I’m curious about who still practices their faith.

You have a real comprehension problem. Jesus didn't tell the people to cut off their hands or to take out their eyes. He said that sinning and going to hell would be a lot worse than that.

 

If someone is going to assume something on their own without reference to what the Fathers and Saints of the Church established, then why not just discard everything. People can't have it both ways. A person either had to accept all, or accept none.

So were the Fathers and Saints enlightened in their compilation and interpretation of the Holy Writings and Holy Tradition, or weren't they enlightened? If not, then throw out the Bible.

Anyway, this is how I feel.

 

Can you name the major biblical characters who were not married and did not have children?

 

It seems that you just don't want to follow Yeshua's teachings. How did he describe such people?

 

If true, and of importance....it would have been revealed in the scriptures. You can have your way.....it doesn't change a thing.
However, it you want to play that game.....Mary Magdalene would have to have been without sin, which we knew she wasn't, because as the scripture says, the two would become one flesh. If Jesus was to marry.....He would have had tyo marry another God incarnate, but He was the only begotten Son.

 

No one said that being married and having children is sinful. Of course it's not, otherwise we wouldn't exist. It's just that certain people are chosen for a different life. The belief is that what we are and what we do affects everything and everyone in the world, so that the love of those who are in constant prayer, counterbalances the lack of love and sinfulness of others.

When that balance goes out of sync, and evil starts to prevail - especially with the occult, then the lack of inner peace brings about chaos and infighting - as we are now seeing. With it will come natural disasters, economic instability and eventually war. At least that's what I noticed in the past, although I think the scale now will be much greater. The antidote of course is prayer and repentance.

 

Raised atheist, but with Catholic and Jewish ancestry.

Only comfortable in Catholic churches, Mosques, and Synagogues. My personal preference is a formal high Mass. Ritual, with full sensory involvement (sung Mass, in Latin, with incense and robes etc) does it for me. Dry 'talks' make me cringe and want to run.

Not at all comfortable in Protestant services, nor wishy-washy versions of Eastern faiths when practised/led by Westerners.

 

Raised and educated, (mainly) Catholic, but haven't practiced since I left Catholic high in 10th grade. My feeling is that the best way there is to ensure your child will be an atheist is to send him to Catholic School.

I don't see how anyone brought up in and understanding the sciences in modern secular society can be a strictly practicing member of any Abrahamic religion except maybe Reformed Judaism, there's just too much you have to simply ignore. (OTOH the smartest man I know, a LITERAL rocket scientist, is also a practicing "charismatic" Catholic, go figure)

And I LOVE the fish fries at St. Casimir's every Lent.

 

All of which has nothing to do with the point that Jesus' qualification for being the perfect sinless sacrifice was that he was sinless, and that he could have had a wife and children and remained sinless. You are the one that went off on a strawman of purity,.

 

You'd probably love Masonary, with the highly formalized ritual.

 

Why? While the virgin was preferred, it was not required. After all a man was supposed to marry his brother's widow and to produce an heir by her ( IIRC, the child was considered to be of the deceased brother), so obviously virginity was not an issue in and of itself, at least after a first marriage. Furthermore, Jesus' message was that forgiveness was available and that you were good if you didn't sin after being forgiven then you were not in sin. So Mary could have been in such state, assuming that she was the wife and assuming that she was actually a prostitute.

 

And here we have the perfect example of why there can never objectively be "True Christians".

 

The one who brought the theory of the Big Bang was a catholic priest.
The relationship of science and catholicism is a little bit complicate, and go beyond the conflictual approach. Obviously, there is conflicts. I wouldn't be able to develop that much the relationship between rationnality and christianity or even more specifically catholicism, as I'm not christian.
I red an interesting book of Mr Neil Postman. His main objective is too show how TV and globally new technologies modify our way of thinking. He even speak of the impact of telegraph on the american intellectual life. This book is extremly interesting, and seems even more relevant today, and explain quite well a part of last years transformation of political life, more specifically Trumpism.
Why do I mention this book ?
He has a whole chapter about religion. He explain that TV doesn't have turned only the political life in a gigantic entertainment, and has done the same thing toward religious life. He mention the quality of the work of a J.Edwards or C.Finney, and oppose it to the mediocrity of for instance. His point is : there was a massive "dumbification" of religion through the decades.

I think the mistake when approaching religions is considering only them as a set of belief. Obviously, that's a fundamental aspect of a religion, but a religion is also a group, relationship between individuals.

 

I understand the Law of Grace. I am not passing judgement on Mary Magdalene. It is a matter of justice. Jesus remained unconnected to sin. He walked among sinners. He healed them. He loves them......but, he could not partake in sin. If He had, He would not have been the "Lamb without spot ,blemish or wrinkle".He, by the rules He set in motion from the beginning, had to be that perfect sacrifice so that He could judge sin. Jesus ruled His own flesh and put limits on His activity. He did it out of love for us all.
This is the reason Jesus had to be born of a Virgin Birth. He could not be a part of the union between a sinful man and sinful women. Remember, "all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. We have a "sinful nature". It's not necessarily about the acts we have committed. Because of that, I would be in doubt that Jesus actually shared any of Mary's DNA. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and placed in Mary's womb by God the Father. It's interesting to contemplate, but not entirely necessary.

