The Catholic Church kills faith.

I've spoken to several people on LW and I've experienced it myself. The Catholic Church kills faith.

Catholic children are raised on a pulpit of doctrine. A priest stands in front of them every Sunday and says "you must do this, you must do that." The whole denomination reeks of authoritarianism. After a while, after one grows up a bit, they realize "this is dumb, none of this applies to the modern world" and they throw out their faith in the Catholic Church and along with it they throw out their faith in God.

I was thirteen when I had my break. By then I was already kind of catching on, but I was still just going with the flow. It was my Confirmation that ironically knocked the faith right out of me.

For sixteen weeks, every Sunday, I was stuck in a room in a church with about twenty other kids. A bunch of them never paid a shred of attention, one always provocatively cut an apple with a pocket-knife, and some even slept openly.

Bottom line: about two thirds of us didn't want to be there.

And that is how I first realized the extent to which the Church goes to indoctrinate people. More than half of the people who get confirmed do it unwillingly. Wow, what a joke.

So I went on my way.  

A year or so later I found God, for the first time really. And my relationship with him or her or it is a wholly personal one that relies on no book, no priest. There is nothing about this God that suggests he's 'a joke' or 'a scam' or a spiritual dictator. He's just God, and that's the way God should be.

So to all those alienated by the dogma of some religion: does your dislike of some Earthly institution equate to a dislike or disbelief in the very concept of God? Don't let it. If you really hate/disbelieve in God, so be it. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't shun God when you shun your Church. They are not one in the same.

Post edited at 8:41 pm on July 3, 2009 by InsaneBlue

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The man who once was but never has been.

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A priest stands in front of them every Sunday and says "you must do this, you must do that." The whole denomination reeks of authoritarianism.

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Catholics don't believe salvation is individual but collective. Believing in God and accepting him in your life isn't enough. You have to prove your worth to him every single day through good deeds done onto others. Protestants believe in individual salvation which explains the ideas about the rapture. Accept God as your personal savior and you're set. Let the others find their own way because now you can sit and wait for judgement day in peace.

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Long Live Rock! Be It Dead Or Alive!

I agree with RayOrama. No one points fingers are the individual like that and the priest certainly doesn't say anything like that in his homily. Catholicism is a family. When one person falls, the entire familiy is hurt from it, not just you.

The problem all started with the situation you're in now. People didn't like this or that, so they left to change it. Instead, you need to know why the Church does this or that. It's all historically accurate, it's all Biblically sound and it's all what it was then.

Unfortunately, too many people spread false information about Catolicism including uneducated Catholics.

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NREMT-Paramedic

My priest most certainly said 'you'. He did say a lot of 'we''s but it was mostly 'you'.

Quote: from Moridin at 6:35 am on July 4, 2009

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What is a belief in a personal god without an associated religious doctrine? Nothing but a vague haze of irrationality.

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I'd hate to see what comes from studying 100 religious texts that no one knows the true meaning of then. If God is the omnipotent father that we all believe he is, I think he is perfectly capable of giving individual guidance to each and every one of his children should they ask.

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I'd hate to see what comes from studying 100 religious texts that no one knows the true meaning of then. If God is the omnipotent father that we all believe he is, I think he is perfectly capable of giving individual guidance to each and every one of his children should they ask.

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Quote: from InsaneBlue at 3:37 pm on July 4, 2009

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 I'd hate to see what comes from studying 100 religious texts that no one knows the true meaning of then. If God is the omnipotent father that we all believe he is, I think he is perfectly capable of giving individual guidance to each and every one of his children should they ask.

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But is that individual guidance "avoid organised religion"?
Perhaps God founded the Church for a reason. Of course He can do anything anyway He pleases, but that doesn't mean the particular way it pleased Him to do it is the way any individual thinks. Especially since the ideology of individualism is very new and for most of history man has interacted with God not only alone but in community.

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Except for Adam, Cain, Abraham and all of those people.

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"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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Quote: from osmoticdespair at 7:13 pm on July 4, 2009

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Quote: from InsaneBlue at 3:37 pm on July 4, 2009

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I'd hate to see what comes from studying 100 religious texts that no one knows the true meaning of then. If God is the omnipotent father that we all believe he is, I think he is perfectly capable of giving individual guidance to each and every one of his children should they ask.

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But is that individual guidance "avoid organised religion"?
Perhaps God founded the Church for a reason. Of course He can do anything anyway He pleases, but that doesn't mean the particular way it pleased Him to do it is the way any individual thinks. Especially since the ideology of individualism is very new and for most of history man has interacted with God not only alone but in community.

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Except for Adam, Cain, Abraham and all of those people.

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Abraham's interaction with God is still within a community, just that it is a community of which he is the origin and which is after him in time.

Post edited at 9:20 am on July 4, 2009 by osmoticdespair

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Κύριε ἐλέησον

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Quote: from InsaneBlue at 3:37 pm on July 4, 2009

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 I'd hate to see what comes from studying 100 religious texts that no one knows the true meaning of then. If God is the omnipotent father that we all believe he is, I think he is perfectly capable of giving individual guidance to each and every one of his children should they ask.

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But is that individual guidance "avoid organised religion"?
Perhaps God founded the Church for a reason. Of course He can do anything anyway He pleases, but that doesn't mean the particular way it pleased Him to do it is the way any individual thinks. Especially since the ideology of individualism is very new and for most of history man has interacted with God not only alone but in community.

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I've gotten myself into an argument that I shouldn't have. I'm not trying to downplay the concept of organized religion.

What I am against is the use of familial pressure or something similar to 'force' someone into the fold. That is quite simply destructive to youth today. And the message I'm trying to convey is that God and religion are not the same thing and shouldn't be treated as such. When one becomes disgusted with their church and leaves it, they often leave God too. It doesn't need to be that way.

I shouldn't have attacked other Catholic practices. Those are my own personal opinions and I do not treat them as fact.

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