What's Behind the Scorn?

A friend sent me a link to this Slate article about the "scorn for parenthood." I've never understood the positive attraction to this scorn: if other people have kids, and lots of them, what's it to you? They're raising the people who will pay your Social Security benefits and defend your country when you're past your prime. Why go out of your way to recommend that other young people really, really seriously consider turning off that blasted spigot of babies before it gets opened?

Somehow it's akin to another puzzlement I've nurtured about atheists: if you know there is no God and no pie-in-the-sky, then what's it to you if a bunch of intellectual pygmies are spending their time mumbling prayers and pinching incense in private or public to Harry the Big Bunny Maker-in-the-Sky Who Rules Over All? It's like getting upset at a 5-year-old nephew who keeps asking you questions about Santa Claus. Can't you just nod and smile and play along, with the kid, I mean? Is the fairy tale god really all that threatening, if you really know better?

Comments

[Joe McFaul]

In answer to your first question, I often detect guilt and regret as the defensiveness.

Atheists are different, however, and we should not confuse the two issues. The fairy tail god represents no threat when believers merely mumble prayers and pinch incense. Unfortunately too often, they also fly planes into tall buildings, burn heretics at the stake, castrate women, kneecap children and dynamite public transportation vehicles.

We should not be oblivious to a severe public relations problem. I don't have an easy answer, but I can appreciate the atheist viewpoint.

[Gene Godbold]

My gut feeling is that this scorn is related to the argument Paul is making in the first part of the letter to the Romans. Sin culminates in not only doing the things that are wrong (and sub-human) but also in taking pleasure in others that do them.

If you exalt those who sin as examples of respectable behavior and can hold your hands to your ears and yell "I'm not listening" long enough to those that speak either against the sin or for the virtuous behavior, you can assuage the ache of your conscience. But if you are forcibly reminded of the dichotomy by seeing someone whose behavior doesn't comport with the sub-human way of living you have adopted, you're offended by them because it re-awakens the pangs of conscience.

The folks supporting these barren philosophies (and policies) are in the grip of the demonic--the anti-human spirit that wants to bring everything back to chaos. In the teeth of demographic evidence, they cling to the idea that more human beings are bad, subverting the first command that God gave to mankind: to be fruitful and multiply.

Ken Myers on the latest Mars Hill Audio journal has a guest who makes the interesting point that those who most embrace Darwinism are those who, in practice, refute him with their self-imposed sterility, while the Christians who scorn Darwin are the ones who behave as if he's correct.

[Mark B, Hanson]

Your second paragraph reminds me of 1971, when Jethro Tull released "Aqualung", and Ian Anderson said in an interview, "I have written an anti-God album". It left me wondering, if he was an athiest, why he seemed so angry at God for not existing. Why not just ignore Him as most of the rest of the rockers did? In fact, his behavior was one of the things that helped me take Jesus seriously at a time when I thought Him "ignorable".

[DavidB]

I will respond to Joe's comment only by saying that atheists should fear their own kind more...upwards of 150 million people killed in the 20th century by their own kind: communists, fascists, and the like as benefactors of the Enlightenment. In fact, one can go back to the French Revolution to see an almost immediate application of a godless philosophy imposed on a society. Ask the people of the Vendee region of France if religion nearly exterminated their society. They were nearly exterminated because of their religion. One hears the phrase often these days, "More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other reason." This is an ignorant statement made often by intelligent people and a result, I think, of simple bigotry and a dishonest approach to our collective history.

[Patrick]

Doesn't the scorn go both ways?

[dorotheos]

There are actually very few true atheists. Most are theomachists, and as such are actually more dangerous, due to their animosisities to God and believers, and paradoxically closer to salvation because they do in fact believe, and because they care, frequently more than ordinary church folks. Many have rejected abusive and distorted notions of the faith, and may uphold some of the ideals of faith, albeit in a confused and often distructive way. Ian Andersons work (an old favorite) may be a case in point. But how to get through to such with the real thing is the question. When it happens it is the work of the Holy Spirit of course, though we can do what we can with carefull argument and prayer.

[Little Gidding]

I've come to believe that the "anti-breeder" propaganda in our culture is the result of our regnant neognosticism. We really do love contracepted sex and really do despise the fruits of the womb. For us neognostics, this world really is evil in its own terms and good only insofar as it can be turned to its own dissolution.

[Bill R]

"...if you really know better?" There's the rub: deep down they fear they do not.

[BWalter]

And from the most recent Newsweek:

June 19, 2006 issue - In "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World," Linda Hirshman, a retired philosophy professor, argues that women should stop wasting their expensive degrees in the nursery.

