Quote from: Izumi on August 25, 2010, 12:05:23 PM
What people dont understand is if you read the bible their is nothing against being TS.  In fact more is there to support it.  People also assume god's image means your body, that is not true.  Gods image is a combination of body, spirit, and soul.   Body is the least important because it is left behind.  So, what sex is my soul?  no one can answer that.  Also bodies can be maimed and damaged all the time.  I doubt getting an earring makes it so you dont go to heaven, really thats altering your body too... The purity of the soul is what matters.

Izumi,

Your interpretations are believable and realistic. However, I think the author tried to do her best to negate your argument by shooting across your bow with her opening paragraph from the first half of the article stating; "............1. Scripture could not interpret itself anymore than it could read itself and 2. that the task of authoritative (emphasis, mine) interpretation belonged to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church."

You see, they don't give a rats behind how practical or logically you read the Bible. All they really care about are the lies that they wish to continue in order to save their own fleeting asses and make them money in the process. In other words they need to keep control of the message in order to maintain their power! If you come along making sense, well......that just fouls up the game! They can't have that! Just ask Capernicus, Galileo, Joan of Arch et.al. Why, if you keep up with your line of thinking they may just have to re-institute the Holy Inquisitions!


Dawn   

I did not read the whole original text (part 1 + part 2), I must admit.

But it seems awkward to me that if a person is almost killing herself cause of GID, that a Catholic would say - then go ahead and kill yourself if you can't bear it, but don't transition. I don't say such a statement cannot com from a Catholic. Just that it is illogical and weird. But we cannot force other people to accept what we are - as long as they don't harrass us or treat us like sh*t, it's okay. Nor do they have the right to expect our approval of their convictions.

Let us keep in mind that this is a blog, a personal opinion or an opinion of the makers of this blog. It's not an official statement from the Roman Catholic Church. The author is a woman, so it's not even a Roman Catholic priest who wrote this, nor a bishop, cardinal or whoever with authority in the Roman Catholic Church (please don't kill me for this sentence, I'm not a sexist). I know that the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is also tense when it comes to transsexuality, but they wouldn't ever make such statements, as killing oneself is one of the biggest sins one can do according to Roman Catholic teachings (not the biggest sin though, blowing up other people or throwing a nuclear bomb on Mexico City out of fun is considered worse as far as I know).

Oh, and if you wonder why I always write Roman Catholic etc. instead of Catholic... there's a very cool split-up church called the Old Catholic Church, maybe they even get along with transsexuals, so I want my postings to be clear here.

Quote from: Dawn D. on August 25, 2010, 12:32:36 PM

Izumi,

Your interpretations are believable and realistic. However, I think the author tried to do her best to negate your argument by shooting across your bow with her opening paragraph from the first half of the article stating; "............1. Scripture could not interpret itself anymore than it could read itself and 2. that the task of authoritative (emphasis, mine) interpretation belonged to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church."

You see, they don't give a rats behind how practical or logically you read the Bible. All they really care about are the lies that they wish to continue in order to save their own fleeting asses and make them money in the process. In other words they need to keep control of the message in order to maintain their power! If you come along making sense, well......that just fouls up the game! They can't have that! Just ask Capernicus, Galileo, Joan of Arch et.al. Why, if you keep up with your line of thinking they may just have to re-institute the Holy Inquisitions!


Dawn

Heh, yeah i see what your saying, but that just supports my reasoning in the flaws of human beings.  Catholicism requires you to communicate with god via proxy the church, while a lot of other denominations do not and have one's relationship with god more a personal manner.  The unfortunate part is that someone has to make a consensus about what is written and how it should be interpreted, but we all know that interpretation changes over the ages.   The church now is nothing like the church 1000 years ago, meanings have changed to the written word, but how can that be? did god change his mind... no, it just shows the flaws of people out for their own power and greed, instead of staying humble and letting god judge if what you did was right or wrong.

Quote from: Izumi on August 25, 2010, 12:44:16 PM
Heh, yeah i see what your saying, but that just supports my reasoning in the flaws of human beings.  Catholicism requires you to communicate with god via proxy the church, while a lot of other denominations do not and have one's relationship with god more a personal manner.  The unfortunate part is that someone has to make a consensus about what is written and how it should be interpreted, but we all know that interpretation changes over the ages.   The church now is nothing like the church 1000 years ago, meanings have changed to the written word, but how can that be? did god change his mind... no, it just shows the flaws of people out for their own power and greed, instead of staying humble and letting god judge if what you did was right or wrong.

Just to get a few things clear: the Roman Catholic Church usually does not pretend that their interpretations are flawless and divine, they know that there can be human errors, but they go with what seems theologically most sensible for them at a given time. Plus they had a lot of power in the past, and you know how power can corrupt people. A Catholic teaching is only flawless and valable forever if it is said "ex cathedra", that's the infaillability of the Pope. This ex cathedra dogma only came up about 1875 or something like that and has only been used once (!!!) yet, about a subject which really doesn't matter in everyday life. (Ex cathedra, Maria was said to be born without the Original sin as Jesus as God's son couldn't be carried in the womb and be born by a person who would have the original sin like everybody else, which means you cannot connect easily to God. I mean, who cares about that, apart from theologists who have too much leisure time?)

