Going commando to church

[KinkGuy]

That leaves 167 hours a week for the fun stuff. Not a bad plan, all in all. And if you are a Catholic, that hour (give or take a few minutes) includes absolution (forgiveness?) for the other 167 hours of debauchery.


I'm thinking of converting. I can make those 167 hours a week really be worthwhile.

 

[prepstudinsc]

Originally posted by jonb+Jul 15 2005, 08:42 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jonb &#064; Jul 15 2005, 08:42 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-DoubleMeatWhopper@Jul 15 2005, 02:48 PM
Putting forth a pretty picture for about an hour a week: yeah, there&#39;s a sure sign of devotion.

[post=329485]Quoted post[/post]​

And there you came up with the exact image I get from fundies.

[post=329513]Quoted post[/post]​

[/b][/quote]

What is wrong with giving God some reverence. I wouldn&#39;t go to a society affair in shorts. I wouldn&#39;t go to a wedding wearing a t shirt and jeans. Why would I go to church, a holy place, to worship dressed down? After all that God has done for me all week, I can give Him more than 55 minutes of my time and I can give Him the respect of being dressed up. God knows what&#39;s underneath the clothes and God knows what&#39;s in our hearts and minds, but when we come together for worship, there is a certain amount of reverence that is required. Worship comes from the old English "worth-ship" and means declaring worth or giving reverence.
To me, I just can&#39;t see giving reverence while being casual. It seems to defeat the purpose. I know that in some churches, they frown upon crossing legs and slouching in the pew because that encourages too casual an attitude of worship. I wouldn&#39;t take it that far, but we need to exalt God and revere Him in a manner that is a little different than our daily life.

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by oldbodybuilder2004@Jul 15 2005, 06:20 PM
I am sorry to say I am a lowly Prsbyterian as compared to you being Catholic.

Nothing to be sorry for. There are different denominations because people are different. If Presbyterianism is what works for you, that&#39;s what you should practice. In the end, it all comes down to this: we have a conscience and it&#39;s up to us to follow it. Your Church can (and should) point you in the right direction, but the journey is ultimately yours and you have to make your own way as you see fit.

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by KinkGuy@Jul 15 2005, 09:17 PM
That leaves 167 hours a week for the fun stuff. Not a bad plan, all in all. And if you are a Catholic, that hour (give or take a few minutes) includes absolution (forgiveness?) for the other 167 hours of debauchery.

Wrong. The Mass does not bestow absolution. At Reconciliation a priest can grant absolution, but it is bestowed only on the condition that the penitent&#39;s contrition is genuine.

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by prepstudinsc@Jul 15 2005, 10:29 PM
What is wrong with giving God some reverence. I wouldn&#39;t go to a society affair in shorts. I wouldn&#39;t go to a wedding wearing a t shirt and jeans. Why would I go to church, a holy place, to worship dressed down? After all that God has done for me all week, I can give Him more than 55 minutes of my time and I can give Him the respect of being dressed up.

After all that my father has done for me all my life, I wouldn&#39;t hesitate going to a picnic with him in shorts and sandals. The Eucharist is a meal shared by my family and me with God as our father, not a society affair. It&#39;s fellowship, sharing, celebrating our relationship with each other and with God, and that&#39;s what makes the church a holy place. In the right context, any place can be a holy place, but it&#39;s not the wearing of a suit and tie that makes it so.

 

[xanxan]

Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper+Jul 15 2005, 11:50 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DoubleMeatWhopper &#064; Jul 15 2005, 11:50 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-prepstudinsc@Jul 15 2005, 10:29 PM
What is wrong with giving God some reverence.  I wouldn&#39;t go to a society affair in shorts.  I wouldn&#39;t go to a wedding wearing a t shirt and jeans.  Why would I go to church, a holy place, to worship dressed down?  After all that God has done for me all week, I can give Him more than 55 minutes of my time and I can give Him the respect of being dressed up.

After all that my father has done for me all my life, I wouldn&#39;t hesitate going to a picnic with him in shorts and sandals. The Eucharist is a meal shared by my family and me with God as our father, not a society affair. It&#39;s fellowship, sharing, celebrating our relationship with each other and with God, and that&#39;s what makes the church a holy place. In the right context, any place can be a holy place, but it&#39;s not the wearing of a suit and tie that makes it so.

[post=329574]Quoted post[/post]​

[/b][/quote]

Amen to that&#33;

 

[jonb]

It&#39;s not the "lowly" part, just the obsession with the superficial. It shows more in a lot of the conservative denominations, I&#39;ve found. ("Oh, I&#39;ve never made an anonymous donation to any charity in my life, but at least I don&#39;t fuck other men.")

