she isnt
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the #2 intellectual in the world a dork? obviously. but he's also witty, sincere, and brilliant....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg
of course this topic is absurd. but people believe it so we discuss it
Again, we arrive at the position that the god created us, complete with our sin, which he abhors.
Doesn't add up.
False.
Hell Pizza is a privately owned NZ company and no relation at all to BK or Starbucks. BK and Starbucks aren't related either. I've never heard of the Bikini Festival, but Demon Energy [drink] is just another small, privately-owned NZ company which is no relation to any of the others.
This information is available through the NZ Government website here.
The Mudfight Bikini Festival sounds great - where is it? (and when)
The rumour is false. Starbucks and BK are publicly-listed companies whose books are subject to close audit by several regulatory bodies and there is no payment to demonic cults.
Hell has a chain going, but Demon Energy are a very small company.
:lol::lol::lol::lol:
Good grief, where did you get all this?
Hell Pizza and Demon Drink are simply trading on your own fears. Why do you think they came up with those names? Because the owners know that controversy creates talk, which creates business. First rule of business is to get your brand name known, and it's sad but true that any company which chooses a demonic or hell theme will attract publicity because people from various churches will kick up a fuss - and in your case, pass on unfounded rumours.
Just think - every time you pass on that rumour, you are actually helping those companies, which is both funny and ironic.
The BK, is a "WHOPPER", which is just big, rather than a whooper, so that one's gone, and as for Starbucks' logo being a goddess, it comes from Greek mythology, so it's no relation to anything you'd need to worry about. Would you have a problem if their logo was Zeus or Hercules?
There you go - all lies, every bit of it, you can drink coffee and eat burgers to your heart's content. I can understand you not going to Hell Pizza, though. Even the Catholic church asked its members to avoid the place. Their pizzas are ok. Demon Energy is just typical guarana/caffeine rubbish and shouldn't be fit for human consumption. They'll go broke anyway - as has every Kiwi company which has tried to break into the "energy" drink market.
This is just wrong.
Please do explain how insecurity has anything to do with atheism?
Well, it certainly seems to have got that way today.
Thanks. Marvellous to have such a paragon of sincerity and honesty in the discussion.
Given your ability to insult people based only upon your own mistaken views, I really have my doubts about your sincerity, but if you say it, it must be true.
Try again.
Actually I never passed on such rumour as I believed it was untrue, I was just asking you if you know anything about it. Thanks for confirming that all is false, and I heard these rumours but a bunch of school people couple of years back.
Oh yeah, I dont have much a thing against Hell pizza, I think they use these devilish themes to increase their profits and fame. I prefer Dominoes, Hell pizzas are way too spicy:)
Oh yes, God is absolute good and truth, and we are not, so we are capable of sin.
Dawkins is far from a "dork", someone needs a lesson in humility before calling others names. This discussion became obsolete once people made their points on belief or disbelief in hell...
i have looked at all the posts, and i don't see what you are trying to answer now. it seems like it's now turned into a general philosophical debate. what main question are we answering now?
I say there isnt much to discuss about the Christian Hell to a further extent, which may make up the reason why people are drifting along some irrelevant philosophical debates.
""He created us for the hope of us being His children"
thats it? thats why we exist? thats the reason for all of this? that is way too naive and underelaborated for me.."
I apologise for my vague approach of expressing my view. Let me put in this context; A man created another human for the hope of them to be his children. Now let us think the reason for all this, why man decides that he wants to become a father. He desires company, create and get to know a human being that has half of his characteristics, physical, pyschological, intellectual etc. He desires to leave a footprint of himself, he desires his footprints to feel the same appreciation of life as he does. He desires to give life to human beings that is part of his flesh and blood. He desires to love and be loved by them, he desires to be proud and be prouded of. He desires beings that he can call his own.
And so did God from the beginning.
So yes, I do give God the same characteristics and personality/emotions that we humans do. I believe we received some of his characteristics including the ability to feel emotions from the start of Creation. However, I believe that we received very little of these characteristics from him ie. we have limitations of loving a fixed number of people, whereas God can love with no limitations.