Try wrapping your head around this feminist logic from the interview with Ms. Hirshman:

What's wrong with a woman quitting if she wants to and can afford it?
Don't you think it's a little weird that it's only women who make this choice? What exactly do they see as their range of choice? And is this a good choice? The fact they chose it doesn't make it right.

It's not a matter of Choice; It's a matter of making the Right Choice; evidently only unenlightened women choose to have kids.

Click here for the whole interview

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It's not a matter of Choice; It's a matter of making the Right Choice; evidently only unenlightened women choose to have kids.<<<

Precisely. One post-feminist woman wrote that she told her mother she was leaving her career to look after the kids, mom had a kiniption. "But I thought you said feminism was about choice", she told her mother. And mom shrilled back, "It is! But not THAT choice!"

[Gene Godbold]

Patrick,
If Christians scorn atheists or folks who don't procreate, it's hard to argue that they are following Jesus in this. Pity would be the more appropriate reaction and a desire to demonstrate a more excellent way.

[angel]

My husband (he's kinda believes in God, but is unsure of the nature of God) says the reason he finds most organized religon distasteful is twofold, 1) alot of them feel it necessary to try and shove their version of the truth down unbelievers' throats or if they believe somewhat differently, then to smugly tell that person how they are wrong and maybe not a real believer after all.
and 2) religious people each try to claim that thier theories on the nature of God are indeed the entirety of the truth on the matter .
I call the second thing trying to put God in a box.
Now I think the proselytizing can at the least be annoying (have you accepted Jay-sus into your heart?) and at the worst be dangerous (the radical muslems and jack chick tracts). I usually don't pay much mind.
I tend to hang with the Catholics (yes, I converted, not sure why, since I disagree with a lot of things they teach) because they tend to convert by example. --i.e. they go to a place and walk the walk as they say, by helping people without (hopefully) slipping a bible in the sack of flour. They don't hide thier faith, but they are not in your face about it either. Some others of different faiths are the same way . You have to hunt around for it though.
Anyhow, back to the point--we don't think it's a matter (at least for us ) of fear of not being "right" it's more of the annoyance factor.
The question I would ask is this : why do people (and this could encompass anything (the childfree people, the vegetarians, the peta people, etc) feel the need to shout down everyone else, especially if they feel the others don't feel the same? Conversely, why do groups of people get together (of simular beliefs) and smugly pat each other on the back (so to speak) while saying something of this nature "we're SO much better than whoever(s) because * we* really know what's the truth (of whatever).
Seeing that sort of thing go on makes me cringe inside and makes me really sad because that's a large part of why I have no friends and only really just share Catholism's beliefs marginally.

[Christopher Hathaway]

I tend to hang with the Catholics (yes, I converted, not sure why, since I disagree with a lot of things they teach)

Angel, you haven't really converted to Catholicism. You've just agreed to hang around with them. It's not even close to the same thing. If your Catholic friends haven't told you this it may be that they are poor catholics themselves or are way too polite for your own good.

Perhaps they have told you and that is one of those things you dislike about religious people.

As for the "puttting God in a box" thing. God does that Himself so that we can know Him. It's called the Incarnation.

[luthien]

Stuart,
That story sounds familiar...I pretty much have to live it, and I'm not even married yet. A lot of people, including my advisor and at least one of my dearest friends (the others politely mask their horror) just can't fathom why I, with a 3.905 GPA and the chance to have a wonderful career, would want to get married, have a bunch of kids, and homeschool them. Please pray for all of us girls who want to put our families before our careers, that we may have the courage and enuogh moral support to do it.

[Douglas]

Luthien,

I am in a profession with a large number of smart, attractive, unmarried women. They are, with few to no exceptions, miserable, and their misery manifests itself in very ugly ways. You have the right attitude.

One successful course I've seen followed by some women is to work for several years, leave to have children, then re-enter the workplace when the kids are in their late teens.

[Joe Long]

Douglas - my profession, too. Smart, attractive, unmarried, miserable, mean. They know they have the right to resent SOMEONE, but haven't figured out that it's whoever sold them the whole career bill of goods.

Luthien, keep confusing them! Their complacency will be shaken and maybe, someday, they'll remember that there WAS another choice - and they might check back with you to see how that worked out. You could well be a role model. My wife is.

[cantemir]

Angel,

I disagree with the word 'shove.' Apart from that, I fail to see the problem with your husband's point 1: if you believe that you have Good News from God, it's morally mandated that you shout it from the rooftops. If you think that other people are putting their souls in jeopardy, and you fail to warn them, then your cowardice may cost them something more valuable than merely their lives.

