Sunday 13 March 2016

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS BEEN USED BY GOD

THE WHORE OF BABYLON

"FOR OVER 2000 YEARS GOD HAS USED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND NO MATTER HOW BAD IT BECOMES THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NEVER PREVAIL".

So says a commentator to this Blog at 10.23 am this morning.

He / She backs this up by saying that God used people in the Old Testament that were prostitutes, adulterers, son murderers and those guilty of both incest and rape. 




It reminds of the the assertion of the literal truth of Adam and Eve. We know from the Bible that Adam and Eve had two children - Cain and Abel. Where did the rest of us come from then?

Did Cain and Abel have sex with their mother and have children with her? Or did they have sex with unnamed sisters and have children with them? Either way it was incest.




Are those who take the literal stance on creation telling us that God used INCEST to create humanity. If he did, and God is only good and incapable of evil then incest is good. So why do we all not have incest?

GOD HAS USED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH for 2000 years! Really.

- The Catholic Church sold its soul to Constantine and politics in the 4th century and still sells its soul to politics.




- The Catholic Church was responsible for murder and pillage in the Crusades.

- The Catholic Church has been constantly led by popes who were murderers, rapists, paedophiles, thieves, adulterers etc.




- The Catholic Church burned women at the stake as witches.

- The Catholic Church tortured and killed people in the Inquisition.

- The Catholic Church has sided with despotic regimes at all times and in all parts of the world. 

- The Catholic Church has tortured and killed people it disagreed with including men of science and learning.

- The Catholic Church has treated women as second class for 2000 years.

- Popes, bishops and priests have raped women, children and men down through the ages and up to the present time and tried to cover it all up.




- The Catholic Church has worked hand in hand with the world's mafias and has laundered money from their crimes. 

HOW CAN ANYONE CLAIM THAT GOD HAS USED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FOR 2000 YEARS?

Would it not be more true to say that the Catholic Church HAS USED GOD for 2000 years?

Of course I know that in every age there have been good people in the Catholic Church. But they were good and did good IN SPITE OF and not BECAUSE OF the Catholic Church.

I can get my head around the idea that GOD CAN BRING GOOD OUT OF EVIL.

I cannot get my head around the idea that GOD USES EVIL TO DO GOOD!

And what's true of the Catholic Church is probably true of all churches to a lesser degree. The greater the power the greater the evil. 

In far too many cases RELIGION is a vessel for evil.

It is SPIRITUALITY that has the power of good behind it - not religion. 

Currently the Catholic Church has 1.2 billion people on its "books". A small number of those are evil. But the majority of them are either blind, plain stupid, masochistic  or indifferent. 

As Gandhi once said:



"IF A MILLION PEOPLE FOLLOW YOU - ASK YOURSELF: "WHERE HAVE I GONE WRONG". 

 If a billion people follow you - ask yourself: "Where have I gone so wrong"!

34 comments:

  1. Excuse my ignorance, but are you not part of this whole mess?

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    1. No I am not. Thankfully for me they threw me out a long time ago and I am not part of the mess :-)

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  2. You have gone off, Pat, and created a "mess" all of your own. And your "analysis" of Church history is pretty jaundiced to say the very least.

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    1. What mess have I made?

      Which of the above facts about the RCC is untrue?

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  3. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2006/11/inquisition-crusades-catholic-scandals.html - some good articles here to counter-balance your warped and partisan interpretation of Church history.

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  4. To take the bible as literal truth, particularly Genesis would be naive. The idea of man being made in the image of God is one of many such literalisms pounced on as why would God need a procreative organ unless it was to fill the universe with other gods and goddesses? It's best to take such stories as metaphors and perhaps not emphasise the bible itself as a legal text, to be taken literally, as this automatically leads to fundamentalism. Regarding the history of the Church-it has been very much a sorry mess, but what is one building and what does one have for construction material? It's a church of sinners, aspiring to be saints.Power and wealth inevitably attract the 'devil' or the worst in human nature. At the same time, certain historical events and decisions should be viewed through a different paradigm than the secular morality and political correctness of today. The Crusades and Inquisition should be seen more as fear and a reaction to the growth and threat of Islam which was a real everyday threat. Witchcraft was punished by death by Catholics and Protestants. Ironically, the Inquisition were much lighter on this issue than the secular courts elsewhere in Europe. It's very easy to generalise and smear but should we expect anything else from an institution that has existed in one form or another for 2000 years? No state, no government, no leader could be consistently good over such a length of time. I almost prefer to think of it when thinking about governments and peoples. I hate, for example, the government of Turkey, but it's people are fine for the most part. Likewise, I despise Netanyahu, Cameron, the clintons, etc but to then try and smear all Israelis, all Brits or all Americans as evil is just bullshit. Perhaps what is seen as for example, America, is the same as the Church. One thinks of the elites, the greedy and the perverts keeping the plebs in check through fear. However, the Church or any nation is not just its elites or its controlling figures. It's the whole mass of humanity that falls within its boundaries, good people and bad.

