Today is my last day

[Alexander's Horse]

you wish

[Ben Kenobi]

Seems pretty good to me.

[Straybow]

That's what I'm shooting for, too. I'd rather remain single than become entangled in a relationship for the wrong reasons, such as impatience.
I almost did that some years ago.

Glad you found the time to reply, BK. Time now for two quick responses, more to come later. First, see 1 Thes 4:13ff about the resurrection and the notion of "sleep" to describe believers who have died, also 1 Cor 15.

Yet does not Christ also say, wherever two or three of you gather in my name, there I shall be also? His presence is not always demonstrated through miracles.

This is the point. Christ is present, but not in any bodily form. Why? Because His bodily presence is not necessary. Jesus speaks at length about the role of the Holy Spirit (ie, incorporeal presence) to be sent after His ascension. The RC doctrine of the Real Presence in the eucharist says that the presence of Christ wherever two or three are gathered is somehow not "Real" enough. He's only "really" present in the wafer.

The problem I have with your method is that it has been an approach contrary to faith throughout history, to test God through empirical means. One of them being a study done to see whether ships carrying a missionary sank less than those without, the idea being that those who are Christians would be less likely to suffer than those who are not. It is very harmful to someone who is suffering to say, God answers prayers only if you are in the right state.

The problem isn't me, it is the doctrine. We have mutually acceptable examples in scripture of what Jesus' bodily presence does, and we don't see things of that nature in the Real Presence. So what changed? Jesus didn't change; if anything His power is more fully expressed in Resurrection.

There are 6 billion people on this planet, most of them in desperate poverty. Why does not God do something? Because God responds to faith, not to need. This is a hard truth.

James says "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." How fine a line does one draw here? It certainly isn't up to me. Maybe some who pray for healing do so out of a selfishness rather than looking to God and seeking Him.

Doing a study of shipwrecks with and without missionaries is pointless. Maybe God wants the ship wrecked at a certain place to reach people that would be overlooked otherwise. Maybe some missionaries are disobedient and God permits them to perish.

Look at Paul, who was shipwrecked on the isle of Malta. Paul warned before the ship left, yet the captain sailed anyway. Paul prayed and although the ship was lost none of the crew or passengers died. Why didn't his prayer stop the storm? Why didn't his prayer enable the ship to reach a safe harbor? We often do not get to specify the form, but our faith allows the expression of miracles.

The RC doctrine of the Real Presence replaces faith in God with ceremonial mysticism. I suppose it feels good to the participants, and maybe a few gain something by seeing past the symbols to God.

[Ben Kenobi]

Hmm, I gotta go. Have to finish the reply later.

[Kaak]

fornicate heavily while all you have to do is ask for forgiveness...i think it gets more complicated after the switch

[Impaler[WrG]]

From my Hard Athiest perspective I ofcorse see nothing significant in changing religions. Your core upbringing *cough.. childhood brainwashing... cough* determines WHO you are (Make no mistake I was indoctrinated to but mine was for a rational cynical view of the world resulting in a self-regection of religion). Your partner is by far going to be the more influential effect, your obviously willing to do or not do certain things for her. SHE rather then the man in Rome is going to be leading you.

[Spiffor]

Impaler: Ben comes from an unreligious household, IIRC.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yep, nonpracticing household.

Didn't become a Christian until after my second year in University.

[Ben Kenobi]

This is the point. Christ is present, but not in any bodily form. Why? Because His bodily presence is not necessary. Jesus speaks at length about the role of the Holy Spirit (ie, incorporeal presence) to be sent after His ascension.

No, I think you have the wrong idea of what the Holy spirit is. The Holy Spirit is not the same as the incorporeal presence of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is not the same as Christ, even if the Spirit is God, and Christ is God. They are two persons.

The RC doctrine of the Real Presence in the eucharist says that the presence of Christ wherever two or three are gathered is somehow not "Real" enough. He's only "really" present in the wafer.

