to think that your religion can't be that important to you

[theevildead2]

if you can just "switch to catholicism" when it suits you?

There is a bit on the news at the moment about women maybe being allowed to be bishops. Apparently some of our local priests will be leaving the church if women get this right???

Now the greatest sin ever was Adam's sin, Original Sin. It wasn't just Adam giving God two fingers over the fruit of the tree, it was Adam condemning billions upon billions of souls, each of whom God loves more than any mother loves her newborn infant at her breast, to a lifetime and possible eternity of suffering and separation from God. It brought about eternal punishment for all the individual sins we've personally committed, where we have that moment of thinking "Maybe I oughtn't to do this- Aw to hell with it" and do it anyway.

There is no amount of suffering in Purgatory that could cover the check Adam wrote. It is the eternal suffering of Hell, and damnation, and utter absence of God.

This brings us to the Catholic concept of the Economy of Salvation.

Little/Mary - Definitely not intending to mock. I would class myself as a (liberal/confused) Christian, and this point does give me a lot of pause for thought. Really enjoying the thread and grateful for all those from different traditions sharing their knowledge/experience and beliefs.

The bit that is difficult for me is you talk about how purgatory feels and what the purpose is as if these were matter of fact as opposed to matters of theology and faith.

And why do unbaptised babies go to purgatory?

Think of the physics of this universe God has created- nothing is never destroyed, only converted to another form. This extends, I am certain, to the spiritual realm, as well as the physical. Sin naturally converts to suffering where it is destroyed in its sinfullness. Hell is eternal because it is the souls eternal denial of God, a perpetuating sin that creates a never ending source of fuel. The suffering of Purgatory burns the sins away until nothing is left but that glorious "Yes!"

But how could anyone suffer enough to burn away all their own sins so as to be allowed in the presence of God, let alone the stain Adam's sin left upon them. The answer is, they couldn't.

But Jesus could.

I thought the Catholic Church had moved away from the position that unbaptised babies go to purgatory?

Fantastic - I certainly didn't think you were mocking. I was just trying to explain where I come from in all of this - I work on medieval religious culture so I am really interested in how these theological issues affected real people. I'm less good at judging the formal theological debates.

Buzz - in modern Catholicism, unbaptized babies do not go to Limbo (I don't think they ever went to Purgatory?). I think that was one of the most cruel and scary ideas. In the medieval Church, midwives were required to know how to administer the sacrament and baptise a baby, because it was so important that the baby should be (as they saw it), protected.

its the particular brand of Irish catholicism that has not updated many of these ideas, so I may be rather behind the times doctrine-wise.

Religious philosophy I could talk until the cows come home, if you want to dissect Augustinian theory of time then I'm your woman, but I know a lot less than I should on the matters discussed here, and if not carelful i will; slide into teenage-style potshots and jibes, so I will bow out now. Interesting stuff though.

Oh, I didn't mean to make you feel you should bow out (if it was me), I was really interested.

My dad's family are Irish Protestant and it's taken me a while to learn what Catholicism is really about. I wish I knew more religious philosophy though - one of the things about being brought up in the Anglican Church is that people love discussing whether or not carnations for the altar are pretty, but clam up if you discuss actual belief. So I didn't grow up with any real sense that there were doctrines behind all of it, and now I'm making up for lost time.

Btw, what is Augustinian theory of time? Sounds very Philip Pullman-esque.

Jesus could not go to Purgatory, let alone hell. There was no sin in him, no culpability- had he tried they would have become paradise, and all the sinful fled away in the face of his brillliant purity.

But he could suffer on earth. And suffer he did. Why not just send a prophet to suffer? Many of God's prophets had suffered for Him in the past- why did God have to do it Himself. Two reasons: 1) God loved us too much to make any of us go through that much pain and despair, and 2) Only one who was 100% God as well as 100% man could have had such perfect control of the body, forcing the mind to consciousness, the legs to walk to Golgotha- as it has been said "Nails could not have kept Jesus to the cross, had not love held him there". A simple, mortal man would have died at the pillar.

