Importance of Religion in Poland

No, Pawian went straight to the point in his first post. It wasn’t the answer you wanted cos it sidestepped what you wanted to discuss.

Then, no offence, but you are in the troubled camp. Barney, I guess you are Catholic. Am I right?

OK, please answer the following:

I am Catholic and not Protestant because:

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

I am alive because my heart still beats and vital organs still work. Simple! However, I was brought into this world by my parents and get on with being sb. A Catholic has chosen to affix a label upon themself, 'Catholic'. Why? What does it mean in concrete terms?

Wow! Great insight. Labels! That's what it is. Club thing. Membership. Catholicism here isn't any different from any religion, which is about gathering as many followers as possible and making them feel united, giving hope etc. at the same time enlarging their influence and squeezing their pockets to get the last penny.

Poles in the UK might understand more what I'm hitting at, Olaf. I see you do too which is great. There is a sectarian divide in Glasgow where Catholic Celtic are pitted against Protestant Rangers. Now how is it possible that a football club miraculously brings together a whole group of individuals (45,000 per match) who seem to be united in the same theological persuasion against another group? I can tell you for sure that these people don't have the first idea about religion. They have just jumped on a bandwagon and kept going. Why can't it be that some individuals come to watch one team kick a ball of air around a field with some in their ranks supporting Catholic notions and others supporting Protestant ones, while both keep religion out of it??? Is that too much to ask?

Let's tie it back. I have absolutely nothing against those that pursue any religion sensibly. Of course not! However, call yourself sth and lay bare the possibility of people asking you why you chose that classification or label. Pawian, I don't get you at all, my friend. Your answer was defensive. Why are you Catholic and not Protestant?

NOTE: I not talking about faith in the God per se. Only answering question why I prefer Catholicism over Protestant faith.

1) I was baptised that way. I see no real reason to change it.

2) Polish tradition means Catholicism, and Catholicism means Polish tradition. (For this there is rather interesting historic background. I can explain if you wish)

3) Jesus promised that he would be present in his Church. The only church that exists for all this time is the Catholic one.

4) Protestantism was invented in XV century. I find hard to believe that Jesus deny his presence and guidance to humanity for over 1500 years.

5) Protestantism is just a spin-off from Catholicism. I prefer the real thing than the sequel.

Seanus
You are missing the point, endlessly asking the same question suggests that you dont understand non-quantifiable concepts. Everything else that you have attempted to attribute to this non question (here and other threads) is pure supposition on your part.

No, it just shows that you can't answer my simple question! ROTFL It's frankly embarrassing! I follow Catholic Vs Protestant debates and could easily spell it all out for you. There's no lack of understanding on my side.

What I'm getting at is you not being able to say why you are a Catholic and not a Protestant or other denomination. Are you a Catholic? Why? Simple!

Pure supposition? ROTFL. Like we are discussing facts when it comes to God's existence.

Why do you continue to ask the same thing if you know all the answers?


I will have to spell it out for you; your guesswork around the Scottish football thing is nothing to do with God’s existence nor is your assumption that religion cheapens the notion of free thinking. If that is not speculation I dont know what is.

It's called a forum, meaning discussion. I know the answers as a teacher too when I teach, so why ask the questions? So that others can participate, right? The first step to understanding is enquiry, true? If I can begin to understand why YOU regard yourself as a Catholic and not a Protestant then I can see your logic and conditioning. It can also lead to the positive state where we see commonalities.

Guesswork?? I told you that these people draft religion into it and thus blacken its name. I am not wrong to do so. Or would you prefer a lot of football fans in Poland to invoke it? You just confirmed my point, Barney. It is nothing to do with God but they make it so, wrongly.

Some aspects do cheapen it though I'm not prepared to say exclusively at all.

So, enjoy your sticker culture and keep making those donations so that another priest can enjoy an Alfa Romeo and a marble floor. God intended no intermediaries and I can quote you many Biblical provisions as proof of that. Scripture, man, scripture. Not artificial constructs!

Correct, with this provision, all enquiry starts with a preconceived notion, after all we need a framework to hang our observations.
I still think the question is silly and unanswerable in quantifiable terms.

Edit:


What do you want to do with that?

How is quantifiability a guarantee of non-silliness? That's the implication you make.

"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted" - Albert Einstein

I think the question is silly.
I think the question cannot be answered in quantifiable terms as asked by the questioner.

- oh, come on, this sounds like "I was taught to think that way, and I've had no desire to think outside the box since then".


- true, but I'd like to look earlier than 50 or 60 years or so - Polish tradition was that of a great tolerance, no matter the religion. That should have a greater tradition and is worth nurturing.


- wrong - what about much older religions in the world?


- you've been waiting for 2000 years and nothing. Maybe he's not gonna show up, or is he being that late?


- nicely put, but if you want the source then you should be Jewish.

I don't think in quantifiable terms means what you think it does.

A numbered list of qualitative answers != quantifiable terms.

