Everyone should be able to practice their religion without fear of persecution. But, I don't think that we should expect political leaders to divorce their decisions from their religious beliefs. As voters we should be aware of what those beliefs are and cast our votes with the expectation that...
Wrong on all accounts. The problem should have been referred to the police and the parishioners made aware of what was going on. The church leaders failed to safeguard the children, not "Mother Church".
I have experience with several different Christian denominations, including Catholicism, and I agree with you. There is a culture in the Catholic church that is different from other denominations - a culture of supremacy of the clergy and submissiveness of the faithful. I think this culture...
No, but it is a problem:
A national survey, completed in 1996 but intentionally never publicized, estimates that a "minimum" of 34,000 Catholic nuns, or about 40 percent of all nuns in the United States, have suffered some form of sexual trauma.
The survey was conducted by researchers at...
I'm going to take the typical liberal view on this one.
Since that "stranger" has already taken a heck of a lot more money from me to buy bombs to drop on whatever country he feels like, I don't feel very guilty about him forking over some money so some people that he is paying minimum wage to...
There isn't anything "clear" about the texts at all. The texts were written at various times by different authors (or groups of authors) who didn't necessarily have the same beliefs about who Jesus actually was or what path Christianity should take. Thus we get a New Testament with...
I've read the same thing. There are two creation accounts in Genesis, one for Yahweh and one for El. At some point the Jewish priests combined the two.
The doctrine isn't important. Doctrine is written by men when they set up their respective religions. What is important is one's realization of their own experience of God. Once one focuses on that, the particular religion they are in isn't as important. Religion is a tool to be used to come...
This is our world, this is our problem. We as humans are totally in control of our own destinies. God answers prayers, but only through human agents. This argument reminds me of that joke where a guy's house gets flooded and he's sitting on the roof as the floodwaters rise, expecting God to save...
Any textual criticism that I've read about the gospels highly doubts that the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ever knew Jesus, and the authors were almost certainly not the people whose names appear on the gospels. I'm sure that the authors of the gospels wanted their readers to believe...
I used to have the same dilemma when I read the old testament, and I stopped going to church because the people there insisted that God really did and said all those unloving things. What I found helpful was to let go of the attachment to the idea that those texts are the ultimate authority for...
I can't help but notice that you use words like "alleged" and "storybook" quite often. I am assuming you have some heavy emotional investment in proving that Jesus did not exist. If that is true, then that is your perogative. For your own emotional well-being, though, you should be more...
:clapBravo, President Obama and Speaker Pelosi!
32 million Americans can now have insurance.
No more denial due to pre-existing conditions.
Small businesses no longer crippled by health insurance costs.
Insurance companies will be regulated.
Deficit reduction by $1.3 trillion dollars...
He returns in each one of us, when we attain Christ consciousness. Paramahansa Yogananda treats this subject in depth in his work, The Second Coming of Christ. St Francis also speaks of Christ coming forth anew in each one of us - that we are all mothers of Christ.