Ok the scientific definition of "life" is MRS C GREN. M- movement, R- respiratory (exhanging of gases) , S-Sensory, C-Circulation (of blood and materials throughout the body), G- Growth, R-Reproduction, E-Excretory, N-Nutrition. This is from a memory of my intermediate school in science class, and any school student will be able to recognise what in this world is living and what is not. The moon, fire, rock, cloud, planet saturn or the universe is NOT living. The universe may CONTAIN life, as it contains organisms in earth and maybe some odd UFO, but let me make it clear, itself is not living.
You tell any scientist that an atom is living, they will laugh at your face. A.T.O.M comes from Atomic Theory of Matter, and matter is always divided into two, living and nonliving. Atom are the smallest particles we can get that can make up either a living or nonliving matter. The scientific word "living" and anything that possesses life, must have MRS C GREN, and thats that.
The rock with some mosses? Rock itself doesnt cover the MRS C GREN therefore non living. The mosses does cover the MRS C GREN therefore living. The rock provides mosses its habitat and partially responsible for its niche, nothing more. The two things are not the same.
May I ask what "aham eva param brahman" is?
We should worship nature? For what purpose? It contains life, and provides habitat and necessarily materials, but then what? God created nature, and he also created us. In this logic, worshipping nature is like worshipping the next person you see walking past you.
Sorry, but I still dont understand weltanschauung with a couple of random images and verses from the bible. Could you please elaborate?
Weltanschang is world view quite literally. It means the way you view the world, glass half full glass half empty kind of. Humm on a completly no religious topic 2 differnt weltanschangs for choosing to go to university.
1) A degree is nesscery to get on in life.
2) Learning is an amazing thing and I study purly for the sake of it.
You get me?
:D
Any one ready for a new perspective on Hell? Maybe you already have discussed this, I never went back and read this whole thread.
The Bible is a chronology of past events in time which speaks long about God and all that entails. Today we are taught doctrines especially from the New Testament on both the first advent of Christ and the second.
Concerning the Bible we either believe its teachings or we do not, what if someone has fiddled with the Bible and its teachings and there by we are being taught the doctrines of men rather than the doctrines of God?
Pre christian and early christians up until the fifth century never believed in eternity spent in hell for anyone. Yes that is true, so where do these eternity in hell teachings come from? The answer is quite uncomplicated and short, JEROME that is where.
How can that be when your Bibles all use the word eternal? I can tell you how actually. Several things happened, 1. Jereome switched the Septuagint text out and inserted the Babylonian text 2. Jerome changed the text and 3. he added 2 Peter and Jude which teach a whole new doctrine.
The Septuagint Bible is the Bible used from the third century B.C. up until the fifth century A.D. This text was a Greek translation of the ancient Hebrew scriptures, it came into being because Greek is the language being spoken at the time. The Septuagint Bible is the first Bible, it was translated by Hebrew scholars from Hebrew into Greek.
A major change was taking place, around the fifth century Latin was replacing Greek as the common language. Jerome was asked to translate the scriptures into a standard Latin tranlsation, he was given sole authority over the project and that is where the problems begin.
First lets look at the word eternal
The Greek (Septuagint) uses the word 'aionios', today if you look it up in a modern lexicon it will be determined to mean eternal, forever, etc.
However if you look it up and its use in the early christian era and the writings from that time it is not used in that sense. Theoligins have been saying it now for so long to mean eternal that its modern use has now morphed.
Aionios as originally used meant a set time or period which varied depending on the circumstances it was being used. It could mean a set time like three years or a lifetime or an aeon etc.
The Latin equivalent of aionios is 'seculorum' but the word Jerome used was 'aeternum' which is the word english derives the word eternal.
A perfect example is Ephesians ch.3:11 where Jerome did use 'seculorum' but when it came to the words of Jesus he used the word 'aeternum'.
So now Jerome's new translation used the term 'aeternum iusti' which means eternal punishment. That is why our Bibles now say the nonchristian dead will be resurrected to face eternal punishment.
