The pope condemns personal relationship with Christ

a reply to: ketsuko

Dear ketsuko,

I can see where you'd be worried and I agree with you.

The only quibble I would have with any notion here is if the Pope is indeed trying to say that you cannot reach a personal relationship with God yourself, but that you need a priest (here the implication would be a Catholic one) to stand between you and Christ and be that intercessor for all time or you will never achieve that relationship or maintain it.

The Church isn't as the OP presented it. For example, there is a special feast day in honor of the little boy children that Herod killed in order to get rid of Jesus. They are considered the first martyrs because they gave their lives for Jesus, even though they had no idea He even existed. Likewise, the Church agrees that wilderness people who have never heard of Jesus can be saved by obedience to the law God placed in every heart.

Some of the greatest spiritual heroes of the Church were the desert fathers and mothers. These were monks, hermits, sisters, and others who left the busy cities and went to the desert in the fourth century. The Church reveres them, readily admits (and is proud of) the close relationship they had with God. They saw a priest every now and then, maybe a couple of times a year.

Again, what of the missionaries who spend their lives in the jungle or leper colonies, only to die there far from a priest or a church? Don't believe that the Church rejects solitary devotions to God. But there are some risks to being your own judge of truth and it's best to be prepared.

With respect,
Charles1952

a reply to: BO XIAN


I have no interest in debating religion with someone like u. You list people who were supposedly religious and that means nothing.

Never has there been proof of any type of god except the lies contained in a book called the bible!! A book so full of hatred and condemnation it is ludicrous to think that a normal sane person would go to such lengths to believe it.

What it tells me is those that need religion are WEAK minded and unsatisfied with just being human. You people need something to hold on to in order to complete a day of your life. I have never met a religious person who was not a fool. A fool for being smitten with fantasy and falsehoods.

This video sums it up perfectly (BE WARNED EXPLICIT LANGUAGE)

a reply to: Wifibrains

Hmmmm, at 2:49 on the first video, it went totally off the rails. I stopped listening at that point. Started sounding like a raving lunatic.

a reply to: projectbane

Your comments are disrespectful of a mind far greater than that which produced those comments. They are insulting rude, thoughtless, off-topic, irrelevant and useless. They are illogical and unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. As you are bright enough to be able to embed a video, I can only include that those comments were written by someone else.

I have no interest in debating religion with someone like u.

"u" have no interest in debating religion with anyone. On the basis of absolutely no evidence you have decided it is false, then closed your mind to any contrary opinion.

There has been evidence of God, not proof. Any sane adult knows that you can't scientifically prove or disprove the existence of God. You point out that there is some evidence for the existence of God in the Bible. Now, show us where your evidence is showing that God doesn't exist. Good luck finding some.

People don't need religion, they need truth. Religion is the application of truth to humans. It's only weak minded people who claim that there is no God at all, therefore they can do whatever they like, including insulting people with ten times the intellect, and twenty times the experience.

I wish someone would present evidence tending to show that there is no God, and not just engage in childlike insults based on nothing but hate.

-------------
Now, I did all that in the hopes that it would shake you up a little. You're a creature of God and I love you, I want the best for you. You've got to change your approach sooner or later if you want to avoid becoming a bitter and hate-filled old man.

BO XIAN and I, don't agree with each other on everything, but our orientation and love is the same. I see him as a dear brother, and I'd like that for you, too. Get to know him. Not in a debate format where things get heated, just ask him about his opinions and experiences. I promise you, he is a fascinating guy, well worth knowing. Just listen to him for awhile.

Each of us has something to learn from others, see what BO XIAN has for you. I would count it a real blessing to just go talk with a him for a few days. Just backpack into the woods, look at nature, talk about important things, and tell stupid jokes.

Truly, if you brush him off, you're missing a lot.

a reply to: projectbane

LMAO, that was brilliant. Great simple observations on his part that hit out of the park.


I'm not so sure if a God/creator exists or not, but I'm pretty sure if he does exists he is nothing like the religious people make out to be.

One thing I find extremely self centered and rude about religious people is their Facebook comments when someone survives cancer. God blessed you, God was at your side, may God cure you, God is great, etc.

I know they mean well but it bugs me that they don't think about the unlucky ones and how those comments would effect the families of the unlucky ones.

a reply to: ChiefD

Certain levels of shrillness . . . authoritarian rigidities . . . dogmatic fierceness . . . haughtiness . . . !!!CONTROL!!! freak tones etc.

correlate quite consistently with very serious levels of ATTACHMENT DISORDER.

