A couple things about the Church

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If you don't give a hang about religion, this thread will bore you.

From the tangent developing in the Christmas thread:

The Eastern Orthodox split from the Roman Catholic Church (the first time) in 1066. One of the major differences was over whether or not the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son" or just from the Father. The latter is the Eastern Orthodox view.

To say that the Eastern Orthodox Churches (they are not a single church, but several smaller, regional churches) are closer to "original" Christianity is to misunderstand both the nature of the split between the two and the nature of Eastern Orthodoxy. For instance, there are several branches of Eastern Catholics, which keep the same spirituality and theology of the Eastern Orthodox but remain in communion with Rome and under the Pope's authority. Melkites, Maronites, Ukrainian Catholics, and others fall into this category. And there are several different sorts of Eastern Orthodoxy. Russian, Greek, Coptic, Syrian... each has different styles of worship and practices. All (that I can think of) are recognized as valid by the Vatican.

Martin Luther came along in 1517 and caused the first of the splits that we refer to as Protestant. None of the churches resulting from that (or subsequent heresies in England) are recognized as legitimate churches by the Vatican ("Church" as defined by the Catholic Church includes valid sacraments like communion as transubstantiation, which all Protestant sects reject.)

[And if you really want to see me get long-winded, just start making the standard erroneous arguments about Galileo, the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc.]

 

I believe in something greater than man, but not in religion. So I guess this bores me.
But what does Galileo has to do with this? hmmm. I better search the net. heh

 

Dear Shralp,

I must disappoint you - I already knew all of that for years. EVERYTHING.
But, since this is Whatnots...
I don't have any comment, facts are pretty "genuine" according to official history. However, I have to put my thought on Galileo.

Galileo Galilei was nothing but a common coward! Damned prick took back his words, spit on his work and betrayed all of those who believed in him and his findings. I hate him. Yes, he admitted the truth once again while waiting for death, but who needed that? Not me. Now real heros of those days, who gave their lives are hardly remembered, as it always happens with heroes (get forgotten), but there is a name still remembered. Giordano Bruno. So dear Shralp, will you please point that name to Nobleman?

This person never took his words back and died for his beliefs. Burned alive, yes, that was the punishment. Who was crazy, Bruno or those who sentenced him to death? I don't care actually. I do care there were people who would give their life just to prove obvious things.

But also, will you please point to our dear Nobleman that all guilt should be thrown on one greek phylosopher - Aristotle. The Church in fact took Aristotle's techings of "plane earth". And Aristotle tought that because he hated Plato's teachings of "round earth". Of pure jealousy Aristotle said something that couldn't be checked in his community - and it became law in Church those times. Opposing Aristotle - death penalty.

I hope we don't live in such times anymore. I hope you can say freely your thoughts without fear to be punished. I hope Inquisition never returns in a form of murderer as it was. And I am catholic as you know it already.

Sincerelly yours,

Extremist

 

I hope you're not blaming the death of Bruno et al on Aristotle Extremist because that would be more than just extreme, it would be, well, ridiculous. Can't blame the guy because some christian theologians came across his work long after he died and were so impressed by it that they tried to integrate it with their religion.

Aristotle got lots of things wrong. Maybe most notably he got his system of logic wrong creating a real problem with identities. Leibniz tried to fix the problems with identities and succeeded multiple times but threw each success in the waste basket because his solution would mean Aristotle had gotten it wrong and Leibniz couldn't bring himself to accept this. Aristotle was wrong though about that and lots of stuff. Still, he is debatably the most influential thinker in western history. He greatly admired Plato though they often disagreed (and come on, a lot of Plato's ideas were just plain screwy, espescially metaphysically) but they also agreed on many things (political philosophy and to a lesser extent ethics were greatly interlinked.) He was hardly a jealousy driven fool and he certainly isn't to blame for crimes commited long after he had decomposed.

 

I've never heard it said that the Church imposed an automatic death penalty on people for opposing Aristotle, so I'm skeptical about your claim there, love.

