Pope Says, "Christian Churches not real Churches."

Pope Says, "Christian Churches not real Churches."

news.yahoo.com

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Not sure where they are going with this, although I realize it isn't groundbreaking. But, where does anyone get off saying that your place of worship is not "Kosher," even if it be your own spirit, at your own home.

Boo hoo to organized religions. Continue the rhetoric and propaganda!

AAC

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is one of the things I love about having come to the realization that made me atheist... I can step back, look at all the religions of the world, and realize just how childish and vicious they are at the same time.

Organized religions claim they preach peace... meanwhile condoning attacks on each other.

Organized religions love to take a chunk out of other religions, regardless of how closely related they are.

Organized religion is one of the best sources of really stupid quotes.

I don't have to do a thing, religion attacks itself.

Matt 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

The pope is no more the head of Christianity than I am. His words mean nothing. Otherwise we would probably call it Popeianity instead of Christianity.

Some churches think the Catholic Church along with its Hitler Youth turned Pope are the antichrist.

Truly the best churches are the small ones that have no connecttion to the Mega church entities.

Not a christian myself but isnt there supposed to be no way into heaven except through Jesus Christ meaning you dont really need a church in the first place?

This coming from the guy who wears Prada shoes under his robe

You know what they say, Divide and conquer.

The basic concept of Christianity is faith in an omnipresent God. Quite how the Catholic Church can translate this into meaning that God can only be properly worshipped in their special buildings and according to their special rules is something of a mystery.

Mad as a bucket of frogs the lot of them...

Originally posted by DarkStormCrow isnt there supposed to be no way into heaven except through Jesus Christ meaning you dont really need a church in the first place?

You're 100% correct. Reading John 3 it doesn't say that "God so loved the world that whoever went to church would have everlasting life." It says whoever believes in him.

In the original churches people just got together and had dinner, and shared experiences and talked about their belief in Christ's message. I'm sure that they had organized scripture study, but it wasn't structured as what we see today. Organized churches aren't all bad but when you see power-hungry leaders you have to stop and ask yourself if they're actually following what it says in the Bible. For over a 1,000 years the Roman Catholic Church held it's members hostage by not letting common folk read the Bible in their own language. Thank God for "rebels" like Martin Luther who kicked down some of these barriers.

I agree with what you guys are saying. What I would like to know is what Catholic members think of such an unneccesary bold statement.

I guess the old, "Give them an inch of the truth, and then condition them to guard that inch with thier life and never let anything else in" tactic is still working.

GOD IS WITHIN. LOOK INSIDE!

AAC

[edit on 10-7-2007 by AnAbsoluteCreation]

Originally posted by johnsky

Organized religions claim they preach peace... meanwhile condoning attacks on each other.

Organized religions love to take a chunk out of other religions, regardless of how closely related they are.

The funny thing about your post Johnsky is that Jesus felt the same way!

His biggest enemies, and the ones whom had him crucified, were the established religious orders of the day; pharisees, saducees, and scribes.

Also, I am a christian who observes the sabbath on saturday's (actually, Friday sundown to Saturday sundown), because I believe, after reading the Bible, that God never changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day!

That is the spirit of the antichrist that chooses to change the times, laws and season's!

So....that's the Muslims, the Jews ( in bringing back the Latin Mass), and other Christian denominations that this Pope has offended and degraded.

Only the Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists etc to go!

The Catholic church is not a real Christian church, it's an institution that's been around so long it's been accepted as such. The Pope is merely the leader of the Catholic church and anything he says goes for the Catholics but not for the rest of the world. The majority of the theological beliefs of the Catholic church have little to no basis in scripture what so ever and are based off rulings of the Pope and certain church committees.

I'm not an atheist but I've recently lost my faith in churches due to a lot of what I learned reading the Bible. As it turns out many of the things you say and do while in church have no basis in scripture and often contradicts scripture completely.

For instance, we said the Nicene Creed every week, except I refused to say it because it denies the second baptism, the baptism by fire spoken of in all the Gospels and Acts. It also professes faith in the unity of the Father and the Son and it's my belief that this is not based in scripture either.

