The relevancy of the Catholic Church

EDIT: this thread is a spinoff from this thread.

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They believe something like that he is the representation and reflection of Jesus on earth. But if there's any church more irrelevant than the Catholic, I haven't heard of it. Scientology and Mormon included.

No, in the old testament he endorses it all.

Anyone who dreams or prophesizes anything that is against God, or anyone who tries to turn you from God, is to be put to death. (Deuteronomy 13:5)

If anyone, even your own family suggests worshipping another God, kill them. (Deuteronomy 13:6-10)

If you find out a city worships a different god, destroy the city and kill all of it's inhabitants... even the animals. (Deuteronomy 13:12-15)

Kill anyone with a different religion. (Deuteronomy 17:2-7)

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That's all a bunch of insanity. If someone joined Movie Forums and talked like that, Yoda would ban them.

It sounds like Powderfinger gone a bit more psycho.

What are you talking about? It's in the bible, are you calling god a psycho powderfinger?

That was God dealing with primitive man in terms he could relate to. Ever hear of rhe New Testament? But this not the place.

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That would be like saying that man should encourage Africans to kill since they are primitive. Yes I heard of the New Testament, which is just a contradiction of the old. If God is all holy, his book should have ALWAYS been all holy.

Baloney. We are still primitive.

I have always said that Powderfinger is God.

I'm pretty sure you're confusing "representative" with "representation." They're completely different. The closest the Pope comes to anything like this, as far as I know, is speaking ex cathedra.

They're lots of things, but irrelevant isn't one of them. They have a billion members. This statement is nuts.

So, if I ask you a few simple contextual questions, and you can't answer them...what happens then? Because that's what happened the last time you hastily Googled Bible verses without making even a token effort to understand them.

70% of the "members" don't even listen to the church. That number is based on how many use birth control by the way. The CC has always been far behind most religious organizations. They only Galileo like 50 years ago. And they've never been less involved in politics (European) than they are now.


Go ahead and ask me them, but I didn't just google these quotes. I read them in the bible a girl "gifted" me, and it made me reject Jewish and Christian faiths, but they are available on one handy site.

And just to keep this kind of topic Jesus would probably still ride this:

Then that's the number that listen to the church on birth control, not the number who the church has no influence on whatsoever. I've known more than a few Catholics: very few follow the Church on everything, but even fewer follow it on nothing.

I assume you mean they only apologized to Galileo 50 years ago. But that's because he insulted the Pope, not because of his theories. Before Galileo, Copernicus advanced the theory of heliocentricity almost 600 years ago, and it was well received. He was Catholic, by the way.

Also, when something is formally corrected is not the same as when it's de facto corrected. Lots of states have never gotten around to ratifying certain amendments, but at a certain point it just becomes a technicality.

And never been more involved in developing countries. And less involved is not uninvolved. Sorry, the word "irrelevant" is just about the least accurate word you could use to describe Catholicism. I suspect this is the kind of statement that describes your own posture and sliver of experience more than it does the rest of the world.

My question wasn't rhetorical, it was literal. The last time we did this you said that the Bible commanded people to kill atheists. When I pointed out that it didn't do this at all (and that you'd misquoted another verse rather egregiously), you didn't respond at all, if I'm remembering correctly. So I want to know what would happen this time. It takes you half a minute to copy and paste verses, and it takes me a lot longer to provide the context and ask the questions. So what happens if I do that? Do you even acknowledge the correction? Or do you ignore it, wait awhile and do it again, as it just happened now? If you're just determined to wield scripture like a club and don't want to understand it, I'd rather spend my time correcting someone whose behavior might actually change as a result.

There's another question that works as a pretty good surrogate: when you read a verse like these, do you ever go looking to see if there's an explanation for it? Serious question.

Yes, Christians always pick and choose what they want to follow.


He insulted the pope because the church was trying to silence him, as they still do. Father O Grady ring a bell.

Conservative states have always been behind.


