GOD OR NO GOD POST NUMBER ONE CLICK HERE
GOD OR NO GOD POST NUMBER THREE CLICK HERE
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GOD OR NO GOD CONTINUED....
CODE RED! CODE RED!
I know this is a hot topic and I'm sure glad you are responding Heather and Dale (see comments) because I need help!
FIRST JUST TO BE CLEAR HERE:
My children know God and His promises for our lives. They've been taught His love from day one but they are living in the soup of sin that is getting thicker. We, the parents, will be gone one day and they need the answers before we leave because I'm not confident in our churches anymore.
Our kids are surrounded by these questions and we are all sitting around just pretending the questions aren't legitimate. We try to just pass them by OR we are afraid to ask them for fear of being judged by our fellow Christians.
I know, that I know, that I KNOW....God is love and Jesus is the way.
I KNOW THIS...
How can we get THEM to know this...forever???
Now on to answer the comments from the previous post...
Firstly, I know all religions have crazy people in their midst...some are members and some are their leaders. THAT is the whole point of the question.
"Why are the leaders of God's church not as protected as the Bible supposedly is? Wouldn't a God who is all knowing place leaders in His church who are real and cause the fakers to be abolished and unable to lead people astray in His REAL church?"
Those are the things I'm trying to solve here because..
"We are all sinners"
isn't cutting it with these kids. :-)
And I've tried to explain how God feels and that he brings Peace in times of trial but that doesn't fly either. It can be chalked up to wishful thinking.
So as I'm trying to "study-up" in order to head their questions off at the pass I began digging into history to prove that the church and God's word doesn't change...then I find astronomy.
Holy Moly...the Bible AND history had to be looked at differently!!
Ahhh...
We're all crazy! I certainly am not saying Catholicism as a whole is wrong! I don't believe that. Any religion that preaches Jesus as the way is fine by me. :-)
Here is what I've found in my research to "help the kids" and now I am freaking out with more questions than answers.
Why has the church deemed things as sin and then revoked it? How do I explain that?
for instance...
Aristotle said the earth was the center of the universe and the Catholic Church said it was a sin to believe otherwise.
Then when Copernicus wrote that the sun was the center of everything they did not punish him because he was working on the new calendar and needed him. Also, they didn't think many people were reading his words about astronomy.
BUT THEN he wrote a book! They realized people were reading it and they condemned it saying that the center of the universe is the earth and that the planets weren't breaking apart from rotating so quickly because they were made up of Quintessence (which means God Stuff) and could spin as fast as necessary.
(How much more wrong can we be here? They just made up stuff willy nilly.)
Then Tycho came along and said, Hey guys the sky changes and the church said, No it doesn't change because God is perfect and since God is perfect He made it right the first time.
SOOO..THEN Galileo came along and they had a fit. They were tired of trying to defend their beliefs against science. This was the guy they were going to make their statement with.
They arrested him, placed him in prison, then under house arrest, and then forced him to publish his book under their censored version.
It was handled so poorly that years after his death they felt bad about being so very wrong and treating him so bad that he was formally rehabilitated in 1741, when Pope Benedict XIV authorized the publication of Galileo's complete scientific works (a censored edition had been published in 1718), and in 1758 the general prohibition against heliocentrism was removed from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture.
On To Witches...
Catholic and Protestants alike were savages. We have the Salem Witch Trials you have Pope Innocent VIII and his Declaration against witches. This means that all Christian faiths have murdered in the name of their faith. Isn't that refreshing. (sob)
On to Molesting of children. Yes we all have them. The Catholic Church was found not only to have one or two members to abuse children...they had 4% of their actual leaders to be found abusing children...The Priests.
BUT...That's not what is so upsetting.
The people who are supposed to be "More Holy" and in a higher church position, in many instances, turned around and kept the sex a secret and moved the Priests from church to church as they got complaints against the priests.
Then the Protestant church leaders turn around and become gay, hooker lovers, embezzlers and pornography lovers. Apparently the sale of porn in hotels goes up by like 80% or some crazy percentage when Christian men hold their conferences in big cities!
How do we explain this crazy mess? Sin? Satan?
Nope...can't...doesn't fly...
Then I get...
"Why did God make Satan?"
There are way too many things in question to be able to have a Solid "Oh this is why" answer.
I don't think anybody has answers.
We can't just sweep these blatant crazy things away with analogies and general remarks.
If one sin can change they all can change.
"Oh this is a sin today but not tomorrow.
Oh this is a BIGGER sin so that's no big deal that those sins changed."
WHaaaT??
"Why did God create the world knowing people would go to hell?"
I've tried the whole...
"God knew the people who would serve him and didn't want them to miss out on Heaven"
answer but that didn't float either.
Anyway...that is what I'm up against with these kids and their questions...SOMEHOW I just know that I'm not the only one who is being asked these questions!"