If you believe in heaven and hell, good and evil, then you should really take the time to study your Bible and never compromise the truth you read there in because some guy in a fancy robe tells you so. The Bible says that Satan is a master of deception, the Father of Lies and that the anti-Christ will win millions over.

I'll just say this, who is the only organization teaching people to speak lies in church and to believe deceptions hoping all the while that none of you read your Bible? Who has millions worshiping an idol every Sunday? Who has millions praying to various other deified personae because you can not speak with Jesus yourself? Who takes the gifts Jesus brought us, locks them up behind guilded doors and tells you that you're not worthy to see and experience them?

What would be the greatest deception evil could muster?

Johnsky,

One does not have to believe in or join organized religion to believe in a higher power.

That higher power (in my opinion) could care less if you go to church every sunday and give tithing to the church.

That is the opposite of what any God would want in my opinion.

God is Spirit, Spirit does not care for material things.

Once you leave the material world, the truth will be known.

Johnsky,

your opinion is valid and I completely understand where you are coming from.

I was atheist for a while due to my raising in the Catholic church. I saw how hypocritical everyone was (not just the priesthood, but the fellow parish members) and how no one behaved such as Christ did.

After a few years of being anti-Church, I decided to find out if God was real on my own terms. Well, I always believed in God I guess you could say, but not of religion. I found solice in the power of God within, not the power of 'God's house' in a church.

The entire hypocrisy of the Christian church for me lies in this: In the bible (and this was even taught by priests) the body of a human is the house of God. I never understood why I must then go outside my own house to another house of God (Church) and worship. The Church constantly contradicts what is written in their so-called book. Even the bible has fallacies in it, that is a given. God did not write that either, but there are some truths as well if one can look in between the lines. The problem is that the Romans and countless other misinterpretations and addenums have corrupted it so that one must use a fine toothed comb to find anything substantially spiritual.

No one was able to truly keep the faith. The bible was always conveniently interpreted to allow one religion (Christianity) to attack others (Islam and sometimes Judaism as well). We live in a very corrupt world at the moment. Religion is definitely part of that problem.

That does not mean God has anything to do with it. Remember, MAN created religion not God.

I challenge you to find God within yourself. If you don't fine, go on living your own life.

But if you find something you cannot explain...That is what I am asking you to do.

Ask yourself, 'does God exist within me and all living things?' Is the Spirit of God present everywhere?

You may find an answer that contradicts your own personal worldview at this time. Well I hope so anyway.

Try meditation, that may be a great start. Ask yourself, does a higher power exist besides myself? Or am I truly alone in this vast universe?

To me it is absurd to think of us as alone, but that is a personal opinion (God and otherwise).


[edit on 10-7-2007 by biggie smalls]

Originally posted by AnAbsoluteCreation

GOD IS WITHIN. LOOK INSIDE!

I couldn't have said it any better my brother.

Spirit is always with us. To deny that is heresy at its finest. It seems the Pope serves other master(s) than God nowadays...probably for some time now too.

Remember this Pope's past. He was a member of the Hitler youth. Do you think this kind of brainwashing ever truly leaves a child?

Biggie

I could tell my story, but you summed it up so nicely, I will say "Amen".

I have also been working with diet and eliminating parasites inside my body. I believe these are usefull for an enhanced experience.

Being thankfull to God on the day of their choosing and the same day they rest, is best for us. I say they, because God is a group operating at a much higher state of being than we can understand at the moment.

Most people will be shocked, when they come to full knowledge.

I would just like to say that after reading the initial article and scrolling down to see what you guys had already said, I thought there might be some righteous indignation from a catholic or two. Not a bit of it!

Down with dogma!

If you people who have posted here (the Christians, obviously) represented Christianity rather than the pope (small 'p', ha!) the world would be a better place and I would feel better about living in a so-called Christian country. I like your interpretation of the words of Jesus very much.

Personally, I am a sloppy taoist, and from that perspective have no trouble in believing in Jesus as a "Holy" man, an enlightened son of the tao, or God, if you prefer. Actually, I have asked a few Christian friends of mine to read the Tao Te Ching and substitute God for Tao. They not only didn't find anything to disagree with, but some have felt that it clarified the odd thing for them.