News to me. I have seen them cite the same passage as evidence that Christ is bodily present in the eucharist.

The problem isn't me, it is the doctrine. We have mutually acceptable examples in scripture of what Jesus' bodily presence does, and we don't see things of that nature in the Real Presence. So what changed? Jesus didn't change; if anything His power is more fully expressed in Resurrection.

There are 6 billion people on this planet, most of them in desperate poverty. Why does not God do something? Because God responds to faith, not to need. This is a hard truth.

True, he responds to faith, but the lack of a response from God, is not evidence of a lack of faith. Bad things do happen to those who are faithful people, as we have seen throughout history.

Secondly, you say that we have evidence of what occurs in the bodily presence of Christ. If you recall, I said that there is a difference between always and never. People have been healed in the presence of Christ in the eucharist, even though not everyone who partakes will be healed. So one can say that we have seen evidence of the presence of Christ in the eucharist through miracles.

James says "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." How fine a line does one draw here? It certainly isn't up to me. Maybe some who pray for healing do so out of a selfishness rather than looking to God and seeking Him.

Men look at outward things, but God looks at the heart. Same principle in how he chooses the king over Israel, as in how he will judge each one of us.

Doing a study of shipwrecks with and without missionaries is pointless. Maybe God wants the ship wrecked at a certain place to reach people that would be overlooked otherwise. Maybe some missionaries are disobedient and God permits them to perish.

Look at Paul, who was shipwrecked on the isle of Malta. Paul warned before the ship left, yet the captain sailed anyway. Paul prayed and although the ship was lost none of the crew or passengers died. Why didn't his prayer stop the storm? Why didn't his prayer enable the ship to reach a safe harbor? We often do not get to specify the form, but our faith allows the expression of miracles.

It became the evidence cited against God, that he could see no statistical difference between the ships with missionaries from the ships without them. What the test forgets is that bad things happen to faithful people, and always have happened.

The RC doctrine of the Real Presence replaces faith in God with ceremonial mysticism. I suppose it feels good to the participants, and maybe a few gain something by seeing past the symbols to God.

The passage used to defend the presence of Christ is seen here: John 6:47-59

"I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

I remember the first homily I heard this, and I remember the reaction of Denise when she heard the priest. At the time, she was afraid I would be put out, but the priest spoke the truth. This has been a difficult teaching of Christ, and still remains so even now.

[Straybow]

No, I think you have the wrong idea of what the Holy spirit is. The Holy Spirit is not the same as the incorporeal presence of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is not the same as Christ, even if the Spirit is God, and Christ is God. They are two persons.

The RC doctrine of the Real Presence in the eucharist says that the presence of Christ wherever two or three are gathered is somehow not "Real" enough. He's only "really" present in the wafer.

News to me. I have seen them cite the same passage as evidence that Christ is bodily present in the eucharist.

Yes, but the devil can cite scripture, too. RC doctrine says only a priest can consecrate the wafer, yet here Jesus says, "wherever two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst." They don't even need a wafer, much less a priest, only that they gather. I'll take Jesus' word over Rome's word any day.

Again, I'll take Jesus' word when He says we don't need His bodily presence. I'm not the one who said Jesus and the Father are one, that Jesus came from the Father and ascends to the Father, and the Father sends the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth. Where do you get your idea of what the Holy Spirit is?

I remember the first homily I heard [from John 6:47-59], and I remember the reaction of Denise when she heard the priest. At the time, she was afraid I would be put out, but the priest spoke the truth. This has been a difficult teaching of Christ, and still remains so even now.

Yes, it is a difficult teaching, mostly because the proof-texters leave off the part where Jesus explains the imagery in private to His disciples. "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."

It is also difficult because they then combine the half-explanation from Jesus' public preaching with a misinterpretation of Jesus' teaching at the Last Seder. Jesus didn't say that the Seder is His flesh and blood, He said His flesh and blood is the true sacrifice of which the Passover Lamb is the shadow. The Seder is understood as a symbol of that Passover sacrifice.

