Fireweed_honey
Wow, that's a lot of misinformation. Pretty much, it sounds like just because you don't understand something, you really look down on those who perform said actions. Which makes me wonder how the hell you can claim to have Christian friends when your post is so nasty to an aspect of faith.
Umm... point out to me where exactly I said 'friends' anywhere in my entire statement. Sure, one of them WAS a friend at one time, but no longer, because she was a downright hypocrite to her own faith and used it as a means of being mean and vicious to everyone who didn't mold themselves to her standards.
Besides, I never said anything about the faith itself, it's the followers of it I just don't get because of their ways. And it's not misinformation if I've seen or heard these things firsthand from the people themselves. You may not have people like that around you, but that doesn't necessarily make me wrong now does it?
Fireweed_honey
As pointed out, Catholics are Christians. The ONLY time I've ever seen people say that they aren't, are from a certain branch of Protestants. From some parts of your post, I can see that you've had contact with them because your information on Catholics is waaaaay out there.
Is it really that far out there? Because if so, then those people must not have been very well disciplined. In fact, I don't even recall the one girl to have gone to church at all, she just swallowed whatever he mother told her and watched television about it. I even asked her if she knew anything straight from the bible (which, not a lot of people I know who claim to be part of a religion even bother to take a peek at the inside of one anymore) and she couldn't tell me anything at all.
Fireweed_honey
Okay, yes, it's selfish to pray for something material like an iphone (God, I want a pony!), but to pass a class? That's not really selfish. In fact, that's in the realm of acceptable. People pray for various reasons, and it's not all Pony related. Some pray for their loved ones, some pray to strength to do something or achieve something, and some pray for the wisdom to fix their problems.
God isn't a genie, He's not going to poof down anyone's material possessions. But praying to have the strength to save the money needed to buy an iphone instead of spending it on other stuff is perfectly acceptable. Every priest I've talked to has said the same thing regarding prayer: God won't just hand you over what you want, but He will put the needed tools in your path.
I don't see how praying to pass a class makes sense. Praying isn't going to make you miraculously smart enough to do your homework correctly you know. And saving money, well, that's just having some restraint.
Fireweed_honey
Catholics don't worship jack s**t. That's a lie that's been floating around since the time Luther said, "Screw you" and went off to create his own church. The statues and pictures of saints are used as reminders of our Holy Family and people we should be trying to emulate. Having a Mary statue in our garden or an angel statue on a shelf doesn't mean we're worshipping it.
Statues and pictures started off as learning tools. Y'know, waaaaaaay back when only like 1% of the population could read. They helped teach people who went to church what they were hearing. As time went on, people naturally wanted to bring the same into their home.
Again, I quote the girl I use to talk to. She would sleep with a miniature virgin Mary or pray to it. She was sooooo ecstatic one time because she thought her stomach pain was cured just because she woke up and the statue was near her stomach. That's just tossing about in one's sleep or having gas/indigestion most likely, there's a perfectly logical explanation for things.
Besides, despite it being a teaching tool for the illiterate in the dark ages, don't you think it's going a little far when you go about saying "This is what the Virgin Mary/Jesus/the angels looked like!" to an audience of people who can't read for themselves to confirm you're telling them the truth?
Besides, just because you don't worship it doesn't mean that others I know of haven't.
Fireweed_honey
Soooo, Friend A prayes for five bucks to buy lunch and mysteriously Friend B digs in her pocket and says, "Here", and you get mad because Friend A likes to think that God answered her prayer by nudging Friend B to be generous. So ******** what? As long as Friend A says thanks to Friend B, what do you care?
The fact that you describe people who pray as greedy, superstitious and uneducated says a lot about you.
Generosity is something you choose to do, so it's annoying when people start thinking every little action or coincidence is an act of god. It seems to me you're compensating for lack of proof that everything I've said is 100% incorrect.
Besides, an internet argument is hardly a means of determining a person's characteristics. That's like saying someone who has a complaint about something is a bad person just for venting or sharing their opinion. Yes, it is a little biased of myself to call people greedy, but you can ask people about simple subjects in order to find out whether or not they're superstitious. And I say uneducated because again, a good 70% of Christians I've spoken to can't be bothered to look in a dictionary or google something they don't get.
Try again hon, this time with a little less venom and a little more analysis of the overall context.