I don't Galileo was a coward. He was told, "Hey, you will harm the people's faith if you tell them that the Earth is not the center of the universe, so wait until they are ready to hear it." He refused and was put under house arrest. But the house arrest was "wherever you go, you have to stay there." It was a sentence with no meaning, just a slap because the Church recognized that he might be right but was still recklessly endangering the faith of people who didn't know enough to realize that theologically it's not important that the Earth revolves around the sun.

 

Extremist, religions bore me as long as they keep fighting over who is God. But I fail to see why, beeing bored of religion, makes me such a bad person that you point out to people that they should point it out to me. *sheesh*. IF you just needed some agressions out fine.

 

The church did not like scientists .

 

Actually, the Church has been responsible for a great deal of learning and teaching throughout history.

The problem in people's perceptions is that the Church does not view the pursuit of academic knowledge as the ultimate good. Faith and worship of God is.

Oh, and also the veneration of the Sorcerous Posse.

 

Nobleman, the post was in form of a letter so I kept that style. Your beliefs do not make me angry or agressive - why should they? The differences made people growing better (yea, someone will say what's better with nukes...), and so your boredorm with dealing stuff that can't be scientifically proved does not affect me anyhow.

The point was just my vision of Galileo who lived just because he was afraid to defend his beliefs! I hope Nobleman, that you will be new Bruno and not new Galileo.

 

I am not at all bored by what cannot be explained scientificly. If you read my post again you'll see that I do believe in something greater than man. I do spend much time on ghoststories, Extraterestial life, the concept "God", Telepathy and God knows what strange and obscure stuff. For the third time what bores me is the man made invention "religion".

Now would I die for something I believed in? No! There are to many aspects of life I love to stick to some scientific ideal and die from it. If that means I won't be remembered in a history book as a hero, fine. So be it.

In fact I'll change my username to make it impossible to not notice that I do believe. But enough of my rambling in this thread.

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited November 19, 2001).]

 

Shralp:

By the sixth century B.C.E., Pythagoras had come up with the idea taht the earth revolved around the sun.
By the third century B.C.E., Aristarchus had outlined the heliocentric theory and Eratosthenes had measured the circumference of the Earth.
By the second century B.C.E., Hipparchus had invented longitude and latitude and had determined the obliquity of the ecliptic. After the Dark Ages, it was not until the sixteenth century C.E that Copernicus reintroduced the theory taht the earth revolves around the sun.
And when Galileo attempted to promote the heliocentric theory, well you know the rest.

To that point, St Augustine once said, as quoted from Ibid., 449, "It is impossible there should be inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth, since no such race is recorded by the Scripture among the descendants of Adam."

Pope Gregory I, Gregory the Great, said "I despise the proper constructions and cases, because I think it very unfitting that the words of the celestial oracle should be restricted by the rules of Donatus (a well known grammarian)" What was it you posted about grammer? Are you disagreeing with Pope Gregory I? This statement can be found in The Renaissance of the 12th Century, Charles Homer Haskins (Cleceland & New York: Meridian Books, 1927)

My point is, from what i have read, the burning of books and repression of intellectual pursuit set humanity back as much as two millenia in its scientific understanding.

That and if the christians were in err before, couldn't they be in err now?

I realise some of my facts may be in err, correct them if you may, but do not claim my sources to be in err, for your's may be too.

 

The christians are not in error. But there are people that call themselves christians who are in error, and so are the Catholics, who obviously have laws that are against the bible.

 

No, the Catholics have no laws against the Bible. They do have some laws (by which I assume you mean canons) that are not covered by the Bible, as is the Church's perogrative under the mandate given to Peter and the disciples.

Yes, I disagree with Pope Gregory. Catholics are free to do that, by the way. It's not a religion of slavish obedience. And obviously St. Augustine was wrong. So? Being a saint doesn't mean you have perfect logic. I'm curious as to what book burnings you're referring to. The ones in Europe when Catholic monks were the ones who collected the knowledge of the ages to preserve for generations to come? The Nazi bookburnings?

 

As the resident cleric, I feel that I should chime in a little, but this "feels" like an intermaural debate between Sharlp, Extremist and the Spammer formerly known as Nobleman.

so, until you need me, I'll just be watching. (I am always watching ...)

