is too fundamentalist. Their practices and worldview are still grounded in a time when people believed that priests had the alchemical ability to turn wine into blood.
>>7797321
Nah it's actually a pretty elegant summation of human truth
>>7797072
hierarchy, which goes against the essence of Christ
>>7797329
There's nothing special about the Pope.
>>7797339
Bishops were in the bible, Google episkopos
Apostles were hierarchal and could forgive sins when lay people couldn't
>the truth
What is truth though? How can you know for sure that the truth is the truth? Is truth even real? Is it a spook? Is the truth just too depressing to accept? Is real truth the acceptance of the world we live in? Is truth the sunrise above the clouds? What happens when we find truth?
These and millions of other questions are left unanswered, so really we cannot ever truly realize the truth unless truth finds us. Keep looking, because truth just might be out there... way out there. Nothing man-made, like all these religions and denominations, but God-made. God must've made truth.
Keep searching.
The Truth Is Out There.
'Nothing is true, everything is permitted.'
>>7797343
Do you have something solid on what was meant in the NT that's specifically different among ἐπίσkοπος, ἀπόστολος, πρεσβύτερος? It seems somewhat nebulous.
>>7797062
>christcuckery
>the truth
Retarded frogposter.
Catholicism is oriental despotism and should be abhorrent to any son of Europe.
>>7797383
>pagan LARPing intensifies
>religion
>truth
XD
>>7797062
If you want max truth and logical consistency revert to Islam.
>>7797062
> I realize the truth is either catholicism or orthodoxy
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh how?
>>7797329
Go on...
>>7797549
>Muslim artwork
>tumblr_lzif2gFvL21qkwmgko(...).png
Gotta love the direction Western society is heading.
>>7797349
Bobby please
>>7797595
Don't worry, Islam will cleanse the west from all degeneracy. ;3
>>7797595
even many ISIS/al-nusra guys have tumblrs actually.
>tfw Liberal Ecumenical Christian Church in the mountains of Vermont where membership and belief is optional.
>>7797636
Yeah... about that. When the times comes we're going to baptize you at gunpoint. When shit gets medieval again we're going to go back to mass baptisms and conversions of whole peoples.
No hard feelings, right?
>>7797652
The last time I was in a catholic church the average age was 75. That was 10 years ago. Your octogenarian army isnt particularly frightening, and lets just say I'm not afraid of a bunch of crazy Bolivian Catholic fundamentalists.
>>7797652
Catholics as a whole are not that devout and never really held significant sway in America anyway. Your attitude is laughable and a need to convert others is a sign of faltering inward faith.
>>7797652
>tfw pope has gone SJW
>>7797664
>Bolivian Catholic fundamentalists
actually there's a new trend i've seen that a lot of young immigrants from catholic countries are converting to christianity when they get to america and leaving paganism behind in their parents impoverished and corrupt homeland
>>7797684
This is sad, as evangelical/pentecostal/JWs are pretty much hollow scam religions
>>7797688
Jehova's Witnesses aren't Christian, at least not any more than Mormons but u right pentecoastal shite is wack...
>>7797684
>paganism
Says the heretic
>>7797688
Ill tell you whats a hollow scam religion.
I was a devoted Catholic choir boy for years at my Catholic Church. I lapped up their shit, believed that the Catholic Sacraments were the only means to salvation.
Then my priest got fired for getting physical fighting the head of the lay council (it was a woman).
Then the Boston Globe came one morning while I was in college and low and behold, kids were gettin raped everywhere. And Cardinal Law not only didnt give a fuck, he didnt even yell at them or fire them or send them to a monastery. Then the Boston Churches started shutting down. Then my mom asked my pastor what it was like, and he asked her to imagine all her friends in college. Then to imagine half of them were convicted child rapists.
And even though Boston was fucked up, it was nothing compared to California, Philly, and the entire country of Ireland, where the govt actually subsidized rape shacks.
So yeah, going to an ecumenical church to discuss the philosophy of christ is much less hollow then gods church on earth.
>>7797705
That's not a good enough excuse for leaving the Church, sorry. If it were, everyone would have left when they learned about the Crusades in high school.
>>7797731
>equates liberating the holy land from infidels with wicked pagan sodomy
satan at work
>>7797736
The point is that in both cases objectively terrible things were done by members of the Church in God's name (remember the Fourth Crusade?). This doesn't implicate the Church as the eternal representation of Christ on Earth.
It's like what Augustine says about the Sacraments. They are pure, even if the priest who gives them is corrupt and sinful. So the Church is pure even if those who serve it are sinful.
>>7797062
>truth
kill yourself scum
>>7797747
sorry there is no way in fuck christ intended for some despotic empire to be built as his "representation", catholicism is to christianity what stalinism is to marxism
>>7797762
The point of the matter is that the Church has continued unbroken since Christ founded it in the aftermath of the Resurrection. The Catholic Church has the strongest claim to being THAT Church, followed by the Orthodox Church and then the Coptic Church.
