[John J. D.]

I agree with A.B. that the Ark story probably didn’t happen literally (but who knows? I wasn’t there). Certainly I’ve never heard of any evidence of a real worldwide flood (of course, sometimes we hear stories on TV about an old Ark being found on Mount Ararat). But the story doesn’t just tell about God’s wrath, although punishment for wrongdoing is an important theme throughout the Scriptures. I think the point of the story is more to focus on God’s preserving Noah’s family and eventually healing the world. In a way it’s a story of confidence, that even when things are going bad, Noah trusted in God to protect him, and the dove (which found land) and the rainbow (which announced the end of the rain) are to this day symbols of hope and peace. A bunch of symbols or themes in Hebrew Scripture also appear in Babylonian mythology, but I think the point is that the Bible does a better job with them, as if to set the record straight.

“But what about the other however-many people? Why did they have to drown?” I don’t know, maybe somebody else understands, perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into the story or take it out of context.

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Name : John J. D., Gender : M, Religion : Catholic, Age : 22, City : Washington, State : DC, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 4 Years of College, 

[John J. D.]

I agree with Kim. If we took that saying literally, then Jesus is not only not for African Americans, but also not for Russians, Chinese, Australians, Italians, Irish, etc. Sometimes statements from the Bible don’t make sense outside of context. During His earthly lifetime, Jesus did spend all his time in Judea (southern Israel) and the neighboring lands, but He told His disciples to carry his message all over the world. So you don’t have to worry about who’s going to come to save you –it’s the same One who saves everybody else.

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Name : John J. D., Gender : M, Religion : Catholic, Age : 22, City : Washington, State : DC, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 4 Years of College, 

[John J. D.]

I think it partially has to do with the popularity of the American media (American movies, music, etc.), which obviously would spread the mannerisms of their own country. But I guess that still leaves a sort of chicken-and-egg question of why the American movies, music, etc. are so popular. Are Americans seen as more interesting or more fun-loving, or perhaps simply more wealthy?

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Name : John J. D., Gender : M, Religion : Catholic, Age : 22, City : Washington, State : DC, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 4 Years of College, 

[John J. D.]

I had always understood that it was because in some countries Jews were not allowed to own land, and so they had to be merchants; and that perhaps furthermore, their cultural emphasis on the importance of education enabled them to be sort of a middle class. But perhaps this itself is a stereotype.

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Name : John J. D., Gender : M, Religion : Catholic, Age : 22, City : Washington, State : DC, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 4 Years of College, 

[John J. D.]

I am not an expert by any means but it seems to me that Protestants and Catholics aren’t so different as people think concerning the doctrine of salvation. The question of being saved by grace through faith plus works versus by grace through faith alone can be overdone. If somebody who does lots of bad things and doesn’t care about other people tries to be saved just by believing, I think that even a Protestant would say that that person was in the wrong. And if somebody thought that they didn’t need God’s mercy as long as they did enough prayers or good works to buy themselves into heaven, a Catholic theologian wouldn’t go for that either. The key is ‘grace,’ a sort of relationship with God given by God. May we all have it! So I think that the main theological difference would be that Catholics place more emphasis on participating in a human society (the Catholic church in particular) as a big part of being part of Jesus’s project of salvation (the Christian church in general). That doesn’t mean that other Christians aren’t Christians, but that theoretically all the Christians should be part of the same organization, which is led by bishops and a pope and is considered to have evolved more or less directly from the original communities formed by the apostles of Jesus, with Simon Peter, the head apostle, sort of a proto-pope. There are also Eastern Orthodox Christians, who are in between. They have bishops but no pope. Also they very much stress tradition and customary worship. Lastly, there are Eastern or ‘Greek’ Catholics (from Eastern Europe or the Middle East) who follow some of the traditional practices of the Eastern Orthodox but also follow the teachings of the Pope; the differences are just in style of worship, not in faith. I am one of this group. It is kind of difficult being different from the other Catholics, but I stick with it. What all Christians agree on is that it really stinks that different groups of Christians sometimes fail to get along. We are all supposed to support and love each other as different parts of the same ‘body.’ This doesn’t mean that we’re all supposed to be the same (not all the parts of a regular physical body are the same). But we are making progress towards at least respecting each other. P.S. The sign of the cross is a sort of blessing or physical prayer. Some people make it when they are saying their prayers; some people may also make it reflexively when they are frightened.

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Name : John J. D., Gender : M, Religion : Catholic, Age : 22, City : Washington, State : DC, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 4 Years of College, 

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