The Septuagint used the word aionios in many places to describe things and events that had already happened and ended so it is not representative of eternal.
Something Jerome did was vigorously promote 2 Peter and Jude to be added to the canon. The importance of this can be shown by comparing the doctrines taught in these books as compared to the Old Testament books. The most quoted being Isaiah so let us start there.
(Isa 65:17) For there shall be a new heaven and a new earth: and they shall not at all remember the former, neither shall they at all come into their mind.
(Isa 65:18) But they shall find in her joy and exultation; for, behold, I make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my people a joy.
(Isa 65:19) And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and will be glad in my people: and there shall no more be heard in her the voice of weeping, or the voice of crying.
(Isa 65:20) Neither shall there be there any more a child that dies untimely, or an old man who shall not complete his time: for the youth shall be a hundred years old, and the sinner who dies at a hundred years shall also be accursed:
Brentons-Septuagint
Notice the transformation of a new heaven and new earth, children being born and sinners dieing at a hundred years old.
Now we will look at 2 Peter on the same subject.
(2Pe 3:7) But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
(2Pe 3:10) But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
(2Pe 3:11) Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
(2Pe 3:12) Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
(2Pe 3:13) Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Look at the difference here, the ungodly are going to be burned up instead of living to be a hundred, the heavens and the earth will pass away in a firey destruction.
It is interesting how 2 Peter opposes Isaiah on this very subject.
The Septuagint says the unrighteous dead will be resurrected to 'aionios kolasis' which means temporary punishment not eternal punishment.
The christian founders believed in temporary punishment, the early christians believed in temporary punishment, from the time forward from Jerome the new christians were taught eternal punishment and because it was now scripture and being taught whole heartedly over time it became the standard doctrine being taught.
Here is another interesting fact.
The Bible also teaches that after their punishment Sodom and Gommorrah will be restored to their original state.
(Eze 16:53) And I will turn their captivity, even the captivity of Sodom and her daughters; and I will turn the captivity of Samaria and her daughters; and I will turn thy captivity in the midst of them:
(Eze 16:54) that thou mayest bear thy punishment, and be dishonoured for all that thou hast done in provoking me to anger.
(Eze 16:55) And thy sister Sodom and her daughters shall be restored as they were at the beginning, and thou and thy daughters shall be restored as ye were at the beginning.
Now let us look at Jude ch.1:7
(Jud 1:7) As Sodom and Gomorrha and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.
English translation of the Vulgate
(Jud 1:7) Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
KJV
Do you see the difference?
Ezekiel has Sodom and Gommorrah redeemed and Jude has Sodom and Gommorrah set as an example of suffering eternal punishment in fire.
You can do a whole study on christianity before Jerome and after, what I have posted is just the surface, but the number one thing that stands out is how he did it, he switched the Septuagint for another text, then made changes to that text and added 2 Peter and Jude.
2 Timothy 3:7
EVER LEARNING, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And some are indoctrinated beyond reason so that they can not see the truth though it is in plain veiw right in front of them.
Thanks for this detailed explanation, Rozzy. Very interesting.
The best thing to do is research the info I put forward and see if it checks out. What I posted is only the tip of the iceberg once you know what you are looking for you can go into information overload, chuckle.
Ask youself this question, would a God who created all, the God that created man in his own image send in the high nineties percent to an everlasting hell where they would suffer forever and ever for eternity? litterally sending billions of people to there eternal suffering in fire and just keep doing it generation after generation, age after age? I personally do not think so. Would he send people for correction for a time, a correction that maybe very hard to bare that lasts the length of time He determines, yes I think He would.
Now I have some travel plans I need to attend to, adios!
Rozzy
I don't have time to read absolutely everythig, but I read about the first half of this dicussion...
I am also a Christian, but I seem to have more liberal views.
The whole discussion about Jesus' existence.
If Jesus did not exist, why do certain Roman writers actually mention him then?The key here is not if he existed, that is a preconceived fact which the Romans, in their urge to be administrative, probably even noted down. The key is what the gospels made him.