 

[prepstudinsc]

That&#39;s a really weak argument, Jonb.

 

[Dr Rock]

why&#39;s that? (hint: "god says so" does not count a valid explanation to the rest of us).

 

[madame_zora]

Well, "God" doesn&#39;t say so, nor does Jesus. If it makes you feel better to show respect in that way, fine. Once again it comes down the judgement, it&#39;s fine to do what you think is right but becomes religionism when you judge others who do differently than yourself.

 

[Dr Rock]

Originally posted by madame_zora@Jul 17 2005, 02:58 PM
Well, "God" doesn&#39;t say so, nor does Jesus.

[post=329792]Quoted post[/post]​

well you know that, and I know that, but...

 

[Pecker]

Originally posted by madame_zora@Jul 17 2005, 10:58 AM
... it&#39;s fine to do what you think is right but becomes religionism when you judge others who do differently than yourself.

[post=329792]Quoted post[/post]​

Ahem.

I mean Amen.

 

[steve319]

Isn&#39;t the reason we wear clothing in the first place social propriety (and OK, protection from the elements) and the comfort of our peers?

If you go to a church that prefers you dress in a certain manner, then by all means, do so. (You might also find that you prefer living in gated communities and avoiding public transportation--and what is that nonsense about the democratic process? )

Only kidding. (mostly)

I&#39;d say wear what you want to wear to fit into the social protocol, or, even better, if it&#39;s a matter of respect, then go with that. And if the dress code at your place of worship doesn&#39;t suit you, find somewhere else. There are a multitude of options available, right? (This from the man who suspects there&#39;s no church out there for him.)

I dress a certain way to work out of necessity for creating a certain image for students. And if your relationship with your higher power includes/demands that, cool. But don&#39;t look askance at someone else for not making the same choice.

 

[prepstudinsc]

I find myself feeling out of place when I have visited churches that brand themselves as "casual." I feel it is not appropriate and I will still wear dress clothes. I have friends who go to a church that has transitioned from a "traditional" Baptist church to a "contemporary" Baptist church much to the disdain of many of the older members. The pastor doesn&#39;t wear anything but a golf shirt and slacks to preach in--he thinks that it will bring in new members, but it has actually run off a lot of the pillars of the church AND their money. Sure it has brought in a few new members, but not nearly as much as have left. The older members who have remained are very vocal in their displeasure. One of my friend&#39;s parents are active at this church and they make sure they let the deacons and pastor know of their displeasure with how the church has turned, but they don&#39;t feel like they should leave or be run out from "their" church.

I was looking up something today on a church website and it had a FAQ for visitors about things about their church. One of the things was "is there a dress code?" The answer was that there wasn&#39;t a dress code, but people generally wore their Sunday best, meaning suits and ties for men, dresses for women, because it was a sign of respect. I had to laugh when I read it because I immediately thought of this thread. It went on to say that if a person didn&#39;t have those kind of clothes, they would still be welcomed, just that most of the church dressed up, and that they didn&#39;t want any visitors to feel uncomfortable if they were not in dress clothes because it was not a casual church.

At my church, people would be welcomed no matter what one wore. The issue is what is appropriate. I&#39;ve seen people in low cut dresses and short mini skirts that looked like ho&#39;s ready to turn the next trick. That&#39;s inappropriate because it can make people start thinking the wrong kinds of thoughts. Preachers tell stories about women who sit in the front pew with no underwear on and open their legs wide open and flash them during the sermon or who wear low cut tops and will lean over to get things out of their pocket books to flash some cleavage. Men are just as guilty for wearing things that can get the women all hot and bothered.
If people wear more modest kinds of clothes, there&#39;s not those kinds of temptations. Usually dress clothes (or at least the kinds of business attire one would wear to church) aren&#39;t very sexy.

 

[UgotMales]

Excuse me... but the one thing that cristianity is missing is understanding and acceptance for anything in the world other than christianity. Dont feed me some crap about feeling attacked because you are a christian. Look around, Cristians are the ones starting shit around the world and here in the US. You struck a cord there if you couldent tell.

and if you are against gay marrage.............dont marry one

 

[prepstudinsc]

I&#39;ve got tolerance for things non-Christian, I just don&#39;t have to agree with them.

