Friends, I have a prediciment. I'm a nondenom, but I'm looking for something more conservitive. I almost went Orthodox or Catholic, but I'm not sure Theologically on a) Mary's importance b) if you leave them it's no bueno.
Thoughts?/Arguments I can see
No war please
Have you had a gander at the other threads on this board. The ROC is not doing so well.
As for your actual points. The first one I will leave for someone less sleep deprived than me to explain.
As for the 2nd you don't leave the Orthodox church unless you get excommunicated or baptized in another church.
Im awful at this stuff, but here are my two cents
1)Mary is important for both of us and it largely arose due to conflict with Nestorius. However we dont put too much importance on her, while Catholics have numerous stuff like Rosaries, calling her co-Redemptrix and so on.
2)Neither of us think that leaving the church is ok, as you are severing yourself from God (to whom you are organically connected with Eucharist). However, if you are baptized, technically, you always remain Orthodox (I think its same about Catholics). So lets say that you are Orthodox, then became Atheist, Muslim or whatever, and then go back to Orthodox, you dont get re-baptized, but instead go to confession and mention to the priest that you have strayed away. Even non-Orthodox baptisms, if done in the name of the Trinity, can be acknowledged because of Economia.
Traditionally influenced by developmental monasticism maybe.
The church was always meant to be lead by a constitutional leadership as God's word as the pillar of our faith, not the bureaucratic hierarchy which the cathodox cult demanded after the apostolic age
Like iconography.
This is a non argument from James White. Even worse he leaves out one key element of the debate between Jerome and Heldivius, it was about the issue of Mary being a model for normal non monastics too according to the latter. Both sides did not reject the veneration of Mary.
Also the early "leadership" of the Church as shown by 1Clement is not the same as the Reformed Baptist or even Presbyterian view, as 1Clement literally considers clergy as the Christian equivalent to the OT priesthood, even going as far as to say there are things the clergy does which the laity cannot overstep
In that Marian dogmas debate, James White literally lied about Ephesus. The veneration of Mary is literally a part of Cyril's arguments against Nestorius in Against Nestorius. Even Athanasius mentions the "liturgical commemoration of Mary" in his letters which he says is superfluous if Arianism is true.
And no one considers the Protoevangelium and Odes as "gnostic" at all. If they are to be "gnostic", then so is Clement of Alexandria and Origen too!
Those saying that now is not the time to become catholic are wrong. When a beloved family member is sick, do you leave them to die, or do you rush to their side and help them get better in any way you can? And even if it's not a family member, but if you see someone injured or ill, is it not asked of us to be like the good Samaritan and help them? Now is the time that the catholic church needs us, and if you're someone who can see that its current course is a bad one, you are the kind of person needed most.
If I met someone with the plague I would stay as far away as possible since his disease killing me too doesn't help anyone in the end. Catholics are becoming increasingly more delusional for both thinking their church is salvageable and for thinking it will fix it's self.
What can you even do? There is no avenue of action for the lay people.
It’s not a matter of whether it’s salvageable or if it will fix itself, it’s whether God will cleanse it as he has numerous times when the Church was under far worse popes.
Only way he can cleanse it is by dropping a meteor on the Vatican and burning down every church from Poland to Argentina.
Broof blease
Do you want me to gather every child didling case and every pro fag preist story?
At this point the rot is so bad you would expect elements to stand up and do something against it. But nobody is doing shit thus making them complicit. Jesus didn't stand by idly when the temple was being corrupted. Why are Catholics doing nothing?
you're misrepresenting the crisis, most of the child abuse took place decades ago
Hmmmm
And the problem as said before is not just didling kids.
that's not an argument.
unless you want catholics to build a time-machine to the 60's and 70's, the majority of the accused are dead or actually prosecuted
obviously the homosexuals need to be thrown out
Neither was what you said.
Nobody seems willing to do so infact they seem quite welxoming of homos and of heathens lime the kebabs.
Become confessional Lutheran or some high church Protestant.
Jesus that level of phoneposting should not be possible
As opposed to heretical lemons.
I was responding to you brainiac, what are we to do about dead pedophiles? Much like the press and the rest of the Church's enemies, you conflate the past pedophilia problem with the modern homosexual problem. You do not really care about what the Church does, much like the Jews and the Holocaust you will ceaselessly demand concessions and apologies for eternity.
If you're one of us, pray the Rosary and beg Christ that these days be short and that His Church be cleansed. If you're not, don't pretend you care.
I demand justice and decency you ponce.
Not all didlers are dead or in jail yet. And you are doing nothing to fight the homos.
When it comes to talking about protesties you are all about works and their necessities all you can do is try and pray the gay away. If you need devine intervention just to function that means you are already gone.
Kek
You're receiving it, through tribunals of the secular courts. The Church has lost millions/billions of dollars in granting money to sufferers too. What more do you desire?
Says you.
We all need Grace to function.