quote:

Catholics have to memorize a lot of sayings for the services... And sit on terrible benches.

You don't HAVE to memorize them, they are all listed in the book conveniently located in the boxes on the back of the terrible benches. My church has horrible wooden pews in the sanctuary, but the chapel has nice cushy seats. It all depends on where you go for mass. We bug my priest about cushions for the pews all the time...he just laughs and says, "okay Meg...once you increase your donations a bit..."

I'm a cradle Catholic...Catholic since birth. I've doubted so much during my life but always ended up back here. While I don't agree with a lot of stuff done by the Vatican, I've just decided that this is the best I'm going to get. I could just swear off organized religion, but going to mass every week helps me to concentrate on my faith. Plus it is reasurring to have the repetitive routine of our mass.

the pews at my church have cushions

Catholics have to memorize a lot of sayings for the services... And sit on terrible benches. Woot for congregationalism!

uh huh

quote:

as I recall your not a fan of orginized religion at all celt

Yeah, but I was a Catholic for the first 12 years of my life and I don't like it when people say stupid things about it.

sorry I went off on you I'm just really sick of people telling me that

Sorry.
Just my opinion.
I've never really delt with cathlolicism.
Not a big fan of organized religion either.
But, whatever suits you.

as I recall your not a fan of orginized religion at all celt

I have to agree with amp, even though I'm not a fan of Catholicism.

people who say that catholics worship the saints and Mary= morons

we ask for the intervention of the saints and Mary on our behalves to God

I'm not sure if this is correct or not,
but I find that it has been proven true many times.
Cathlolicism = not true devotion to God.
We weren't put here to worship the virgin Mary.
Yes, she gave birth to Jesus Christ, but that
doesn't mean we worship her. That's turning from
God to a false idol.

quote:

Please do not become evangelicals, I beg of you, as rational human beings. It is only evangelicals that I find offensive, I have no quarrel with any other church. Like the church in Colorado Springs with the singing and the waving and the crowds and the TV screens, it's not God that those people are experiancing, it's crowd mentaility.

Hey now, please don't judge evangelicals by stereotypes. We don't all love Bush, guns, wars, and hate liberals and gays. Also, I don't know if you're Christian, but if you are, evangelicals are God's people just like you and your denomination. And finally, how do you know what those people waving their hands are experiencing? Who are you to say what their relationship with God is like? People are different; Christians are different. What makes you feel close to God doesn't necessarily make me feel close to God, and vice versa. As far as ritual goes, I don't feel close to God at all through rituals. It doesn't do anything. I respect God completely. I don't need rituals to do it. As far as the Catholic church being the closest to the original church, that's incorrect. Read Acts and other letter's from Paul; the original church was primarily evangelical and charismatic. Again though, there is a distinction between evangelical and stereotypes, and the same for charismatic. Evangelical essentially means deeply committed to evangelism and telling others about God.
Sorry if I sounded like a jerk, I really am not angry or trying to start a heated debate. It's hard to show that through the internet. But anyway, I'm not mad or offended.

Please do not become evangelicals, I beg of you, as rational human beings. It is only evangelicals that I find offensive, I have no quarrel with any other church. Like the church in Colorado Springs with the singing and the waving and the crowds and the TV screens, it's not God that those people are experiancing, it's crowd mentaility.

Sorry little rant there.

However, I think it is extremely necessary to have ritual in religion. Ritual is a way of showing ones respect, and with out it, there can be little religion. Besides, the Catholic church is one of the oldest, and therefore closer to the original One Church begun by the dsisciples. That might be some sort of clue...

I'd like to preface this by saying that there are lots of Catholics who are wonderful, godly, loving people, and they are still a part of the Church, as in, God's people.
But I really, really strongly disagree with a lot of the Catholic practices. Like you said, it gets so mechanical, and there are so many rules and rituals and things that you have to do that it ends up having nothing to do with God and loving, following and worshiping Him. I grew up going to an Episcopal church, which is Protestant but probably the closest Protestant denomination to Catholicism. I didn't learn anything or feel anything from that church, really. I wasn't really a Christian until I was thirteen. I kinda believed that it was true, but I started to doubt more and more the older I got. I never knew God, or had any sort of relationship with Him. When I was thirteen I really wanted to figure all of this out - is there a God, what's He like, am I going to go to heaven? I started to read the Bible, and it was then that I became a Christian. I guess you could say that was when I was saved, but I don't usually like to use that word because it's been overused and has lost a lot of meaning. Anyway, for the next three or four years I really was a Christian on my own - it was just me, God, and my Bible. I didn't go to church anymore because I didn't get anything out of it. So I would pray and read my Bible on my own. The reason I'm saying this is that now, I realize that I am evangelical, and the fact that I formed all of my opinions and my view of God and the world without outside influence from parents, friends, or church shows that this really is who I am. I'm not just following along with whatever people tell me to do.
It sounds a lot like that's what you're going through. About a year ago God led me to an evangelical church where I've really found a home, and close, lifelong friends, and best of all, a place where I can learn more about God and grow and feel close to Him. If you're feeling like you need a new church home, God will definitely bring you to one where you fit in. I would pray about it, and He'll lead you to it. The way I found my church was by praying for some Christian friends, because most of my friends were non-Christian and I felt really lonely, no matter how much they loved me. It took about six months for my prayer to be answered. So don't give up. I'll pray for you, too.

