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[misterqueue]

If your planned middle name is Otto that would be a Very Sad Thing.

One of my friends changed her last name to Dzieciolowski when she turned 18 (her family had Americanized it earlier). But the when she got married at 28 took her husband's name. Which just seems pointless to me. But apparently his family is insanely catholic and is kind of making her jump through some hoops. Like they had to pretend that they hadn't been fuck*ng for 5 years and she had to go to some classes and shit.

No no.. Octavius would be the middle name.  Man, I am not going to go get a bowl cut and some metal arms any time soon.  Think more along the lines of GMr. Wonderfuls Octavius.  My Roman Emporer facination is well documented.

Oh dear dog those Catholic classes!  I think, IIRC, in most Catholic churches you have to do them if you want to get married in the church.  Least that's the way it was back when I was sort of bumming around that side of the fence.

[CortJstr]

No no.. Octavius would be the middle name.  Man, I am not going to go get a bowl cut and some metal arms any time soon.  Think more along the lines of GMr. Wonderfuls Octavius.  My Roman Emporer facination is well documented.

Oh dear dog those Catholic classes!  I think, IIRC, in most Catholic churches you have to do them if you want to get married in the church.  Least that's the way it was back when I was sort of bumming around that side of the fence.

At my church the classes were 12 months minimum. And that was assuming that both people were "provably" catholic. Where provably = having turned in offical pre-printed tithing evelopes for at least a year prior.

[Doc]

I really need to find out if the churches are that harsh over here too. I'm theoretically catholic and my girlfriend is anglican but neither of us would be bothered to do such a thing. Really Vegas seems the best option.

[misterqueue]

I really need to find out if the churches are that harsh over here too. I'm theoretically catholic and my girlfriend is anglican but neither of us would be bothered to do such a thing. Really Vegas seems the best option.

IIRC Anglicans are pretty well laid back.  I mean this is Church of England we're talking about, where it's much more of a social club than a belief system per se.  Depending on the church (in my ex-catholic experience mind you, so basically I'm speaking out of my ass), Catholic churches come in two flavours: 

- Nice to see you on sunday, now eat this wafer.
- You are a terrible wretched thing, flog yourself and sing in latin!

(My early schooling all came from the latter.  On the plus side I know a little Latin, but I don't know how often they use Tu illum adiuva for SCIENCE!)

[Hobot]

- Nice to see you on sunday, now eat this wafer.

"This wafer is actually the flesh of a dude named Jesus.  We call this transubstantiation.  What, you don't believe me?  To the stake with you!"

[misterqueue]

"This wafer is actually the flesh of a dude named Jesus.  We call this transubstantiation.  What, you don't believe me?  To the stake with you!"

More in the second vein, but not that far from my experience.

Fun Fact: I got beaten with a yardstick once in 2nd grade by a nun who called it her "friend" and was notorious for performing this in a dark closet of her classroom.  This was apparently the more toned down, PC version since my Mother went to the same school and saw kids get worse than that from this same nun.  Apparently, just getting out with 1 of these incidents was a feat.*


* Note: Clearly, not all Nuns/Catholics/Belief Systems are this way, I'm just saying.  I was a surprisingly amicable kid, so she was really just one pissed off Nun, and it was a rather rough area of town so you know, stuff happens.

[jough]

Regarding transubstantiation - for a science experiement in Catholic elementary school once I took pictures of what the cells of a piece of human skin looks like, and then a blow-up of the consecrated wafer that I palmed from mass looked like under a microscope, and was punished.

When I presented them with the scientific evidence that the host does not actually become the physical, actual body of Christ, they countered that it becomes his spiritual body and therefore cannot be measured with a microscope.

I think that they meant that it was his bullshit body, but had I known then what I know now would have pointed out that what they are referring to is not actually transubstantiation, then, but rather metempsychosis.

[misterqueue]

An amusing story!

Ha!  Story Time:

Once a week in grade school they would bring in a Priest who would talk to us for an hour about various bible stories and what have you.  We had a pretty cool priest who would act out all these things in a funny way so as to entertain/inculcate us good and proper.  One day we got on the topic of creation and the likes thereof.

"Well you see god's love for you was like a kettle that is boiling over, he loves you so much!" I remember him saying and even making all these bubbly noises/hand signs.  I guess there's a particular hand sign for bubbles?   Anyway, I was confused by this statement as something had been bothering me for weeks.  (I was a pretty pious kid).

I raised my hand, to ask a question, "If god loves us so much that he's bubbling over, then why would he send us to hell without a chance at redemption?"  (It was phrased differently, but I don't remember my exact words.)

