Quote:
Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo
I don't consider myself strongly religious, however my parents are very religious. They are both lectors at church, my father teaches Sunday school, and has for years, etc. And yet both parents believes in evolution over creationism, is pro-choice, and are for gay-rights (up to and including marriage). I asked them one time when I was younger how they reconciled that with their faith, and my father said something to the effect of "you have to think for yourself - you can agree with the central message of the church, and disagree with the particulars."
*note: not saying ALL of his ideas were liberal, but certainly that he might easily be construed as more liberal than conservative
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For the record the Catholic Chuch is not creationist. It supports evolution.
However, per my point that is not dogma. Dogma is stuff like Christ is our Lord and Savior, Communion is the body of Christ, etc., etc. A good list would be found in the Nicene Creed. Bringing this around to what your father said, dogma is the central tenets of the faith. Everything else is the side issues.
Additionally, there is nothing in the Bible that is against gay rights. Heck, I don't have a problem with gay-rights. Go for it. If you want someone to have the same rights as my wife, fine by me. Where I draw the line is calling it marriage and giving it a religious overtone. Maybe it is splitting hairs but why not just call it a civil union and be done with it? I can see why some one might be pro-choice and not consider themselves at odds with their faith (being for the law, essentially leaving the choice to others, but being personally against it).
That said, I find it abhorrent is all the people that think they have all the answers and that no one can think differently from them. One of the things that I love about the Catholic faith is that most things have a basis for it that make sense (not that they teach you any of this stuff in PRE, but that is a different story). I did much of this study on my own during and after college.
Again, science is the study of the framework of the universe and is the study of how things work. Philosophy and religion delve into the why the science is the way it is (who created the universe and the framework or the laws of science, etc. How should we act and what is our part in the framework, etc.).
To this last point, the Catholic Church has always followed Natural Law Theory. Sure, it has its faults, but it at least has a central philosophy that it follows which other faiths do not do.