No God in Christianity
Forums: Religion, Christianity, Spirituality And Religion, The Vatican, Christian Beliefs
Cyracuz
Reply	Thu 1 Sep, 2011 05:32 am
I think it's safe to say that we've been over this before, but here goes again.
Ever since the concil of Nicea the Bible has been more a means of power and control over people and less a book with a spiritual message.
Hava you ever thought about the Vatican's admission that if they were to release the texts they have locked away in it's vaults it would be catastrophic to Christianity? I don't see how that can mean anything except that the faith is founded in lies that the Vatican is charged with protecting.
And from there it is simple reasoning:
The Vatican, the supreme authority of Christianity on Earth, would have you believe in them, not God. It is not God you must heed, but what they tell you about God.
Consider a few simple principles:
A good teacher doesn't tell you what to think, but teaches you how to think.
Spiritual guidance is not being led by the nose, but being pointed in the right direction.
In Christianity, God is the hostage, and they hold him for ransom. The ransom is obedience without question, and the ironic part is that if we turn our backs on Christianity we will set God free...
Type: Question • Score: 12 • Views: 19,733 • Replies: 252
[+4] - joefromchicago - 09/01/2011[quote="JPB"] One of the best descriptions I ever heard of justifying what was chosen as canon vs not was that the contents were chosen by bishops who were all male, all conforming to a...
[+3] - George - 09/01/2011Reminds me of the story of the two monks digging into ancient archives. Suddenly one shouts, "Oh No!" "What?" "It was a typo! It should be 'celebrate', not...
[+3] - joefromchicago - 09/01/2011[quote="Cyracuz"] Then why do they not open it for full public access?[/quote] There are lots of libraries that are not open for full public access. I had to get special permission to...
[+3] - Lustig Andrei - 09/02/2011Yup, what Joe said. I probably couldn't have said it better myself (and I'm not even Catholic). I'd like to know, though, why Joe elevates that awful hack Dan Brown to third-rate status. C'mon....
[+3] - George - 09/02/2011[quote="ossobuco"] . . . though it doesn't mention Snookie.[/quote] Nor the Templars. Coincidence? I think not.
Fil Albuquerque
@Cyracuz,
...and just what would you decide to do when you get to the conclusion that most people cannot guide themselves less alone learn to think on their own...
...if you were right we would not need any kind of formal authority...no Religion, no Ethic codes, nor State or Law books...of course none of this imply´s anything about the Vatican itself being right or wrong in their options along the aeons...but certainly what you come up with is not an argument for itself...you have to much faith in people which I find lovely and yet ultimately dangerous...
@Fil Albuquerque,
...most people cannot guide themselves less alone learn to think on their own
If you can, then what's to say others can't as well?
If you doubt it, what makes you so confident in your own ability? Do you perceive yourself to be smarter than most people?
chai2
This is very interesting to me cyracuz.
Could you please provide a bit of information?
What are the lies that the Vatican is charged with protecting?
I'm not aruging at all it's being done, I know various gospels, and other matters have been surpressed, but it would be good to know the subject matter in more detail.
I didn't interpret the op to mean there should be no guidance.
I took this to mean the difference between dogma and guidance,
I think that most, if not all, people are capable of traveling in a given direction with a little guidance.
A compass guides you in a given direction, it doesn't tell you how you must walk, nor what you will find when you get there.
In the end it is all about direction, is it not ?
izzythepush
@chai2,
The Vatican archives are enormous, and go back a long way, there's no telling what's in them. Various archeological discoveries may give a few hints, the Gnostic Gospels. The very recently unearthed Gospel according to Judas. Mary Magdalen's Gospel just exists in fragments. Perhaps the best known non- biblical gospel, the one according to Thomas didn't come to light until the 1800s.
I do not know what information is hidden away in the vatican, but their excuse for not releasing it to the public is that it would be devastating to christianity. This can only mean that somewhere in the texts hidden in their vaults there is some information that doesn't agree with their dogma, which again would mean that the bible isn't a holy book, but a selection of texts put together at the discretion of those who set themselves to rule others.
rosborne979
Reply	Thu 1 Sep, 2011 12:16 pm
Cyracuz wrote:
Hava you ever thought about the Vatican's admission that if they were to release the texts they have locked away in it's vaults it would be catastrophic to Christianity?