Despair, though, I hear you say! How could God despair, how could his suffering have any value if he knew he was God, knew it was temporary. That's not what it's like to be human, that's not our suffering! What does God know?

That is why, at the height of His pain, naked before the vituperous crowd, His ruined back scraping against the wood as He pushed with shattered feet against the nails for one more breath, his mother's weeping filling His ears, God turned His back on God, and Christ was alone, with the guilt of the sins of a trillion people, from Mengele on down to your own eight year-old self kicking the next-door's cat pouring down on his very inmost being.

And at ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

And died, in perfect faith.

no, nothing anyone said, just could feel my hackles rising (at no-one here, just The Church in general).

Ah, St Augustine, now there is a man who knew how to convert! From feckless libertine to pillar of the church, and a philosopher whose work is of seminal importance in religious philosopy. he basically took the greek inheritance (mostly Plato) and fused it into the church. He asked what is time? does it exist outside of the mind? what is memory and thought and truth and how do we share these things as seperate humans? what is eternity? Is time linear or cyclical? Does god exist outside of time?
Now thats my area! But I could bore you to tears with it!

And so, to the economy of salvation.

The suffering of Christ blotted out original sin, and he descended to the dead, and harrowed the gates of Hell, and led the righteous to salvation. But God does not force our salvation upon us. Had He wanted slaves instead of sons, He would not have given us free will in the first place.

We must ask for it, choose it, accept it, cooperate with it, in baptism, in the sacraments, in every action of our life. And that treasury of suffering is there for us in our weakness, inexhaustible and eternally sufficient.

As for the unbaptized, well there you're into theory territory again. As far as I'm concerned, if even an atheist can baptize someone (which they can, according to the Church's teaching) there's nothing to stop Jesus from personally appearing to everyone 15 nano-seconds before the soul leaves the body and offering them baptism then and there.

Alot of this stuff just sort of becomes moot once you posit the existence of a merciful, loving God. You feel pretty safe just leaving things you can't know for sure up to Him.

Which isn't to say no one would ever refuse the offer. I don't believe Hell is empty. I just don't think it's very crowded....

Buzz, that sounds fascinating! So basically Augustine was trying to think about the nature of time rather the way we do?

I love the work on medieval memory -I was reading something by a woman called Mary Carruthers, who argues that memory was seen in a much more creative light than it is now - almost they thought of memory as a theory of mind, if I've understood that rightly?

I know I sometimes make people's hackles rise because I often forget how much religion in the modern world can be used as a tool of abuse or control, which is very sad.

Buzz- Faith's moment in the sun is the point at which one decides "Why yes, come to think of it, I do believe the Catholic Church contains the fullness of what God has up to now given humanity to know and I shall follow its precepts to the best of my ability."

After that you've made a committment and need to follow through. In practical terms it means that, when you come across the writings of a woman whom the Church has proclaimed a saint by dint of miracles performed after her death, and these writings describe visions of a purgatory filled with hellfire, you have to give those accounts more weight than you would if you were reading it as a Secular Humanist.

Oh, and I love talking about the nature of God's relation to time- could ramble for hours.

Not that I haven't rambled enough....

This has been a very interesting thread.

LittleRedDragon - I see you are married to a Russian Orthodox. I wonder how similar it is to Greek Orthodox (my DH's church), which I find somewhat smug and very misogynist.

MaryMungo - I am imoressed by your explanations - you do make it all quite easy to understand. I admite that I don't get the point about the stain of Adam's sin. I assume this is the original sin I have read about elsewhere. Put simply, does the Catholic Church teach that we are all stained by Adam? Surely this would mean that we are all held responsible for another person's actions over which we had no control? Secondly, I have heard other Catholics state that Adam is not to be taken literally, that he is to be seen as part of a myth to try and explain the origins of human beings. If this is so, why worry about the stain?

