"Cult of Mary"

Quote: FrGamble

And you would be wrong.

That is simply because the Church would call it an act of Faith

There is something that happens when people
get together to worship god sometimes. It's
like a force greater than yourself is present,
a certain synergy, that could be mistaken
for god. The thing is, it's not unique to church.

You can feel it at sporting events sometimes,
or emotional rally's. The crowds used to feel
it when Hitler spoke. It's caused by the energy
given off by a lot of people being emotional
in close proximity to each other. It can also
cause mass hysteria, if the emotions are bad
or violent.

It's easy to see how people thru the centuries,
who only ever met in mass in church, would
mistake their own energy for the presence
of a god.

Estrogen and Testosterone fill the air at Vegas night clubs too.

An actor may have to give a Hitlerian salute but that doesn't mean he has to believe in it, just look as if he did.

As someone on this board is fond of saying: we don't believe in superstitions but how much does it cost to knock on wood.

Many superstitions are common courtesies: opening an umbrella inside a building; saying God Bless You upon someone sneezing despite a lack of current belief that a portion of his soul is expelled during a sneeze.

Quote: Fleastiff

saying God Bless You upon someone sneezing despite a lack of current belief that a portion of his soul is expelled during a sneeze.

No no, you're mistaken about that. When
I was hanging out with those Christian
young people 40 years ago, if you sneezed
in their presence 10 of them would bless
you. They very much believed something
wicked happened when you sneezed, they
said so.

They talked more about the Devil than they
did god. He was hiding behind every bush
to tempt and taunt them, to entice them into
drink and dope and sex. They battled him
every day, especially about sex. The boys were
dying because they couldn't have sex and
couldn't abuse themselves. So in the men's
groups all they talked about was was how
they had wet dreams, or evil spirits would
visit them in their dreams, appearing as
naked young women.

They were all nutso around the edges, even
the girls. Scared me to death.

Yep, Bob I no longer blame you for your strange beliefs concerning God, religion, and Christianity. You had some really awful and strange experiences that would turn just about anybody off.

Quote: FrGamble

You had some really awful and strange experiences that would turn just about anybody off.

Me? You're the one who believes whole heartedly
in demons and exorcism. That makes saying bless
you after you sneeze nothing. And you can't tell
me young catholic guys don't have the same
sexual problems as the kids I knew. Or has the
Church made masturbation a non sin now.

Roman Catholic beliefs about masturbation:
Part 2: Church Catechism.

"Is masturbation a mortal sin or a venial sin?
Being a "grave moral disorder" and "an intrinsically and gravely disordered action" the Church teaches that even a single act of masturbation can theoretically send a person to Hell for all eternity."

Is this what it has come down to? Are you making up some quote to sound like it is Church teaching when it most clearly is not. Do you pretend this quote is from the Catechism? If so I challenge you to give me the number. If you care to read it the Catechism actually says the exact opposite of what you quote in referring to masturbation.

Quote: Catechism of the Catholic Church

#2352 To form an equitable judgment about the subject's moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective maturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that can lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

2351: "Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes."

2352: "By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. 'Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.' 'The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.' For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of 'the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved'."

"To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability."

I think I've said this before and the padre
didn't like it, but I have to say it again.
The more we talk about this, the more
convinced I am that people are into
Christianity not because it's true, they
can't prove it's true. They're into it because
they want and need for it to be true, so
for them it is.

In the last few weeks I've hit way too many
dumfounding moments where I'm just
flummoxed how people can take any of this
seriously. The only explanation is they've
completely suspended their disbelief as
far as religion is concerned. If they explained
it all as a metaphor, I would completely get
it. But saying it's all empirical truth just has
me perplexed. It's anything but..

{empirical truth is when something can be proven as true with the use of gathered data and evidence}

Its the Secondary benefits... all those robes, all that power, all the pomp and circumstances, all that promised salvation and avoid torture... all for saying "I Believe".