Understand this: Jesus' physical flesh and blood didn't come down from heaven! His body was made here on earth. His body was conceived and grew in the womb, built moment by moment from the nutrients in the food his mother ate, just like you and me.

What came down from heaven is the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... and the Word became flesh..." There is a reason why John said that at the beginning of his Gospel, because everything in it will be misunderstood apart from this principle.

So, it is not some mystical transubstantiation of elements that brings the bodily presence of Christ to us, it is His words that bring the Spirit to us, and life to us.

True, he responds to faith, but the lack of a response from God, is not evidence of a lack of faith. Bad things do happen to those who are faithful people, as we have seen throughout history.

God cannot both respond to faith and not respond to faith. "God is not a man, that he should lie." Again, this is a hard truth. I prayed for years that a certain situation change and it did not. My lack of faith is at the root. But when I saw that I was in error, and barely began to shift my perspective and expectations, immediately I got specific guidance from God. Within one day the situation started to change!

I hesitate to make that statement on a forum such as this, as anecdotal evidence is always suspect. I do not cite this as "proof" because I have no intent to demonstrate to you or anyone else what happened or how it happened. Take it for what it is worth.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
If that were true, than change would not be possible. Since we do know change is possible, then therefore there cannot be an unbroken continuity of dogma, in the sense that you mean here.

Greater understanding can be attained over time, and will be attained, as the Catholic church better understands the teachings of Christ. However, this understanding will not be contrary to the teachings of Christ as a whole.

All that is happening here, is that a better explanation for the rationale behind the doctrine of the church has supplanted the previous explanation. The doctrine has not changed, just the understanding of why.

The continuity of dogma and the infallibility of the Church expressed by the council of Cardinals and the Pope says that rationale is only there to help us understand. The dogma itself is never in error and can only be expanded. The old can never be obsolete as the RCC has formulated its claim to authority.

Incorporeal spirits are contrary to what is meant by assumption. Bodily assumption into heaven, is how assumption has always been understood. The real question is Moses, who did die, and was buried, and yet appears alongside Elijah who had been bodily assumed.

Yes, and the contradiction indicates that the logical and rhetorical assumptions about physical assumption must be incorrect. Again, perhaps the clearest and most direct teaching in the NT is about the resurrection. See 1 Thes 4 and 1 Cor 15.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

No, the Sacraments are the only method, except that God permits the effect of the Sacraments "by desire." (IIRC, that is the exact phrase.) A conversion alone in the desert, at the moment of death, would not need baptism and last rites physically, but the effects of the those Sacraments would be imputed as God judges the heart.

We agree, just differ in the precision of the terminology. You are right that the effect of the sacraments is permitted through desire, and not necessarily the actions of the priest.

So why make this doctrine that only a Priest can perform the sacraments, if at its heart the doctrine is not accurate and constantly needs exceptions and corrections? To me, this seems like Ptolomaic Astronomy, with its epicycles upon epicycles, never quite matching up to reality. Eventually somebody realized it is the model that is wrong.

The Sacraments, in RC doctrine, are the transformation of the ordinary into the sacred. If the transformation has taken place (marriage, conversion, etc) then the Sacrament has taken place, too, without the presence of a wafer, or priest, or whatever else might normally be required.

In baptism this is true...

Marriage is the same way...

However, a marriage that takes place, in a civil ceremony, between two Catholics, is not considered the same thing as a marriage inside the church...

As for communion, there are special circumstances...

The transformation of the invisible Substance is the Sacrament. In effect, the RCC admits that it has to construct blind guidelines to guess at whether any transformation actually takes place, always subject to later revision case by case, but again according to blind guidelines.

The reverse holds so that in annulment the RC church declares there was no Sacrament despite the administration of the formal rites, thus the marriage was invalid.

