Just wanted to introduce myself as I joined up today. I stumbled across this site while just googling some questions and after reading a few threads I became very interested in the discussions and topics I saw so I decided to join up. I am a 17 year old student and one of my subjects is Religious Studies (more specifically the Philosophy of Religion and Religious Ethics) and I've always been very realistic about my faith, I like to question my faith as a Roman Catholic, something which a couple other young Christian's I have spoken to discourage me from doing. However, I figure that by questioning my faith I could perhaps strengthen it so I hope this will be a place which will support my growth, especially as my opinions/views/questions tend to clash with those who are 'stricter' Christians.
hi new friend estrella welcome to talkjesus forum, you are really in great christian forum, i hope you are surely grows here more and more in Gods wisdom ,God bless you my new friend.
I have to admit, after reading some threads I am beginning to feel slightly unwelcome and awkward as a Catholic - I'm sure this isn't intentional (hopefully) but it does make me feel out of place I guess. Do the majority of members belong to evangelical churches? Can I just clarify, Catholics do NOT worship Mary and we are not corrupt (as a rule).
Jesus was a practicing Jew who came to fulfill the Old Covenant. His followers call themselves by many names but there were no Catholics, no Baptists, no etc, when the church was born- man makes labels such as these.
I grew up in a Catholic family. While my family is all nice folks I do get where some can get the wrong impression- I have seen many bowing to Mary statues and kissing it's feet.
Perhaps you can spend some time here enlightening others as to what you believe it is to follow Christ in your way.
Also, please understand this: Jesus Himself was not well received by most when He walked this earth, and yet \He chose not to be offended but to love.
I look forward to hearing your point of view.
Thank you, your reply has made me feel more at ease. I agree with you 100% with the idea of the many denominations being man made and because of this I respect and accept all Christian denominations however many of times in the past I have felt that not many other denominations return this type of view when I introduce myself as a Roman Catholic which I just can't get my head around. I think a lot of this has to do with misinformation and misrepresentation.
The type of behaviour you describe such as bowing to Mary statues and kissing the feet of statues is most likely used as a sign of reverence instead of worship, just like the Hail Mary. This respect for Mary simply comes from our acknowledgement that she was a great woman chosen especially by God, who gave birth to and raised Jesus. I just hope that this is something I am able to get across to the people who instead take our respect for Mary as blasphemy.
Welcome to the site! Glad to see another young curious lad. It's truly refreshing and touching to have young Christians. I share in your view; as I also have my questions. I'm also a Roman Catholic. Here is to hoping you enjoy the fellowship here on TJ!
Okay, I don't know what happened here but suddenly I got email notifications about being mentioned and quoted in posts that I had not made!
And now it seems I am seeing what's happening... it's that this other user has a . in her username and then because it contains my username as well it means that the notifications for her go to me as well! Could you please do something about it? Perhaps change her username so that it's different....?? because also besides the notifications it's rather confusing to have two members with the same username... Thank you.
When I first saw it I thought that my account had been hacked somehow
Please read the notice on the homepage. It's a feature for someone to "quote" you or "mention" you. No one has the same username as another here, only one can have a unique username.
Chad, I already understand about these features.
However the issue is this: I receive email notifications for mentions and quotes to posts that were made by the user "Estrella." That's how I got to know about this thread.
Because my username is "Estrella" and hers is "Estrella." (so yes, it is also confusing for the forums because it's almost the same), it seems the system isn't able to differentiate the two and it sent me emails with replies to her posts (this thread and also something about feminism)! Also on my notifications here it showed me these notifications that were for her posts, not mine.
So I would like to ask you if you can look into this issue and see if it's possible to fix it.
Hmm not sure if it will work if she adds another character...
Because it seems the issue is that my whole username is a part of her username. And that's why the system sends me the notifications because it detects that my username has been mentioned @_@
Also I am not sure why I suddenly cannot post without being approved by a moderator; this wasn't happening before.
EDIT - Confusing; my previous post didn't make it through but this one did.
I think it won't help if Estrella. adds another character to the username because my whole username is still a part of hers. And that creates the issue that the system thinks it's me who's being mentioned (if someone quotes her post).
Thank you for changing it, @Emiliana!
It wouldn't have bothered me and I probably wouldn't have noticed it if it wasn't for the emails and notifications.