The Protestants are decidedly not the original Church. They are schismatics. They are a splinter group that broke away and tried to retroactively justify it by claiming they were truer to the 'spirit' of the original Church. However, Christ didn't promise that the Church would endure in spirit, he promised it would endure as an institution.
If you want to truly be part of the Church, over which the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail, your choices are Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria.
4 7s
>>7797781
Just as worthless a post as if you had gotten the "get" you wanted.
>>7797062
>He fell for the Chist faggotry meme.
Damn, I thought people were only dumb enough to fall for this when they wanted it to be true. You've reached another level OP.
>>7797321
>>7797591
Catholicism is not a simplistic, narrowminded faith, to be honest. It took very early on all the truth within Aristotle and Plato as well as the other competing philosophical traditions of its age. Its depth is in the rigorous reworking into a Christian theology where men like St. Augustine thought through all the consequences of each piece of theology to create something powerful and beautiful. To call it fundamentalist and imply it's backward indicates a sore lack of knowledge about it but an eagerness to comment. Catholicism is high brow philosophical theology for scholars. You're thinking of some backwards baptist Church in bumfuck America.
>>7797811
> It took very early on all that could promote its non-negotiable dogmas within Aristotle and Plato as well as the other competing philosophical traditions of its age.
Repair'd.
>>7797822
What non-negotiable dogmas are you talking about? The dogmas developed later on in response to heresies and they're largely about strict adherence to certain Platonic or Aristotelean interpretations of scripture. I don't think you know what you're talking about a single bit, and I wish you would pick up a book about this subject and read.
>>7797835
> What non-negotiable dogmas are you talking about?
The incarnation of the Word in human form.
The creation of the spatiotemporal universe ex nihilo.
Or are these dispensible?
>>7797936
The logos is a pre-Christian philosophical influence upon Christian theology. The better criticism would've been of Jesus Christ as the son of God. This is getting away from the point, however, which was that Catholicism is fundamentalist with the implications that its adherence to certain tenets is an outdated mode of existence. All truth is God's truth, and truth and God are eternal. You mightn't believe Jesus was the incarnation of the word, but it's a sophisticated and philosophical piece of theology that requires more insight than to disparagingly cast it aside as dogmatic. You seem like a very narrow minded person.
>creation of the spatiotemporal universe ex nihilo
Some of the more Platonic early Church Father's argued a creation of the universe out of pre-existing matter. This, however, was foregone, I think, for the theological reason that it sets up a duality between the material and the spiritual, and partially because the Church at that time was set against the gnostics, manicheans, etc, who held that view. With creatio ex nihilo, material matter is part of God's established order, although of a lesser worth to the spiritual. It's in no way a simple dogmatic belief. It doesn't teach the self-flagellating asceticism of other faiths around at that time.
Your claim that tenets of the Catholic Church are dogmatic seems rather to be because they settled these issues over a thousand years ago and they didn't consult you for your opinion. Why would they? You know nothing but arrogantly think you know everything. You'd be better off blindly adhering to what the Church tells you because you obviously don't think for yourself anyway and they'd do a better job than the Amazing Atheist or Christopher Hitchens or whoever is doing it for you at the moment.
t. not even a Christian
>>7798002
> The logos is a pre-Christian philosophical influence upon Christian theology.
Sure - Heraclitus, Stoics, (Neo)Platonists, etc. But is the Gospel of John a dispensable part of Catholicism or other orthodoxies?
> the point, however, which was that Catholicism is fundamentalist with the implications that its adherence to certain tenets is an outdated mode of existence.
Datedness isn't the issue; the issue is tenets of faith that are non-negotiable, and that are thus accepted regardless of their logical justification and/or consistency.
> it's a sophisticated and philosophical piece of theology that requires more insight than to disparagingly cast it aside as dogmatic.
Sophistication is totally compatible with dogmatism; if an otherwise intelligent person is dogmatically committed to believing an article of faith, then that person can contrive sophisticated arguments for defending that belief. As much as we may intellectually admire that person's argumentative strategies, that doesn't mean that person would have landed upon that conclusion by a more unbiased process of reasoning.
>Some of the more Platonic early Church Father's argued a creation of the universe out of pre-existing matter. This, however, was foregone, I think, for the theological reason that it sets up a duality between the material and the spiritual, and partially because the Church at that time was set against the gnostics, manicheans, etc, who held that view.
And is this not an example of worldviews being rejected due to the their "theological" disconformity with non-negotiable articles of faith?
>You seem like a very narrow minded person.
>Your claim that tenets of the Catholic Church are dogmatic seems rather to be because they settled these issues over a thousand years ago and they didn't consult you for your opinion. Why would they? You know nothing but arrogantly think you know everything. You'd be better off blindly adhering to what the Church tells you because you obviously don't think for yourself anyway and they'd do a better job than the Amazing Atheist or Christopher Hitchens or whoever is doing it for you at the moment.
You can think what you will - but I don't expect you'd type all of these presumptuous claims (in response to my mere twenty words) unless you really, REALLY wanted to convince readers and yourself that it's *me* who's jumping to conclusions.