 

Ok I am citing Jewish law contemporary to that time. Why would it be so bad if Jesus had married and had a sexual relationship with a woman?

My issue is that people decided which books would be included in the Bible and which would not. Protestants cut these down even further and Mormons introduced the ramblings of Smith who took it upon himself to fix the Bible.

People should be allowed to practice their faith for sure but there has to be some understanding of the politics.

 

So you do not seem to believe the Holy Spirit selected and preserved the Word of God throughout time given all the attempts to destroy it? You realize the printing press insured it's replication and availability to all man kind. Sure man has tampered with it but the Truth is there and bears witness to itself and it's infallibility.

 

So you're saying that a totally sinless person, who sacrificed Himself and underwent the greatest tortures and humiliation imaginable for the benefit of all humanity - and who did it in deference to any physical and emotional pain, would be the same kind of person that would want the emotional and physical gratification of a wife and family?

In that case, do you think Jesus continued His marital and familial relations after His Resurrection, and that physically He would have been in the same state of being as before?

 

I personally think Jesus's physical body consisted solely of Mary's DNA, and that He was a clone with the exception that He was male, and she was a woman. His sinless self of course was a different matter, since He was the Word of God made flesh.

Regardless, our Saint Palamas said that Mary contained in her womb the Creator of all humanity, so that anyone that goes to heaven - even the Saints, must go through Mary. (This is my own Orthodox response to those that feel the Roman Catholics put too much emphasis on Mary by calling her a Mediatrix).

 

As had been pointed out, marriage does not follow to the Kingdom of Heaven, AND it dissolves upon death. Thus, assuming that the woman and children were still alive, his marriage would no longer be there upon his Resurrection. But I don't even assume that. From all that I've read, part of the point of going through life as a human, was to experience all that humans go through, including all their pain, fears and temptations, and to come out the other side still sin free. So why would he not experience love, marriage, children and then the loss of it all? And please don't try the tripe argument of why is there no record. That question could be asked of why there is nothing of his life between birth and the start of his ministry, save one lone story about the temple when he was 8.

 

Quite honestly, I would say that the virgin birth had a lot to do with the time. If Jesus had been born today (assuming only the tech advancements and not the religious changes over the years), then something would happen to show that he shared no DNA with either parent. The virgin thing of the time was to show that he was not created by biological means. Since there were no DNA tests, this was what was needed. I agree that he shares any DNA, or at best, it's Adam's DNA recreated. However, if it was Mary's DNA, then Mary was likely a transsexual, most likely an XY whose's SRY gene never activated. Thus the XY would be available for the cloning process. Again, that is assuming that Mary's DNA was used. But that would also most likely mean no other children for her and Joseph. Straight creation would mean most likely younger siblings for Jesus. Siblings have not been mentioned one way or the other, so.....

 

The Holy Spirit works through saintly individuals, but since people can be deceived easily, there has to be a consensus among the selected individuals. As an example, when the Rabbis in Alexandria wanted to translate the OT into Greek, they had 70 Rabbis do the translating separately. When they compared them, it turned out they were all exactly the same.

The early church would call Ecumenical councils to get a consensus among the bishops before a doctrine of the faith could be established. Even before that though, there had to be a consensus among the Apostles and the Saints that came after them to know what was truly the Word of God in the NT, and what wasn't.

 

I applaud your devotion to your faith.
My largest issue is the Mormon church which is a wildly protected cult and needs to be declassified as a non profit and forced to be taxed as a business.
But I have almost equal concerns with the Catholic Church.

 

When I stayed with my grandparents on the weekends, I went to Ukrainian mass, Eastern Rite Catholic. It was always a mix of Latin & Ukrainian, so I never understood a word. My entertainment was mainly watching the doors on stage to see where a priest would pop out next.

 

So many slam organized religion. Yet if one belongs to a Church, a person can go almost anywhere and never feel that they are completely alone. They will always be able to find people with the same values that they can trust, regardless of the language is spoken.

 

I wouldn't put the Catholic Church in that category. When pressure was being exerted on the Catholic Church in New York State to do something that would go against Christian Doctrine, they said that rather than doing that, they would cancel all their hospitals, nursing homes, etc., etc. That was the end of that. There was no way the State could cover the losses.

Basically the Catholic Church runs on a communist system. No one owns anything, and they're given very low wages, as well as a car and a place to live. I read about an Episcopalian bishop once who became a Catholic priest. He was allowed to remain married, but he had to live on the same low wage as the other priests.

He was given though a house and a car, as well as food stamps, and was told that when his children were ready to go to college, he could go to any Catholic University and ask them what they can do for him.