That's neither here nor there in some respects. I have worked more than 60 years overcoming mine and still work on it.

The problem is . . . a whole raft of folks think that their narrow rigid constructions on reality AND their emotionalities going with such rigid dogmas arise out of facts or evidence. That's nonsense. Their ATTACHMENT DISORDER generated sense of low worth was ripe for being seduced by such rigid dogmas--particularly when they were hostile to the perpetrator(s) of their ATTACHMENT DISORDER.

Sadly, it muddies a majority of threads on ATS. And, in this thread . . . it adds no light.

One could POSSIBLY make a case for Pope Frances having worked through any attachment disorder he had more than his predecessors--resulting in his greater humility etc.

However, his defense of the institution as necessary for or near necessary for a well managed relationship with God . . . smacks, to me, of too much authoritarianism. And that's one end of two extremes that are common reactions to an attachment disorder background. I'm sure opinions on that would differ!



.

What a lame biased thread title. Draws them in though....

Everything the world knows of Christ, less the Old Testament prophecies about Him came/come from the Faith He established, Roman Catholicism.

Remember this and give your "yes" when God shows your personally in the divine "awakening." Everyone in Heaven
is Roman Catholic whether they arrived that way or not.

God's "awakening" (Rev 6:15-17, 1 Cor 3:13) is getting closer. All Christians accept already, God's desire is that we all may be one in belief.

a reply to: charles1952

DEAR DEAR BRO CHARLES,

Am deeply humbled by your kind words . . . shocked a bit . . . not coming from you . . . but reading such on ATS. LOL. I think I'm a favorite whipping post of many hereon.

I really liked your point about folks NOT needing RELIGION but TRUTH.

INDEED.

AS The Manual declares . . . [God's] TRUTH sets us free.

Though I also like John And Paula Sanford's assertion

in TRANSFORMATION OF THE INNER MAN that

it takes both Truth and Love for healthy growth and relating . . .

that Love without Truth is useless sentimentality

and

Truth without Love is brutality.

Generally speaking, I think that folks who hammer others overly fiercely with TRUTH have tended to lack critical amounts of quality loving at key stages of their early development.

I used to be much more like that. Sadly.

I finished that long sequence of long posts to you and then I was sobered that I'd dumped so much on your plate. LOL.

However, I had confidence in your good heart and brilliant mind handling it sufficiently well that I probably won't lose sleep over it. LOL.

I wish there were ways for us to snap our fingers and wish the sticking points away. I think Holy Spirit will do that in His ways and His times.

I think every Christian will have many things to let go of and many new insights from Holy Spirit to grasp in the coming several years. Change will be so rapid and so dramatic.

Certainly ONLY those who KEEP THEIR MINDS FOCUSED ON GOD will have any peace whatsoever. What a dreadful time looms ahead. The handwriting is not just on the wall, it's on all the billboards, cliff faces and in lots of sky-writing . . . so to speak.

It's always a delight to see your Avatar and name as I scroll through a thread. It's like a gift of . . . intellectual Hagen Daz . . . or Cordon Bleu . . . or raspberries and vanilla or whipped cream . . . or cheeze cake. [Can you tell I'm partially fasting? LOL]

Blessings,

a reply to: colbe

Sorry . . . your post reads as though your "God" is too small.

The RCC is far too limited to house THE [whole] BODY OF CHRIST.

Actually, all the even authentic Christian organizations on the planet are too small combined.

It is that aspect of Pope Frances' comments in the OP that are the more disturbing.

The other aspect is that any organization could trump a direct 1:1 relationship with God--the whole purpose of Christ's death.

= = = =

However . . . in the however remotely plausible event that possibly the RCC is helping you maintain a struggling grip on your faith . . . I wouldn't want to rock your boat overmuch. Given your fiercely parochial stance, I kind of doubt there's any danger that I would. LOL.

I don't know if you've read the RCC Catechism, or not . . . there's passages in it on both sides of the issue of only RCC's make Heaven vs RCC's are not the only ones who may make Heaven.

a reply to: colbe

BTW, Heavenly visitors have affirmed that there's Baptists, Pentecostals, Quakers, Methodists, Lutherans, non-denominationalists, etc. etc. etc. in Heaven . . . and IIRC, even some Mormons.

