Don't you just love Mediterranean Catholicism or Orthodoxy? I do. (Mormon, hell)
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I just got back from Southern Europe. I saw a pair of freckle-faced Mormon missionaries once, which I wish I hadn't seen. Other than that, it's business as usual over there. In that part of the world, people are "REAL." They eat, laugh, cuss, emote, and tell it like it is. None of this "you're going to hell" bull$hit found in the US for every last G-ddamn transgression. Guess what, fundies, uptight Catholics and every other striation of conservatism in religion out there, these folks will be in line at the pearly gates along with you guys. We're all saved, anyway. Right? Isn't that what JC's mission was all about? What a breath of fresh air to enjoy 3 weeks without a hint of religious fanaticism anywhere.
And, guess what, they show breasts in advertisements and tolerate nude beaches because they know what side their bread is buttered on. Since when are female breasts lewd and who cares if someone goes topless/nude at a beach (mostly the Greeks and the Spaniards have these) that is designated as such ? In the grand scheme of things, these things are hardly sinful.
Reading through all the "doom and gloom" threads under Christianity is enough to require an airline barf-bag. And, yes, I'm a cradle-to-grave Catholic. How many others think that Christianity in North America has become too uptight and conservative?
They stand up during the [long] service because they think it is disrespectful to sit in the presence of God.
They follow a strict fasting calendar and their women wear headcoverings in church.
Here are the words of a Russian Orthodox Archbishop:
" But this should absolutely convince us that we do not dare to remain indifferent or be unconcerned
about the manifestations of evil in the world, especially when the matter is one of God's glory, of our
Holy Faith and Church. Here we must show ourselves to be completely uncompromising, and we do not
dare enter into any sort of cunning compromises or any reconciliation, even purely outward, or into
any kind whatever of agreement with evil. To our personal enemies, according to Christ's commandment,
we must forgive everything, but with the enemies of God we cannot have peace! Friendship with the
enemies of God makes us ourselves the enemies of God: this is a betrayal and treason towards God,
under whatever well-seeming pretexts it might be done, and here no kind of cunning or skillful
self-justification can help us! "
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Last edited by king's highway; 08-01-2012 at 09:12 PM..
If anyone is curious about the icon. It is Tsar Nicholas II, Russia's last Tsar who was murdered
with his entire family by the antichrist bolsheviks in 1918. Russian Orthodox say he was the
one who had restrained antichrist and his murder released the spirit of antichrist on the planet.
In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Tsar Nicholas and his family as martyr-saints
in the newly rebuilt Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow [the largest church in Russia that
Stalin and his antichrist bolsheviks had totally destroyed in the 1930s.]
Here is a photo of the rebuilt church [large white church in the background - St Basil's is in the foreground.]
Most of the Russians I know who identify as Orthodox are pretty "out there" themselves and fairly unbridled.
Regardless, I was talking about sunny southern Europe - namely Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. Their form of Christianity has always "accommodated" that they are normal red-blooded human beings and they don't talk about religious "doom and gloom."
That's what I was talking about. I can't vouch for other parts of Europe. They don't interest me much and most of my traveling is confined to this zone ... where there are palm trees!
Yes, the Conservative movement in America is definitely uptight and very sickening.
I can't begin to tell you how it pains me to communicate with the average professing American Christian - it is like trying to pull teeth.
The church buildings in the photo-links are gorgeous.
Regardless, I was talking about sunny southern Europe - namely Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. Their form of Christianity has always "accommodated" that they are normal red-blooded human beings and they don't talk about religious "doom and gloom."
That's what I was talking about. I can't vouch for other parts of Europe. They don't interest me much and most of my traveling is confined to this zone ... where there are palm trees!
Those very nations in southern Europe are now experiencing severe economic "doom and gloom."
btw... there are Russian Orthodox Churches where palm trees grow... in the holy land.
Most of the Russians I know who identify as Orthodox are pretty "out there" themselves and fairly unbridled.
Maybe they're not ethnic Russian Orthodox.
Maybe they're jews.
Lots of Russian jews have migrated to the USA and not just since the fall of the USSR.
Millions of Russian jews left Russia for the US in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
I seriously doubt they're Jews. LOL. That's why they went to Catholic school with me, because there was no Orthodox school for them to go to and I've been invited to their churches (I went to school with both Greek and Russian kids in a large metro area where the parents willingly sent them to Catholic school).
At any rate, you seem to be missing the point. I'm commenting about the great calibration of a relaxed temperment (sp) and a more realistic outlook on Christianity. Europeans come over here and comment about the churches of every denomination on every corner and the rigid and unrealistic adherence to religion ... and the guilt that accompanies that. I think they have a point.
I seriously doubt they're Jews. LOL. That's why they went to Catholic school with me, because there was no Orthodox school for them to go to and I've been invited to their churches (I went to school with both Greek and Russian kids in a large metro area where the parents willingly sent them to Catholic school).
I can't imagine any faithful Russian Orthodox parent sending his children to a papist school.
At any rate, you seem to be missing the point. I'm commenting about the great calibration of a relaxed temperment (sp) and a more realistic outlook on Christianity. Europeans come over here and comment about the churches of every denomination on every corner and the rigid and unrealistic adherence to religion ... and the guilt that accompanies that. I think they have a point.
I understand your point.
You want to bash Christians who live true to their faith.
.
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