The Catholic Diocese of Dallas’s churches are offering hand sanitizer to their attendees along with holy water. I guess they finally realized that holy water wasn’t good for anything but spreading sickness:
Church officials are also not going to offer the communal wine during Mass. During the service, parishoners accepting Holy Communion drink from the same cup.
It’s not the only thing that will change during the service. The church said things can be done differently during the peace offering, when members greet each other in the pews and shake hands.
“At that moment, you don’t have to make bodily contact,” Gonzales Taylor said. “You can merely acknowledge the person next to you and offer the sign of peace verbally.”
They have faith that God can raise the dead, heal the sick, and embody a cracker — but he won’t he keep his children from infecting each other with disease as they worship him?
Oh, right. The real world kicked in when they think their own lives are in danger.
Yet some still hang in there:
Chris Coxon goes to church with his family at least twice a week, and said the swine flu won’t keep him away from worship.
“I would say there is a little bit of faith involved,” Coxon said, laughing. “The good Lord will take care of us one way or another.”
He sure will — one way or another.
Just like if he wasn’t there at all.
Hah, well, I suppose it’s better than them taking no precautions at all, if a little contradictory.
From my personal experience, Catholics are generally more in tune with reality and see the bible as more of an interpretive script rather than the literal truth (ironic considering they have some of the harshest restrictions on their priests). There’s even a Vatican observatory with an astronomer who is on record as saying scripture is not science and does not teach science. They probably realized that God doesn’t personally protect every single one of them, even if they are on holy ground.
I agree, it could be worse, like some protestant groups who refuse to have their children inoculated.
Yet, one is tempted to ask how much faith these people really have in their god?
Plenty of non-xians refuse to have their kids innoculated too, preferring to believe some of the scaremongering nonsense spouted in the media for a reason, or preferring to trust to homeopathy. I’m not convinced it’s even a matter of faith; rather, one of stupidity – and that’s not confined to the churches.
Same reason churches have lightening conductors on the roof.
Oops – meant lightning. Need more beer :-)
“Just like if he wasn’t there at all.”
LOL! I love it. So true. :-)
YAY! 50′s wager
Every night I pray to god,
but he ain’t say nothin’ back.
I know he protectin’ me,
but I’ll still stay with my gat (gun).
This reminds me of my old catholic days when I finally started getting squirrelly about sipping wine from a cup 50 other people already drank from. I wasn’t fully convinced the swipe of the cloth got rid of all the germs.
I wonder what tomorrow will be like in catholic churches with all the swine flu mania going on.
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“It’s not the only thing that will change during the service. The church said things can be done differently during the peace offering, when members greet each other in the pews and shake hands.”
Its amazing how rational thinking gets turned on, and off like a light switch with these people.
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One thing I’d like people to keep in mind here is the differences between the sects of Christianity. Like I mentioned above, I’ve noticed Catholics to be less absurdly fanatical and generally manage to separate real life from religion, though they can be really randomly crazy. These aren’t the people marching in the streets or protesting funerals. This doesn’t make in any less hypocritical, but it’s just not a hugely shocking turn of beliefs for the Catholics as it would be for, say, Westboro Baptist Church.
Of the Catholic Church, She greatly surpassed Westboro Baptist Church in Words and Deeds.
Hey, a step in the right direction is better than nothing.
Then again, getting a disease when you leave church is the only way you ever actually get anything tangible out of going.
Like fundamentalist religious thought, this article is so black/white simplistic. The modern Catholic Church has issues only with some extreme scientific/medical positions that have moral implications (cloning, abortion, etc). Otherwise, it clearly teaches medicine and science are good. The Church teaches that God has the capacity to heal (a rather logical idea once you accept the possiblility of God’s existence), but it has never stated that this guarantees believers are not susceptible to any illness or evil. It clearly teaches acting intelligently and responsibility to protect one’s own person. *People should understand the nuances of a topic before they write about it.
The problem with what you’re saying, though, is that in becoming more “modern”, they’re already contradicting themselves. They’re trying to teach the Bible while going against the teachings of the Bible.
How does that make any sense?
So, C’Mon, you think that Daniel, as a trained pastor, doesn’t understand the nuances of this conversation? Really?
Like “C’mon” really cares. I’d lay good money (if I were a betting man) that we won’t see hide nor hair of this one again. This was a drive-by posting with a dash of “concern.”
Being a “trained pastor” doesn’t automatically give one full knowledge or experience of every denomination. Don’t misunderstand. This is meant as constructive criticism. While there are certain religious groups that fit his assessment (relying on total trust in God to the point of excluding medical intervention, etc), the Catholic religion simply isn’t one of them. It’s not the proper example.
