I guess this is where we differ, i believe when those souls are with our Lord, no way to really communicate with them.
Where is it taught that the Catholic church should be above what scripture teaches due to its foundation and tradition. The Apostles were essentially appointed by Jesus to spread His teachings. What other explanation are you looking for? Out of curiosity, you say you grew up Catholic. Did you ever attend a Catholic school or attend Sunday school (or whatever day it may have been on)? From what age? How old were you when you switched to Pentecostal?
I believe (and Catholic faith believes as well), that the should are with Jesus - no difference there. Not being judgmental, but if you can communicate with Jesus through prayer, why can you not communicate with someone living with him?
Same here -- after that trilogy though they just started getting goofy -- the first book is a true classic though.
During your journey through Catholic schools, did you not believe you could pray and ask the Saints to intercede on your behalf? Did you not believe that you could pray and 'communicate' with the souls in heaven?
This is an outstanding answer to what the OP posted. Look, since the OP left the church after 17 years of school and mass, it is pretty obvious that he has a holier than thou attitude about Catholicism. Not the most Christian thing in the world, but whatever. If he really went to Catholic schools and mass for 17 years, you ought to know about Catholicism. This fact makes it a farce that he would start a thread to bash Catholics under the guise of seeking education on Catholicism. This all paints him as a liar and a hypocrite. Perhaps he should focus on your own quest to more closely follow Jesus' teachings rather than being focused on tearing down the faith of others.
You are a bit dramatic there, buddy. I'm glad bobrek isn't as serious as you and has come up with educative responses rather than feeling offended and making crazy posts like yours here.
I did all of that and could not find Christ that way. Going to Catholic schools and listening to their their teachings had no effect on my personal life, thus the reason for change in my beliefs when i was a teen.
What is crazy is that you went to Catholic school for 17 years and started a thread claiming to want answers about Catholicism. To amp up the crazy, along the way, you throw barbs suggesting that Catholics are not as good Christians as you are. That's crazy. The fact is that bobrek is more tolerant of your crap than I am. I notice that you conveniently didn't respond to any of the substance of my post. You just deflected by calling me crazy and dramatic. The fact is that you exposed who you really are and have no real answers when somebody calls you out on it.
1. I went to Catholic school for maybe 10 years? I said i stopped going until i was 17, not that i went for 17 years. 2. I sincerely want answers, why is this a claim? 3. I may have implied it that way but only because I am not as educated about the Catholicism Church hence this thread. 4. I have no problems with you and don't want this to go in a back and forth nonsense argument about exposing one another. 5. I thank bobrek for being tolerant and mature about it, even if sadly i haven't when i made this thread.
I've had a huge problem with the Catholic church over the past decade or so (as have many Catholics) with all the pedophilia and financial coverups, but when you see change and progress from the top down you need to credit them. Pope Francis from what i've seen and heard is someone I can really respect -- he seems dedicated to bringing the Catholics back to what is important in religion. I know that this thread isn't about that aspect of the church and is really just to bash the Catholics' way of worshiping god and Jesus. My question to OP -- what makes the pentecostal way of worshiping better than the Catholics or any other denomination?
People find Christ through various avenues, no harm in that. That being said, your original post was poorly constructed due to the vampire and ghost reference. Someone believing in vampires and ghosts has absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of the church. If anyone believes in vampires, that is on them, not on the general teachings of most faiths. You implied that your acquaintances belief in vampires had something to do with the Catholic church. How old are these people that believe in vampires?
