[jordyn]

feel what you will about Abraham's God, what separates Him most from any other deity since even the prehistoric venuses is that He's never given a name and has never designated a symbol to represent Himself, leaving it to those who encounter Him to decide what He symbolizes in their life.

i associate clouds, butterflies and got the star of david tattooed to mark me as His temple, but even those have no attribution to Him aside from being what were most prevalent when we were meeting, what is it about this God that's went through several merges depending on who His early israelites settled with(El-olhim, Adonai etc...) and even when becoming flesh passed on symbols or a personal name, even the Christ symbols are designations of the christian faith and not the deity of Himself, and Christ is a man, not directly God.

what made a God decide to break all precedences and forge His own faith, free from the usual idols, symbolism, and temples that previous gods have insisted upon?

What do the jews have to say about this?

[jordyn]

remember what abraham did to those dancing around a golden cow, but there are no jews around this forum.

it still doesn't dismiss the fact that He chose to be worshiped by the body and mind alone not requiring a statue, sacrifice or other symbol to invoke Him, just a sincere need for Him.  Unlike previous gods who always required some high priced offering to bring upon their benelovence, He didn't seek glory in material needs.

[Andrea Warfare]

If God didn't seek glory in material needs then why is there the tithe? Ah organized religion,I loathe it so because it is so hypocritical!!!

[jordyn]

ummm..the priests need money, who did Jesus ever give money to and who were those He was most adamant about as being wacked when it comes to understanding God?

i won't defend organized religion, but God gave us free will so i don't understand why people insist He's the cruel one, humanity does well enough being cruel with out a God, yet those most anti God/religion seem to favor excusing humanity by passing all their evils onto an incorporeal beign.

i suppose it's easier for some to blame a god than accept humanity generally sucks as a species?

[Andrea Warfare]

Yeah I mean I"m not going against God in my opinion on organized religion,a lot of churches are money makers and sell out religion...

[KubeSix]

the priests need money

They do, but do they need to live in luxury their entire lives? (Subtly referring to my friend Ben, also known as the Pope)

God gave us free will

Isn't he supposed to have written down our world's history from beginning to end already? If so, free will's just an illusion and we have no say in what happens to humanity. So yes, it is his fault.

I like my free will, so I'll take humanity's farked up situation over being a pawn of some divine plan any day.

[jordyn]

the priests need money

They do, but do they need to live in luxury their entire lives? (Subtly referring to my friend Ben, also known as the Pope)

God gave us free will

Isn't he supposed to have written down our world's history from beginning to end already? If so, free will's just an illusion and we have no say in what happens to humanity. So yes, it is his fault.

I like my free will, so I'll take humanity's farked up situation over being a pawn of some divine plan any day.

what does our human existance really have to do with the beginning or the end of the world?

 free will allows us to decide what to do while we're here, going by the christian ideal about the end of the world, isn't that what it comes down to?  it's who you worship, how you lived and what you did with that free will that matters when the world ends...we can't stop the world from ending but He gave us the ability to decide how we end our lives; by His expectations, ours or others..

if He really had that much control over our individual choice then Eve would never have eaten the fruit, so how does that negate free will?

we were given dominion of the world not control of it.

[jordyn]

the priests need money

They do, but do they need to live in luxury their entire lives? (Subtly referring to my friend Ben, also known as the Pope)

priests have no control or influence over my faith any more, i keep that between me and my God, so their choice of life is between them and their idols, don't get me started on the roman religion, did Christ live in luxury? 

Ku.

Priests serve a church. a religious institution. if said institution is recognized by the government as such, it is usually exempt from taxes depending on local laws.


Also churches(roman catholic in this instance)  are separated into communities known as parishes. which are controlled by dioceses and so forth.
Parishes are the religious community assigned to an area around a church. People go into church and give donations during the mass.
Depending on the financial status of the attendees the donations maybe large.

People who seek spiritual guidance from all walks of life turn to the priest for their problems. in any case  doing so requires that the person trust the priest and eventually this trust develops into a friendship. Whatever the relationship it is the priest's job to serve as council in matters of the faith. He is well equipped to do so as the training required to enter into such a vocation takes 10 years of meditation and study.... and some also go through regular college education in order to stay relevant in today's world.
( i met one who took up computer graphics design and theology as his majors. heh)

 

Anyway. the priest doesn't have money himself but money collected from donations to his parish. You cannot say he doesn't work for it because he does provide a service to the people in form of spiritual guidance.
 (plus i doubt you could take 10 years in a seminary or stand and deliver a message to people day after day after day..... like a  teacher but with more standing and more students.)

In other words, its the people who donate money to the parish. And we can't expect to run a church these days without electricity or water bills!. Giving to the poor is not required
(though they are expected to do so as servants of god and examples to his people and such)
The extra money makes for good tv and computer money.... or car money.... or hoe money..........
It all depends on the integrity of the priest.

Because we have to keep in mind. Priest is just another label for a man's occupation.
Some are good, law abiding, and strong willed ............etc.

Others are stupid, shallow, jerks that somehow went to a crappy college and passed due to pure dumb luck or desperation .

JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.


wonder if anyone here has tried to talk to a properly trained RC priest? The ones i've met are quite open minded.
Just a bit preachy.(10 long years of indoctrination and crap does that to yah).





