We’re NOT What We Say We Are...UNLESS

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I stopped going to Church regularly at age 11.

It was around that time that I came to accept that I was NOT a Roman Catholic.

Why not?

Because I didn’t agree with Church doctrine...at that time on the concept of “Limbo” that an infant that died prior to being Baptized would remain in a place where that child would never see God. That’s what the Nuns taught us, but I rejected that out of hand, given that even I, at 10 years old, would be much more merciful than that, so how could an “All merciful...”?

Later on I added Church doctrine on birth control, abortion, gay rights, the death penalty to a large and growing list.

Interestingly enough, I occasionally run across so many people claiming to be “pro-abortion Catholics,” or “gay Muslims,” etc.

Sorry, there’s NO SUCH THINGS.

If you believe in ALL the teachings of a given religion, you are a practicing Roman Catholic, Jew, Muslim, etc., if you don’t, then you aren’t. It’s really just as simple as that.

A religion is an organization, like a gang and very much like all organizations and gangs, religions have rules. If you obey those rules you’re in and if you don’t, you’re out.

It’s the SAME with religions.

If you’re born Roman Catholic and you believe in abortion, birth control, gay rights, etc., then YOU are no longer a Roman Catholic...you’re something else.

Likewise, a gay Muslim is an oxymoron. Can’t happen. NO traditional Muslim condones homosexuality because traditional Islam condemns it and sentences those who are homosexual to death.

Can you be a “Reformed Muslim,” or a “Reformed Roman Catholic”? Sure, but then you are no longer a traditional Muslim or Catholic. In fact, “Reformed Catholics” actually exist today, as Protestants and many of those sects still condemn homosexuality.

Likewise, THIS...

...is an absurdity. This woman, even if born in France, is no more “French,” than an Englishman living in China is “Chinese.”

I suppose one could eventually become, “Arabic-French,” or “Afro-French,” or “Indo-French,” etc., just as one could become, “Anglo-Chinese,” once sufficiently immersed in those cultures, BUT even those things threaten the prevailing heritage and culture of a given region.

Culture and heritage are fixed, just as the parameters of organizations (religious, political, etc.) are fixed. For instance, a "Free market socialist" is an oxymoron, as much as is an "Atheistic Muslim, Christian, or Jew." You are NOT a member of any given group UNLESS you adhere to its principles.