Have you ever been Catholic? Because that's not the basis of Catholic guilt. Catholic's aren't about Jesus was the nicest guy in the world. Nice doesn't cut it in the Catholic world. That's why Catholic depictions of Jesus crucified are horrific.
Catholic guilt is based on everything being your responsibility but you're too limited to do anything about it. Catholic guilt is about caring deeply, and the futility of that. Hence, the resurrection, a duex ex machina to raise you beyond the futility of the mortal coil. Very depressing religion.
It was a joke which apparently went yards over your head. While I wasn't Catholic, pretty much everyone in the city I grew up in was, including all my relatives in that city. The city had 4 public high schools and 7 parochial ones. I knew more about novenas than fast offerings at age 12.
I actually stole the line from a book of comic essays, named "Growing Up Catholic". The author thought it was a witty encapsulation of Catholic guilt.
My understanding was that he already suffered for the sin, but it was for not if I failed to repent. I became guilt-ridden because I stopped confessing everything to the bishop.
When some of the water would get on my hands from the sacrament cups I would wonder how much of his blood was spilled for me and how much suffering I had put on this person because of whatever stupid thing I'd done or a thought I had..
I was always confused by that. I was always like, "Didn't the Atonement already happen? So... you're saying that my sins were already pre-determined at that time? Do I have a choice whether or not to commit them? And if so, how does the consequence of them happen 2,000 years ago?"
I remember hearing a GA say he wondered how many drops of blood were shed for him. I also heard a GA say that same idea was false doctrine. Make up your mind you guys.
Yep, I heard people talk about how much suffering your sins caused him, or how many drops of blood you caused him to shed. I'd feel bad for "sinning", wondering how much pain I caused. Guilt, guilt, and more guilt, even though no part of the atonement made any sense whatsoever.
As someone mentioned, did that mean my sins were predetermined? If so, then why do we supposedly have free agency if everything we do is decided in advance anyway. Why did Jesus have to die? Why did God create us so imperfect that we couldn't live with him again, unless someone was killed? How does someone else getting killed make it all better?!?
As a TBM, I had so many unanswered questions about the atonement; I truely wanted to understand.
It's funny it took me leaving Mormonism and Christianity to finally get the answers.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2014 01:41PM by twistedsister.
But if you remember the real "atonement" was in the garden of Gethemane when he bled from every pore for the sins of the world, according to Mo' doctrine, that was the real suffering, the crucifixion was peanuts compared to that, supposedly. So he sat there in agony and felt the sins of each individual one at a time through microseconds
And Jesus, how many Goddamn pores did Jesus have, there couldn't have been a drop of blood for every human being ever, could there?
This retardation can only be pounded into people's head from birth, or the cult would never survive. There isn't even that many members, its just the members it does have are very dedicated, and very, very fucking brain washed