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Boehner vs His Religion

Glad to hear that not all Catholics think a politician's stance on abortion is the only thing you need to know in assessing that politician.
 
Where are they when it comes to torture advocates like Santorum and Gingrich? Crickets chirping.
 
This highlights one of the many problems with religion. Different people can interpret it to mean different things.
 
Tony said:
This highlights one of the many problems with religion. Different people can interpret it to mean different things.
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Unless you are Catholic, then the interpreting is done for you. You either agree or you are in conflict with Church teaching.

Evangelicals have more wiggle room.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Unless you are Catholic, then the interpreting is done for you. You either agree or you are in conflict with Church teaching.
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The majority of Catholics don't mind being in conflict with various Church positions. Even churchgoing Catholics like the Pill.

To quote a devout Catholic lady of my acquaintance: "I believe in Jesus and the Church, yes, but even Jesus's own mother only had the one kid."
 
There's also a long tradition of leftist Catholocism (Catholic Worker Movement, Catholics for Choice, even Catholic socialist and communist parties in Latin America).

Still, for the most part, Catholics in the U.S. tend to vote "Pro-Life" regardless of anything else. This letter is refreshing.
 
TragicMonkey said:
To quote a devout Catholic lady of my acquaintance: "I believe in Jesus and the Church, yes, but even Jesus's own mother only had the one kid."
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Well. . .aside from James she only had one other kid that was mentioned, according to the New Testament Christian legend.

Just sayin'.
 
TragicMonkey said:
The majority of Catholics don't mind being in conflict with various Church positions. Even churchgoing Catholics like the Pill.
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Yeah, I know. I'd venture to guess that less than 5% of Catholics believe more than 95% of Doctrine.

To quote a devout Catholic lady of my acquaintance: "I believe in Jesus and the Church, yes, but even Jesus's own mother only had the one kid."
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Poor James. The Catholics are so focused on the Virgin Mary . . .
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Well. . .aside from James she only had one other kid that was mentioned, according to the New Testament Christian legend.

Just sayin'.
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Actually, he had quite a few other siblings as well, some of them named by name in Scripture. One of them was Joses, which suggests that Jesus may have honed his speaking skills in his youth doing stand-up comedy. Can't you just see it? Ladies and gentlemen: The comedy stylings of Jesus and Joses!

Proponents of "Mary was a virgin her whole life" say that these other siblings were actually not siblings at all, but Joseph's brats from a previous marriage. There are, shall we say, some difficulties with this interpretation, but such difficulties never seem to bother the faithful.

Edited to add:
Brown said:
One suspects that Jesus was pretty good as carpenter. When he went home to Nazareth, the locals all recognized him as a workman, and were offended that he was talking about religion:

Mark 6:3: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?" And they were offended at him.

The book of Matthew, however, makes a minor change in the text that questions whether Jesus took up the family business:

Matt. 13:35: "Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?"
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Dr. Keith said:
Yeah, I know. I'd venture to guess that less than 5% of Catholics believe more than 95% of Doctrine.
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I'll go along with that. I doubt that even 1% actually believes in transubstantiation. And I think very few actually believe in resurrection of the body. But there are no end of clever work-arounds.

The Baptismal Vows still say, "Do you reject Satan, all his works and empty promises?" (Or words to that effect, anyway.) I've heard family members spin that to mean you don't believe in the existence of Satan.

And I've heard "resurrection of the body" spun to mean "resurrection of a spiritual body".

However, I do understand being a Catholic despite disagreeing with very central dogma. It's almost like a family identify or ethnicity. It's just who you are, no matter what you believe.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Well. . .aside from James she only had one other kid that was mentioned, according to the New Testament Christian legend.

Just sayin'.
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Nope. Let's check out the The Straight Dope:

The New Testament contains several references to Jesus's brothers and sisters, the most explicit of which is Matthew 13:55-56, in which the neighbors wonder where Jesus gets off with all this preaching: "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?"


The words in the Greek original are adelphoi, brothers, and adelphi, sisters. They can be used in a metaphorical, brotherhood-of-man sense, just like their English equivalents. But the context strongly suggests the strict sense, i.e., children of the same mom.


The Catholic take, however, is that the words have yet another meaning: cousins, or perhaps Joseph's children by a previous marriage. This tortured reading is necessary so as not to contradict the aforementioned doctrine of the virgin birth. Just so we're clear, the VB does not mean the Immaculate Conception, the belief that Mary was free of original sin, which was declared Catholic dogma in 1854. Virgin birth means that Mary remained a virgin despite having conceived Jesus.
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Most Catholics don't really pay much attention to the dogma. They show up at church on Christmas and Easter and toss a ten spot in the colection basket.
 
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