SO Help!!
Somehow I can't tell them "You just have to have faith." Why?
Because it gets shattered every time they turn around.
The more I listen the more sad I get.
11 comments:
I'm ba-ack... :)
Why are the leaders of God's church not as protected as the Bible supposedly is?
Because they're imperfect human beings. The only Incarnation of God's Word is, well, Jesus. But you knew that. :)
While THEY are imperfect, their office is protected.
Let's take the pope. If he is reading the sports page one March and says, "I think the Cubs are going to win the Series this year," they still play the season. None of the bookies in Vegas pay any attention. But if he's teaching ex cathedra on a matter of faith or morals, to be held by the entire Body of Christ, he gives it considerable thought and weighs his words carefully.
Priests don't have that charism of their office.
PS--Isn't it nice that we can agree that the Bible is the infallible word of God? :)
The "office" is protected? What does that mean? What is the office?
Basicly the job of the pope and the bishops who are faithful to him is to maintain the teachings of Jesus on faith and morals. That is they protect them from corruption. These teachings of Jesus are contained completely within the other two cornerstones of the Church, scripture and Holy Tradition. In teaching faith and morals to us, Jesus promised that the Pope and faithful Bishops would not, could not lead us astray. In any other act or funtion of their job, (ie, figuring out how the universe works or dealing with sinful priests) they are just as capable of screwing up as the rest of us.
BTW, where did you learn that the RC church said it was a sin to believe anything other than the earth as the center of the universe? Can you cite a source?
The whole Galileo thing is a very complicated issue. Much of it is misinformation. I have gone back several times to research Galileo but have never really taken it back beyond him. I would be interested to see if this point is documented anywhere.
Okay, I'm going to chime in here (as a non-Christian that was raised a Christian). I think that the problem is that the boys are starting to get old enough to really start to think logically.
The Bible MUST be taken on faith. Without faith, it can seem contridictary. The fact that these boys are trying to find their faith is good. They need guidance. This is difficult because frequently children ask us questions that we are still asking.
You have to admit that some of their questions were really good ones. They're some I never even thought to ask.
I have absolutely NO advice for you. Just wanted to say that you're not alone. I think that all children go through this as they question their beliefs to reach their own faith that is not based on their parents' faith.
Hi Colleen,
In connection with the Galileo affair, Copernicus' book was suspended until corrected by the Index of the Catholic Church in 1616, because the Pythagorean doctrine of the motion of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun "is false and altogether opposed to the Holy Scripture".[5][6] These corrections were indicated in 1620, and nine sentences had to be either omitted or changed. [7] The book stayed on the Index until 1758. In that period Galileo Galilei was found guilty in 1633 for "following the position of Copernicus, which [is] contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture ..."[8], and was sent to his home near Florence where he was to be under house arrest for the remainder of his life in 1638.
SOURCE: Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo, June 22, 1633, (Translated from Latin), Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (University of Chicago Press 1955), pp. 306-310
Hope that helps. :-)
Shelly
more information...
"Even though Copernicus dedicated his work to “the Most Holy Lord Pope Paul III,” the church by 1616 banned all books, including Copernicus’, that advocated a revolving earth. In 1633 the church forbade any Catholic to believe or teach that the earth moved. Not until 1822 did Rome permit the printing of books that taught that the earth moved around the sun!"
source: http://dialogue.adventist.org/articles/09_1_folkenberg_e.htm
Shelly -
Posted my response on my blog.
Ellen
Colleend--I decided a while back I want a layman's book on Galileo that explains the whole deal. I've put it on my husband, the real bibliophile, to find one for Christmas.
And Shelly, isn't it quite a compliment that your son's friends think you're smart enough to answer their questions? :)
Just want to throw something out there.....
From my perspective it is my responsibility to help our children have a solid grasp on their faith in God/relationship with Him/be able to help them find their way, and the church is there to back us up in what we are teaching them.
If my kids and their friends were asking those kinds of questions, we'd be having a study right then and there.
And for those who are struggling with their own faith and aren't ready/don't want to answer those types of questions, God gives you friends/people you trust to help out with answers.
Your relationship with God is ever changing...the more you read and learn about Him, the more you respect and really see who He is. Your relationship with Him then grows as does your understanding of His Word.
Okay you guys.
Why is nobody answering the questions? It seems that we are stuck on Galileo...
The church said the earth was the center of the universe and told people not to believe otherwise and then they changed their minds. We can jibber jabber all day about why he was arrested...they didn't like him saying it was the center...Pope John Paul put that to rest for us and apologized...now...Let's move on to the questions that the post was about.
Anwers to any of the questions would be a God send. :-) They aren't asking about one religion...they are asking about God. :-)
Ellen, I'm off to read your blog....(walking over to your site)
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