Do you know any Jews?

punchdrunk

yes,my cousin married a lovely Jewish guy in London and their two kids are probably not going to be brought up as Catholic as the Jewish schools are better!

newmug

fryup wrote: »

the catholic church was created by a roman emperor, Emperor Constantine hence Roman Catholicism

No, it was created by Jesus CHRIST, hence the word CHRISTIAN. And the word Catholic didnt surface until the reformation to make a distinction between "universal" Christians (Catholic is the Greek word for universal) and this newfangled breed of "protest"-ant Christians.

fryup wrote: »

really? i wonder what jesus would think of all the molesting and abusing of children by catholic clergy:cool:

He would think its evil, like all real catholics do, and God would send the abusers to hell when they die - as is going to happen. In the meantime, it would be fantastic if people stopped insinuating the Church are the Guards, they're not. If someone molests a child, the pope cant arrest them.

Wibbs wrote: »

In fairness they had good reason on theological grounds, never mind the nepotism, corruption and wanton excess of the Roman church at the time and before. People forget and Catholics never hear that one of he largest slaver groups in post Roman Europe was the Christian church. They made good money on the back of it. Ha. "Pure"? Yea right. Christianity(inc Protestantism BTW) is Paulanism. It has as much to do with him as a Romanised Jew than the historical Jesus. Even who appears to be Jesus' own brother James was dubious about Paul and how he was taking it away from Judaism. No it's there simply because it became the state religion of the Roman empire. It had more traditional strongholds in the provinces. As for Peter being the first pope, the Gospel of Thomas an early non cononical text has the aforementioned James being the one Jesus tells his followers to seek council from.Keep it in the family as it were.

Christianity, in particular Roman Catholicism is a Greco-Romanised version/update of an offshoot of Judaism, better fitted to Roman thought and sensibilities. Beyond the obvious diff in food restrictions etc a classic example of this would be the virgin Mary. The Gospels mention her remarkably few times. Luke mentions her the most at around a dozen times, Mathew half that amount, both mostly in the whole nativity gig. John only mentions her twice and not by name and mark only once. Yet in daily attentions Catholics seem to focus on this figure more than the founder of the faith himself. The Roman world was used to female deities where the Judaic world was not, so they shoehorned her into the gig. The protestants reversed this attention, but since the only texts that survived were those considered "correct" by the early Roman church they inherited a similarly narrow set of texts.

Where do you people get this bull? St. Peter was the first pope, end of. He led the other apostles after Jesus' death, hence they were the first network of clergy. They were considered the equivalent of modern day bishops, and they basically spread as far as they could throughout the world preaching about God. St. Peter was crucified in Rome, upside-down for extra cruelty. That how much of a "stronghold" Christianity had in Italy. He was buried exactly where the Vatican stands today, you can even see his tomb in the cellars. His grave became a rallying point for othere Christians, and in time became the administrative centre for all Christianity. THATS where the Roman slur/insult/reference (depending on how you use it) comes from. This is all historical FACT.

Emporer Constantine converted some years later purely for political reasons seeing as a sizeable amount of his tax paying citizens were also converting despite a vicious persecution campaign. Unlike protestantism however, just because the leader of a state follows a particular religion doesent mean HE's the boss of that religion, as Constantine found out afterwards. The whole Virgin Mary thing really took off in Spain in the 1200's, and is absolutely nothing to do with Catholic / Christian principles. You can pray for her intercession with God if you want, the same way you can pray to anybody, but in no way is it a necessity or an integral part of Catholicism. The ignorance on Boards around Catholicism astounds me sometimes.

iguana

Very little of what you have written is historical fact newmug. Not in the way that actual historians count facts anyway. The Roman church over the course of the seven ecumenical councils between the 4th and 8th centuries, decided which gospels they would keep and which they would discard. Over several hundred years the religion was chopped and changed repeatedly and bears very little in common with what originally existed.