Unfortunately, Catholic education is not what it used to be, and there are those that will quote their sixth form religion teacher as if they were the Pope. Here is what the Catholic Church actuall teaches about Original Sin.

There was an historical Adam, that a faithful Catholic may not dispute. One can quibble over how long it took, or what material was used, or where it happened, but his actual existence is not in doubt.

When God created Adam, he did not just create a man, he created Mankind. This is why Eve was not also fashioned from dirt, but from Adam's own flesh. Adam was created to be our progenitor: the physical and spiritual material from which all future men and women would spring forth. If I can be metaphorical for a moment, imagine Adam to be a great pile of cloth, from which many garments are to be cut. At the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam dipped his cloth in the dye of disobedience, and then kicked out the Tailor.

God had put Adam in authority over the world He had created. The ideal would have been for Adam to freely submit this authority to the will of God. Then the world would have proceeded to God's plan- No death, no chaos, only life and love and creation for all eternity.

But Adam used his free will to forfeit his mastery to Satan. And so all that was made was corrupted. All that would proceed out it was corrupted to the point that fixing it required God to himself enter the world as man wrest that mastery back.

Christ, in His overflowing purity, enables us to be purified, but He will not force us. He beckons, He calls, He woos, but He will not force us to accept Him. He loves us too much to want us to be mindless robots.

alex - I think it's pretty similar. I find my DH's priest incredibly smug and misogynistic, but then my MIL is lovely and very sincere in her faith, so I can't just judge them. I guess since you're married you've also found that your husband doesn't seem quite as stark as the faith would suggest?

Btw, do you have children, and if so, what would you suggest about children's religious exposure? I'd be glad of tips as we don't have any yet.

Mary, wow, I've never met anyone else who has quoted "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (Have always remembered it from RS O-level - those agonised words are so incredibly striking and powerful.) Am a rather hazy agnostic from CofE background but they send shivers down my spine.

Okay I've lightly perused though this thread. I was raised Catholic (Roman Catholic) but escaped. :-)

And I have to say that Catholicism is vastly different from the Protestant religions. They have the seven sacraments, worship the Virgin Mary, and look to the Pope for guidance.

Granted I don't really know anything about the C of E being from the states. But I know that (at least in the states) the other Protestant religions do not receive ashes on Ash Wednesday or observe Lent or Advent.

And as for OTLS there definitely is homophobia there. If her DC(s) is/are gay, I hope they have a good support system because they won't find it at home. You are supposed to love your children unconditionally, not dependant upon whether you approve of their sexual orientation, which (by the way) is not a choice.

Um, if you've been going about worshiping the Virgin Mary you best get yourself to confession right away. Hopefully the priest will gently explain to you the difference between Latria and dulia.

I'm sorry I should have clarified and said in addition to Jesus and god. Perhaps the Catholic church here is different than in the states.

I'm still loving this thread.

So, what I am deducing is that not many people in the Anglican Church these days take on the idea of the seven sacraments, papal authority, and worship of the Virgin Mary but my sketchy knowledge of early twentieth century Anglo-Catholicism tells me that some people, at one point, did.

So, does that mean that these people are no longer represented in any great numbers in the Anglican community?

And maybe it's folk like that that are ... erm ... exiting.

And I know that they're going to join the RC Church under a dispensation, or something. Does anyone know what the terms of that are?

And buzz come back and tell us about Augustine. He had the powerful image of the moment, didn't he? Like a razor's edge, with the past falling away and the future ... doing something? And I'm guessing he must have reconciled all that with memory and timelessness.

(My favourite image of time is the kabbalistic idea of the angels standing sentinel over every moment that pops up in Walter Benjamin. I love that.)

Oops. Have seen MM's post. that should be veneration, not worship, shouldn't it?

Btw MM, where's Midge?