“but it has never stated that this guarantees believers are not susceptible to any illness or evil”
Well, I can imagine why… it would be a very hard-to-believe claim, wouldn’t it?
“I would say there is a little bit of faith involved,” Coxon said, laughing. “The good Lord will take care of us one way or another.”
—
During the medieval plagues, believers clustered in churches for protection and died enmasse as a result. They also did this during a huge earthquake in Spain.
With protection like the lord’s, you don’t need mortal enemies.
“holy water wasn’t good for anything but spreading sickness”
that’s not entirely true. it’s also very nutritious, as long as you drink it when it’s fresh. you know, before they start dunking babies in it.
You sure it’s not nutritious after all the funk gets in it? Fortified with pro-biotic carbon-based products.
We are installing hand sanitizer units in our church this week. The Bible is very clear when it talks about disease control and stopping it’s spread (Just read the book of Leviticus). Leviticus tells the “cured” to purify themselves in RUNNING water. Wouldn’t it be great if surgeons would have learned this over 100 years ago instead of having many of their patients unnecessarily die of infection. Installing the sanitizer does not equate to lack of faith. It means that we value life!
I’m pretty sure your god meant what he said, not what you’re reading into it. Running water != hand sanitizer.
Nice try, but you’re not even remotely fooling anyone.
Hey, I don’t see surgeons going to the river to purify their instruments… wait, that’s because surgeons know about sterilization, unlike your God.
Disclaimer: that’s an answer to your argument “God gave us knowledge in the Bible”. Well, unlike you are implying, it seems to be a common knowledge for some cultures out there -running water it’s in general cleaner. Many years later, medicine learned about boiling the water
And a personal attack on you.
Whether it’s an intellectual deficiency, moral bankruptcy, or both, I leave for you to decide. What I am sure of, is that your statement is a lie.
Leviticus 20:13
Leviticus 20:9 NLT
Leviticus 20:10 NLT
Leviticus 21:9 NAB
Dishonest godbots say things like you just did.
Also in Leviticus 12, it says a woman needs to be purified after childbirth but there’s no running water or hand sanitizer mentioned anywhere!
This is our only hope in stopping swine flu!!
I just hope the vatican can pull it together and release their own holy hand sanitiser.
This is an interesting post. What it boils down to is this: you agree with them on one thing, you disagree with them on others (their raison d’etre) so you find them inconsistent. This can only be explained by a leap from “I disagree with them” to “they are irrational”. But in what they believe the Catholic Church is as rational as in taking health precautions. It was the devil who tempted Jesus by suggesting he throw himself from a highly place because, as the Psalm says, “he shall not suffer a hair of thy head to be broken”; and our Lord replied “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Any idea that Christianity was going to be a religion about believing that we could put ourselves in harm’s way and God wouldn’t let anything bad happen to us would have gotten quashed right about then, don’t you think? So where is the inconsistency which you seem to find?
The level of vitriol here suggests an unquiet mind, by the way. I disagree with a lot of what Hindus believe in and I very strongly disagree with atheism. But unless provoked you would not find me running a blog in which I said nasty, mean-spirited, crabbed little things about Hindus and atheists. Now, if they attack things I believe in, I will respond; and if they assert something of importance which I believe to be untrue I may question it, but I will not use something like this to heap scorn on their heads. But then heaping scorn on people who see something that they cannot see seems to be some people’s stock-in-trade.
I cannot agree with you. Catholics believe holy water can heal, and can be used to exorcize evil spirits. It is supposed to be powerfully transformed by god thru the priest’s prayers. And wine shared from a cup *isn’t* wine, it is actually god’s blood. You’re telling me healing waters and god’s own blood can carry germs??!!
This is not a matter of simple disagreement; it is indeed a matter of irrationality.
If you believe there’s a high level of vitriol, nastiness and mean-spiritedness here, I suppose you have not been reading many other atheist blogs, where people tend to be much more harsh. And I’m sorry to say many atheists (and other non-christians for that matter) do feel “provoked” enough to discuss these things. When christians stop trying to force feed religious beliefs into our secular lives, most of us will cease to care what christians think.
I don’t understand that sentence:
” But then heaping scorn on people who see something that they cannot see seems to be some people’s stock-in-trade”
Maybe I should improve my english. BTW, i thought that people who see something that they cannot see need medical attention.
You can run a blog with lots of purposes. You can even NOT read a blog you are not interested in.
I think Sunny day is summarizing the point of the post, when he says:
“Its amazing how rational thinking gets turned on, and off like a light switch with these people.”
That’s more or less what I have understanded in that post. What you are responding to in your comment is a straw-man
The major media has created wide-spread panic because of a few cases of the swine flu, it’s time to stop the panic and use common sense.
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