I am a Noachide. The hyphen is out of reverence. The asterisk is to avoid writing in full the name of a false "gxd." Most Jews and Noachides use an X (Xmas, Xtian, Xtianity), but I long ago made the personal decision not to do this because I felt that the "X" should not have any anti-chr*stian implications for chr*stians writing in a hurry, as at university lectures. So I go to the trouble of avoiding the "X" so that chr*stians themselves may use it without feeling like they are betraying their own religion. Instead it seems to have been mostly misunderstood for the nine years I've been here.
And who says we condemn the Torah? Because we make exceptions for the circumcision of grown men, not making the slicing of their genitals a prerequisite for conversion? The Torah preserved a purpose, preserving a godly culture. But Catholicism is for bringing godliness to all peoples, as God commanded should be done. What was beneficial for godliness was retained; what was a hindrance to conversion of gentiles was relaxed. But Catholics fought hard to preserve the Torah, in the face of Manicheans, Gnostics, Arians, etc., who argued that it was no longer relevant.
So why can't you understand why protestants question your own rituals and traditions such as prayers to saints, rosaries, etc.? If you're going to eviscerate the Holy Commandments, don't replace them with something else!
Every argument liturgical chr*stians make for the validity of their rituals goes in spades for the defense of Torah observance, which they attack and disparage every bit as Luther and Calvin did the “popish mass.”
Give me one modern example of a Catholic disparaging the Torah.
You mean aside from insisting it was adapted from Babylonian and Canaanite paganism? :-)
How about your own use of the term "Judaizing" for people who refused to give up the Commandments spoken by G-d's Mouth? You can see the beauty of non-Biblical Catholic rituals and consider protestants cruel for wanting you to drop them. But look at how you treated your own original co-religionists who didn't do exactly this with regard to the Torah!
Have you never considered how the charges and accusations of protestantism merely mirror what Catholics and Orthodox have always said about Jewish rituals, commandments, and oral traditions? For every Protestant attacking "Papish superstitions" there has been ample Catholics or Orthodox who attacked the Talmud. You see the Protestants as cruel for wanting you to drop your traditions. Let look at what you demand of the Jews!
The experience of Catholics in Protestant America has been a tit for tat reliving of its own persecution of Jews and Judaism--the attacks on "doctrines and commandments of men," the "chr*stless works religion," the whole shmeer. And Catholic apologetics has consisted of such responses as "we're older than you(???)" and "you have no idea of the beauty and meaning of our ancient traditions." But apparently your ears do not hear what your own mouths are saying.
Protestantism was risen up by G-d to give Catholicism/Orthodoxy a taste of its own medicine. How do you like it?
And again, I see a connection between the rejection of Jewish rituals and commandments (on the one hand) and the rejection of the historicity and facticity of the Bible's stories on the other. Certainly Catholics are more skeptical of the "old testament" than the are of medieval or modern miracle stories.
>> I am a Noachide. <<
I’m not familar with the use of Noachide as a noun. I know it to mean referring to the seven laws of Noah, as in “the Noachide covenant.” I do not find a wikipedia entry of any such religion. Are you a practitioner of B’nei Noach?
If so, then you hold that non-Jews aren’t bound to the laws of Moses, but are bound to the laws of Noah. Ceratinly, the Catholic Church has always fervently upheld the Noachide laws*. What beef do you then have against the Catholic Church not upholding the entirety of the Talmud? Or did you not mean that you follow the B’nei Noach?
(*In truth, I’ve never heard the seventh law preached on at mass, but then again, it seems so unthinkable... It sorta seems like preaching that law would be akin to preaching, “thou shall not jam a tuning fork up your nose, and pour horseradish in the open wound.”)
>> The hyphen is out of reverence...Instead it seems to have been mostly misunderstood for the nine years I’ve been here. <<
And, yet, oddly you persist. And why do you not write “Christian”? You haven’t explained.
>> You mean aside from insisting it was adapted from Babylonian and Canaanite paganism? :-) <<
I mean support your assertion that Catholics rip on the Talmud.
>> Have you never considered how the charges and accusations of protestantism merely mirror what Catholics and Orthodox have always said about Jewish rituals, commandments, and oral traditions? <<
No, I didn’t. In fact, I’ve asked you to demonstrate that and you haven’t.
>> Protestantism was risen up by G-d to give Catholicism/Orthodoxy a taste of its own medicine. How do you like it? <<
Thank God he isn’t like you. I don’t believe God rises up evil to give people “a taste of their own medicine.”