Quantifiable is as follows:

On a scale of 0 to 7, state how frequently you attend Church, where

0 = never
1 = weddings, funerals
2 = above plus Christmas, Easter
...
7 = the priest has to kick me out of an evening.

No?


Just because this lazy, circular, 19th-century argument is widely cited, it doesn't make it valid. I refer you to the Poland of the Piasts. Would you deny Mikołaj Rej, latterly a Calvinist, his rightful place in Polish tradition on the grounds of his non-adherence to the 'One True Faith'?

The question can be explained by values, Barney.

I am Catholic and not Protestant because.....?

Is that really so hard?

Most movies are just spin-offs from others but they are still different.

"The only Church"
That's not a good enough hint?


You need him in an actual form of an human being?


My dad told me that Fish is healthy, is it untrue? :o
Ive also been taught that Vitamin-C is necessary


...
Jews still await the Messiah, in practical sense Christians are Jews whom accepted Jesus as the Messiah whom was to come.

It is hard because you are asking an impossible question. Discussing values always leads to a logical loop.
If you are looking for concrete measurable phenomenon you wont find any.

Well done, sure you got a good grade on Research Methods 101 and all, but of course that (concrete, measurable phenomenon) is not what we're looking for.

May I remind you that you are communicating in a language, something that does not admit of a formal proof and the meanings of whose words are only expressible in terms of other words. A circularity, no? - but one for pragmatic reasons it makes sense to ignore, especially when conceiving of matters outside the realms of the strictly observable. It's that conceiving that makes not only religion, but art, music and yes, scientific progress possible.

Strong-form empiricism is for the chartered accountants of ideas.

If you look on the history of Poland in the last 600 or-so years, you probably conclude that most of this time Poland has been a multinational and multireligious country.

My grandfather told me of his life before war. It was on the border zone of Poland (now its part of Ukraine). The town was inhabited by Polish, Jew, Russian, German and Ukrainian communities. They wear the same clothes, eat the same food and live more or less the same kind of life.

If you ask them who are they would most probably answer "swój" (our own, local).
The only difference was a place where they pray on sunday (or friday). Simply Catholic = Polish. Note - this has nothing to do with tolerance or intolerance, citizenship, privileges or duties etc. Its a matter of self-identification. Without any prejudice. That's all.

I think that in multinational Poland things were the same way.

I know, Seanus is looking for at least five empirical reasons of why one would favour one religion over another. I'm pointing out that you cannot answer in those terms. By asking for a value based answer the terms of the question changed.

Not quite. The first christians were. But then Paul opened up membership to non-Jews. And later still, Constantine made it the official religion of the roman empire. By then your religion bore very little resemblance to the original, and Jesus went far beyond being merely the Messiah – he became the deity himself. Where did that idea come from? It couldn't have been from us.

Hadn't Jebus' disciples seen him as the Messiah as well? And other Jews in those times?

Some Jews but not most Jews. Christianity was just another cult with followers.

Well, correct me if I am wrong, but there weren't many Jews in Israel at those times, since the other tribes had been exiled.

That's when the old Testament Jews were in Israel, with their various groups, Saducees and Pharisees. There were people who lived in caves and baptized themselves regularly. There were lots of Jews in Israel, then.

Barney, it was YOU that attached that quality to it. I asked you VERY openly why you are Catholic and not Protestant.

By your not answering, I can only infer that you don't know or that you choose not to answer (which is fine as it's your perogative and right).

Just admit it, you can't separate Catholics from Protestants, can you?

But you typed this...


and this...


and I answered as above attaching nothing to your posts.

We then had yer man effectively marking my posts with a less than satisfactory level of reading comprehension.


It's such a pleasure to write down splendid words - almost as though one were inventing them.
Rupert Hart-Davis

- well both fish and vitamins you can check in a lab or if you trust science - by reading results of scientists discoveries.
Can you show me some relevant source that can be the basis for rational, logical belief (then it wouldn't be a belief but KNOWLEDGE)? Because right now it is closer to bedtime stories of the Grimm brothers than to knowledge, thruth, rational way of thinking etc.


- I would need proof. Nothing more. If I get it - I will not have to belive but KNOW. Thatt's the difference. I know, you believe.


- that is what I meant! :)

Since I was little I didn't even know what a scientist was :)


That is why Religion doesn't suit you I guess? ;)

I can't see the air, doesn't it mean it doesn't exist? :)


Isn't it allowed for people from other cultures, ethnicity's to become Jewish? :o


Yes ofcourse but it is a branch of Judaism then for it self, old testament comes to my mind.

Barney, Google it. People who actually know what they are talking about can come up with 50 differences, never mind 5. You are fumbling and bumbling, darting about for some smart cover for your obvious shortcoming.

Yes, I did type that and for good reason. I was reading a Catholic Vs Protestant forum last night with Protestant prospective converts asking Catholics for ideological and thematic differences. There was some interesting dialogue, unlike with you.

Do me a favour, put the name DEFICIENT on your Friday sticker tomorrow morning. It suits you to a tee.

Can I recommend the 'dla bystraków' series to you? You need a step-by-step approach I think. First you have to step :)