"Cult of Mary"

Quote: FrGamble

No statue or image is ever worshiped in a Catholic Church. What you are noticing is people praying for the intercession of Mary or the Saints.

That's just semantics. If some heathen is praying
to an idol he made in the woods, trying to get
it to intercede with god for him, you'd call that
idol worship in a second. Every Protestant you
talk to will tell you Catholics are heavily into idol
worship, obviously. It's how they caught and held
the pagans early on, they had to mix early Christianity
and the idol worshiping pagan religions or they
never would have succeeded.

Yes, if a heathen is praying in the woods trying to get a piece of wood or a picture to intercede for him to God, then yes that is not cool. Every Catholic, every thinking person, will tell you that the statue of Mary is NOT Mary or the picture of the saint is NOT the saint. You are basically calling "every protestant" a fool with your post.

Once again you are wrong with your history of missionary work, seriously where do you get this stuff? You've got to find better websites than the one that has brainwashed you. What you might want to argue is that our teaching about the Communion of Saints was something that resonated well with the pagans.

Quote: FrGamble

Yes, if a heathen is praying in the woods trying to get a piece of wood or a picture to intercede for him to God, then yes that is not cool. .

I'm an outsider, I don't pray to anything. When
I see somebody praying to a statue of Mary,
or a heathen in the woods praying to a carved
stump, it's the exact same thing. There is nothing
behind either one, so indeed they are praying
to the idol itself. As far as prayers being answered,
if you kept track you would find just as many
come to pass as don't, it's always around 50/50.
Which is the same result you get without praying
to anything.

In fact, several major studies have been done on
people in groups praying for sick people. Over
a long period they found the not prayed for people
had a recovery rate equal to those who were prayed
about. Praying makes you feel good, just like
meditation does. That's about it.

Dear Bob, I know you are an outsider so I'm sorry sometimes I hold you to a standard you can't really meet. But you speak with such authority, it is confusing.

Anyway we have to be careful concerning the reason we pray. To an outsider it always seems like those who are praying are asking for something. This should really be only a small part of why people pray. We are not trying to change God's will to our own but to conform our heart, mind, and soul to God's. We are in a relationship with God through prayer, it's more like talking to a friend that sitting on Santa's lap.

100% of the people who knew they were being prayed for I'm sure felt good that not only others were asking God's blessings upon them, but that they knew God was with them in the midst of their struggles and difficulties. They also were reassured of the ultimate hope held out for us by God's love, which has triumphed over death.

Quote: FrGamble

100% of the people who knew they were being prayed for I'm sure felt good that not only others were asking God's blessings upon them, but that they knew God was with them in the midst of their struggles and difficulties. .

So it's not that god is listening or makes
anybody get better, it's that it makes
people feel good. Which is what I've
been saying all along. Religion is not
about whether god is real or not, it's
about an organized society and having
rules and letting people feel OK about
themselves. God has nothing to do with
it, he's the invisible (and nonexistent) glue
that holds it all together.

It's the only thing that makes sense.

Religion is not about an organized society and having rules, etc. It is ALL about God! It is exactly that God is listening, that He loves us, that He is really truly with us that makes sense. Only the reality of God makes us feel better, without Him we are lost. This is NOT made up stuff, this is about a real relationship. I know that you don't understand this and it doesn't make sense to you, but believe me the fact that God exists and loves us means everything to religion. It is the secular world that tries, ultimately unsuccessfully, to make themselves feel good by imagining things or reading hallmark feel good cards. These things don't have a lot to do with God, but religion has EVERYTHING to do with God!!!

Quote: FrGamble

Only the reality of God makes us feel better, without Him we are lost. This is NOT made up stuff, this is about a real relationship.

The facts don't bear this out. On average,
400 priests leave the priesthood every
year in the US, for the last 60 years. They
don't retire or die, they get out of the
business. If god were truly involved with
these men's lives, if they truly had a
relationship with him that they could feel,
they would never leave. And the majority
get out because they have lost faith in
god, not because they met a woman or
got a hangnail.

This flies in the face of what you said. You
want others to swallow the god belief, yet
a lot of your own brethren can't do it, and
they are supposedly on the inside track.
I totally understand why they do it, they
reach a point where they just can't pretend
god is real anymore.

I warned you in another post recently that assuming makes an ass out of you and me. Here is a perfect example. Neither I or you can speak to why these men left the priesthood. I know some priests who have left active ministry and absolutely zero of them have stopped believing in God. Many of these men left precisely because of their relationship with God who they felt was calling them to something different.

Another thing you should look at is a comparison of the numbers you quoted. I have no idea where you got them, but think about over 60 years how many people have changed their occupations and I think you might see that the staying power of the priesthood is one of the best in regards to occupations. It has already been proven that priests are one of the happiest in their jobs compared to other workers. " In fact, 92 percent say they are happy in their ministry, among the highest rate of satisfaction of any profession in the United States." (From the book Why Priests are Happy: A Study of the Psychological and Spiritual Health of Priests" 2011)

The vast majority of priests are happy and it is because they don't have to pretend, they know God is real.

If even one of the 400 left because he lost his
faith, that speaks volumes about god. It says
the god he believes in isn't even strong enough
to cement a lasting bond with his own representitives.
A real god would do that, if there was a real god.

Could it perhaps have anything to do with the man who left?