Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
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Hahahaha, Tinkerbell65! Oh how I love your picture! I'm stealing that too!
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This morning I read that thousands of Catholic's in Arizona might not get into their version of heaven because a priest used the word 'we' instead of 'I' when baptizing them. A call has gone out to locate "those in need of the sacraments" to ensure their salvation. I (or is it we) knew prepositions were important, but that is just too insanely funny.
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magiclight, I've often wondered if there are more obsessive-compulsives who are Catholic than in the general population, with their reliance on excruciatingly minute rules and rituals to keep the sheep in line.
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If they're spazzing over a pronoun, how surprised will they be when they get to the gates and are told, "I'm sorry, but your baptism, and last rites were performed in English. According to the RULE BOOK, the baptism ritual is in Aramaic, and the last rites are in Latin."
No soup for you!!
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Yes, I'd read this story. Maybe Rome will give all those thousands of people a "dispensation".
Alice - definite food for thought...more obsessive-compulsives who are Catholic than in the general population... I think I'd carry it over to most religions, since they all have so many rules & restrictions & prohibitions. Or maybe just the people who are fanatics about their religion?
The chicken or the egg. Are the churches the cause of obsessive-compulsive people? Or are obsessive-compulsive people drawn to these churches?
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MinusTwo, well, I was thinking mostly of people raised Catholic rather than converts. I think the term is Cradle Catholic? They have all those responsive memorized prayers, plus the Rosary with saying something for each bead, plus certain things to say to begin confession, plus all the standing and kneeling - very regimented and usually with a lot of nagging from the parents to do it perfectly. I grew up in a laid-back mainstream Protestant church, with very little of that kind of ritual, and I still found things like memorization for confirmation a huge pain.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before: My adult son joined an Episcopal church four or five years ago. Pre-Covid, Hubby and I attended a few holiday events and services there. I ran into my favorite ex-boss there, who had been something like Presbyterian when I worked for him. He and his wife (who I'd worked with at another job - this city is like a small town!) had switched when their adult daughter joined, and he explained that they really liked it but "learning the choreography was a real bitch!" It's nice when people are realistic - and funny.
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A dash of humor is always important.
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- magiclight, I've often wondered if there are more obsessive-compulsives who are Catholic than in the general population, with their reliance on excruciatingly minute rules and rituals to keep the sheep in lin
Yes, I see this. In catholic school, I was taught that every spare moment, I should pray for the souls in purgatory. One nun even had some kind of calculation, as to how many prayers took so many years off their "sentence" in purgatory, so they could ascend to heaven. The idea was that I pray for them to get out of purgatory, and then when I die, they intervene with go to get me to heaven. SO, as a child, many spare moments were spent mumbling hailmaryfullofgracethelordiswiththeeblessedartthouamongwomenandblessedisthefruitofthywombjesus (inhale) holymarymotherofgodprayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathamen.
walking home from school, waiting in line for anything, any time I was idle, I would do this. It didn't last long, I got bored. Looking at it now, it seems delusional, and someone muttering like that would seem crazy.
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Tinker...love the run-on prayer.
I'm old enough to remember buying pagan babies - foreign babies of color. That tradition lives on with more up to date language when missionaries trade food and medicine for souls. Churches need more souls to financially support those churches and because church membership is declining, the need is greater than ever. I acknowledge that some churches do provide needed aid, but with many strings attached.
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I've gotten more curious about my maternal grandmother lately. She died years before I was born, so the little I know about her is from my Mom's stories of their life in Detroit. The part of Hungary she was from has been in Ukraine for many years, and I know she had siblings there, so their families have been very much on my mind lately. One thing I found out is she was Hungarian Greek Catholic. Apparently the Greek or Byzantine Catholics broke away from the Orthodox church many years ago to align with Roman Catholics in some, but not all things. They used their own language for most of the services long before Roman Catholics did (as was the case with other Greek Catholics in that Carpathian and Sub-Carpathian area, so there are Ukrainian Greek Catholics, Romanian Greek Catholics, Ruthenian Greek Catholics, Roma Greek Catholics, and probably a few others). And their priests can marry! Anyway, I started looking at the icons used by the various Greek Catholics and Orthodoxes. Orthodoxi? It's amazing how un-European their people depictions are. If they'd been the dominant religion, I wonder if there would be less arguing today about Jesus not looking Middle Eastern. All those wasted centuries of silly squabbles!