I was then taken out into the hall and "talked to" for a while.  I was afraid, thinking that I was in trouble, so I just sort of nodded and listened to what they said without offering too much persistance.  After a time, the priest said something that dinged a little light in my head:

"Well, you see, maybe there isn't a Hell.  Maybe it's just a concept that we use to show people what it's not like to live without god.  Maybe the church just isn't ready to accept it that way."

'But..' thought little 8 year old me, 'this is the place they've been warning me about for years as an actual physical place with horrors and devils and the like!  This is one of their basic tennets!  If they're not sure about this...."

I'd kind of like to thank that priest for being honest with me if I ever could find him again.  He certainly gave me a chance to make up my own mind, even though it didn't turn out as he would have hoped I imagine.

(And now I will shutup before I get further off topic or set off a flamewar or some such.)

[jough]

I've found by talking with priests over the recent years that most of what I was taught in school really has nothing to do with actual tenets of the Catholic faith.  No wonder so many of my former parochial school classmates are agnostics or atheists today.

Of course, the BIG ONE (Jesus was GOD, died and rose again, etc.) seems to be the one thing that is patently ridiculous, and the one that even the best analytical thinkers of the church seem to believe.

The basic foundation of Christianity is so absurd that I couldn't believe that ANYONE believed it.  Seriously, when I was a kid I thought that people were fuck*ng with me.  Santa Claus was more plausible than the resurrection.

[misterqueue]

The basic foundation of Christianity is so absurd that I couldn't believe that ANYONE believed it.  Seriously, when I was a kid I thought that people were fuck*ng with me.  Santa Claus was more plausible than the resurrection.

But jough, what about the stone!  They said no one man could've moved that sto-

No, even in sarcasm I fail.  I pretty much agree.  Cue the flamewar!

[Drygioni]

inculcate

I have never seen this word before, and both you AND the newspaper decide to use it on the same day. Carry on.

My RE teacher would not tell me how priests didn't go crazy due to lack of sexual gratification. While my good lady friend said (very quietly) "it's because they have small boys", the one pious person in the class who is not my lady friend said that the 'love of God gratifies them sexually'. With a very straight, holier-than-thou face. Then the RE teacher told us all to shut up. Good call.

Also, my very religious science teacher (who was crazy; possibly due to lack of sexual gratification) told us that God made invisible 'holy atoms' to explain transubstantiation. The holy atoms are made up of God, and therefore make the bread holy. Thank god it wasn't him who taught us evolution. He was crazy.

I've found by talking with priests over the recent years that most of what I was taught in school really has nothing to do with actual tenets of the Catholic faith.  No wonder so many of my former parochial school classmates are agnostics or atheists today.

Of course, the BIG ONE (Jesus was GOD, died and rose again, etc.) seems to be the one thing that is patently ridiculous, and the one that even the best analytical thinkers of the church seem to believe.

The basic foundation of Christianity is so absurd that I couldn't believe that ANYONE believed it.  Seriously, when I was a kid I thought that people were fuck*ng with me.  Santa Claus was more plausible than the resurrection.

Yeah, I can't help but echo that view. To be fair however, if I did believe that God did exist in the way the Bible describes, then the Resurrection is peanuts. If this guy could supposedly create the whole dang universe, then bringing someone to life again seems like child's play.

(I am agnostic so I accept that God MIGHT exist but equally feel that he MIGHT NOT.)

(I'm also sorry for bringing this thread even further away from sanity/on-topicness.)

[AugustWest]

My compliments on your restraint AD.  I picture you, while reading this thread, sitting in a hard chair, sweating profusely, rocking back and forth and repeating over and over again, "Must not smite heathens....Must not smite heathens..."

Also, Jough's microscropy of the host is hell of funny.

[Drygioni]

My compliments on your restraint AD.  I picture you, while reading this thread, sitting in a hard chair, sweating profusely, rocking back and forth and repeating over and over again, "Must not smite heathens....Must not smite heathens..."

He hasn't been active much lately. He'll get round to smiting us sometime.

[misterqueue]

Yeah that was pretty much the smiting for which I was waiting.

But I'm a big boy, I can take it.

[theinevitable]

um, to go way way back...
Hobot-- I am trying soo hard to pronounce "bot" with a circumflexe, and it is not working.

Nor did it really work with your for-real last name. Hm.


also: for further discussion of The Host, look further down on the page Q linked to. "How does Jesus Come to us?" from the series "Religion for the Retarded."