Posts by Tess Rooney
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Deborah:
To answer you means being quite open about myself and my own private thoughts, which isn't easy because I don't feel particularly happy at opening myself up to ridicule.
OTOH, if people want to ridicule me, well, so be it. Perhaps by being open about myself you might understand my position more clearly. Or maybe you will all just armchair psycho-analyse me. Either way, I can't control how you will take what I have to say about myself.
My family background is one of bitterness about religion. Specifically Catholic vs. Presbytarian. I was brought up with no religious education at all, yet I specifically sought out Christianity. As a teenager I was an atheist, at university I took religious studies and once again felt that pull towards the numinous. I began to practice wicca, first by myself and then with some of my friends.
I found wicca to be missing something and I lapsed. I got married, had children and I wanted them to have access to a spiritual life. I had had various tiny connections with the Catholic Church, and after some years of soul searching I began preparing for baptism.
The biggest issues I had to deal with were,
Is God a being external from Creation, or was God Creation as in the eastern understanding of the divine?
Was Jesus who he said he was? Jesus makes incredible claims and the Gospel's make incredible claims of his Resurrection. Was Jesus the Messiah, or was I going to end up being Jewish or Muslim?
In the end I decided that God was external, and that Jesus was the Christ. If so, where was the Church? Not a physical human organisation, but a mystical Body, members of the Body of Christ. A Body that was guided by the Holy Spirit from the very beginning. Jesus laid his hand on Peter and the apostles, who had they laid hands upon?
The Reformation had always struck me as a moving away from early Christianity, and much of it was shallow and anti-science, eg. evolution, young earth stuff. Had I been Greek or Russian, I dare say I would have been Orthodox. But these Churches relied on a national association that I didn't share. Likewise the Coptic or Syrian Churches.
This left Latin Rite Catholicism.
The axioms I was working from was that the Scriptures were telling me a great and eternal truth about my relationship to God. That Jesus _was_ the Christ and that the Church was his mystical Body on earth. Then I worked through the Catechism and other documents to see if I could agree with what she taught.
What started out a search for the numinous became a relationship with the numinous. My experiences created a spiritual journey, sometimes dry and painful, sometimes joyful and rewarding.
At the moment I have taken my First Promises with the Carmelite Order as a secular. In some years time, God willing, I will make my Definitive Promises and become a full member of the Order. Promises are the secular version of religious vows. To become a Carmelite takes the same amount of time, whether nun, monk or secular.
As a Secular Carmelite my life is dedicated firstly to my vocation as a wife and mother, but also to contemplative prayer as shown by St Teresa Of Avila and St John of the Cross.
So... - takes deep breath - I believe in God given human rights. For example, freedom of conscience, freedom of worship and the freedom to reject God. God reaches out to us in love, and not through coersion. We can choose to love him in return, and likewise to reject him.
The Church _is_ Christ, his mystical Body. He is our Bridegroom and the Church is his Bride. Christ transforms us if we allow him. Our bodies were created by God, they speak a language, a theology. Marriage was created by God, it is a divine institution, not one made by man. People can choose to do with it as they like, define it or change it how they will.
But in the end, marriage is two people, physically complementary, who enter into each other to become one flesh. Wrapped in one another, each giving the other what they do not possess alone, their union actually creates new life. Creating as God creates. A new and precious person. The two, who are one, become three. Just as the Trinity is Three who are One.
Love is not a feeling, but a creative act. Marriage is a blessing where we can share in the divine grace and purpose of God. We are fruitful.
Not every physical union can produce new life. But every union must be open to this new life, always living the theology of our bodies. We are finite, limited beings. But the form of becoming one flesh goes beyond our physical capabilities. By making love we are speaking the divine language of creation. Two people, in Adam-ness and Eve-ness who are one body. Separate, yet one, but always ready to be creative and to birth new life and love.
Sigh... So do what you will with that.
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Tess isn't obeying her conscience.
You don't have the right to tell me what's going on in my head. Just because I agree with Church teaching does not mean I have abdicated anything of my own free will.
I have never claimed to speak for every individual of the Church either. I have however explained some of the teaching of the Church which is found in various documents. Individual Catholics may or may not agree with that teaching, as I explained about Joy Cowely and IVF.
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I'm off to watch a dvd, I actually started typing video. It's the perks of being sick, all day discussing on the net and then watching movies. Really though I should have been in bed getting sleep. Ahh well.
Good night all.
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Mrs Skin: That's really interesting. Was it a religious thing, or more of a cultural, pork is icky, thing, do you think?
How did it remind of of your Catholic friends?
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I think all individuals should be taxed equally, and yes, taxation based on group identity is unjust. Likewise I think that making any sexual acts performed by consenting unrelated adults illegal is also wrong. Although to be fair there should be rules around patient-doctor etc. sexual activity because of the possible abuse of power etc. But I digress.
I'm not wanting to impose my beliefs on _any_ form of private sexual behavior, provided as I said consensual and adult.
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Otherwise, hey, all non Catholics could band together and decide that form now on only Catholics pay
taxes.Well technically you could do exactly that, although I think it would be highly unlikely to ever happen. Traditionally Islam taxed non-Muslims the jizya, so it is not impossible to have a similar thing happening in the future by some dominant ideology or faith.
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Mrs Skin, out of interest did she eat pork?
I find dietry laws really interesting, especially when they become effectively cultural rather than specifically religious.
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You're just not allowed to impose those beliefs as social norms outside of your church.
I am allowed to engage in the political process though. I'm allowed to vote for who I like, I'm allowed to publically lobby for what I believe. And so is everyone else.
You don't get to impose your views either. You too have to use the democratic process. People of faith are not going to go quietly away. And the harsher the laguage, the more it radicalises people.
In the Gallup Coexist Index 2009: A Global Study of Interfaith Relations, 0% of British Muslims thought that homosexual acts was morally acceptable. French Muslims were the most permissive about homosexual acts, but still, only 35% of them regarded it as morally acceptable.
http://www.muslimwestfacts.com/mwf/118249/Gallup-Coexist-Index-2009.aspx
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Sure - but those sorts of limits are things along the lines of participation in genocide, gross human rights abuses or murder. But what Tess is advocating isn't that sort of "conscientious objection" - it's simple bigotry and hatred.
I believe that abortion is murder though given it causes the death of a human being.
And no, I am not getting into a debate about abortion.
As to the labels "bigotry" and "hatred", I think you are using this to redact my point. By using these words you are reducing my argument to the equivalent of the bogie-man. Rather than thoughtfully engaging in dialogue, you brush aside any thoughtful disagreement by attaching a label.
I'm not offended or distressed by people who have sex with people of their own gender. I don't find it disgusting or icky. I certainly don't feel hatred for anyone, or hatred for anyone's lifestyles, provided everyone is an adult and it's consensual.
I'm opposed to any private, consensual, adult sexual act being made illegal. I want couples to have legal protection. If more than two people feel they need that, then that's fine too. I support all people following their conscience, and them having freedom of belief, or non belief as they see fit.
Yet because I endorse a different definition of marriage, one that is intertwined with conception of a new human life, I am to be placed into the box labelled "hater/bigot".
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Well, I wouldn't want my conscience to savage anyone, it is a vicious thing.
Grrr....