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No, Chris, I have nothing personally against any Catholics. (I am assuming you're Catholic, based on your location, Chris) They believe in Jesus and all the main points that everyone else does. My point is that the Catholic faith is stuck on all the little things and ignores the big ones for the most part. Catholics get stuck on the symbolism when that's exactly what Jesus was trying to get rid of when he threw the tax collectors and merchants out of the temple. Jesus doesn't want us to take communion every church service if we don't want to. He wants us to remember him when we do take bread and wine(/grapejuice). He doesn't care if we confess our sins to some priest that has sinned just as much as we have. That priest can't take away our sins or do anything about it. Jesus said 'let me be your confessor.' Catholics are stuck on making sure that life is full of order, they don't want any surprises, they're stuck in a rut. Jesus wants us to be versatile. God doesn't create things out of order, He creates them out of chaos. In the beginning there was chaos and upheavil, and THAT'S what God formed the Earth out of. He wants us to be ready to take on anything, and that means not letting us be trapped in meaningless rituals. Jesus wants us to worship him in Spirit and Truth, not necessarily in some church building for 3 hours on Sunday and Wednesday.
SiGen, I am very much Christian, or atleast like to think I am trying to be. I am of the Protestant demonination known of as Methodist. They're actually quite Methodical, it's in the name. But I don't always go to my church. I've been to Baptists churches, Assemblies of God, and a couple more I can't recall. I'd have to say that the Assemblies of God all have the truest and most pure way of expressing their faith. When you walk into an Assembly of God church you can tell that 99% of the people there want to be there, want to be singing and dancing. It's a great feeling just seeing that.
When I said that the Bible is about positives, I'm refering to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus didn't go around spouting negatives. He never said anything about women not being dicsiples or apostles. Women simply weren't mentioned in historical records during that time. There could have been hundreds of female disciples that followed Jesus that were just not mentioned for that reason. And what about Mary Magdeline, she was a disciple as far as I'm concerned. She wasn't mentioned as one of the Twelve, but Jesus had literally thousands of disciples that followed him around that are mentioned throughout the New Testament. Mary is even the one that came to Jesus' tomb first, if that's not being a disciple then, well ... I don't know what is.
And the Bible directly states that Adultery is wrong. God hates loopholes and people trying to weasle their way out of stuff. When God said Don't Adulterate He meant, don't Adulterate. It's quite simple. That means no sex with anyone but your wife. Masterbation is a form of sex. Sex with animals is a form of sex. And if you're not married yet then too bad, you can wait. It's not like you WON'T have a wife someday. Time is already there, you just need to see it that's all.
Also, sex with animals, homosexual sex, and masturbation are the reasons why Soddom and Gamoura (spelling?) were destroyed, lest you forget, among a few other things such as stealing and general chaos. God was hoping that we could handle it on our own and not do anything wrong, but nope, so he was kind enough to outline what was wrong on a set of tablets. Great, now lets pick apart the semantics of the ten commandments in order to force them into something that we can get around. So we messed that up, too, even when God told us exactly what not to do. But again, He was kind enough to send Jesus so that we can still make it, because even the best of people mess up royally and frequently. If you want to twist around the Ten Commandments so that you feel you can get around their real meaning and then take advantage of Jesus' sacrifice after sinning purposefully then you've got another thing coming. I'm trying my best to stick to it all. I guess I don't really NEED to because Jesus says I'll go to Heaven anyway, but I want to because I'm not going to be the one that purposefully poors salt on Jesus' stigmata. I'm trying to wash His wounds by keeping His teachings, others are making them deeper and more painful for Jesus by using His name to sin purposefully.