And, IIRC, some Popes have been sighted in hell.

Truth can be a challenging thing.

a reply to: colbe

No, it is most definitely NOT God's desire that we be the same belief AT ALL, ever. That is SATAN, EVIL, FASCISM, BEEHIVE and NWO.

Love delights in ALL expressions of Love and we're never here on earth, to be the same. Left hand, right hand, straight, homosexual, and in all the various walks of life, to love and tolerate other people. To learn how to respect others.

That is just learning self love and we're not allowing NWO. Ever. After this curtain is drawn, in the next step, all those participated in harming humans, earth, enslavement of them, ritual murders of them and all the ritual sacrifices, abusing power, are all going to be arrested and confined and they've all gotten their F's but the next step will be protecting humanity and souls from their insanity.

Earth is a giant sting operation.

And God is no respecter of person's, but wants us all to grow up.

Growing up does not mean what you worship or believe, but that you Do Not Harm Others, that is the first step and then become an instrument of peace and love and help others, uplift them.

And nothing else really matters here.

No is anyone going to join into a Chrislam type thing.

Its a good thing we're all different, can see the different roads in the religion because early Christians were Essenes and Gnostics. Paul 's mystery was Christ within and not worshipping in a Church anything. God doesn't need worship, but Becoming, growing up, the Christ within.

The red sea is parted by meditation and the man desiring to become peace and overcome anger and retaliation.

The real Nameless and Enduring God is not Allah, who is named, 100 beautiful names, two that stand out, Deceiver and Destroyer and also called king of sirius.

Its not the same thing at all.

Nor would anyone who knows what Love is join forces with anyone who thinks that God is a smiting murdering devil who wants sameness and humanity confined into even smaller mind boxes. And dismembers people, abuses women and children.


This would indeed make the pope one of the many anti christs....

a reply to: Unity_99

I agree that God's creativity is far too vast to desire clones when it comes to individuals. Even identical twins are significantly different.

However, the rest of your assertions are . . . far far too 'new agey,' for me, and quite out of my construction on reality. So I think I'll just leave them there.
.

originally posted by: projectbane
I have never met a religious person who was not a fool.

FYI, religious people aren't your problem...

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” ~ Psalm 14:1

a reply to: BO XIAN


Well new agey, that is the early Christians, and the tao and all the ancient knowledge, the real stuff.

Read Genesis 32 30 and let it sink in.

Read up on the essenes and there were different communities. John the Baptist belonged to a very strict one where no one married almost like Tibetan Monks, and Nazareth wasn't a town, but we do have Christ named from the sect of Nazareth.

Paul gives many instructions for becoming Christ.

The real gnosis is so wonderfully positive, gone the smiting saturn in the literal grims fairy tale.

That they sit on the truth, and believe these leaders, all know, at the least those in higher positions, and lie to the world and control it through primitive boxes, is beyond a crime. The things that take place on this planet, are the worst things you can imagine in the universe, you might find equally bad, but you cannot top them at all. And most of these are put into the minds of 3 fundamental religious.

I was raised Catholic, though a tad different I'd say. For I refused to receive first communion (which wasn't a cannabilistic rite but actual, Branch being held in the Arms of the Vine for a short while) until the priest told me, I did not have to believe in a permanent hell, which I knew was a sin and crime against Mom/Dad and what Love is, for Love never gives up on anyone ever. And he agreed, that they couldn't say anyone was there. I read all the books on the shelf and that theologians or eagles, great thinkers, in all the mainstream Christian religions couldn't agree. I found it fascinating. For a time I entertained either becoming a Nun, OR, leaving the Catholic Church and becoming an Anglican minister, because I don't like sexism at all.

But the whole fairy tale and package is idolatry. Its an outer materialistic trap.

Its this:

www.spiritofthescripture.com...

“The scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written.”

—Origen

“The scriptures were written by the Spirit of God, and have meanings, not as they appear at the first sight (literal interpretation), but also others, which escape the notice of most. For those (words) which are written are the forms of certain mysteries, and the images of divine matters.”

—Origen
...

www.thenazareneway.com...

The cry "new age" is used alot, anytime someone flees the box, but its a little tiring. There is nothing new under the sun.

My own past life memory was off planet long ago but connected to earth. What really surprised me, even initially drew me to the bible as a child was Peace Be With You, and "The Way".

