Dan,

I stand corrected. Thanks.

Cheers. Fwiw, I don't understand a lot of what the Catholics do either. The Pope is pretty much a mystery to me. Any Catholics out there
"remind" me how the no fish on Fridays thing works?

Dan

Fishing fleet came in on Wednesday and Friday. Encouraged people to buy and eat fresh fish.

:cool:

Friday is no meat.

:D

Friday is no meat ... to remind us of Jesus' fasting? Fish doesn't count as meat? I think I like Isa's better. :) If that's the case, it isn't a condemnation issue, as in "You'll get excommunicated if you eat a sirloin on Friday," but rather a piety issue, like "If you manage to never eat meat on Friday, you'll get more spiffy-points in Heaven?" Just trying to clarify ...

Dan

And nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Hmmmph. Amateurs. At least the Jews actually fast.

LOL Blue, :)

What Isabo said, apparently. Hang on, I'll check what I'm supposed to believe...

...its in Canon Law - each Friday, plus all of Lent, is for penance --> such as not eating meat. Not eating meat is pretty much prescribed on Friday, while in Lent you can pick and choose.

I'm a bad man - I practically never (ok never) remember.

For Dan - you might well ask "why". The way I look at the "why" of it is to ask what it could accomplish rather than whether I am outraged at yet another rule in my life. If I do in fact set aside this act every Friday the chances are I will end up bringing myself closer to God - at least it would get me thinking a little extra bit.

No meat Friday got dropped by several "factions" of the new catholic church that came about in the mid-60s.

With that said, Opus Dei probably eats dust on Fridays.

Me? I'm a bad catholic and a bad Jew: I eat cheeseburgers on Fridays.

Cam -- I hate to go here, but one of the things that bugs me about the Catholic church as a whole is that the majority of people don't ask why, but rather get caught up in the ritualism. Why do we say Hail Mary? Why do we put the little dot of ash on our foreheads? Why do we ... and rather than doing what you've done to at least understand (if not follow) they blindly do the ritual and gain nothing from it.

dd74 -- A vegetarian friend of mine explained not long ago that cheeseburgers are kosher -- they contain neither meat nor dairy products. :) Eewww.

It would be worse if you ate bacon cheeseburgers on Fridays... :eek:

:cool:

dj... for some, comfort is found in ritual, tradition, continuity... and are better for it.

:D

LOL. And with a milkshake to boot.

Oh sure -- I'll grant that ritual can be relaxing. Heck, my morning coffee ritual calms me down. My argument was not technically that there is absolutely no benefit from the rituals, but rather that the intended benefit is completely missed. The idea is to generate some piety by focusing on things of God. Most Catholics that I've talked to about lent just think it's some funky thing that Catholics do, and can't explain that they're mimicking Jesus' fasting. Those that understand why are often very pious indeed. Those that do not may not even derive comfort from their actions, but rather confusion and doubt in their church.

Come to think of it, the same goes for Jews and Christians. I've known a number of Jews who blindly followed random laws because "my rabbi says it's Right(tm)." Many of them don't even own their own copy of the OT, let alone know where the reference to the law is in their documentation. I've talked with more Christians who say the Bible is true "because my pastor says so...." It's really quite embarrassing for everyone involved.


Dan




PS -- a latte is worse than a milkshake -- coffee is a meat (beans, I think?) and the milk is, well, a dairy product. Oooh. Oh, and if you make your own latte on the Sabbath ... :) :)

:cool:

So is this soul searching or thinking outside the box? I always get them confused.

:D

I was looking through this old thread last night with my daughter who came out with some unprintable comments about killjoys trying to impose rules in her bedroom. She gave me this unatrributed quote from a goth site (I thought she'd grown out of that phase).

"Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life."

I think it puts the sex question in perspective from a religious point of view. A very dear friend of mine in England is one of the most religious persons I know with a very strong Christian belief. She has also enjoyed the most varied and intense sex life of anyhone I know for the last 30 years and always with a clear concience. She never married but has two children and has been in a stable relationship for the last ten years.

LOL, that's hysterical, Isa. That may well make it into my .sig some day. :D

Re: It's a great line . . .
 

Just imagine what may have happened if you told them that you were gay...;) ;) ;)


No offense, just couldnt resist...