George_Washington said:
Well, Robin, I will but all I ask is that you try to have an open mind towards it. The religious sense, being a Roman Catholic means you are affiliated with the Church in Rome, instead of the Greek or Russian Orthodox Churches. I guess what separates us from Protestants is that we have sacraments. Protestants believe that you must accept Christ by praying in a sort of way, whereas we accept Christ and his covenant through the Eucharist. We are the oldest and largest Christian Church in the world. Our first Pope was Peter himself. I guess one of the other things that separates us from Protestants is that we believe in the concept of Purgatory. And of course we have Saints.
Did I answer your question or was there something else you're trying to get at? If you dislike something about the Roman Church, just come out with it. You won't offend me.
Thanks for your reply GW but I'm afraid I just don't understand what you say. It all seems like utter nonsense to me.
1) For example is God Protestant or Catholic ?
2) Or does he merely perhaps have a preference for one over the other ?
3) When you go to heaven as you of course will as a Christian, will you find God to be sectarian ?
4) If he's not then, what difference does it make whether you support one brand of tribalistic ritual or another ?
5) Was Mary a virgin when she gave birth to the baby Jesus ?
6) What happened to the billions souls that lived before Jesus that had no chance to be saved ?
7) Why did God wait for a half a million years after hominids appeared before he sent his son here ?
8) Is God Jesus ?
9) What is the holy spirit ?
10) If religious people are imbued with the holy spirit once they accept Christ into their lives, why do so many behave like complete a55holes, yourself excluded of course.
11) At what point in our evolution from 'apelike creature' to man did we aquire souls that needed saving ?
12) At what point in our evolution from 'apelike creature' to man did religion appear ?
13) Do only homo sapiens have souls ?
14) What about other hominids now extinct. Did they have souls ?
15) What about anmimals ?
16) Can animals go to hell for behaving according to their instincts, particularly their vicious side.
17) Does God only make any allowances for a person's pre disposition to behaving badly as a consequence of their genes or their environment or can only the baby Jesus save our souls ?
18) We know are here as vehicles for our genes. We do what is needed to survive & to serve our genes. Sometimes that involves breaking the one or two of the ten commandments.
19) When people say they love Jesus or God is it just their instinctive evolved capacity for love withing their brain falling in love with a mental construct... a fantasy figure ?
20) Is religion & God not surely 100% in the mind of the believer & no where else ?
21) Why does God supposedly love us & show that love for us when we die by letting us into heaven if we are Christian or good or whatever it takes, yet completely ignore people's plight in awful situations in Auchvitz etc. In other words why does he wait untill we don't exist before he shows how much he loves & cares for us ?
22) Will it be boring in heaven after twenty billion trillion years there ?