Point 2 is even simpler: yes, of course! If you believe that God became man so that mankind could be saved, and that we have the fullness of the truth in Jesus Christ, then you can be confident in the truth and saving power of your faith and message. I feel that this answers your words but not your objection, so perhaps you could rephrase or elucidate. (Or talk at length to a priest, since you're Catholic. Make sure you get a solid Catholic priest, not some kind of relativist or apostate; there are a few bad apples out there.)

Religion is very dangerous stuff. It is about matters of life and death, at minimum, and such serious matters do tend to shake things up. But it is even more dangerous to imagine, as so many do, that you can avoid the dangers of religious conviction by doubt; in that case, you're merely making decisions by default.

[angel]

Dear Christopher,
Observe how you support my assertion!
You tell me I haven't *really* converted, never mind the year long RCIA classes cummulating with the Easter vigil baptism, comfirmation and Euchrist (sp?). No, I have to embrace all the ancillary superfluous beliefs also!
And of course everyone has their own unique interepitation of the bible! Who to believe? The Jews ahve their Torah, the muslems the Koran, and the Christians the Bible. Even within all those groups, one can find hundreds of different interpetations of those writings! All say their take is the truth! Did God ditate to all the writers of those sacred scripts? If so, why did S/he/it allow some of the glaring scientific inaccuracies to be transscribed? (That's if you consider the bible to be literally true)
I am saying "I don't know" mostly because I don't have enough information either way.
From other historical data, we can assume that Pontius Pilate lived as well as Jesus and Herod. As far as the miricle stories go, we wander into the strange land of belief which is not dependent on reason (as my Philosophy Professor asserted).
So here I stand, (along with my husband) believing in God, but uncertain of the nature of God. Many different faiths (or lack thereof) each telling us something different.
As a side note, I stopped having personal conversations with priests when one told me that my husband of almost 7 years (then my cohabitating boyfriend of almost 2 years) was just using me because we were cohabitating. Ah well, what can one do?

[angel]

cantemir,
Perhaps I'm making decisions by default-however I feel like I'm being dishonest with myself if I commit to wholeheartedly to any particular dogma. Yeah, I quess it can be seen as rather sad, but what can one do?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It is about matters of life and death<<<

Oh, it's much more important than that!

[S.K. Davis]

Angel,

Perhaps you should ask yourself why you went through the conversion process if you weren't prepared to "commit wholeheartedly to any particular dogma." That in itself is a dishonest act, I'm afraid.

[angel]

Dear S.K Davis,
Maybe it had something to do with honoring the faith of my mom's side of the family. (my mom believed in God but fell out of catholicism -she said because her first hubby was abusive and at that time the church didn't allow any divorce (the late 50's early 60's)) she still kept around stuff like a light up baby Jesus complete with lace trimmed gown and crown -loved to play with that when I was a kid. and her prayer book I think she may have got w/ her 1st communion. I also love rosaries- my uncle got the biggest kick out of the fact that I carry one around w/ me. (tho at that time I hadn't converted.) I like the liturgy. I love catholic art.
I like this take on the Incarnation-http://www.americancatholic.org/e-News/FriarJack/fj122805.asp.
I don't like the all or nothing thoery of belief. I don't care for 'my version of God is the real one, and all you other poor deluded fools are gonna fry" theory of belief.
I have great difficulty shutting down my critical thinking skills, and this becomes quite problematic when I wander into the parallel realms of philosophy and religion. I like to explore these worlds but feel ultimately alien to them.
Remember that old 90's song that asked 'what would you ask God if you had just one question?'
my question would be "why?"
I don't feel I am being willfully obtuse in my waffling on belief, just achingly honest.
I don't insist that you understand, I just hope God does.

[Gene Godbold]

Hey Angel,
At least you're game enough to keep coming back.

It is true that there are lots of different interpretations of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, but there is a deep well of agreement that we share and that is often obscured by the controversialists among us. And the different interpretations are typically different emphases and not radical disagreements as much as some would like to pretend. ("No!" someone yells, "X--insert pet doctrine--is the key to seeing how the whole Bible fits together!") :-)

The Koran is a different beast entirely. Muslims say that it was entirely dictated to the illiterate Muhammad by God so there is no room for interpretation. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob trusted human agents to convey His message. Allah, not so much.