They've been more involved in LDC. They would always be converting indigenous people, and then wiping out the villages. They had more manipulation than they have now. Also Argentina, or wherever the current pope is front completely ignored his stance on gay marriage and legalized it.


I do seek the answers, but have been displeased with all the ones given to me.

If by "Christians" you mean "human beings." Regardless, how consistent you find people of varying faiths to be is completely irrelevant to the point. This is just a cheap shot.

I don't know where you're getting this, but Pope Urban (who was friends with Galileo when this started, by the way) specifically asked him to write about the argument and to include his own viewpoint in the text. And it's in this text that he mocked the Pope. People love to pretend this entire episode is the result of the Church being hostile to science, but it's usually an example of how the critics are ignorant of history.

This is just a string of non-sequiturs. I didn't invite you to start ranting about the Catholic Church. I pointed out that your statement about them being "irrelevant" is patently absurd, and is more likely just an extrapolation of your own band of experience, rather than the world at large.

I don't know what is encompassed by the conspicuously vague "the answers," but I was asking specifically about those verses you posted. Before posting them, did you spend even one moment looking for any kind of explanation, context, or counterargument to your interpretation?

And what of what happened the last time you casually criticized scripture you had clearly misunderstood? That sort of carelessness simply isn't consistent with the truth-seeking crusader you claim to be. And your reaction to the correction--to completely ignore it--isn't, either.

No it's not, it's a statement on how little Christians follow there guidebook.


No, no, no. The church pushed him to edit his doctrine and when he refused they black listed it, because of the scientific ideas. And Father O Grady has nothing to do with science, it's the church paying money to hide a pedophile. What holy people.


What? I took on your argument that the church is more relevant in LDCs than it was before, which it is not.


Yes I have spoke to people for specific answers to the text in Deuteronomy.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. It's a statement that is also a cheap shot. It has nothing to do with the topic whatsoever. And last I checked, the idea that Christians don't live up to the ideals of Christianity is one of the central ideas of the faith. So it's pretty weird that you think this is either a) relevant or b) particularly damning to Christians. They'd be the first people to say so.

You also segued from Catholics to Christians for no particular reason.

On what basis? Everything I said before is completely accurate. Be my guest and look it up. Pope Urban liked Galileo, and asked him to write the analysis. When he did, he mocked the Pope in it, and then they went after him.

If they had a fundamental problem with the science (and weren't just using it as a pretext), that would've manifested itself with Copernicus, who predated Galileo.

See? Random cheap shot. Nobody's defending this, and it has nothing to do with what was being discussed. This is a nasty habit you've got, dude.

Argentina is not an LDC. It's the 26th largest economy in the world. And Catholicism is growing by leaps and bounds in Asia and Africa. And, again, it has a billion members. The idea that it's irrelevant is completely ridiculous.

Okay. Who did you speak to? What did they say? What of the other verses?

If this is supposed to be an explanation for the last time you trotted scripture out, I'm afraid I'm not getting it. Were you not looking for truth then?

Just to make Dex happy I will post a picture each time before posting. Hopefully that makes me less of dip sh*t.


Most Christians don't even attempt to fully follow the laws.

Only Christians think there's an actual difference


Obviously the love wasn't mutual


Father O Grady's habit is even nastier.


They abuse the weak by going after the less educated. And Argentina is no world power, and only 46th in HDI.


Rabbis, religious kids at school, parents, people on other forums and some Christian sites.

A. Mis translated
B. For primitive people
C. Doesn't apply anymore
D. Overwritten by New testament
E. It's Gods will

And what other verses are you speaking of

I was ignoring the topic, it was supposed to be light hearted for Dexter.

Not picking random fights about people's faith would go a long way towards that.

Some do, some don't. The "most" is your own speculation. But I don't know what point you think you're making here anyway. Nobody fully follows their own moral code, Christian or not. The main difference is that Christians codify this fact and incorporate it into their world view, and attempt to draw lessons from it.