I've never heard that before. I'm guessing that they didn't say it in quite those terms?
@rosborne979,
rosborne979 wrote:
. . . I've never heard that before. I'm guessing that they didn't say it in
quite those terms?
I'm guessing they didn't say it at all, but I'll be following along for more
exciting revelations.
@izzythepush,
I don't think even the vatican knows what's in the vatican (and I'm not biased toward the vatican). There was a good article on the library a while ago, New Yorker, I think, no link.
@ossobuco,
Reminds me of the story of the two monks digging into ancient archives.
Suddenly one shouts, "Oh No!"
"It was a typo! It should be 'celebrate', not 'celibate'!"
The one public thing I can think of is the 1969 reversal of the position on Mary Magdelene being a prostitute. Many scholars believe that she was his legally wedded wife, which would blow the socks off of much of the mythology of his life.
One of the best descriptions I ever heard of justifying what was chosen as canon vs not was that the contents were chosen by bishops who were all male, all conforming to a hierarchical structure, and supposedly all celibate. If you read through the scriptures that have been discovered and rejected (supposedly destroyed under edict of the Church) you'll see that anything that talked about Jesus as equal to his disciples, as a man who embraced his family, who taught about blessed participation in life, or as someone who thought of women as anything other than subservient to men was excluded.
joefromchicago
Not simple, simplistic.
Right, and a good judge doesn't tell you how to obey the law, he just suggests a good way to think about obeying the law.
For Christians, the bible isn't just literature, it's the law. You might not like that some of them actually treat it like the law, but there it is.
The Christian god demands obedience without question. That's what "faith" is.
I do not know what information is hidden away in the vatican, but their excuse for not releasing it to the public is that it would be devastating to christianity.
That, in technical terms, is what is known as bullshit.
This can only mean that somewhere in the texts hidden in their vaults there is some information that doesn't agree with their dogma, which again would mean that the bible isn't a holy book, but a selection of texts put together at the discretion of those who set themselves to rule others.
Or it could mean you're just making stuff up.
@JPB,
JPB wrote:
Which explains the mysterious disappearance of the Gospel of Jesus's Second Wife, Snookie.
@joefromchicago,
Then why do they not open it for full public access?
It's not secret in the modern sense of the word, but it's practically impossible for anyone to go in and see what's in there, and any researchers who want to see something that's in there have to ask for specific documents. Due to the long and rigorous application process few requests are granted entrance.
For all practical purposes this means that the secret archives remain closed off and it's secrets unexplored by any except it's keepers.
It is fair to assume that had they just said "no, no one's allowed in" the general public would not stand for it. So instead they have just made the process of gaining access so backward and difficult that the end result is much the same.
There are lots of libraries that are not open for full public access. I had to get special permission to gain access to the British Library, and, like the British Library, the Vatican Library is open to scholars and others with a legitimate interest in researching its holdings. The notion that the Vatican Library is closed to everyone but the pope and his minions is a fabrication perpetrated by anti-Catholic conspiracy nuts and third-rate writers like Dan Brown.
It's not secret in the modern sense of the word, but it's practically impossible for anyone to go in and see what's in there, and any researchers who want to see something that's in there have to ask for specific documents.
That's pretty typical of any kind of archive. You can't just walk in and rifle through the stacks.
Due to the long and rigorous application process few requests are granted entrance.
As well it should be. Otherwise every crank in christendom would want to get in.
Except for about a thousand researchers each year who are allowed access.
The general public has no say in the matter. And for catholics, that's par for the course, so they're probably not complaining.
Walter Hinteler
Reply	Fri 2 Sep, 2011 12:47 am
What joe said.
I'm sure that you haven't done any researches in archives.
Lustig Andrei
Yup, what Joe said. I probably couldn't have said it better myself (and I'm not even Catholic). I'd like to know, though, why Joe elevates that awful hack Dan Brown to third-rate status. C'mon. He's nowehere near that good.
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