Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
Comments
-
Miriandra, that's not what I was taught the Immaculate Conception means. We were taught that Mary was and remained a virgin, no penis in vagina necessary to conceive Jesus, i.e., Immaculate Conception = virgin birth. God planted the seed in her, not Joseph. She also didn't die. The skies parted and she was raised up into the heavens by God to live with God eternally, i.e., the Assumption.
Therein lies more complication. Not all Catholics were taught the same thing. If you google Catholic Assumption, you will get different takes on its meaning. But back in the 1960s when I was fully immersed in the Catholicism of my parents attending Sunday church and Catholic school, those were the things that we were taught.
I also assumed the Bible stories were literal, that someone lived inside a huge fish and that someone actually turned into a pillar of salt, ect. No one ever told me differently, not a priest, a nun, a youth group leader, a lay person. Years later, I read numerous books where people said, well, our priest said the Bible was not to be taken literally. So wtf?
0 -
As someone who was raised laid-back Protestant, all we ever got was "Mary was a virgin." That was it. And, in the words of an elderly Sunday School teacher, "Mary was a pheasant girl." Maybe that's how she flew up to heaven; we should have told the Catholics!
0 -
"Sep 10, 2021 03:01AM saltmarsh wrote:
I am absolutely jealous of people who have faith. It nearly always makes everything so much simpler, and nicer. And sometimes fun!"
I have had that same thought many times throughout the years. that people who had strong religious beliefs didn't have to THINK so hard to figure things out - they just went by what their religion told them. they had it easier, not having to consider many sides to an issue, their religion told them in black and white terms what was good or bad.
0 -
Miriandra - Yes, Immaculate Conception is not the same thing as virgin birth. Immaculate conception refers to the doctrine, that Mary, from the moment of her own conception, was not tainted by original sin, as she was already pre-determined to give birth to Christ. the discrepancy is that "original sin" is often viewed as meaning sex, so there is some question as to whether it meant that Mary was also conceived without sex. The church does not believe that mary was also the product of a virgin birth, but that when she was conceived, god prevented her soul from having the stain of original sin. Because, of course, Jesus could not be born from a womb that was tainted by sin.
My take on it is that it is all about different interpretations of words like sin and grace, and even virgin. I had read once that the word "virgin" was often used to mean young woman, and that it is very possible that the misinterpretation of a scripture was behind the whole 'virgin birth' thing.
0 -
Kind of a moot point, tinkerbelle, since all of it is completely made up. They can make it mean whatever suits their objectives. Which is pretty much what all religions have done since man invented them to explain that which (s)he did not understand.
0 -
More evidence that it's all relative and made up. xD
Since Mary's parents were described as "barren", I'd assume that meant they tried sex at least a few times before resorting to prayer. But obviously dogmatics have discussed it back and forth over the centuries.
Ketubahs also likely have regional flavors. My friend loves to share that her ketubah includes the conjugal clause. She's done loads of research into medieval and renaissance Jewish traditions, and drafted it with their rabbi based on surviving extant examples. Modern Orthodox ketubas are certainly different, since they're legal documents for rabbinical courts, and modern marriages have different needs than those from 400-500 years ago.
0 -
I am still chuckling over here about Mary being a "pheasant girl"... I wish I could make some clever animated .gif mashing up Mary with a pheasant, but I am not that kind of talented!
My kiddo just declared he's an antitheist, and perhaps he is. He definitely is anti religion -- which kind of makes me sad, since I (perhaps naively) never saw any harm in Taoism, and I identify as an agnostic Unitarian Universalist, and I think there could be other religions that are not harmful. But he is thinking his own thoughts and making his own decisions, so he's right on track as my progeny, I guess.
0 -
Trishyla, yes, I agree that religious dogma is made up stories. I have heard so much from the nuns in catholic school, about how you MUST believe, and how you should never doubt, I found it very oppressive. I was being taught to not think, and that goes against my nature.
0 -
Big Catholic wedding tomorrow. Niece is getting married. The joining of a Polish and Italian family says it all.
