Salanis wrote:
jamscal wrote:
I think our last pope said that Christianity isn't the only way into heaven, so at least us Catholics have caught up with the times. :)
Isn't that kind of counter to the core tenets of Christianity? How exactly does it work that Jesus is the only way into heaven and Jesus is not the only way into heaven?
^^^Example of how you'll never please everyone :)
I'm not up on the exact theology, but they recognize that everyone is not going to have access to proper training :) yet can still be good people...i.e. that Christ is present where good is present.
The criticism of religion in this thread, however valid some of it is, ignores the complexity, beauty and depth of Christianity, and reads like what I "learned" as a freshman in college, where angry criticism of religion, esp. Catholicism, has been popular for some time now.
Case in point, the stem cell and abortion debates. It's not two shiny happy persons who know nothing of medicine or women making a pronouncement and snickering at the resulting carnage.
That is the prevailing view, it seems.
It is rather a bunch of church scholars concerned about the sanctity of human life. Overall, and with a view that there is something larger than prolonging the inevitable (for all of us) at all costs.
Yes, it is based on the Catechism, but there are complex reasons (well reasoned) for their views.
-James