Yeah the one who confesses with his mouth. Also the torturing and burnings of the inquisition are so overplayed by anti-Catholics. I reccomend a book called Why Apologize for the Inquisition for a good history of the event.
Are you that man? If you ever "wasted your seed" you are going to burn in Hell for all eternity. You certainly won't be alone. Could there be a Seed Wasters Circle of Hell? One can only imagine the special torments that Satan has in store for us, uh those if you who have ever masterbated. Is lying a lesser sin than pulling your pud? If you lie and say you have never whipped your wang will your hellish demons have duller pitchforks to stick you with?
Masturbation is a sin. Sins are forgiven by God through the sacrament of Reconciliation. We can always be forgiven. Even for masturbation.
Ok, this is probably the single biggest reason that I don't count myself among the catholics anymore. My sins are not forgiven because I tell them to a priest and he absolves me. My sins are forgiven because God's son died and rose again two thousand years ago. My sins are forgiven because I accepted that gift. A priest need not be involved in the equation.
if there is one person i don't want to unburden myself to about my private funtimes, it is a priest. them dudes are perverts!
You are right to an extent. Your sins aren't forgiven because you confess to a priest. In confesion you do not confess your sins to a priest. Furthermore the priest does not forgive you. You confess your sins to God, and he forgives you. The priest is there to give the absoloution which is just a verbal asurance that God has indeed forgiven us. But the priest is necessary. Christ mediated our salvation through the Church he founded. Remember he commanded the apostles to "forgive their sins. the sins you forgive are forgiven of them, but the sins that you retain are retained to them." And St. James wrote in his epistle that we should "confess our sins to our brother, so they may pray for us and that we may be forgiven." Confessing in front of a priest holds us accountable for our sins and takes a great deal more of humility than doing so in private. The history of reconciliation is also as old as the church. The fathers write about it as early as the second centuary. Here are some good quates I have come across. The Didache "Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life. . . . On the Lord’s Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure" (Didache 4:14, 14:1 [A.D. 70]). The Letter of Barnabas You shall judge righteously. You shall not make a schism, but you shall pacify those that contend by bringing them together. You shall confess your sins. You shall not go to prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of light" (Letter of Barnabas 19 [A.D. 74]). Ignatius of Antioch "For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of penance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ" (Letter to the Philadelphians 3 [A.D. 110]). "For where there is division and wrath, God does not dwell. To all them that repent, the Lord grants forgiveness, if they turn in penitence to the unity of God, and to communion with the bishop" (ibid., 8). Irenaeus "[The Gnostic disciples of Mrcus] have deluded many women. . . . Their consciences have been branded as with a hot iron. Some of these women make a public confession, but others are ashamed to do this, and in silence, as if withdrawing from themselves the hope of the life of God, they either apostatize entirely or hesitate between the two courses" (Against Heresies 1:22 [A.D. 189]). Tertullian "Regarding confession, some flee from this work as being an exposure of themselves, or they put it off from day to day. I presume they are more mindful of modesty than of salvation, like those who contract a disease in the more shameful parts of the body and shun making themselves known to the physicians; and thus they perish along with their own bashfulness" (Repentance 10:1 [A.D. 203]). Hippolytus "The bishop conducting the ordination of the new bishop shall pray: God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . Pour forth now that power which comes from you, from your royal Spirit, which you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and which he bestowed upon his holy apostles . . . and grant this your servant, whom you have chosen for the episcopate, [the power] to feed your holy flock and to serve without blame as your high priest, ministering night and day to propitiate unceasingly before your face and to offer to you the gifts of your holy Church, and by the Spirit of the high priesthood to have the authority to forgive sins, in accord with your command" (Apostolic Tradition 3 [A.D. 215]). Origen "A final method of forgiveness, albeit hard and laborious [is] the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner . . . does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord and from seeking medicine, after the manner of him who say, ‘I said, "To the Lord I will accuse myself of my iniquity"’" (Homilies on Leviticus 2:4 [A.D. 248]).
I don't deny any of what you say, but you still haven't answered the question: What exactly do you find stupid about ANY philosophy that teaches the Golden Rule or categorical imperative, or whatever you wish to call it?
nothing is stupid about teaching the golden rule. if christianity was the golden rule and nothing more, you would be making a point.
The Golden Rule is the basic foundation of Christianity. The rest is just window dressing, because if you follow that one tenet, all the rest falls into place.