It takes an awful lot of spite, and some pretty busted logic, to try to take a Christian's own humility, and own recognition of their failings, and try to use it to discredit their beliefs. If you ask me, that aspect of Christianity is the one thing everyone should be able to agree everyone needs more of.

And they're correct. Christianity encompasses Catholicism, but not the other way around. And this doesn't explain why you were using the terms interchangeably. It seems entirely random.

You left out the part where you actually reply to what you were quoting.

Sure was; it was horrendous. But that doesn't excuse yours, nor does it explain what relevance this is supposed to have. Seems more like a really obvious ploy to shift focus.

I didn't say they were a "world power"--you said they were an LDC. Way to move those goal posts. And the HDI classifies Argentina's ranking as "Very High," which you'd probably notice if you weren't slapping these arguments together after the fact.

Ya' know, instead of scrambling to defend these ridiculous positions, you could just say "yeah, irrelevant wasn't an accurate word."

Call me crazy, but I think if you wanted to keep it light hearted you probably wouldn't be continually going out of you way to talk about pedophilia, even though it has no relation to the topic.

But hey, since that ship's sailed...what's your answer? Were you not a Seeker of Answers the last time you posted scripture?

I wasn't picking a fight, this all started when I posted a picture of the pope mobile.

70% of Catholics use birth control. How many of those do you think actually put in a religious effort to not use a condom?The church teaches people to have unsafe sex.

People should be happy with what they are, and not trying to impress a God that only has a possibility to exist and is more concerned what you do with your penis than the starving kids in Africa.


Because some arguments were about the Church while some were about the whole faith.


I didn't this time.


Because the Catholic church doesn't spend millions to protect me.

But that's irrelevant



It relates to how irrelevant the church is in its "religious" goals, while all the goals are just money.

And I was seeking a talking point

No, it started with this post. The part about the Catholic Church and relevancy wasn't provoked by anything. You tacked it on for absolutely no reason.

Then maybe you should amend your initial statement to say that the Catholic Church is largely irrelevant on the subject of birth control, specifically.

This is really ignorant, on several fronts. First, you really don't know a thing about Christianity if you think Christians are "trying to impress" God. That's something only a non-Christian would think. Second, the church does tons of charitable work in developing nations, so the idea that they care more about reproduction than starvation is abject nonsense. And third, it's weird that you'd call people hypocrites one second and say they should just be "happy with what they are" the next. Maybe you didn't notice, but people are messed up. Thank God so many people ignore this kind of advice, because it's the kind of attitude that makes people arrogant and blind to their own flaws. Give me humility and self-reflection--even if it sometimes means guilt--over self-satisfaction any day, and (literally) twice on Sunday.

Yes you did. You've simply stopped responding to the Galileo stuff. You gave the standard atheistic line about it and don't have a lot to say when confronted with the actual history. This happens a lot.

See? You still won't answer the question. Please explain the relevance of the reference. All I see is a cheap shot that has nothing to do with the topic. And dodging when questioned about it.

How? This started because you called the Catholic Church irrelevant. Since then, you've been flailing around trying to defend that statement, even citing a measure (HDI) which actually contradicts you.

What do you think the world irrelevant means, dude?

What does this mean?

Also, I'd ask you to stop posting offensive comics. I don't know what you think it adds, but it's pretty rude. You don't need to believe in something to have a basic level of respect when you talk to people who do.

It was incited by Monsieur Rileys facepalm.


the Catholic Church is largely irrelevant on the subject of birth control


No I don't know what it's like to be a Christian. I was raised a Jew and hardly know what it's like to be Jewish. Man would be fine if we abandon morals based on religion, and instead based on constitutional law. In fact it'd be better.


No I said the love wasn't mutual, and that the church loves editing doctrine.


Let the pope explain it for me.


Because we've moved on from that.

It's irrelevant what I think.


If I recall correctly it was to start the conversation on how Christianity provokes violence. If I recall

They were there to lighten the mood, like Dexter asked.

I thought that comic strip was pretty mild and not the sort of thing anyone would find offensive.

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