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???

Should have been communion, not community.

We were speaking before of substance and accidents. When we receive a sacrament our substance is changed, just as surely as the bread and wine are changed. This is why a validly baptised person cannot be rebaptised, why valid marriages cannot be dissolved, why a priest in a state of mortal sin can confect the eucharist, or a laicized priest perform deathbed confessions.

People dislike thinking about this, because it makes the sacraments such a responsibility. It brings home that our relationship with God cannot be kept segregated to One Hour On A Sunday When We Feel Like It.

The original question was "Can your religion be that important to you if you can just 'switch to catholicism' when it suits you?"

If you do not believe in the idea of an objectively true religion, then the answer is no. No, you can't care that much about Anglicanism if you're leaving over a small thing that you implicitly agreed to decades ago.

On the other hand, if you do believe that an objectively true religion can be determined, and you had previously thought Anglicanism was it- to leave it when it proves itself false, at the expense of careers, and friendship, and prestige, shows you care about your religion very much indeed.

Thanks for the reply marymungo

Still trying to understand how you view Adam's place in history...you did that metaphor thing again you know...

In your god-creates an oak tree-in-a-forest- scenario, god is not creating the first oak tree, just 'an' oak tree. The design for the oak tree presumably is as per the evolved and grown version.

In your Eden scenario is Adam the first man, or just the first man with a soul - are there other homo sapiens, homo neanderhalenthis etc.. out there, or is he the very very first man? In other words I guess I am asking is evolution as we know it at all compatible with your theory?

I guess not, because evolution depends on entropy, and no entropy before the fall means nothing evolved before the fall, means all the beasts etc... were created. Is that right?

MM, I'm not sure what you mean by 'objectively true' - how is believing in an 'objectively true' religion different from just believing in a religion?

Do you mean, in the way that some people think their branch of Christianity is 'the' true Church and others don't?

Sorry, I may be missing something obvious here.

Himalaya- Just to reiterate, though nothing I am saying is contrary to Catholic teaching, the church has not really made any pronouncements on life before the fall, so these are my personal thoughts.

We can look at the universe we have now all we want, but because it is, in effect, corrupted data we can't extrapolate to precisely what it would have looked like before the fall.

When I say there was no entropy before the fall, I mean it in it's form that we see now- an inevitable, inexorable path to universal heat death. That does not prevent God from creating things by slow means of evolution, or instantly bringing them into being. There would be no difference in the final result we see now.

Adam was the first Man, period. If it has no soul, you cannot call it a Man. Were there bipedal mammals walking around? Almost certainly, but they weren't creating wall paintings or little Venus carvings.

I believe God created the world for Man. I believe that had the fall not occured, we would have had a universe that would effectively go on forever, sustained by God. After the creation of Eve, Man would begin procreating, populating first the Earth, then the planets, then the whole universe.

I believe that before the fall, there was no time as such. I believe things happened one after another, but I don't think it was binding like it is now. Frankly, (and here's where I go totally off the wall) I think Eden was a bit of a TARDIS, a nexus from which mankind would have been able to explore every corner of God's creation. Thus, when Adam ate the fruit of the tree, the effects were disbursed through every point and time as we know it came crashing down, locking everything into a one way street. That was the point where we were kicked out of Eden and had to make do with what we found.

And no, I've never taken psychotropic drugs in my life, thank you very much

LRD-

There are currently two basic philosophies of religion:

1. There is one true religion, all others have some flaw or aspect that will lead away from God,

and 2) There is no one true religion, all paths lead to God, groovy.

I think that, before you commit to a denomination, you need to decide what camp you're in.

Once you've made the leap to believe in Christianity, you cannot disregard Christ's wishes that His church be One. Taken in the context of the present day, with hundreds of contradictory denominations, philosophies, and theologies, there must be at least one that's still contains the fullness of Christ's teaching, or else the promise that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against His church was a bit empty.

Little Red Dragon - thank you for your time and patience in answering my questions.

I realise on re-reading my post that it came across as a bit bolshy. When I posted, I was tired, half-listening to the Ashes and more than a little tetchy, so I'm very sorry about the annoying tone.

Wow Marymungo, I wasn't far off with my science fiction analogy, then?
..my questions are a bit more plodding and earth bound.

You haven't really said evolution yes, or no (in your view and the teachings of the Catholic church)? I guess what you have said is it could be evolution or it could just instant creation of fully formed organisms, and we would have no way of knowing and it doesn't really matter anyhow? But you said this doesn't mean that god is 'tricking us' though by laying a false trail, and gave the tree analogy.

I don't think that stands up.

We (and the rest of the organisms) look so very much like we coevolved in an arms race between hunter and prey, parasite and host, over linear time, in a world where entropy is as it is now (i.e. the sun's heat disapates away from the earth so we don't burn up hot, there are copying errors in genes, so evolution happens etc..)

If it didn't happen like that then someone has tried very hard to make it look like it did.

I do like your intellectual courage and the internal coherence of your scenario. I don't think many people are willing to follow their religious convictions this far (at least not in public) - most seem to stick to the all-paths-lead-to-God-groovy and what-colour-carnations-on-the-altar pathways, but like you say that is not what it says in the book.

Princess - no, it didn't come across like that at all! Mind you, I probably have no sensitivity at all ... if I was annoying you/lecturing, I am sorry. I'm just trying to write a teaching course on similar topics at the moment, so sometimes I get a bit lecture-y!

MM - I'm not sure I agree. My DH's religion wouldn't agree that some branches of Christianity are even Christian, let alone true - so I think the distinction between denomination/religion doesn't always hold up.

I think, if this makes sense, that your view seems to me very Catholic, from what I know of Catholicism.

It would be perfectly possible to believe that Christianity is the true religion, but that no extant Church is the true one - else why would anyone wish to reform?