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Alice...appreciate your perspective on imagery in many Orthodox Catholic religions and agree that the images that are ingrained in religions and cultures do have substantial impact on how we envision 'good' people look. In looking at images available online, it is obvious that women (except Mary) are absent. Good, holy people are men. According to Wikipedia - Women as theological figures have played a significant role in the development of various religions and religious hierarchies. Throughout most of history women were unofficial theologians. They would write and teach, but did not hold official positions in Universities and Seminaries. I did learn that St Philothea of Arges (1206-1208) is the "protectress of Romania and Dec.7th feast day, she is know as protectress of abused children.
I went to college in Detroit, back in the day, and recall many Greek Orthodox churches/communities. However, those were the days when Catholics were told not to enter any non-roman catholic churches. As you say - 'silly' , but nonetheless destructive.
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Divide and conquer, using the pulpit to "other" various groups. It's been happening forever.
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Divine, that's hilarious!
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BWAHAHAHA! Now I need to find a pin...
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Hahahahaha! Oh. My. Word. but that’s weird! Lol
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Hi thedudess: welcome, there are many of us here as elsewhere
Good one Wrenn! I respect their holiday and use it as a good time to shop. However, stores are not as empty on this day as in the past.
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Eddie Izzard on Easter and Christmas
"Kids eat chocolate eggs because the color of the chocolate, and the color of the wood on the cross, and .... Well you tell me!"
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I am in a weird mood - saw this on twitter and had to share:
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Awesome!
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Just dropping by to confess that I got into it with some God-fearing folks in one of my cancer Facebook groups. It was a bunch of annoying crap about how God had answered their prayers and listened to them and blah blah blah and I was like....so God didn't listen when all the Stage 4 cancer patients asked for his assistance? He wants us to suffer and die and for you to be healthy because you "truly believed" and we didn't? They tried the "oh that's not what I meant" and "he works in mysterious ways" and "some people will be healed in heaven" and eventually I just stopped responding because I didn't want to get banned...
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awww bless their little narrow minded hearts🤣🤣🤣
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parakeet, that's always a frustrating discussion to have. I feel like many people don't want to grapple with matters in a more in-depth kind of way.
I was reading something today that talked about Make A Wish religion, meaning there are people who assume prayer is something like sitting on Santa's lap with a wish list for Christmas. If you're good enough or have enough faith, your wish will be granted and you'll avoid the grief and suffering the rest of the world experiences. This kind of religion hopes for a magical way to bypass grief or resolve it quickly and painlessly. It wants short, simple answers to complex problems for which there are no simple answers.
I see a whole lot of this kind of religion around me. It seems to go hand in hand with what I call a la carte religion, where people pick and choose only the parts of religion that they want and leave the rest. Sure, they want to feel good giving gifts to their loved ones at Christmas but they are okay with hating their neighbor. They want to fight for the unborn yet turn their back on meeting the needs of children once they are born.
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Make-a-Wish religion is like those who survive a natural disaster like a tornado and say, "God protected us. We thank him for keeping us safe." While at the same time, dozens of their neighbors were killed in the same event. I guess they just weren't faithful enough.
As for abortion, it just shows that they can't be bothered to read or believe their own holy book. The bible clearly states that god "breaths life" into man. So life, according to the bible, begins with the first breath.
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That drives me CRAZY. God protected them from the tornado but killed their neighbors? Do they understand how they sound?? (obviously, they don't, lol)
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parakeetsrule, WTF is "healed in heaven?" That's the most batshit thing I've ever heard! I got the pitchfork and torch treatment on a FB cancer group, too, when, after seeing all the "JEEEsus will see us through" posts, I asked if it was a group for Christians only. Whoo-ee, you'd have thought I re-crucified their fave fantasy figure!
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