 
But in other places people(like certain places in africa for example)
Churches offer sanctuary to those in need.  they are places of hope and of peace. of food and shelter.
The priests there are as hungry and in need as their parishioners.



They are also targets of violence and hate.

..ok still off topic... lemme try again.


Umm..... right.

To answer your question KubeSix.
 Those that live like kings do so because they get enough donations.
They do their jobs but their paychecks are uncertain and certainly not static.
They are usually exempt  from taxes. They have no families to take care of.
and they need very little to survive.


At least the roman catholic ones do.

____________________________________________________

Now as for the rest, i have no idea because i really have no clue. (double negative?)

[KubeSix]

But, since they don't have families to take care of, they're exempt of taxes and they get lots of donations, they use it for their own benefit. They say their idol wants everyone to be equal and that he values generosity and all that, yet they live like kings while millions die. With their money they could at leas slightly improve the conditions of many people. If they use electricity and heating bills as an excuse... They're the ones who use that money to get their castles and cathedrals, so why not do that thing they tell others to do called 'sacrifice' and live like normal people? Isn't Greed one of the Seven Deadly Sins? The Pope's most likely not greedy, I'm sure he's a great guy (why else would he be Pope?) but he's certainly not doing the best he can to help out. But you're right,

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MERELY GIVING HAND OUTS WORK?  it makes people stupid, lazy and greedy. The very values that you don't want them to have! I learned this the hard way.....


AHem.

Its not like the priests force the people to give, nor do they in anyway incite them.
People give simply because it makes them feel like doing so makes them better people.......... they give because they want to go to heaven.
(the church has stated that they were wrong about the indulgences and that it doesn't.)

Also don't smack the priest for not being able to give. Being one is hard work, aside from the bills you entertain visits from people asking for guidance, confessionals, masses 4-5 times a day, 3-2 if living with more than one priest. more on sundays. waking up at 3 farking am each and everyday, praying during your free time.

I was a farking altar boy cause of a farking shakey's lunch deal gone wonky. i had to wake up at 4!  Have you any idea how hard it is NOT to sleep during long boring readings of some musty old book? rinse and repeat 5 times a day an hour in between breaks. You'd either have to be totally crazy, a total sadist, very disciplined, or totally devoted to god......... or maybe some weird-ass combination of these.
Like i said. YOu don't have the balls. you don't have the endurance. you don't have the dedication (hovever misguided), NOr do you have the education!

What i'm saying is. priests are people and thus you shouldn't judge them without getting to know them.  that makes you a muslim fanatic.
Besides, there are pedophiles who work as fast food providers too. they like thier kids 'to go'
Ok bad joke.

Some are dedicated to thier jobs, and go it alone. (a terribly lonely existence where they  'offer' thier wants and desires to god. and work for the good of their  community via projects and other stuff during what little free time they have.)

Or they could be ugly salty nutsacks who like getting stroked and licked ( a not so terrible existence which turn the priests into dirty old men.)
totally once again depends on the type of priest the person is.

Anyway Scandals are often treated worse because its like having your father molest your sister. The community he serves feels betrayed and is therefore distrustful of him and all his kind and then they tell their friends. who tell thier friends. some of these people are police.(thank ..... uh.... energy! yeah energy!) these police do their jobs and  blaha blah blah reporters.


Giving the good ones a bad name.... people are narrow minded little pricks(yes that includes you and me, but my prick is more of a cheesy Hungarian, meh!). who like painting big organizations into enemies, missing the fact that they are made of people too.

Donations are well and good and all but its not all there is in a priest's day to day life.

So once again your illogical hatred of the institution is found flawed.
 Its purpose is good. but its sadly not changing fast enough and is now being treated as an embarrassment. like your old pa deciding to host your prom his way.....
So much Phail.

[KubeSix]

Raz, you're taking this way too personally, I suggest you read your PM, because I won't post my reply here.

I've only stated my thoughts on the subject (the Pope being awfully rich, in this case) and you started talking about scandals and how priests have it tough. You also dropped in two lines about the original subject, I'll give you that.

Trashing threads in new and interesting ways. its what i do.

Also i want you to post your reply here so that we can get into a shouting match.

[KubeSix]

Haha, I'd rather not xD So I'll just say this:

Basically, I said you couldn't tell me I didn't have what it takes to do whatever, because as you said, you can't judge people you don't know. That's the part that pissed me off After that, I didn't understand how sex scandals had become part of the subject. but anyway... You also said I declared my hate for the institution, which I didn't. I never said I hated the Church, just that they should make better use of their money. Now, I'm not talking about the priests, I'm talking about the Pope who's just way too rich to claim that material wealth is useless and all that. He sure does help a lot of people, but he's not giving it his best. Sure, he's the leader of the Church and he's busy and all, he's even a got his won country, but most world leaders from much larger countries give donations to smaller countries once in a while (even though it's just to look better because they know it would harm their own economy if they helped out too much and they just lurv the moneys) Anyway, I'm not targeting the Pope or the Church specifically either, he's just the one everybody knows about and most probably the richest religious leader in the world. And the no symbol, no name doesn't really apply to many religions out there either...

Maybe I got a little too carried away in my reply, though... But the "YOu don't have the balls. you don't have the endurance. you don't have the dedication (hovever misguided), NOr do you have the education!" part ticked me off ~_~; I don't want to get in a shouting match