I think you're a farce because not once in any of the Catholic schools I went to did our Theology teachers ever talk about vampires or ghosts unless you're talking about the Holy Spirit. So I won't be polite but you must be an idiot. Ten years going to church where they talk about the Beatitudes and the 10 Commandments, the Gospels and different written iterations of Christ as a man like in the book of Mark to the book of John where Christ is more of a divine figure and all you got out of your ten years is vampires and ghosts? Seriously? 10 years of being absorbed into another religion and all you get out of it is vampires and ghosts. Of all the mysteries there are about the divinity of God and you get stumped by ghosts and vampires that probably were never even discussed seriously by anyone but maybe some middle school girl who maybe popped a question like that in class which stuck with you above all the other stuff. I think you're full of crap man or you simply had bad instructors for 10 or 17 years straight which is entirely possible I suppose. I just find it hard to believe that's all you got out of it. That forces me to come to possibly one of three conclusions which I won't even get to the other two. You're not very smart. 10 or 17 years of acquired knowledge on a subject you hold a lot of personal interest in and you didn't learn anything from it. I'm closer to agnostic or full blown atheist now but at least I got something from all those years of going to school. I learned to ask questions and actually seek out answers. You think a forum on clutchfans is going to give you serious answers? Go to a local church. Ask a priest or a deacon or write or e-mail to a local church community. Church communities are pretty involved and sometimes you gotta ask the silly questions like about vampires and ghosts in order for your brain to declutter and start asking the good question so you can get the good answers. For me, the church didn't provide the answers I'm looking for. There's no evidence of God anywhere at least with our current scientific knowledge. This is what we do know. 13.7 billion years ago, all the mass in the universe was condensed down to a uniform size about as big as an engagement ring box. From where, the arrow of time began and entropy started. The universe expanded and will continue to expand forever until eventually all the mass in the universe will decay and all that's left in the universe is empty space. Inside that universe full of mass, are particles that make up you and myself and everything else in the universe. If I were to believe in religion (specifically Catholicism), I would have to still believe that 13.7 billion years ago the Big Bang happened which is again where all the stuff that makes up the universe came from. After about 9.7 billion years the universe expanded enough and cooled down enough where habitable life on earth was possible. Over the course of that 4 billion years single cell organisms evolved from a primordial soup where life on earth began. Of those 4 billion years from which all the life on earth formed a form of human beings were beginning to evolve. It took roughly 3.98 billion years for modern day humans to arise. Our current species is about 200 thousand years old. In those 200 thousand years, if you actually were Catholic and paid attention to the fine text, you'd know that it's believed Christ was born in 6 B.C. How does that work? B.C. means Before Christ! Christ can't be born 6 Before Christ. It's like dividing by zero! I didn't make the rules though. It's just how it is. Anyhow, in those 200 thousand years, I am supposed to believe, the embodiment of God was not too happy with us while he watched us perched way up high in heaven, which we haven't found yet. But that guy has X-ray vision with a super duper telescope and He's watching. Always and everywhere. Anyhow 200,000 - 2019 (2013 + 6 BC) = 197,981 years before God sent an angel down from heaven to communicate with the Virgin Mary that she was going to have the son of God conceived in her without the act of sexual intercourse. 31 years later from 6 BC, this Son of Man died for all our sins and showed us how to live our lives and all it took was about 13.7 billion years for not only us to evolve in an intelligent enough species to worship a divine figure but about that long as well for that same divine figure to evolve into us just to tell us how bad of a job we're doing being human and that the only way we can be saved is through Him. Sorry, I'm just not buying it. But I do appreciate what good I got from Theology. It made me want to keep asking questions and not being satisfied with, "It's just the mystery of God." That's a cop out excuse for, "I don't know and I've no interest finding out why." It's that kind of backward ass thinking that caused human civilization mortality to be much shorter back in the day. That is until some really smart people invented microscopes to probe deep into the tiny world of cells and saw there were foreign bodies like viruses and bacteria that harm us. You know what a lot of the people of the time would assume when they got sick? "It's just the mystery of God." Those people died faster than the ones that kept questioning, probing and investigating until they eventually came up with cures to deadly diseases like TB or cancer. Outlier, it's good you're asking questions. You're just asking really stupid ones.
Fair enough. My advice for your questions regarding this though would be better served by searching for the nearest Catholic Church community nearby, see if they have a website, find a priest or a deacon's e-mail from that website and ask them. I'm sure they'll be kind enough to answer if you ask them nicely. You're going to get made of more than likely asking stuff on here or get trolled. This is a place for discussion, but there's books on the internet, actual serious theological discussion forums and probably a local church community you could walk right into today especially because its Sunday and maybe find a priest after mass and ask for a moment of his time to ask your questions. If the priest is good and isn't swamped down with another mass coming up, you could probably get your questions answered straight from the source or get lead in the right direction. Also you got the internet man. You literally have a world of information at your fingertips. You're using it to talk to me. Why not use it to get the answers to the questions you're seeking?
How old are the Catholics that you know that believe in vampires and ghosts? Again why did you even bother to bring that up originally? That tempered your entire post as you, yourself knows there is nothing in the Catholic teaching that says anything about vampires. You made a horrendous mistake, regardless of your intentions, as to even typing the word vampire.
I don't remember why I put Outlier on ignore since it was such a long time ago, but this thread confirms my original decision had merit. My twelve years of Catholic school and it's associated education and indoctrination left me with a healthy dose of tolerance and acceptance of others regardless of their religious beliefs. It taught me how to think for myself and seek knowledge, truth, and wisdom. It taught me the power of forgiveness and compassion for the less fortunate. It taught me the rich recompense of service to our fellow man and woman. Ironically, this very foundation provided the intestinal fortitude to reject religion (not condemn it), yet still live my life in a moral and socially redeeming manner. Who knew? Oh yeah, they also had me read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in English class. So Outlier is spot on about the vampire stuff. Good call.
Outlier, you basically created a thread and said 'can any Catholics out there tell me why you believe the ridiculous things you believe in? Can't you guys stick to normal things like snake handling and speaking in tongues?' (I added that last part) Your opening post was about as pompous a post as I have read on this forum.