As for Constantine. Did you leave out the words 'hundreds of' in between several and year later? Because Constantine did nothing several years after Peter's death, what with not existing until the late 3rd century.

And it is most certainly not a fact that Peter was buried at the site of the Vatican. It may be so but there is no definitive evidence. You are confusing legends with real history.

garysully1986

Oh God have I started another catholic fact vs fiction thread??? :D:D

meganj

Think this thread might have answered why there are so few (known) Jewish people in Ireland, because when the conversation comes up nobody can resist turning it into a talk about Catholicism or Christianity or whatever your calling yourselves.

Did anyone see the ten minute program on Passover (think it was on yesterday) on Rte 2?

pickarooney

meganj wrote: »

Think this thread might have answered why there are so few (known) Jewish people in Ireland, because when the conversation comes up nobody can resist turning it into a talk about Catholicism or Christianity or whatever your calling yourselves.

Did anyone see the ten minute program on Passover (think it was on yesterday) on Rte 2?

And this is enough to make a Jewish person convert/emigrate?

Iang87

I lived with a jew in america for a while, i know a few jews here.

They're grand like nothing special they dont even do tricks

meganj

pickarooney wrote: »

And this is enough to make a Jewish person convert/emigrate?

No. It was a flippant comment. I suppose what I meant is that the Jewish community is a small community and can be considered to be quite closed to 'outsiders'. Many people know little about their traditions and customs and perhaps for Catholics or Christians they relate to the Jewish community by thinking 'Oh yes Jesus was a Jew' I'm not saying it's forcing them to emigrate but when the understanding of one culture is forcibly linked to another, despite one culture rejecting that link, I think it creates a gap in the knowledge on both sides.

I think large proportions of the Jewish community emigrate so they can marry other members of the Jewish community. I know for example that of the 6 Jewish students in my Leaving Cert class 5 of them have left Ireland. Mostly because they want to be with a large section of their community, one that they haven't been stuck with for pre-school, primary school and secondary school.

Benny_Cake

meganj wrote: »

I think large proportions of the Jewish community emigrate so they can marry other members of the Jewish community. I know for example that of the 6 Jewish students in my Leaving Cert class 5 of them have left Ireland. Mostly because they want to be with a large section of their community, one that they haven't been stuck with for pre-school, primary school and secondary school.

That's pretty much it, most Irish Jews tend to be from the Orthodox end of the spectrum (although there is one Progressive synagogue) and would want to marry within the faith. Given the limited choice of marriage partners here, and the fact that thriving Orthodox communities exist in cities such as London and Manchester, many have chosen to immigrate.

Toby Take a Bow

It is interesting that a thread on Jews generates 18 pages or so of discussion, considering their low population numbers. I'd be surprised if a similar thread on Methodists (I think Methodists and Jews are roughly equivalent in population numbers from the last census) generated so much response. Add to that the fact that there are so few (none?) orthodox Jews that make it easy to identify them and I think it makes it even more difficult to understand.

Grayson

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

It is interesting that a thread on Jews generates 18 pages or so of discussion, considering their low population numbers. I'd be surprised if a similar thread on Methodists (I think Methodists and Jews are roughly equivalent in population numbers from the last census) generated so much response. Add to that the fact that there are so few (none?) orthodox Jews that make it easy to identify them and I think it makes it even more difficult to understand.

But Methodists are just a different flavour of christanity. Although honestly, if someone could explain Mormonism to me, I'd be grateful. Since I work with so many I've read up on it and I still don't get it.

Toby Take a Bow

Grayson wrote: »

But Methodists are just a different flavour of christanity. Although honestly, if someone could explain Mormonism to me, I'd be grateful. Since I work with so many I've read up on it and I still don't get it.

Yeah, I suppose. I just think the 'exoticness' of Judaism isn't as pronounced over here as it might be had we some Hassidic Jews or something like that.

Regarding Mormonism, you should check out South Park's version of how the founder got the idea. I can't see a link to it on YouTube that's not someone filming their tv, but it's well-worth checking out.