Excuse me my friend, but the Pope about 20 years ago came out with a ruling on masturbation that said in effect it was not a sin for those unmarried or for those married who did not have access to their partners. I don't recall the exact ruling but this is in essence what it said. The whole subject of masturbation comes from the story of Onan in Gen. 38. But his sin was not that of masturbation but in failing to live up to the law that required him to impregnate his sister-in-law upon the death of his brother when he left her childless. Instead, he would have sex with her and just before ejaculation, he would pull out and ejaculate upon the ground, thus denying her a child. This is where the term "onanism" came from. So God killed him for his selfisness and meanness. Also, if masturbation is a sin for a man because he casts his seed upon the ground, then why is it for a woman? She has no seed to waste. All she gets from it is pleasure. You reckon that could be the reason why. The church's stance on sex has always been that one should not derive pleasure from sex. It is strticly for procreation. The church has a history of even torturing and putting people to death for sexual "crimes". In reply to some of your other rebuttals, the official doctrine of the Catholic church until I believe the time of Copernicus, was that the Earth was the center of the universe. Galileo was just one of many "heretics" imprisoned and persecuted by the church for contesting this. Up until the late 60's women were not allowed to have any part in the church other than as nuns and were strictly forbidden to have any part in the Mass. It was only after John XXIII, I believe, called for the Ecumenical Council that women were even allowed to read the Gospel during Mass. It was also after this that women were allowed to attend Mass without a headcovering. It was also after this that we were allowed to take the Host into our hands. Before that it was a mortal sin for anyone but the priest to touch it. If I remember correctly it was then that we were freed from the sin of eating meat on Friday. And don't tell me these were not sins because I know they were. I remember very well my Baltimore Catechism! It's is amazing to me how anyone can read the Bible, especially the NT, and believe the things the Catholic church teaches. You reckon that's the reason the church doesn't encourage the reading and study of the Bible? I can never recall in all my years of Catechism or going to Mass or my time at Catholic high where any of the priest or brothers or nuns EVER encouraged Bible study or even reading it. You reckon that's the reason that the Catholic church teaches the same story from the Missal at the same time every year? I've been involved in my church for less than 5 years. I've read through the entire Bible once, the NT twice and am doing it again. In that time I've learned more about Jesus and salvation and witnessed to more people than I did in 30 years in the Catholic church. I've been happier and had more peace in my life in that time than I ever had in the Catholic church. I've been blessed more than ever. Since I joined this church God has been a POSITIVE, LOVING influence in my life, not some terrible taskmaster who is going to condemn me for every thought and action that I have. I know that as long as I try to fulfill the requirements asked of me by living my life as well as possible, witnessing to others and trying to bring others to Christ by being a good example and having faith in the gift of the Cross, I KNOW I am going to Heaven when I die. I KNOW that my sins are forgiven by His death and Resurrection. I KNOW that I don't have to spend one second in any purgatory or limbo. I was the typical Prodigal son. I went out on my own and thought I could do it better myself. I did just about everything but use drugs. Boy, was I wrong! Lucky for me I didn't end up in prison, with vd or dead. It took going to jail to get me to look at my life and see I needed God to guide me. When I got down on my knees at the Cross in Groom, Tx. and cried like a baby, begged for His help, He rescued me. It has been a long trip back but I wouldn't trade where I am now for anything in the world! You couldn't give me any material thing to make me give up what I now have spiritually. I really can't say it's a trip "back" because I've never been where I am now. I've lived both sides of it and there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind which side is right!
you should be more serious. when that wizard allowed his kid to be murdered, it forgave your sins. i would hope that if you ever got angry at me, you would have the decency to destroy sometyhing you created to forgive me, like god did! destroying your things is the best way to forgive!
