So I went to church tonight...

[Haole Girl]

and the priest actually said... he really said this: If you donate money for (it was the name of a mission in Honduras) it can help you atone for your sins. I turned to my husband asked if I'd heard what I thought I did.

How can sins be for sale?

Unbelievable. (sigh)

[bigwillq]

1. Church sucks.

Which is why I never go. Church, and religion, is nothing more than a glorified cult.

[Haole Girl]

3. It was one of the worst things I've ever heard in church

He should be ashamed. Truly.

[hobbit709]

2. Didn't Martin Luther nail a paper to a door with something about that?

[Haole Girl]

4. Guess I just don't know my bible stories

:shrug:

[hobbit709]

9. One of his beefs was the selling of "indulgences"

Basically a "get out of hell free card"

[Haole Girl]

10. Yes... I'm reading some about it now

He was brave to go against the church the way he did. Too bad he was so fanatical in other ways, though. :-(

[Left Is Write]

28. He did.

:thumbsup:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

5. It's a gimick to get people to give money to the church.

It has been around since the inception of the church. While kind of crappy, it could be true. Help others and help yourself at the same time. I like it. And people respond well to it.
Duckie

[Haole Girl]

7. Well, helping others yes... but in the churches I grew up in...

I was taught you do that for other reasons-- not to save one's self!

[YellowRubberDuckie]

11. It has gotten even worse during the last century with America's ME FIRST mentality...

...so you have to do it somehow.
Duckie

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. I try not to think of it as a get out of jail free card but more like a way to

go out of one's way to do something good to help counter-balance something bad one might have done. (Kinda karma-ish, I guess. But as someone else mentioned, Martin Luther didn't see it that way. :))

[Haole Girl]

8. Right... since the post above I've been reading more about Martin Luther

I agree with his teachings... about the Roman Catholic church, anyway.

Edit: Upon further reading, I see Martin Luther was an extremist himself. :-(

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Yes, Luther was bigoted, esp at the end of his life.

[Critters2]

13. This is Aquinas' fault. He--and other scholastics of his day--believed grace could be quantified.

You basically have a "grace account". Some acts deposit more grace in your account, some acts show up as debits. Some, the really bad ones--mortal sins--take away all your deposited grace. Then your only hope is for Jesus to work out a bailout deal for ya. And it's not always certain he will--he's like the House Republicans in that way.

The problem was that Aquinas was really a genius, and would've made a fine mathematician or scientist of some sort. But in his day, the great minds were steered toward theology, "the queen of the sciences", where Aquinas had absolutely no business being. His brain was hardwired toward mathematical thought. So, he started teaching this crap about being able to quantify grace.

So, your priest just told you that, by giving to this Honduran mission, you'll get a whole shitload of grace deposited in your account. He has no way of knowing this, of course, but it can't be disproven, either. And he believes it, because the RCC has been teaching this since the late Middle Ages.

Luther kept trying to build up his grace account to the point that he could feel secure, and finally decided he never would. Rather like my attitude toward having enough retirement income, he finally just gave up trying. He started reading scripture and found no explanation of grace anything like what the church was teaching. He tried to discuss this with church leaders, but they weren't interested. So, he was excommunicated, and the RCC kept teaching this concept of infused (deposited) grace.

As to Luther being an extremist...First, Luther was a product of his place and time. He was fairly well-educated and bright, but came from working class German family, and was deeply influenced by German nationalism which saw the Catholic Church as basically a foreign occupying force. This local nationalism was also influenced by (or influenced, chicken/egg) strong anti-Semitism, because Jews were also seen as foreigners. Many Germans who felt this way had little or no contact with Jews, who lived in Jewish villages or ghettoes, which may have made it even easier to see them as foreign. Luther honestly believed that, once he had made Christianity make more sense than it did under Rome, Jews would flock to convert. As his career went on, and no mass conversions took place, he fell more and more into the German nationalism which had always been in his work to some degree. It just became more and more anti-Semitic, until, yes, he was quoted (and no, NOT out of context) by defendants at Nuremberg.

I'm sorry...what were we talking about again?

[Haole Girl]

17. Thank you for the thorough explanation

I'm saddened, though, to find yet another reason I probably cannot convert to Catholicism. Sometimes I entertain the thought, for my husband's sake, but I disagree with too many of their beliefs. Such is life, I guess.

[Critters2]

23. You're welcome. You'd be surprised to learn how many Catholics don't really understand

the tradition...and conversely, how many do and think it makes perfect sense. People is funny!

[Inchworm]

14. At least it wasn't 10%

That always blows my mind around here when people say that.

:shrug:

[Haole Girl]

19. Oh, well, yeah...

that is actually in the bible... I believe! lol

[DarkTirade]

15. Are you kidding? That's the oldest money-grubbing scheme the church had.

Hell, it probably existed before christianity for that matter. :P

[Critters2]

18. Me, I don't use schemes. My pitch goes like this..."You want the church to be here next weeK?

Someone's got to pony up the bucks. Say 'hello' to Mr. Offering Plate". I like the way synagogues around here do it...they ask to see your W-2, and send you a bill. That's being honest!!

[DarkTirade]

20. Honesty?

That wouldn't fly in a lot of churches. :P

[Critters2]

24. Indeed. I really have been known to preach that we give both because being generous is good for us

(get you into heaven? No idea...Makes one a decent person? Yep!); and because we can't feed the poor, sponsor three children in Haiti, and keep the heat on if no one drops money in the plate. Again, you like the church? You need to pay for it. I find this works way better than scheming. And people know it's true, after all.

[Haole Girl]

21. Ha-ha!

That's funny! :-)

[Danger Mouse]

16. Dark-sided!

[Haole Girl]

22. Hey, who are you calling dark-sided?

Me, the Priest, or the Roman Catholic Church? :P

[Danger Mouse]

25. You're ALL dark-sided.

[Haole Girl]

26. You are probably right

:evilgrin:

[TroglodyteScholar]

27. The church believes in karma

Whoda thunkit

[snailly]

29. Why were you there?

You obviously don't believe in this religion so why go there?

-agnostic