I think it's silly. If it was "risen up by GOD", then it wouldn't be continually fragmenting and splintering into quarelling factions. I could say something equally bigoted, considering Jewish history, but you see the point.
If you can't see that you've just established that some form or other of Christianity is "true" (in this case, Protestantism, out of your own mouth) because God "raised it up," and that, therefore, being a Noachide is insufficient, as it denies the truth of Christ, then one can be excused when dismissing the rest of your labored sophistry about Catholic (and other "liturgicals") gratuitous dismissal of the Old Testament. Mind you, I do not think that God "raised up" Protestantism, but the fact that you just said He did should, if you really believe it, give you some pause about remaining a Noachide who, by definition, refuses to believe that Christ is God. Protestantism, in the classical sense, certainly acknowledges the divinity of Christ. Therefore, if you believe it is "raised up" by God, why don't you acknowledge Christ as classical Protestantism would? If you are merely using this statement of yours, quoted above, as some sort of rhetorical device, one can be excused if one thinks that most of the rest of your complaints are similarly rhetorical, and that you simply show up here to be "difficult" to Catholics in particular and other Christians in general.
Most of your observations about the alleged disrespect Catholics show to the Old Testament are utter nonsense. They have almost no warrant from official sources (and, what little "evidence" you can glean from those sources is somewhat out of context) and speak, in my opinion, at least, of a bad time you might have had with various individual Catholics of your past acquaintance. Your obsession with this theme, in my opinion, is nothing more than a public flailing out at those individuals who misinterpreted their own Faith to you, and you hold Catholicism collectively responsible for them. That they did what they did is regrettable, but you seem intelligent enough otherwise to know that even a large number of individuals within a religious body might speak outside of their group's official position, while the group itself maintains a quite different "official" take on things. These days, I imagine you are more closely allied with the Jews, yet you don't seem to mind that, within Judaism, there is a vast range of adherence to both the concept of divine inspiration for the Torah and the actual living out of its precepts. Why, then, don't you rail against Judaism as you do against Catholicism and "liturgical" Christianity? The range of opinion within Judaism bespeaks of their being even more "hypocritical" about the Torah than Christianity, since it devolves from their only Testament!
In any event, why should you care what we Christians think about the Torah? To you, we are all "idolators," no? You said so yourself, when you referred to Christ as a "false gxd." As "idolators," our opinions on this or any subject should have no more bearing on your time and energy than the opinions of Hindus, yet I don't see you castigating them or any other pantheistic/pagan religion. Why is that?
I don't buy your explanation about the asterisk in "Christ," either. It is a slap at Him, as far as I'm concerned. Either that, or it's some sort of scrupulosity. I'm certainly no Buddhist, yet I don't have any real or imagined problems writing the word as shown above, and feel no compulsion to write it as "B*ddhist." If I did, I would be surprised if Buddhists didn't take it as a deliberate affront to their beliefs, regardless of the sophistical spin I might try to put on it.
From the Christian POV, the Law was put in place for a people set apart by God as the race that would bring forth the Messiah. They needed peculiar practices to confirm them in their own minds as a "people set apart," and as a form of discipline for them to maintain their separateness until, in the fullness of His time, God sent the Messiah into the world from their midst. Once the Messiah manifested Himself to the world through His chosen people, and ratified the mission of his disciples to spread His teachings and salvation into the Gentile world, the mission of the Jews in this regard was fulfilled. The Law was replaced by grace, and the separateness of the Jews was no longer necessary to His purpose. Therefore, the emblems of the law, which set His chosen race apart, were not at all needed by the Gentiles, and the Law was abrogated. it's just that simple. It is not the case at all that Catholics and other Christians "deny" that the Law as written is authentically the Word of God, it is just the realization that it doesn't apply to them, and that its purpose was accomplished and no longer needed.
I have many friends and aquaintances who use the G-d referred to by the person who questioned why you use it. Frankly, some of them are Jews, and the others are non-believing Christians claiming no faith, but wanting to be respectful in making mentioning of the God I love and serve. My non-believing friends who use the hyphen do not believe in the deity of Christ, or the God of the Bible as the One to whom each of us must give an account of our life someday. I personally find it offensive. Are you trying to say you use G-d because of not wanting to disrespect the Almighty one, like Yahweh in the Old Testament?
Hmmmm....that’s interesting. Never EVER heard it used for that reason before. As children of the Lord, we are perfectly “allowed” to speak and use his name as it appears biblically, in any way that is reverent and reflective of our faith and trust in Him. His name is holy, and we as the Bride of Christ have the freedom to speak of our Bridegroom without abbreviations.
JMHO....