Nevertheless, I don't say the Roman Catholic Church is okay or cool or whatsoever, it's a very unflexible, conservative organization indeed, but they are more careful about seeing their own opinions as God-given than most Evangelical etc. churches. However, yes, they have this conviction that you need the church, and preferably theirs, to help you get along with God and for communication with him etc.

Please do not mistake this blog for the official RCC teachings on transsexuality. The official teachings as far as I know are not much better (but I'm a protestant and never wrote them a letter to ask about it), but at least not that horrible.

Being the devils advocate here:

The RCC says this with the idea that the life we live is so short compared to the eternity we face after we die, and that it's better to suffer now then sin and spend eternity burning in Hell.

I'm not saying it's right, this is someone who believes in something, and their church pretty much slapped them in the face about it. But that's the reasoning that's going on here.

Quote from: Astarielle on August 25, 2010, 01:11:22 PM
Being the devils advocate here:

The RCC says this with the idea that the life we live is so short compared to the eternity we face after we die, and that it's better to suffer now then sin and spend eternity burning in Hell.

I'm not saying it's right, this is someone who believes in something, and their church pretty much slapped them in the face about it. But that's the reasoning that's going on here.

I see what you mean, and indeed, the RCC is very much driven to the after-life. However, if there is really a big risk of someone killing themselves, they won't say go for it and throw yourself in front of a train. As far as I know, according to RCC teachings you go to hell if you kill yourself unless you're insane or completely high on drugs when you are driven to do it ( = not really knowing what you're doing or about the consequences then). German Lutherans are somewhat more relaxed on this subject and say that yes, someone can be so depressed that they don't see any other solution or can't help killing themselves and that they're not necessarily in hell after that. By the way, German Lutherans tend to be more cool than US American ones, they bless gay/lesbian couples in some regions here etc.

This topic has been started in the religion forum and I replied there.

But I will like to say again, I try to be tolerant of people's beliefs but get angry to the bone with people who think they can make up new commandments.

There are only 10. Even Jesus didn't add any more.

To suggest this man would have been better off dead not only contradicts what Jesus taught us, it also contradicts the other claim that she has deprived her children of their father.

Quote from: Dee_pntx on August 25, 2010, 03:19:28 PM

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt...........

There are over 600 commandments.  613 I believe.

Do your homework..

My favorite is the one about making your roof so no one falls off it, or its a sin.  There are plenty of roofers going to hell i tells ya!

Let that be a lesson to all you contractors out there, god is watching, dont cut corners.

Quote from: Izumi on August 25, 2010, 04:15:42 PM
My favorite is the one about making your roof so no one falls off it, or its a sin.  There are plenty of roofers going to hell i tells ya!

Well it's one of my favourite quotes of the bible, and it actually makes sense to me. Be considerate, don't make things which put other people into danger -that seems to be sensible for me. Then again, I'm a technical translator and I translate a lot of stuff about machines which have to conform to certain security norms, and how to deal with them without putting the workers working on them into danger... so I'm kind of biased here. Plus I know what happens if the sh*t hits the fan here, a former neighbor of mine was at the burn unit for almost one year due to a plane catastrophe (Ramstein) with lots of operations, skin transplants etc. and we went to visit him often, or brought him home. (We had moved right before the catastrophe, and the burn unit was close to us but 200 km from his family so we invited both his family and him to our home.) 40 % of his skin was burned, usually you die at 30% but he survived. It's just not ethical or Christian to expose anyone to such risks, though that accident was not related to roofs in any way.

By the way, the quote does not say you will definitely go to hell if you don't secure your roof, just that it will spill blood over your home or something like this as you risk other creatures' lives by not making your home secure. And I can well imagine the Rabbis 2000 years ago walking along a town and warning people that they have to secure their roofs and that's really a GOOD thing. You don't want to see your kid, nephew or grandchild fall from such a roof and break their neck. Or your neighbours' kids, nephews or grandchildren. And lots of people are just too stupid to think about these risks, be they Jews or whatever people. This Jewish law was one of the beginnings of technical norms. I just love that, and it's one of my favorite bible quotes, though (or because?) it's very nerdy.


Think about what roofs were like in the mediterranean area then - often flat, one- or two-store roofs, like terraces. Ideal playground for children, and dangerous if you did not secure them. And add some mediterranean mentality to it - children running around and being allowed to play wherever they wanted, people are extrovert anyway and nobody minds about children running around, senile old persons walking around there as well etc. Flat, unsecured rufes were just DANGEROUS there.

Really, this is one of the 613 commandments of the Torah/Old Testament which make most sense to me, and I see this commandment as being the "grandfather" of modern technical/security norms. Or at least a very early version of it.