What I always said of that memory and the past before the dark side took over here on earth, was It Was The Equality.

That is what ancient knowledge and people's understood and what the gnosis and essenes were about. The Equality.

For me, this is a powerful "coming home" of something I was a part of, long ago.

One thing about Catholics is the Church attendance is extremely low, even for all the protestant Church's, No one is going to submit to Islam in this world, and that is what this is all about.

They're aren't even going to lift it off the first page!

When I read things like this thread, and what I think is behind it, sit there wondering is it really going to come to a battle for our lives here? Will we be dealing with this enemy, or crashed systems and martial law? Will be forced to speak up for truth and die, or live under some tryanny? Is this really for real.

Or do we take off up north and live in hidden places and simply when the fight begins, because I would never be able to stay alive since I believe in speaking up.

a reply to: Unity_99

I disagree God wants us all to bow down and glorify him each and everyone of us and although i disagree with having to partake in the body to be saved i know that it was his new covenant his greatest promise to mankind his miracle from than until he takes control of the earth that should you do so and believe that you are guarenteed salvation.

this being true would mean you would only need to do so once, however it is also true that each and everytime you do partake that you are blessed and reap the rewards here and now and you know one of the best blessings you recieve is peace of mind body and soul the wonderfull prince of peace draws near everytime so for this reason i say go as often you can when you are struggling take refuge for this reason you can not put a price on peace be greedy for his love lift your hearts up to the lord and give him thanks...

He died for all... he made this final contract while in great dispair... he knew full well what would soon transpire so he could claim you back from sin, and bring you back to where you belong... and he wants everyone to do so... and he does want us to celebrate this together as ourselves not a collective mind of go bots...

a reply to: BO XIAN

BO XIAN,

True, Catholics who die in the state of grace are not the only ones who make it to Heaven. God is the judge.

"Paragraph 819 of the CCC begins with paragraph 819: "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth"273 are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church:"...

The fullness of God's Truth and grace is found in the Faith, Roman Catholicism. Our separated Christian brothers
and sisters are incorporated into Christ by their water Baptism, the first Sacrament. In our lifetime, Our Lord is going to bring home the Orthodox and non-Catholic Christians and non-Catholic Christians who convert.

Prophecy has said this for over fifteen plus years in my following the messages from Heaven. Divine events prophesied are closer.

GBY,

colbe

+ + +

816 "The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him."267

The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God."268

Wounds to unity

817 In fact, "in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame."269 The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism270 - do not occur without human sin:

Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.271

818 "However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."272

www.vatican.va...

Oops, I didn't preview my post.

CORRECTION ~

I meant to write...

In our lifetime, Our Lord is going to bring home the Orthodox and non-Catholic Christians and NON-CHRISTIANS who convert.

a reply to: colbe

I'm glad you're so well versed in your Catechism.

I hope you're also well versed in the Bible.

a reply to: colbe

So are you saying that catholics who belong to his church built upon his rock peter will not be?

a reply to: Unity_99

You put so much into your posts. I appreciate your efforts. There was one area at the beginning of your post that many might disagree with, and I think the majority are against you.

Read up on the essenes and there were different communities. John the Baptist belonged to a very strict one where no one married almost like Tibetan Monks, and Nazareth wasn't a town, but we do have Christ named from the sect of Nazareth.

Please consider this:

Even as I thought of gathering some data into a blog post, Helen Bond posted information about lectures by Ken Dark about archaeology in Galilee. One of the lectures includes a treatment of the evidence from Nazareth in the first century. The presence of kochim tombs with fragments from ossuaries indicates that the people living there were Jewish and that this is the relevant time period. It isn’t clear to me from what I’ve read whether there is a closer proximity of dwellings to tombs than one would expect if the purity concerns advocated by the Pharisees were observed there. If so, then it will have to be said that Geza Vermes was extremely insightful when he suggested that in Jesus we see an authentic Galilean spirituality which was often in dialogue with and at odds with the vision of the Pharisees, who sought to transfer the purity of the temple into everyday life.

Even before recent work was done, however, we had a Jewish inscription related to priestly courses which mentioned Nazareth in roughly the third century. One merely had to note the unlikelihood that priests resettling after the destruction of the temple in the year 70 would have founded a town with the name of a fictional site invented by Christians, and one had sufficient evidence to make it likely that Nazareth existed before then.

www.patheos.com...