 

I actually need you.
What on earth does Intermaural mean?
My dictionary showed nothing. Neither Intermaural nore maural
I searched for an online dictionary; It showed nothing; link here http://www.yourdictionary.com/
Even Doctor Dictionary couldn't help me
Link: http://www.dictionary.com/doctor/
So I used a search engine and only found connections to sports. So I figured it was some kind of pushing and soft brawling word. Am I right?

PS: You called me a spammer so I better heed you personality description, Wouldn't want anyone to spread rumours that you are lying would we?

EDITED HERE: Ahhh. You scoundrel. Did that just to trick me, I just found intramaural. But I got to admit that Intermaural gives a whole new two faced meaning. Cool. You just invented a cool new word Math. You did that on purpose. Always motin in the force.

Intramaural
I like your version better


EDITED AGAIN: Heh. I know Math. I know. I am just happy today. So that means a friendly tease for my friends.. (bugger. used all of those "8" I call it "7" smilies)

[This message has been edited by ArchAngel (edited November 20, 2001).]

 

ArchAngel...

FIRST On the "Spammer thing" It was a joke! I don't really think you spam ... It was a reference to "The artist formerly known as Prince"

SECOND On the word in question ...


in·tra·mu·ral (ntr-myrl)
adj.
1) Existing or carried on within the bounds of an institution, especially a school: intramural athletics.
2)Anatomy. Occurring or situated within the wall of a cavity or organ.

THIRD ... on my personality description .... (I'm assuming you mean the little pop-up "about Mathetais" thing we all have) ... I'm not really lying ... I'm just rebelling. But that, my friends, is a song for another thread.



[This message has been edited by Mathetais (edited November 20, 2001).]

 

The book burnings. In 391, Christians burned down one of the world's greatest libraries in Alexandria, said to have housed 700,000 rolls. All the books of the Gnostic Basilides, Porphyry's 36 volumes, papyrus rolls of 27 schools of the Mysteries and 270,000 ancient documents gathered by Ptolemy Philadelphus were burned. Ancient academies of learning were closed. Education for anyone outside of the Church came to an end. After years of destroying books and libraries, St. John Chrysostom proudly declared, "Every trace of the old philosophy and literature of the ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth."

Obviously St. Augustine was wrong. Yes, obviously. So to my point, I think the word of many christians I know, or to be extreme, all christians, are wrong.

 

What exactly do you mean by "So to my point, I think the word of many christians I know, or to be extreme, all christians, are wrong."

What point are you trying to make?

You talk about people who burned books almost 2000 years ago and you link that to "the word of many christians I know, or to be extreme, all christians, are wrong." I'm not making the connection here.

Christians are humans, and they sin. They make mistakes. But to generalize and say that right off the bat their "word" is wrong because of the actions of others. That argument just doesn't fly.



[This message has been edited by Big B (edited November 21, 2001).]

 

Shralp, they do. They go straight against the Law for example with praying to Maria. God says that you shall not pray to and kneel for Statues of humans and they do.

And the pope above the whole church? Wher ein the bible can you find that?

Be careful with the term Christians. There christians and Christians. They are all different and there are so many differents christian religions. Of course all are sinners but make the difference between them that wanna believe and life like GOd asks in the bible and people who don't do this.

 

Where in the Bible is the pope as the head of the Church? It's in the Gospels where Christ gives the keys of the kingdom of Heaven to St. Peter, the first leader of the Church (pope). That authority was then given to his successor (Urbanus?) and so on down the line.

The Bible does not say "don't kneel before statues." It says not to worship graven images. When Catholics kneel before a statue, they are not worshipping it as a God itself. But I expect you know that already.

And Catholics do not pray to Mary in the sense of worship. We do, however, ask her to pray for us just as you might ask a friend or relative to pray for you in times of need.

But these last two questions have nothing to do with Church law. No one is required to kneel before a statue or pray to Mary. The first one, the pope as head of the Church, is a teaching that Catholics are free to disagree with (although not to teach against).