In the early days he was a rebel, a sekt leader (like there are ones now), but incidentally the belief in Christ and his doctrines grew to a proportion that made it a religion. Jesus is not perfect, he was a man, but history and certain canonic books (cleverly selected, no doubt) have made him perfect.
Anyway: the Hell.
I seem to have noticed that the Catholic Church got rid of that idea a few years ago, but I may be wrong.
It seems indeed strange to conceive that a God who is love would 'punish' people by eternal suffering (however that may be). Jesus indeed never mentioned it and I don't think it exists in Jewish religion either. (if someone would be so kind as to enlighten me on that).
Heaven, Hell and Purgatory were very popular as categories of people:
Really bad people went to Hell: muderers, people who committed blasphemy, thieves etc. etc. However, if you got absolution for your sins before death then you would go to heaven anyway. (??)
The Purgatory was for temporal suffering, if I'm right, and for unbaptised children (children who died just after birth. That's why they all baptised them straight away: then they would go to Heaven because they had got rid of the birth sin (???), because a baby was considered to have resulted out of the sin of lust (???)), and people who committed suicide. People who still had to pay for their sins, but didn't have to burn in Hell for eternity would go to the Purgatory until they were allowed in Heaven, I think. I don't think they went to Hell because that was eternal condemnation, although maybe during a certain period the Purgatory may not have existed (anymore).
Heaven was for the truly good, or the ones with no sins.
For me that structure speaks of worldly creation in order for people to understand the consequences of their behaviour here on earth, to reward good and repel bad behaviour. Like that rich man who asks Jesus what he needs to do to be happy because he has done already a lot of good. And Jesus tells him to get rid of his riches. Which normal person would do that unless he would get a reward for it? In order for a bunch of uneducated people (because that is what medieval peope were) to do good, there needs to be a clear aim: Heaven. A place where it is much better than here: where there is no hunger, no disease, no suffering, no pain, no nothing apart from love and eternal life.
There are probably theologists who could provide a lot more info on Hell, how it came about, who wrote about it the first time etc, which must be very interesting. But I am afraid I do not believe that God Himself does not punish or reward and that the Christian afterlife is the same as all afterlife: a place where the souls of people live on, good or bad, together.
Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius among others.
Certainly Pliny and Tacitus are respectable sources, seems to me. There is no doubt that they refer to the 'crucified person in Israel who had a lot of followers', who was executed by Pilate. But they also describe Jesus' followers as peculiar people. Like we would do of a sekt leader. The Christians only became a major religion, in my opinion, because they were realistic about their beliefs and not too extreme like the JW's, Scientologists, or others of that kind.
I would say, in a political perspective, that Che Guevara is a good example of reality to myth. Che is now a synonym for any freedom fighter and alternative spirit with T-shirts and everything, but he himself was part of a guerilla-movementand was killed very young. It just grows into myth, no matter what the contents of his life... Yet there are other guerilla fighters, like Pol Pot (?) who do not get that status...
As to miracles f.e.: any normal person realises that a miracle is not possible, or that there is a very minor chance of it happening. It is not denouncing God (as I might do for more pious people), but it is just being realistic. Why is it that all those miracles used to happen and that they don't anymore? Because the perception of people is a lot more scientific and a lot wider than it used to be and they couldn't put an ailment down to a certain disease. Now they can, so the actual going away of a disease is also not anymore solely up to God, so God doesn't perform miracles through his servants anymore, but it is now the servant who makes them happen (the doctor). The Jehova's Witnesses have found a good argument to 'explain' that kind of mistery: 'they don't happen anymore, because God doesn't do them anymore' :lol:. I am sorry, but that just speaks naivety... Both in belief and perception of the world. Sadly, it is people like that who shout the loudest and who make people believe that Christians are peculiar and unrealistic in their world view.
I am a Catholic actually. Surprising, isn't it? And I am not against contraception, not against abortion, not against condoms, not in favour of virginity before marriage etc. etc. Strange isn't it...