As to gay marriage, though, I don&#39;t agree with gay marriage as a church sanctioned ceremony, but it doesn&#39;t bother me as a civil union. In fact I THINK gay people SHOULD have the equal rights to be able to make decisions for their partners when it comes to things like health care decisions, burial plans, get insurance benefits. I have a problem when it&#39;s termed "marriage" since that, in my mind, is a religious ceremony between a man and a woman. If two gay people want to make their union a legally binding civil covenant, go right ahead. Why? It doesn&#39;t affect my life one bit.
In my business, I have seen the effects of the law come down on the surviving partner negatively and I felt badly for them. When a partner can&#39;t make funeral plans for someone they love because the law says "the next of kin" has the legal right to do so, and the next of kin is a parent who despises the partner, it puts me as the funeral director in a tough spot. I have to obey the law and let the parents (or siblings, if there are no parents) decide what to do, regardless of what the partner&#39;s wishes are, eventhough THEY usually know what the deceased&#39;s wishes are.

I had a service about a year and a half ago where I had to get the county coroner involved to declare the deceased a county indigent (eventhough he wasn&#39;t) in order to avoid the non-communicative siblings from bring able to come in and take charge of the funeral plans and let the partner plan the funeral. If gay people were able to have some sort of civil union, things like this wouldn&#39;t happen.

The same goes with health care. When people go into the hospital, hospitals can&#39;t release any information to people who are not the "next of kin." The next of kin has to make all the decision. The whole thing is garbage.

What two consenting adults do in their bedroom (or any other room in the house) doesn&#39;t bother me as long as it doesn&#39;t involve minors or animals. Keep it behind closed doors and have fun. I&#39;m not gonna judge you for it.

I don&#39;t think that homosexuality is the down fall of the American government. I don&#39;t think that it is the down fall of the American education system. I know that gay people aren&#39;t out "converting" young kids. All the things that some of the blowhards are purporting that gay people do is just a bunch of lies--because they are scared of things they don&#39;t know.

Christians aren&#39;t starting a lot of the mess in the world, people in general are, regardless of belief. What&#39;s the line from that old Boy George/Culture Club song...War is stupid and people are stupid. Little did he know how prophetic that would be some 20 years later. So don&#39;t go around judging all Christians, especially some of us who are "evangelicals", because we&#39;re not all as pig-headed and closed minded as the leftists would have everyone think we are.

 

[steve319]

Originally posted by prepstudinsc@Jul 19 2005, 04:04 PM
So don&#39;t go around judging all Christians, especially some of us who are "evangelicals", because we&#39;re not all as pig-headed and closed minded as the leftists would have everyone think we are.

[post=330419]Quoted post[/post]​

As much as my finely tuned leftie reflex wants to, I can&#39;t really disagree with that.

 

[dufus]

Originally posted by mavedick@Jul 12 2005, 11:14 PM
Why is it that no topic even remotely related to religion can be mentioned in this forum without Dr. Rock and Ashlar feeling compelled to attack the entire concept of Christianity with biggotry and hatred that would be roundly condemned if directed at any other group in society? Most of us have the common decency to respect the views of others, even when we disagree, but not these two&#33; Oh, I forgot&#33; I guess they hate the Golden Rule because it was Jesus who said it.

Leave Dr. Rock and Ashlar alone dude. This is a free country and the Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech. Or has the Constitution been amended since I last read it?

 

[mavedick]

Originally posted by dufus+Jul 23 2005, 09:32 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dufus &#064; Jul 23 2005, 09:32 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-mavedick@Jul 12 2005, 11:14 PM
Why is it that no topic even remotely related to religion can be mentioned in this forum without Dr. Rock and Ashlar feeling compelled to attack the entire concept of Christianity with bigotry and hatred that would be roundly condemned if directed at any other group in society?  Most of us have the common decency to respect the views of others, even when we disagree, but not these two&#33;  Oh, I forgot&#33;  I guess they hate the Golden Rule because it was Jesus who said it.

Leave Dr. Rock and Ashlar alone dude. This is a free country and the Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech. Or has the Constitution been amended since I last read it?

[post=331248]Quoted post[/post]​

[/b][/quote]

I didn&#39;t question their right to hold their beliefs or to express their opinions, just the lack of civility with which they habitually attack when a Christian exercises his same rights with civility. That&#39;s why I suggested the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

 

[Dr Rock]

see, the thing about rules is that you gotta CHOOSE to follow them or they&#39;re entirely meaningless.

personally, I&#39;ve found that a much more effective and applicable basis for human interaction is do unto others BEFORE they do unto you.