You are a victim of revisionist history on Galllea. This is how it went down. The theory of a heliocentric universe was proposed by the Polish Catholic Nicholas Copernicus before Galileo was even born! Copernicus died 21 years before the birth of the Galileo. Copernicus, when a student at Rome, according to the fashion of the times, defended his thesis there with the approval of ecclesiastical authorities. When he published his book he was even given permission to dedicate it to Pope Paul III. There was no objection to Copernicus' theory on the part of the Church authorities, nor to his book. Copernicus later became a clergyman and was highly respected. At a time when heresy was ravaging souls, Galileo was born and grew up. He promoted the same theory as Copernicus but in a suspicious manner. He went further and openly and boldly insisted that this was the only way of looking at the heavens AND that it represented a "contradiction" of the Scriptures. It was then ordered that Copernicus' book be amended to state that it was a theory to describe movements of the heavenly bodies and not at all as a contradiction of Scripture - the Church thus did not deny the truth of the theory, but merely denied that the theory, as stated, was a contradiction of Scripture. The revisionists of today will have you think otherwise in order to lessen the respect for Church authority. They will have you believe the Church denied the possibility of the truth of that theory, which is not true. And, Galileo at this time, was corrected by the Church authorities to cease what he was doing, as he was a member of the Church and under Her jurisdiction. In fact, Galileo was good friends with the Pope and clergy. After he was corrected, he disobeyed and continued to boldly make such scandal. The Church then used disciplinary measures to punish Galileo. He was not tortured, nor put into a cold, dreary Castle as portrayed by the mass media. Rather, he was confined to the castle of a cardinal. One of the more well-to-do domiciles in Europe! Galileo's prideful actions against Church authority on the matter of Holy Scripture called for this disciplinary measure of which the Church can never be sorry or ashamed for, but thankful for. It was a testing of the spirits, and Galileo proved to be a faithful son of the Church realizing that there was no contradiction in scripture. He may well have been a proud heretic in the making, but he turned out to be a loyal Catholic in submission to the disciplinary measures given to the Church by Christ. The anti-Catholics, rationalists, leftists, humanists in the mass media today falsely portray Galileo as a "martyr" for the cause of science, and do so in a very dishonest and revisionist way. This is certainly bad enough, but they have to reach 400 years into the past to even find something conducive enough to help in their evil plans to overthrow the Christian social order. On to masturbation... the official teaching of the Church per the Catechism is 2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."137 "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."138 A search of encyclicals and pastoal letters by topic turned up 0 articles on masturbation. I used catholic.net to research this. The article you are alleging exists does not. You either made it up or someone made it up to persuade you into error. The use of phony and exagerated data is nothing new to Protestants. The Protestant church is founded on error and propagated by lies. Read the articles by Jack Chick or Alberta Rivera for examoles. I feel for the many people who are lured from truth and understanding of God by the heresies of Protestantism. Most Protestants are good Christians, and wonderful people. I view them as my seperated brothers, and try very hard to be ecumenical with them, but I always must remember their church is rooted in heresy and my Church is rooted in Christ.
oooooh you've done it now!!! Mike69 gets all bent out of shape when you call him a protestant. Let the fireworks begin...
Doesn't bother me! He (or anyone else for that matter) can call me anything they want. I bow to his correction of the timeline of Galileo and Copernicus bu that does not change the fact that the church approved of the torture and execution of "heretics". To say what he said about the church not doing it but gov'ts. or however he put it is the same as saying Hitler was not responsible for the Holocaust just because he didn't kill any Jews personally. And I know full well about the ruling by the Pope on masturbation. It was in the papers and news magazines. And his explanation only proves what I said about the church forbidding sex for pleasure. And before you go into some stuff about having sex with anyone we please and so on and so forth, masturbation is a far cry from adultery or fornication which is strictly forbidden in the Bible. And the "use of phony and exagerrated data" is not exclusive to Protestants! I don't disagree that there are some far out flakes and I don't agree with them either. Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts and some others come to mind. All I know is what's happend to me in my life. Given a choice between what I was as a Carholic and what I am now as a "Protestant", I'll take what I have now. Like I told rickyd in another thread, if you are a happy Catholic, more power to you. In my family, there are 7 children. I'm the second oldest. Of those 7, only my older sister is still active in the Catholic church. We were all raised in the church and regularly attended Catechism and Mass. I even went to Catholic High. I taught Catechism in Jr. High for 4 yrs. Two of my brothers are agnostic although I think one of them may have started going to church with his wife, who was also rasied Catholic and even went to Catholic schools but is no longer. Her parents were devout Catholics who have become disenchanted with the church. My other sister long ago broke away from the church and now is a devout Protestant. I am not sure what my other brother espouses. So it's not just me. When the Catholic church got involved with gov'ts., it got away from what the teachings of the Bible are. And don't say the Bible didn't exist. Maybe not in the written form of today but the teachings of Jesus was there and what Jesus taught is not what the church teaches. When the Popes became more interested in selling kingdoms and accumulating wealth, it left the path of Jesus' intent. so I'l stick with what I've got, thank you.
I'm not even sure it took that long. IMO, the fundamental problem with catholicism is that they've forgotten that they're not jews. Everything that Jesus railed against - especially meaningless laws made by MEN and not GOD - have reared their ugly heads again in the catholic church. While I don't know the history as well as some, I suspect that results from the very early church trying to convert jews and adopting many of their rules and traditions as a consequence. The same is also true of the effects of pagan recruitment in the early church. Most or all of that was a part of the church from the very beginning. LSUSupaFan has cited a bunch of stuff from the very early church. Whenever the customs were adopted and whatever they were, they were not teachings of Jesus but were invented by people.
We will just have to agree to disagree on this one. I know that my church is the Church, that it was started by Christ, and that it "has maintained the traditions ust as they have been handed down either by word of mouth or in a letter"(2 thes). There is no other way I can show that the doctrines the Church teaches are from Christ any better than I have tried. The works of the Fathers and the Didache come from the very earliest days of the Church and in many cases predate the Bible. Until you can see that the Bible is NOT the solel source of God's revelation it will do no good.
you guys are like two grown men arguing over which country santa claus visits first. its hard to figure out the facts in arguments like this.
Not that I agree with everything you've said in this thread, but I have to admit that was pretty darn funny.