This is what Pope John Paul II said about Hell:
In essence, the view of John Paul really provides more realistic people with an acceptable answer to the Hell-question, whether those people are atheists or less-simplistic Christians who also believe but do not choose to be unscientific about things.Quote:
The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy
Pope Benedict XVI, though, said:
I think, even as a Catholic, that John Paul's view was more accessible and more universal than Benedict's view, but John Paul was a lot more modern and was the first pope to seek other religions of the Christian faith (the Orthodox and Protestant) and even the Jews and Muslims to unite in their vision of God.Quote:
Hell really exists and is eternal
This is interesting, though:
In the Catechism, which is still used apparently (in Belgium it went largely out of use in the 60s, I think), it says about Hell:
Yet in one of the first it says (very simplisticly):Quote:
We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."
But we will still have to see how Benedict gets on... However, shuld anyone care what he says no matter what? We all believe in our own way, so we should all be unique in our thinking, and no pope can tell us what to think...Quote:
Hell is a state to which the wicked are condemned, and in which they are deprived of the sight of God for all eternity, and are in dreadful torments. (Question 1379)
I can imagine that it is not great to live in eternal damnation, but that eternal damnation does not occur because one has stolen something... It occurs when one is greedy, lustful, envious, etc. (the seven cardinal sins) and does not repent. But I think that that state of mind provokes suffering anyway, and doesn't need God to punish it, because even on the earth during your life, that state of mind of selfishness, striving for material possessions, in short, striving for an empty box (because what does all that bring you?), makes one unhappy.
So in essence, if looked at properly, there is or shouldn't be an element of punishent involved. It is so in popular culture because it is easier to understand that way...Whether damnation depends on God Himself, I very much doubt it.
My apologies - I meant contemporary sources, of which there are none. Plenty of later ones.
You're a bad Catholic!
Yes, Herr RatZZinger seems determined to bring back the Inquisition and fear of hell. Nice bloke.
Are you sure you're Catholic? I trust you don't apply your beliefs to ex cathedra statements?
Lovely theory, but people can be either amoral or immoral, which is where the premise falls apart. There is no universal sin.
Of course they are later. The sources they drew on to make those accounts are no longer available to us, but they were to them. It is probable to historians that Pliny interrogated Christians on who they worshipped and that was passed on to Tacitus. It is not totally impossible for Pliny to have spoken to one who knew Jesus.
Josephus wrote
Although it is not agreed upon if this was his true style, in the 10th century there was an independent translation fom a Christian Arab who quotes Josephus as well:Quote:
About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.
The two passages certainly have the same contents, only the tone is different, which could be a corruption of the copyist, which was done fairly much. The fact that an independent translation of the same work was made, suggests and makes it very probable that Josephus, of whom is recorded that he was a Jew and not a Christian, indeed wrote about Jesus and that very shortly after the crucifixion.Quote:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and (he) was known to be virtuous and many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not desert his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders
There seems to be a link with the gospel of Luke as well as Josephus and Luke tell the same story about Emmaus. They must both have consulted the same source for their story, because both were not there. However, Josephus can have had access to earlier sources. As the gospel of Luke was written around about 85-90AD and Josephus Testemonium in the 90s of the first century, the source must have been available before that time. As Josephus was born around 37 (around the same time that Jesus was crucified 'during Tiberius' reign' which ended in 37AD) he can certainly have met people seeing as he lived in Jerusalem, was a priest there and came only in the world very very shortly after Jesus was crucified. He was already writing in 70AD. There is a big chance that he had first hand accounts of the man Jesus and not the myth Jesus, which is also to be seen in how he wrote about the man.
I don't see why I should be a bad Catholic? At least I don't terrorise people with my own (sometimes) problematic ideas, that's very Christian to me... Not the principles you follow make you Catholic, Protestant, Calvinist or whatever, but it is what you believe in that makes you something. I believe in Heaven, in Jesus as the son of God, and technically, I should believe in the immaculate conception, although my scientific mind cannot conceive how a baby gets to be without sperm... But the notion of the immaculate conception only came to be (I believe) because of the 'existence' of the initial sin (baby made out of lust). For Jesus that wasn't possible because he was taught to be perfect. How do you solve that? 'He came out of a virgin', which implies no sex, no initial sin. In the eldest gospels Mary is the wife of Joseph and not his pregnant fiancé. But the words of the angel who comes to tell Mary that a son will be born, got interpreted as a ground for the immaculate conception...
