SecretMethod70

I'm going to re-interpret this question, perhaps inaccurately, as "what is God's Will for me?" Personally, my belief in this, and what I'm presently learning to be the Catholic belief in this, is that God's Will is for each person to do what is individually applicable to that person to become a person of love and without hate. That's a REALLY broad generalization, but I could probably write quite a few pages on this based on the lectures and discussions I have gone through in the Catholic theology class that I'm currently taking.


The first key here is that not everyone accepts Mohhamad as the last prophet. Christians believe - using the term prophet as most people understand it - that Jesus Christ was the last "prophet." Someone else said it better than I could in another post and I'll try to paraphrase it here. The Old Testament is God's Will concealed and the New Testament is God's Will revealed. That is to say, Jesus was the living revalation of God's Will and who God is in relation to humanity, calling Him "Abba" or, in english, papa, something which was unheard of at the time. Getting back to Mohhamad though, whether he was or was not a prophet, no one would ever agree on this, just as no one will ever universally agree about Jesus. I think the big problem that causes this, at least in the case of Jesus, is that we apply our human standards to these vessels of something that is beyond creation. In other words, people thought that Jesus wasn't the Messiah because, surely, the Messiah would become a great king and ruler, and surely he would be majestic in appearance, etc etc. Well, for all we know, Jesus could have been illiterate (more than likely) and chubby and ugly. The point in this is that, at least from a Christian perspective, it doesn't matter. God is concerned with what is "inside" us, not what is in physical creation.

I probably left a bunch of open ends with that cause I sort of ranted so...sorry

Again, speaking from a Catholic viewpoint, the way I understand it, God speaks to all humanity in many varied ways. Thus, there are many different interpretations of the ways in which He has spoken to us. And by varied ways I mean not just different scriptures and prophets but I mean even that feeling you get when you watch a beautiful sunset and you get the feeling that there must be "something else" although you can't explain what that "something else" is. Thus, there are many world religions to interpret this "something else" in different ways and, thus, most every world religion has some of God's Truth in it. Catholicism believes that it contains the fullness of God's Turth but that there is Real Truth in most every world religion because they are all the effect of God's interaction, in some way, with humanity. Thus, even non-Christians, from a Catholic standpoint, are capable of being "saved" because most religions teach the most fundamental thing which God wants from us in some way or another, and that is to be a loving people.

Why doesn't everyone then convert to Catholicism or Christianity? Well, there are obviously multiple reasons for this, not the least of which is the inevitable failures of the humans who participate in those and any religion. Humans can never be perfect and we should stop expecting people to be "perfect" but only to understand and accept one another's imperfections and love one another despite them. Ideally, a Christian looking to convert someone would do so by their actions of love and perhaps mutual discussion focusing on the similarities between different beliefs. Unfortunately, as imperfect beings, somehow we get the idea that we can "teach" people the Truth of God and that if we say things to people enough all of a sudden they'll "get it." Obviously, that's not the case. Another thing I could probably go on for pages about, but without forethought right now I'm just rambling I think.

I alluded to it above, but according to Catholic belief you don't necessarily go to Hell for not believing in Jesus or other prophets or whatever. Would it be fair to say that it's more difficult? Probably. But, an all loving God who wants everyone to be able to share in Him would obviously not punish people for such trite things. This used to be the thought and that's where the idea of baptizing babies came from for example, but as Christian and Catholic theology is rethought and reapplied to present day (as it should be since the Word of God is living and ever-changing in the way it applies to humanity) it is clear that it does not make sense for an all-loving God to punish people for such ultimately under-important things. (Yes, I made a word ) In fact, from a more contemporary Catholic viewpoint, there is no such thing as a punishment from God. God is not a judge and is not a punisher, but, to sum it up in one sentence, God is Love. Thus, what we perceive as punishment - hell, etc - is moreso an act of our own. Hell is not so much a place as it is a state of being. Hell is a state of being entirely detached from God. That is a choice which one makes themself. That is of course where the Catholic concept of Purgatory comes in as well. Many people, clearly, do not fully become one with God in their lifetime (dare I say most people) but they do work at it and wish to be one with God. The concept of an all-loving God who wishes for everyone to choose to accept Him and be one with Him necessitates something like Purgatory which can be looked at as simply a state of being in which we can continue this work towards being one with God. Thus, someone who has not fully rejected God is not sent to Hell because there is still hope for them and they have CHOSEN not to go to Hell by their underlying wish to be one with God. Again, I'm rambling, so I'll stop here.


It really all depends on how you look at the Bible. If you look at it as historically accurate, that there was in fact a great flood, etc etc, then yes it could seem that all these things happened long ago and not today. I'm sure the people of Jesus' time said the same things - "Noah and Abraham happened so long ago but nothing happens today." Or, if you look at the Bible from a bit of a different perspective, (at least, especially, the Old Testament) as a spiritual history book, using metaphors and stories loosely based on worldly history to convey the spiritual history between man and God it is much more easy to accept that there probably was never a time in which "great miraculous things" happened differently than they do now. God does still speak to us today, and probably in a similar way as He always has, such as in the example of the beautiful sunset I mentioned above. Ultimately though, the key to this is that no matter how much I try to "explain" it the answer is unsatisfactory to human logic, because God is above human logic. He is something outside of human logic. Go back to the reasons people did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah for an example of this. The key is to understand God through experience first and then, AFTERWARDS put what little logic can be put on it. That is what occured to Jesus - the Apostles EXPERIENCED Him and then, later on, having shared the experiences with others, people attempted to sort out the EXPERIENCE of "Jesus" and try to figure out, in more human terms, how to EXPLAIN that experience. Ultimately, the best way to think about it however, is that it's one of those "you had to be there" kind of things. Not in the sense that we are incapable of experiencing it, because Jesus was essentially the model human for everyone to be like, opening themself up fully and completely to the love of God, but in the sense that we cannot fully fathom it through words but only through sharing the experience with others. And, thus, I end another unsatisfactory (IMO) response.


This could take a VERY long time to explain, so, I won't really. Ultimately, the important thing to consider is that there are more similarities than differences.

The first thing to understand is that Catholics ARE Christians, but what I'm sure you meant was the difference between Catholics and Protestant Christians. This is REALLY difficult to get into, but on a basic level you can think of it in relation to the various forms of Judaism. There are many different forms of Judaism out there which range from very liberal to very conservative. Likewise, the different forms of Christianity vary in their interpretations of things while all agreeing that Jesus was the Son of God. A quick example is that the Catholic Church accepts that the Bible can be interpreted to coincide with science regarding the creation of the universe whereas some of the more literal translating Christian faiths believe that what science has shown in evolution and big bang is wrong, and this is necessarily so for them since they hold much more importance on the literal words in the Bible.

This is really something that could be gone on and on and on about, so I'm not going to get into it any further here.


I've taken a long time on this post so I'll get back to this later



Anyways, I wont bore you any longer. I will have more questions when they come to mind. I apoligize in advance if these questions are silly or have been answered in another thread but I have not checked or come across any. [/B][/QUOTE]

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