Icompletely understand where your coming from. I doubt the catholic church as well.Ive also grown up catholic, and never got anything out of going to mass. I was saved when i went to a baptist retreat with a friend. I've learned more about my religion, and god and the bible by going to a baptist church with a friend in the past 6 months than i have going to catholic church my entire life. I guess if you want advice on what to do? Do whatever you think will help keep your faith strong, and close to god. .

I'm a Catholic from a small town community, where most of my friends that actually are interested in God are Protestant. This isn't a problem and some of my best freinds are Protestant, but the only problem is that this raises a ton of questions about what I believe. I really didn't know where to go to get the answers to these questions but, alot of my friends had been asking questions on why the Catholic faith teaches some of the things it does. I figured that to find out these answers my best bet was to go to a priest. This was the best thing I think that I have ever done. I was originally thought it was a bad thing to be questioning my faith but have since found out that its the absolute best way to grow in it. Knowing your situation I understand how asking a priest has to be scary for you. I recommend maybe taking a friend so you feel safer and remember that its people doing wrong, not the Church when something terrible like that happens. It makes me sick to think that someone would actually do something like that. I hope this helps.

God Bless

Im Catholic and I'm in the same boat with you Plaid...I doubt the Church. But what i do is read teen books about faith and stuff, usually written by Christians and Catholics to get a deeper meaning of it all. Finding your faith out for yourself is more meaningful than having someone force it down your throat. I bounce back from catholic teaching to Christian ones because i get a more rounded preception of what it means to believe in God.

I'm Catholic became an athiest for about 2 days and realized that the universe is just to damn orginized for there not to be a God then really looked in to my faith with a whole lot of books and came up with a very serious mix of science and catholcism to tge point that I suspected I was a heretic (I asked about this in confession recently and the Priest turned out to have a Master's in Physics!) any way for a short summary of this see my sig for a detailed summery NM me.

Book List(I'll be starting a topic on them later)

A Case For Christ
A Case For Faith
A Case For a Creator
all by Lee Strobel

Don't know where to start? Ponder everything you know to be true. Everything. I'm not talking about God (gods, whatever you prefer) Just what you know to be true. Not scientist speculations or religious beliefs, just what you know is fact. Then make a decision based on what you know on whether the entire universe is just an accident, or whether it has some sort of purpose. Then, if you deem that life has some purpose, search for some...religion that explains that purpose, and correlates the things you know to be true. You can deduct some beliefs very quickly, the ones that say the earth is supported by four enormous elephants, or that the earth is flat, ect. Research the one that correlates closest, and see if you think that what that religion says makes sense. If it does, follow it. If you have done all this and have concluded that the Christian beliefs in general are true, look to the Bible. If the Catholics you observe are not doing what the Bible says, loose them. You'll find some that do what it teaches I suppose, that realy comes down to who's got Jesus and who doesn't. Again, look to the Bible, if you think it is right (it is) and then make your decisions on what denomination to choose.
Me? I don't follow any one denomination, and I think that what separates them is often trivial.

Why I believe the Bible?
(1 Do to the vast complexities of the universe, and of the human mind, I think something outside of...science as we know it started life.
(2 The Bible is the only "holy book" you find that says the earth is round and suspended in space, stars are burning and make noise, ect.

There you go!

Well, I'm also a "reformed" Catholic. I was athiest for a while, then agnostic, then settled into Deism. If you don't know what that is, check out Deism.org. Organized religion turned me off.

To me, your relationship between you and God is your own. The priest cannot "speak" to God anymore than you can. And anything that is written into a book claiming to be the "Word of God" should be taken with extreme skepticism, as that book was written by a man, not a divine being.

In the end, you need to do what is right to you. Fight the Papists! Arrr! :P