By Toutatis!
Feb. 25th, 2006 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafI was surfing around (because it's more interesting than writing exercises on the subjunctive) and found the 'Godchecker' website, which tries to provide disrespectful information on the gods of all pantheons (I have to admit they got me on their side by citing Asterix as a source for the Celtic period).
Turns out they also have a page on saints: http://www.godchecker.com/saints/index.php Now, I know I shouldn't take this sort of thing too seriously, and actually some of the content is amusing (the page on Bede, for instance, though I have to say I don't remember the racy autobiographical bits of the Ecclesiastical History - and they don't point put that Bede popularised the method of dating years we know use (AD, or CE, if you prefer, though I think 'Common Era' is in some ways more culturally imperialist). But all the same, the complete misinformation of the 'why saints just annoyed me.
The website states An aloof, awe inspiring Mono God is too remote.
Mankind has always wanted something nearer to his heart. Something or someone he can identify with and approach. It is the Saints, Angels and Holy artefacts that drew pagans to Christianity. It is Jesus and his Mother that are worshipped far more than the remote Almighty.
OK. I don't actually, think the first proposition is necessarily true: why the success of Islam, if 'people' don't like monotheism? I don't think, either, that the cult of the saints is the reason anyone converts to Christianity (and especially not to Protestantism:p), though it is of course true that where people were poorly theologically instructed, then they might indeed feel the saints were more approachable. Of course, the cult of the saints in Catholicism is not, strictly speaking, worship, but I appreciate that we are talking about the theologically ill-informed, so never mind that now.
But the last sentence just made me want to scream. I shall leave the bit about Our Lady aside; this is a charge frequently made by more extreme Protestants, and though it's not entirely fair, one can at least see where it's coming from. But the comment about Jesus!
Christianity asserts that Jesus Christ is God! What part of that do you not understand!
Ahem. Note that I do not say 'what part of that do you not accept'; that's a different matter. But whatever you make of the claim, Christianity says that Christ IS God (and so is the Holy Spirit). I know that the Trinity is a difficult doctrine; all the same, is it really impossible to understand that when I, as a believing Christian pray to Jesus, I believe that I am praying to God? Not some random bloke, and not a hero who is the son of a God (but not fully divine) on the Greek model, but the Second Person of the Trinity, fully man and fully God; further more, the Christian God is three persons in one Godhead; Christ is one with the Father and with the Spirit, and you can't separate Him/Them ('neither dividing the Unity, nor denying the Trinity')
Oh well, back to the conditionals. /rant.
Turns out they also have a page on saints: http://www.godchecker.com/saints/index.php Now, I know I shouldn't take this sort of thing too seriously, and actually some of the content is amusing (the page on Bede, for instance, though I have to say I don't remember the racy autobiographical bits of the Ecclesiastical History - and they don't point put that Bede popularised the method of dating years we know use (AD, or CE, if you prefer, though I think 'Common Era' is in some ways more culturally imperialist). But all the same, the complete misinformation of the 'why saints just annoyed me.
The website states An aloof, awe inspiring Mono God is too remote.
Mankind has always wanted something nearer to his heart. Something or someone he can identify with and approach. It is the Saints, Angels and Holy artefacts that drew pagans to Christianity. It is Jesus and his Mother that are worshipped far more than the remote Almighty.
OK. I don't actually, think the first proposition is necessarily true: why the success of Islam, if 'people' don't like monotheism? I don't think, either, that the cult of the saints is the reason anyone converts to Christianity (and especially not to Protestantism:p), though it is of course true that where people were poorly theologically instructed, then they might indeed feel the saints were more approachable. Of course, the cult of the saints in Catholicism is not, strictly speaking, worship, but I appreciate that we are talking about the theologically ill-informed, so never mind that now.
But the last sentence just made me want to scream. I shall leave the bit about Our Lady aside; this is a charge frequently made by more extreme Protestants, and though it's not entirely fair, one can at least see where it's coming from. But the comment about Jesus!
Christianity asserts that Jesus Christ is God! What part of that do you not understand!
Ahem. Note that I do not say 'what part of that do you not accept'; that's a different matter. But whatever you make of the claim, Christianity says that Christ IS God (and so is the Holy Spirit). I know that the Trinity is a difficult doctrine; all the same, is it really impossible to understand that when I, as a believing Christian pray to Jesus, I believe that I am praying to God? Not some random bloke, and not a hero who is the son of a God (but not fully divine) on the Greek model, but the Second Person of the Trinity, fully man and fully God; further more, the Christian God is three persons in one Godhead; Christ is one with the Father and with the Spirit, and you can't separate Him/Them ('neither dividing the Unity, nor denying the Trinity')
Oh well, back to the conditionals. /rant.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 08:43 pm (UTC)*whimpers* That's not what The DaVinci Code says.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-27 05:16 pm (UTC)I believe it took my friend some time to recover the power of speech.