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  5. The person who effectively stated that God used evil to effect good has come perilously close to believing that God NEEDS evil to bring about his will, which would make him complicit in the very nature he allowed his incarnate son to overcome by
    loving obedience.

    It is love that effects good, that redeemed the world and is in the process of bringing as many as possible to knowledge and acceptance of this. Evil doesn't facilitate the process; it attempts to thwart it. It cannot stop it, since it has been defeated by Christ's passion, death and resurrection . But it can get in its way.

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  6. Dear oh dear, Oh dear!! Why do all you biblical scribes and students complicate your thinking and your lives with all this analysis and interpretation of the claptrap called the bible. I note when these debates warm up we usually get more heat than light. As for those Canon Law experts(and supposed experts) have you not worked out yet that your subject is about as relevant to the modern world as the rules and by laws of the Armoy and District Ploughing Society!
    Channel your energies and efforts please into something positive and useful for your fellow man. Go out and do folk a good turn today. God will be happier with you and the world will be a better place. Keep it simple,stupid!
    Dalriada Dick

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  7. What about "God has been used by the Catholic Church"...

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  8. Jesus said to Pilate,'You would not have the power over me had it not been given you from above'. So like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks,Romans, even Communism, God allows and uses worldly systems to bring about his purposes.

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    1. So God used Pilate to murder his own son??? What the hell are you worshipping? (Or should I have asked: 'What IN hell...?'

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  9. The Woman on the Beast. The symbol of 'a woman riding a beast' is now widespead, and particularly in the European Union. For example, it is seen: in the German Maritime Museum, on the campus of The University of Tennessee,on various Euro coins, on a German phone card, in a large painting in the EU Parliament building, Brussels, in a mural in the EU Parliament building in Strasbourg, as a sculpture outside the Council of Europe building in Brussels, in Time Magazine (a united Europe). The EU Europa series banknotes (commenced 2013) show Europa's face as a watermark and as a hologram.

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  10. Hey Pat. Adam is a plural noun. Shows your ignorance.

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    1. Ok. Is Eve a plural noun too?

      How many Adams and Eves are you saying there were?

      How many serpents?

      How many apples?

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    2. Wrong, old boy. According to the Ben Yehuda hebrew dictionary 'Adam' is singular. Er, whose ignorance were you speaking of?

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    3. Apples?..... Who said it was an apple tree?

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    4. Did Eve not give Adam an apple according to Genesis?

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    5. The anonymous commenter at 12:13 is correct about the word "Adam" . In Hebrew it denotes "clay", from which the first created person in the Genesis creation story was fashioned.

      "Adam" is universally translated as "man" ("humankind", in other words.) "Man" in this sense can be only a singular noun, not a plural one

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    6. In the first five chapters of Genesis the word אָדָם ( 'adam ) is used in all of its senses: collectively ("mankind"),[1:27] individually (a "man"),[2:7] gender nonspecific, ("man and woman")[5:1,2] and male.[2:23–24][15] According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, its use in Genesis 1 is generic, while in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 the generic and personal usages are mixed. Sorry that it's only Wikipedia.

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    7. To Anon atm20:09

      The universally accepted definition of "Adam" is "mankind"; this noun
      cannot, therefore, have a plural. Or do you know more than established Hebrew scholars. If you do, please show us your CREDIBLE credentials, not a Wikipedia reference.

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    8. Credible credentials are quite hard to provide or ascertain if everyone is called 'Anonymous' to begin with. Whereas I have essentially given a footnote from wikipedia which everyone can follow up very easily, you claim authority from an individual dictionary which is much harder to pursue these days.Regarding authority, why should I trust you/Anonymous and your dictionary as opposed to another dictionary and comments upon that by people who probably have an excellent knowledge of Hebrew. Finally, focusing upon questions of Hebrew grammar just seems as if one is focused too much on the end part of the colon. It does nothing to advance whatever argument you might have and just seems pointless considering the subject under discussion.

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    9. Oh, dear! Seems I've wasted my time on you, Mr Anonymous-Also.