This brings me to a question which I hope is not too far off topic: What is the difference between the status of Jesus, as son of God, as opposed to the rest of us, who are also his children? The fact that there is a distinction (the whole question seems to be of.. um... genetic fatherhood) is one of the things that stood out as strange from being a five year old boy at Uppingham C of E (Church of England) primary school and sitting in assembly. How does official dogma deal with this?

Originally posted by Karilla

This brings me to a question which I hope is not too far off topic: What is the difference between the status of Jesus, as son of God, as opposed to the rest of us, who are also his children? The fact that there is a distinction (the whole question seems to be of.. um... genetic fatherhood) is one of the things that stood out as strange from being a five year old boy at Uppingham C of E (Church of England) primary school and sitting in assembly. How does official dogma deal with this?

Someone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the primary theology is that Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are all one in essence and being. It's really confusing but supposedly Jesus is less the SON of God as he is God incarnate on the earth where as we are more along the lines of children of God.

It's much deeper and more complex than that but personally I don't feel the traditional trinitarian view is correct. There are many times throughout the Bible that Jesus refers to God, His Father, as a separate entity. He prays to His Father as though he is a separate entity many times, he teaches as though they are separate, yet the church tells you to believe otherwise.

There are a few non-trinitarian Christian theologies such as Mormonism.

I hope that helps.

Edit: If it's not too confusing you can check out the beginning of the Gospel of John, which is translated from Greek but might give you a good idea of how the theology covers that.

It goes something like this, depending on the translation:

In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word WAS God.

"Word" is translated from the greek term Logos, which has a deeper meaning than just "word"

Logos/The Word is taken to mean Jesus

[edit on 10-7-2007 by Shadowflux]

[edit on 10-7-2007 by Shadowflux]

I think what was to make Jesus different from other humans, (without getting into a trinity arguement) is that he is supposed to be the only human without sin and there for the only human that could pay for humanitys sins as a perfect sacrifice upon the cross.

not sure on that havent studied the bible in a while

Thanks Shadowflux, that did help. Some say that the Western Mind is not equipped, conceptually, to deal with non-dualistic concepts such as that of the trinity. Ironically, my own learning about the tao has helped me to see the religion into which they attempted to indoctrinate me more clearly. Surely this demonstrates the benefit of anti-dogmatic approach to religion.

To get back on topic, am I not right in thinking that the reason the Roman Catholic Church has the "Roman" appelation is that there was once two of them. I seem to remember a schism between East and West. Is this where the Orthodox Chrurch comes from?

If so, then this current statement from Benedict is a continuation of hostilities between the two sects Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox that should have ended in the thirteenth century! Talk about holding a grudge. When the amount of blood spilt in well over a thousand years of theological warfare, it does make it seem as though Pope Benedict is the last person to mediate between Christians and their God.

Jesus said " I and the Father are ONE ", and " Those who have seen me have seen the Father ", and many more. But that can be refuted by others that seem to say another thing. It is a matter of semantics and opinion.

BUt, the Catholic Church HAS to claim to be thew only true Christian church because all thrrough history, that has been needed to enforce the laws that used to demand church attendance and death for refusal, the selling of ' indulgences ' for cash , etc. The Catholics could claim exclusive salvation and thereby attract the most followers and donations.

In pasy ages, it was all about money to the hierarchy; Popes were notorious profligates and sinners who broke all the rules while demanding strict adherence from the rank and file. If they hold all the keys, a person has no where else to go, do they? And being taught this from birth and threatened with eternal damnation for disobedience is a pretty compelling way to enforce discipline.

If all Christian churches claimed equal right to direct sinners to repent and seek salvation then the money flow would swing away from the strict and demanding religions, like Catholicism, and into the more free and open worship shown in the evangelical denominations. That is one reason the Catholics are so flipped out in S. America; the people are changing in droves from the catholics to the new ones and the Pope and the big shots in Rome hate to see warm bodies, and dollars, slip away. thus his statement to make sure that the Catholics still members do not go somewhere else. Most do not want to chance losing their souls if mistaken so they keep on going and giving.

Nothing new under the sun, is there?