For very specific reasons. One of them being the lack of consummation. If the wife can say that the marriage has not been consummated, then it can be annuled, in that it never actually occured. Much in the same way that a sacrament, adminstered contrary to the will of the participants, cannot have the same validity as one administered in accordance to their will.

Again, you are missing the point. If the Sacrament is a change in the invisible Substance of the persons, then whether there is any consummation by their Accidental forms in coitus is immaterial.

What we have is an ancient tradition that marriage must be physically consummated in order to be legally binding superposed upon a philosophical supposition on the nature of marriage. The RC church, because of its squeemishness about sex, cannot simply state that the act of consummation is a part of the Sacramental Rite and therefore an unconsummated marriage is an incomplete Rite and may be invalid as a Sacrament.

How can we partake of the eucharist without believing in the Real Presence? Because we, in essence, define the eucharist differently. We define salvation differently. We define Apostolic Succession differently. We define the Church differently. By the necessity of human language we use the same terms for nearly everything but use them differently.

In the sense that the Catholic church uses the term sacrament, you cannot participate in the sacraments, without first coming to accept their meanings. One can call a goat a dog, but the goat is no more a dog, just because you call it so.

We aren't calling a goat a dog, we are calling a ceremony a ceremony and not dogmatically insisting that some imperceptible transformation takes place.

The RC church admits that the key element is the will of the participants. They cannot partake in the Rite if they don't properly understand, but they do in fact partake in the Sacrament, else they cannot be saved. If the participants are improperly educated in the view of the RCC, having been raised in a Protestant church and culture, the sacrament is believed by the RCC to have taken place anyway on an individual basis.

Of course, then the RCC has to apply the double standard to keep the Catholics in line, insisting they have to follow Rome or be denied the Sacramental blessing even if the RC church fails to educate its own.

In our view the RC church defines them based on centuries of myth, superstition, and error. We don't. In the RC view our definitions don't trump their "truth," so the fact is that the Sacraments are taking place in and around us unwittingly.

Interesting. How do you think Catholics see the adoptation of certain sacraments, by those who reject the church as a whole? They see it as an affirmation of their own beliefs, since these folks found things they could not do without. The error in your case, is seen more of omission than commission.

Once more my point sailed by without effect. We don't adopt any of the Sacraments. We hold certain ceremonies in common: baptism, marriage, the eucharist, and ordination. We call the ceremonies sacraments to distinguish them from ceremonies that are purely secular in tradition, such as burial. The only transformation that Protestants recognize is that of conversion, the "new birth," which some insist occurs at the moment of baptism. Conversion is the one transformation that the RC church in essence denies.

If annulments and divorce were a casual affair, then Charles V wouldn't be camping an army by the Vatican.

No, if annulments were not a casual affair but a reflection of fact that the Sacrament of marriage never took place, then the Pope would have recognized the annulment no matter how many armies threatened.

Yes there are many folks who have cause to be angry and bitter about the Catholic church, and many for much stronger reasons then this. I see this as a problem with the casual annulment, without cause, than with the doctrine of the Catholic church.

The two go hand in hand. You have a undetectable and permanent Sacramental transformation, and no way to back down except by the fiction of annulment. It is the model that is broken, not the reality.

[curtsibling]

Re: Today is my last day

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
as a protestant.

So what should I do?

My confirmation will be tonight at the Easter vigil, where I will be getting both confirmed and taking my first communion.

I've been looking forward to this day for some time now, and working towards this over the last three years.

I might not have been sure where I would end up, but I am happy with where this has taken me.

Do you want the real answer, or the diplomatic one?

The Real Answer:
Give up on the fairy tales and accept the world with your own mind and eyes. That is my way.

The Diplomatic Answer
If you are truly spiritual, why the heck do you care how others regard you? You should not worry.

In short
Forge on where your heart takes you, carpe diem!

It is your reality, and not for anyone else.

So, if you don't hurt anyone else, by all means, go where you have to go to seek your answers...