0 -
PS. I'm more of agnostic. Hedging my bets I guess
0 -
KIDI919 - oh man, Catholic church weddings are killer on the knees. Up and down and up and down and kneel and stand and sit and kneel.... At least the time passes quickly because there's always some calisthenics to do . (disclosure I'm one of the Polish vaguely raised Catholic people. I had the communion dress! oh man, I loved the dress. And I loved the nun who taught us that year. She was such a lovely young nun. but by a couple years later I was like "wow, this is some bs" & quit & didn't do confirmation, much to my godfather's endless consternation).
0 -
Moth: LOL I sure will be getting my knee bends in today! We had all the of the above. our family had/has 4 girls and one brother. We did it all. My father use to take us and then sleep in the car while we were in church. There was a small store next to the church where you could get penny candy. Sometimes we could sneak by Dad and use a tiny bit of of our offering on a 1cent piece of candy. The owner always asked if we were spending our offering on candy. It was a damn penny! There's that guilt thing again! My mother never took us to mass or went herself ( altho she made us go) it was probably her break from 5 children. My SIL had 9 in her family, another Italian fam but Irish on her mom's side. I was taught by nuns and at 64 have never recovered. Weirdly one of the nicer nuns is a patient of mine, she said when you joined you had to choose teaching or nursing.
0 -
My best friend is a former nun. She describes the convent as pretty brutal and was abused there. She was a teacher and loved teaching the 'slow' kids. She had them reading Shakespeare. I think she still believes in God but wants nothing to do with the Catholic Church.
0 -
[This is all pre-Covid] My son joined an Episcopal church about five years ago. It's a lovely, very inclusive place where he feels welcome. Hubby and I have gone to a few events and services there to support him, and I must say, I felt more welcome there than I ever did at Hubby's catholic church when we lived in his old neighborhood. I was surprised to run into my old boss from years ago there. I remembered he and his wife (who I later worked with at another job - this big city is VERY small-town!) were Presbyterian at the time, so I asked about the switch. He explained that their daughter, now out of town in graduate school, was a member, so they switched for her. He was telling me some of the good things about this church, but then he said "I'll tell ya, learning the choreography was a bitch!" That's the best description of the kneeling denominations I'd ever heard!
0 -
0 -
Hee hee. Love that little tidbit, magiclight.0
-
0 -
Pictured at equinox. What a wonderful combination of nature and brains.
0 -
Beautiful. Thanks, Alice. I needed those to get my blood pressure out of the stratosphere.
I have to rant. I just got a call from a Seventh Day Adventist. Urgggghhhh. This is the second one in less than two weeks. I don't think it's random. How the hell did they get my number?
I unleashed on the caller. Told her I hated ALL mother effing religions, and they were the cause of so many of the problems in our world. Told her to take my name of her effing list and to never call me again.
I reiterate. Urgggghhhh.
Thanks. I feel better now. Have a nice day.😁
Trish
0 -
I don't think I've ever gotten a call from them. Around here it's the JW and LDS.
0 -
Wait, the Adventists are trying to get us by PHONE now? Weird. My friend's uncle is an Adventist televangelist, so I get that they are okay with sort-of-unconventional, but still.
0 -
See if your phone carrier has a call blocking app. ATT does, it’s free, and pretty effective.
0 -
I do that already with spam, Spookiesmom, but these are from personal cell phones, so no way of knowing in advance. At this point, I'm kind of okay with swearing them off my phone. You annoy me and invade my privacy, I'll tell you exactly how I feel about religion. I'm totally done with being nice to people who try to push their nutty views on others.
0 -
The call blocker I have from ATT, if you aren’t in my phone book, it won’t ring, and get blocked. I have a snarky message for voicemail, and that probably helps too
0 -
I wish I could, Spookiesmom, but I use my phone for my jewelry business. I get quite a few calls from potential customers. So I have to answer, no matter what.
0 -
Magiclight and AliceB: Fun postings. Thanks. My middle girl turned 35 today . I will have to remind her it's the fall equinox.
0 -
The Adventists are proselytizing now? Don't we have enough plagues already?
0 -
Alice. Right - enough already!
0 -
Whoopsie. Wrong god.
0 -
0