In their urge to actually structurise the belief system of the Catholic Church (or that is what it has now become) they started to get problems in the consistency of them. With the introduction of the Purgatory and the initial sin, they got conflicted with perfect Jesus... The dogma of the immaculate conception only was first mentioned in the 11th century... For the first Christians Jesus was a man who got born like the rest of us and who taught good beliefs, no more than that. And so ironically, would also have ended up in Purgatory, if he had died. But then again he was still Jewish, so that wouldn't have applied to him, I guess...
I believe in the Holy Trinity and that is what makes me Catholic.
It depends what ex cathdra means... I do not approve of what the pope or bishops or whoever says because 'they have authority'. Hitlier had authority because he was elected president, but was he right? That was only a metaphoric assertion, though, not a sneer towards Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Authority is only earnt on a basis where it is respectable. Thus the authority of the pope should only go so far that his assertions are realistic. A condom is not immoral, the pill is not immoral, sex is not immoral. Of course if it pans out into a spiral of one-night-stands and 50 sex partners in a month, then it becomes quite exagerated, no matter whether you don't coneive any children because you use condoms or the pill. But then there is mostly an issue with the person who does have such a lot of sex with a lot of different men/women reagarding a self-image.
Let us hope that in three popes time there is one who is part of the modern world, but the problem is that the largest part of that Catholic world will still be conservative...
Of course, there is amoral or immoral, but still it is not good for a person's happy state of mind to go to the extreme for things like possession, anger, indulgence (seven cardinal sins, if I have to use that expression...). There the philosophy of the Catholics draws on stoic ideas about suffering and eradicating suffering.
Charity gives you a good feeling. Greed gives you possession. (that doesn't mean you have to give away what you don't have, though)
Humility gives you a feeling of peace and hapiness with people who like you, whereas pride repels people and when your pide is (inevitably) hurt it makes you feel bad.
I won't go on.
But what it was made in the 19th century or the things my grandmother believed was the simplistic version:
sloth was considered literal: being lazy. Whereas sloth was meant as apathy and a failure of doing God's work, spiritual apathy, so to say. (you might agree or not, about the main issue, but it shows how some early things got corrupted)
and like that, the real doctrine got popularised, but also narrowed down to something unrealistic and sometimes inconsistent.
I supose there is something like universal suffering which the Catholic church adopted from the stoics. Not universal sin, as that is going against a moral and if that moral is not there, there is no sin.
I'm just kidding ya. "Good Catholics" are usually those whose doctrine matches the RCCposition. Yours doesn't, but I'd see that as positive.
Ex cathedra statements are made on behalf of god, are considered to be genuinely divine (by the RCC), and cannot be challenged.
I see what you mean by ex cathedra. For example the infallibility of the pope is a good one, I presume?
One should never follow as a meak sheep, and certainly not in religious questions. Look what happened in the past, and even now, when people do that...
Here is a good example of ex cathedra and what it means in Europe:
irrelevant
Unless the Pope is more than human, he is fallible in anything he might do or say, dogma be hanged...
hear, hear
No, you just have it wrong.
Ex cathedra statements are very specially designated pieces and are divinely-inspired. There is only one recorded instance of its use.
Check Wiki - the description is correct.
Ah, yes. I think I made that view clear when I said what I said about the immaculate conception... I think they did a survey about that and I don't think there were many who believed it. Still, they said they were religious.
Sorry... When you are in something, you don't really pay attention to what the base of everything is. In some countries they teach it in schools, but eventhough I went to a Catholic school I didn't get taught about doctrine, but mainly about the history and the symbolic meaning of some passages in the bible and even philosophy and the main bases of other religions in the last year. The contents of the course of religious education largely depended on the year and included nothing of Heaven or Hell if I recall. Everything I know is through my own interest.
Thank you for highlighting that. I learned something new.