Search results

  1. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    How To Get My Old Church To Stop Contacting Me

    I've tried blocking their email. For reasons unknown, that didn't work (it may have been a glitch of some sort), but I'll try it again. I think I might go ahead and write a formal letter. I was baptized in the Baptist church at age seven. Even without that, Baptist church membership rolls...
  2. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    How To Get My Old Church To Stop Contacting Me

    I apologize if this is in the wrong forum, but I have nowhere else to put this. The Baptist church I more or less grew up in got a new pastor and within a matter of weeks went the way of the prosperity gospel megachurch. My family left last summer. My parents and sister started attending a...
  3. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    How will "religions" handle the discovery of alien life?

    I've honestly never understood this idea that religious people will struggle in some way to cope with the (thus far unproven) existence of alien life. If there are sentient (or hnau, to borrow C. S. Lewis's word) aliens out there, i. e. if there are aliens out there who are made in the image of...
  4. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Why isn't it considered sin that girls say they only want 6' guys?

    In a few cases it might be related to the sin of pride rather than the sin of lust. Suppose a man refuses to date girls taller than him because he doesn't like feeling short. That's a conscious decision entirely focused on how he looks and not about the actual character of the woman he wants to...
  5. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Should Churches hold Pet Blessings?

    I don't own a pet, but I love the idea of pet blessings.
  6. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Is Satan Lawless or a Legalist?

    Begging your pardon, but I legitimately don't understand why you're asking me this. The question wasn't about responsibility, it was "Is Satan Lawless or a Legalist?" so I did my best to answer that question by saying, as clearly as I could, "Satan will tempt us using whatever method he thinks...
  7. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Best Christian movie ever?

    Ben-Hur (1959). I'm also fond of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).
  8. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Is Satan Lawless or a Legalist?

    Both and either. Satan will prey on us in whatever way he can in order to lead us away from God. In some cases he does this by telling us that whatever commands God has made couldn't possibly apply to us, or that those rules don't exist, or that a loving God wouldn't give us any rules. In other...
  9. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Books on early centuries

    Most of my recommendations focus more on Ireland than England, but thanks to the work of Irish missionaries, there's ties between the two. St. Patrick's Confessio and his Letter to Coroticus are among my favorite works from the early British church and the Hibernian mission. This has already...
  10. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Church killed a child's spirit and now she needs help.

    I'll keep your family in my prayers. I hope you will be able to find another congregation soon. (If it gives you any peace, I was a similar place to your daughter when I was about her age. It was an incredibly rough time, and I'd be lying if I said it hasn't affected my life up to now, but it...
  11. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    God said: "It's not good for man to be alone".

    I am deeply sorry for what you and your wife are going through and I will keep you both in my prayers. I also could have phrased my reply less harshly and more clearly. While I don't have any personal experience with Alzheimer's specifically, I am familiar with Parkinson's. I watched my...
  12. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    God said: "It's not good for man to be alone".

    Marriage is meant as a retelling of the Gospel. The husband represents Christ and the wife represents the Church. Does Christ leave His Church when she is ailing? Should the Church depart from Christ under any circumstance? I may not be married, but I have seen couples walk through serious...
  13. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    do you believe ufos are demons flying?

    They could be lots of things: demons, angels, experimental aircraft... Really, any object you see flying around can be a UFO if you're bad enough at identifying things.
  14. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Protestant Catechism, is there such a thing?

    There's not really a singular Protestant Catechism, but you can find ones for individual denominations. Luther's Small Catechism is one example. The Book of Common Prayer contains another. The Five Solae and the Creeds (Apostles, Nicene, etc.) should help your friend understand Protestantism...
  15. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    What are some good books on the early church fathers?

    I haven't read St. Augustine's Confessions, but I still recommend it. Eastern Orthodox Christianity: The Essential Texts by Bryn Geffert and Theofanis G. Stavrou isn't strictly about the early church fathers, but it includes the sayings of various Desert Fathers, and excerpts from the works of...
  16. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Why did God create useless body parts?

    Technically, yes, we can live without our gallbladder, but living without one requires significant dietary adjustments, because it concentrates bile and helps our bodies digest fats. The effects of appendix removal are not readily apparent, but the view of the appendix as a vestigial organ has...
  17. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    Is it sinful to have a Homosexual Orientation?

    Yes, homosexuality is sinful, much in the same way that heterosexuality is sinful. God's definition of marriage remains a monogamous, respectful and loving relationship between a man and a woman which lasts until death. Any sexual activity outside of that—lust, extramarital sex, what have you—is...
  18. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    The Normalizing Of Bastard Children

    I plan to get married before I have children. That's assuming God calls me to marriage and motherhood in the first place, however. I still don't think it's right to call children derogatory terms (never mind that they were legal terms in 1611, when the KJV was translated) and I'm not going to...
  19. Pádraigín Ní Saorlaith

    The Normalizing Of Bastard Children

    Muslims believe that the Quran is no longer the word of Allah if it is not in Arabic. That's not even remotely the argument being made here in regards to the Bible. What is being said is the cultural connotations of the word may not be the same. This could happen in literally any translation of...