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  11. I used to think it was an apple but it is described only as the 'forbidden fruit'.
    I think we could learn from protestant theology, if I can be so fallibly shorthand, with its emphasis on personal salvation by the grace of Jesus Christ through faith. Don't we believe the same thing? Yet it seems not so central. We are overlaid with tradition and the historical structure of the Church which divert our focus. The other area we can learn from protestants is their striving for authentic versions of the holy scriptures, and their readiness to scholarship in Hebrew, Latin and Greek in the quest for textual authenticity which enthusiasm plays a part in keeping the Classics alive. When I studied Latin, those who were slightly scholarly, and reading outside set texts, were not grappling with the Vulgate but with the choicer portions of Ars Amatoria.
    The sacraments are critical to our faith, but how many Catholics understand them? Years ago I dated a Catholic girl from Wales who was astounded when I told her that Holy Communion was the actual body of Jesus. She said she would ask her mother. And she reported later her mother had confirmed what I said. That was a long time ago, but it made me realise that many Catholics do not know what the sacraments mean.
    The people who go to Confession are mainly old. Younger Catholics do not regard as sinful things that we were taught were sins. Somewhere along the line we have lost our brothers and sisters in faith. Why? And what can we do to right the ship?

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  12. MourneManMichael14 March 2016 at 22:53

    The ship?
    Mary Celeste springs to mind!
    ............rudderless: no crew: drifting: etc, etc.
    MMM

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    1. As if ever, MMM, you are the voice of reason in a world that is insane.

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    2. Voice of reason!...that makes you soulish by nature. I am a spirit being I have a soul and I live in a body. The spirit (pneuma) operates under the Law of the spirit of life through my faith (Romans 1-2). The soul (psuche) operates under the Law of reason through my mind, will and emotions(Romans 7:23)The body (soma) operates under the Law of sin and death through my physiological parts (Romans 7:23). If there is conflict between the spirit and the body then it paralyses the soul so that it can't function as it should (Gal 5:16-18) As for a 'rudderless crew', sorry MMM the Holy Spirit is the rudder guiding the church through the sea of life. Through all the storms and gales we eventually will reach the other shore, so I am staying in the boat.

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    3. Have you been drinking?

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  13. In your case,with no disrespect, you should get out in the fresh air more often !

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    1. MMM is a true gentleman, but I am not. So, fuck off, you prick!

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    2. I agree with Anon @ 23:56

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    3. MourneManMichael15 March 2016 at 19:25

      Thanks for the defence and compliments all.But don't worry for me: water and duck's back comes to mind.
      But there is a comment above I think useful, and I suggested it previously.
      Rather than the perennial "anonymous" making it difficult to follow individual regular contributor's thinking or to reply, it seems better when "regulars" adopt 'handles', like Dalriada D, and of course my own. It's more interesting to keep track.
      As for the Hebrew scholars debate: a brief story.

      About twenty years ago two earnest polite early 20's young American men came to my door, ...to convert me!
      Indeed they had a "Holy Book" to show me and from which to quote my way to salvation.
      I looked at their book and feigned puzzlement asking them why they were reading an English version and not the original.
      I then waffled on a bit about the ancient scriptures being translated from the original Aramaic into Greek, then Latin and eventually English and asked them how could they know their versions authenticity without knowledge of the originals.
      Oh I was just that way out for a wind up! And my brother backed me up when we took a passage and then started debating its original Aramaic text.
      The American lads weren't to know most of what brother and I said as Aramaic was bits of the Our Father and Hail Mary in Irish!

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  14. From Adam to Moses no one could be accused of sinning because the law had not yet been given. So why did God destroy the world in Noah’s day? It was because they were ungodly. He could not see any image of himself in humanity. When you become ungodly it means that there is nothing within you that reflects the image of God. That is why he destroyed Sodom & Gomorrah. They were pleasure seekers not God seekers. Peter tells us that ungodliness is rebellion against God’s constituted authority; it is calling good evil and evil good. People with an insatiable capacity for sinning. Lawlessness within is the nature of the devil himself. Our prayer should me like Moses, Lord show me your ways that I may walk in your truth, give me a revelation of your name, change me so that I can become like you. The Song of Songs is about allowing the Lord to develop his character and weaving his nature through the redemption in Christ. Restoring our souls drawing us into intimacy with himself, then running in partnership with him in ministry until we all share in the Heavenly banquet in the New Jerusalem at the marriage feast of the Lamb.

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  15. You are talking a load of hogwash Anon at 19:28 (15th March). St Paul identifies the Fall of Adam and Eve before the Law as Sin. You are splitting hairs. Sin and ungodliness = the same thing.

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  16. Will someone please tell me what the hell all this debate and biblical academic point scoring has to do with doing onto others what you wish to be done unto you- unless,that is, you are a priest in North Antrim who doesn't mind a bit of "roughing up"?
    Dalriada Dick

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