>>7797062
Really? I thought about it for a long time and decided that pantheism made the most sense and that Christianity as a whole was just people putting entirely too much investment in some stories by some guys that probably didn't happen or were extremely embellished.
What made you decide the truth was in Catholicism or Orthodoxy?
>>7798134
The crucial point is the dogmatism, if you want to call it that, isn't a simpleminded belief in something simplistic as was implied earlier in the thread, nor is the sophisticated theology developed a justification of simplistic doctrine as you say there. The Catholic Church's tenets are complicated, philosophical beliefs developed in an attempt to understand, and once accepted and established, then enshrined.
>>7797314
Based on what exactly?
>>7798158
Simplicity isn't the issue; non-negotiability is.
Do you think that the church fathers were open-minded to the concept that no god exists, or (the issue you pointed out) that matter is equally original as a supernatural artificer? Or was it more the case that they were committed to their faith, and tailored their arguments to suit their goals?
Was Augustine being rationally unbiased when he rejected mere Platonism because it didn't involve Christ?
>>7798158
I'm a devout Catholic and Catholicism is dogmatic. Dogmas are elaborated and understood, but that doesn't make them pure original philosophical concepts. And there's nothing wrong with dogmas, every sphere of human existence is full of axioms.
>>7798223
Augustine came around to Christianity because it held the greatest amount of truth, and he developed that truth further. There was no bias about his selection in which faith to profess. There's a lot of literature on why people choose to profess the faith, and Augustine's Confessions are a good start. Although yes, it's non-negotiable you believe in God to be a Catholic -- the same way it's non-negotiable a woman must have a child to be a mother. Your gripe, then, is that not everyone is a modern day scientific minded skeptic, and you hold it against the past as well as the present. It isn't that people aren't open minded. It's that they come to different conclusions to yours.
>>7798265
> Your gripe, then, is that not everyone is a modern day scientific minded skeptic, and you hold it against the past as well as the present. It isn't that people aren't open minded. It's that they come to different conclusions to yours.
No - it's not *that* they disagree, but *how* they disagree.
> Augustine came around to Christianity because it held the greatest amount of truth
Convenient.
Or, maybe, because he heard some voice, then took up the bible, and just accepted as true what he happened to read.
>>7797062
Give me a single reason why Christianity is the correct religion, if I already believe in a creator. Spoilers: You can't without resorting to flawed reasoning and logical fallacies.
Not bait btw. I've thought about this for a long time and there are no good reasons at all.
>>7798307
But you don't even have to accept a creator, even if you accept that the universe had a beginning/first cause (another assertion you don't have to accept)
>>7798301
St. Augustine writes in detail on his conversion, and it's more complicated than your caricaturing of Christians as loonies who hear voices, as is any Christian's profession of faith. You dislike, however, their mode of disagreeing, although you disagree by lampooning any Christian as ridiculous. I take it you distaste is that they don't express any uncertainty. If they did, they wouldn't be Christians. They'd be skeptics like you. Your gripe is that they've come to a different conclusion, and they experience the world differently. Ironically, your dislike of Christians is, in your mind, that they aren't open minded, but you seem more close minded than any Christian I've ever encountered. You can't fathom what it means to be a Christian.
>This is getting away from the point, however, which was that Catholicism is fundamentalist with the implications that its adherence to certain tenets is an outdated mode of existence.
I think concepts like transubstantiation (unless metaphorically) and papal infallibility to be obviously outdated, now that we have a greater scientific understanding of the world around us.
>All truth is God's truth, and truth and God are eternal.
Define "God's truth." All sorts of Christian denominations hold different interpretations to what the Truth is. And everyone who interprets it differently is a heretic to everyone else.
>>7798307
Once you've accepted there's a creator, you have to explain why they created the world and how. Christianity provides the best answer and the best theological framework.
>>7798339
>best answer and the best theological framework
Be specific. It's certainly not the most proven one unless you want to appeal ad populum
I don't see how you can be a Christian and not a Protestant if you actually read the Bible.
Nowhere does it say a man in a hat talks to God for you.
Also read some history and you'll see that the Pope is just a man in the hat and made insane decrees all the time like promising the entire Western Hemisphere of Earth to Spain.
The truth is Mormonism. it fixes the errors present with 95% of Christianity, the most glaring of which are that God sent himself down to fix the evil he created and also watched himself as a dove. The Trinity is a lie.
>>7797598
this nigga acting as if reality tunnels aren't real
>>7798407
isn't sola scriptura is protestant doctrine?
>>7797062
how can you still take monotheistic religions seriously when we have now enough elements (historical and archeological) to say that most of the stuff in the book never happened and that it was all made-up for political reasons?
>>7798756
Because you don't find the evidence as valid and think them political?
>>7798327
Nah - I never criticized all Christians, or all theists. Related to this, I think there are plenty of theists who believe in a god without claiming to be 100% sure that their god exists - and without assuming tenets of faith from the start, only to design logical(-ish) defenses afterwards.
I've been pretty clear about this latter point throughout my posts, but replying to your projections and mischaracterizations is getting kind of boring now, so - sincerely - peace.