As for the glaring scientific inaccuracies...I'm a working scientist (Ph.D in biochemistry) and a lot more is made of that at a popular level that can really be sustained. It wasn't necessary for Moses to get a science lecture from God on how the universe was made so he could scribble it down in Genesis. The whole idea that there was a God behind and before there was anything else is a completely novel concept--no religion or philosophy before Judaism had it. And a lot of atheists recoiled from the idea of a Big Bang because it looked a heck of a lot like the Genesis account of creation. (It turns out to be the best current scientific description for how the universe began.) And miracles? Scientists don't understand gravity and you think they know enough (even collectively) to pronounce on the impossibility of something like a miracle? There is no a priori philosophical objection to miracles that holds the tiniest amount of water. And there can be no "scientific" evidence against miracles in general. All scientists can do is chart the way the universe normally works.

You have faith in the Father by hearing His promises and trusting that He'll bring them to pass. I'm assuming that you wouldn't have committed yourself to RCIA classes and baptism if you didn't have faith, however mixed it is with doubt. I think it would help if you started looking at the assumptions of the world critically (rationally) and testing what it has to offer relative to the promises offered to all of us in Jesus. This is, at least, what brought me around. I wish you the best.

[cantemir]

Angel,

Perhaps I'm making decisions by default-however I feel like I'm being dishonest with myself if I commit to wholeheartedly to any particular dogma.

The answer to this is to study and pray, rather than to give up. Many people do the latter rather than the former.

Maybe it had something to do with honoring the faith of my mom's side of the family. (my mom believed in God but fell out of catholicism -she said because her first hubby was abusive and at that time the church didn't allow any divorce (the late 50's early 60's)) she still kept around stuff like a light up baby Jesus complete with lace trimmed gown and crown -loved to play with that when I was a kid. and her prayer book I think she may have got w/ her 1st communion. I also love rosaries- my uncle got the biggest kick out of the fact that I carry one around w/ me. (tho at that time I hadn't converted.) I like the liturgy. I love catholic art.

I get the feeling that a lot of American Catholics are in your situation. In my opinion, attachment to the cultural trappings of Catholicism is not a substitute for the sincere practice of the Catholic Christian faith. If you'll permit me the analogy, it's like loving the US flag but not the freedom it stands for; the flag is nothing without the freedom.

No, I have to embrace all the ancillary superfluous beliefs also!

I think that this is what is making people question the depth of your Catholicism on this board. You don't trust the Church, so why do you want to take its Eucharist?

You don't have to choose between trusting the Church and trusting your own rational faculties. (One of the subtlest poisons to faith is the idea -- emphatically denied in Catholicism -- that faith and reason are enemies.) I strongly suggest that you discuss your questions with an intelligent, conservative priest, who will be able to answer you properly on every point.

As a side note, I stopped having personal conversations with priests when one told me that my husband of almost 7 years (then my cohabitating boyfriend of almost 2 years) was just using me because we were cohabitating. Ah well, what can one do?

Aha. Well, he was right as to everything but motive. Honestly now, don't you know many women whose boyfriends have, in fact, used them sexually? Your priest wasn't 'hip' to the modern practice of marrying after several years of cohabitation, but that's not his fault: it has no historical precedent. I'd imagine that he wasn't the only person you shocked.

In any case, that's not a good reason for ignoring the clergy in the future, I'm afraid. They're not mere appendages to the Church.

Many different faiths (or lack thereof) each telling us something different.

The point of an open mind is, Chesterton said, the same as that of an open mouth: to close on something solid. From your burst of activity on this, forgive me, random conservative internet board, it sounds like you have no idea how to determine the truth of the various claims confidently presented to you by various people. Well, then, go and study! Form your own opinions from critical inquiry! The truth is hard, but I can guarantee that if you don't look for it you'll never find it!

[RatherNotSay]

Angel,

I'm a convert to the Catholic Church too. Part of the rite of acceptance typically is to say - more like swear, in front of God and a congregation on the Easter Vigil - that you believe all that the Catholic Church proclaims to be revealed by God. So pretty much the Catechism. Even a minimalist would insist on the Nicene Creed we say at every Sunday Mass. Saying that thing at the Easter Vigil - or the Creed for that matter - and not meaning it is dishonest.

I'm not saying this as part of a heresy hunt to run you out of the church. Far from it. It may, indeed, be the best place for God's grace to work in your life in the ongoing process of conversion all of us are called to in order to become what God wants us to be: saints. It's not for me to say what the state of your soul is.

I'm saying it because even your statements here reflect kind of a lack of knowledge about what your own faith teaches, and maybe if you got to know it a little better you'd find it tailor-made to answer your questions. For instance, that line about "my version of God is the real one, and all you other poor deluded fools are gonna fry" is not, in fact, what the Catholic Church teaches, even though it does teach that the fullness of the truth about God, revealed through Christ, is manifested in this church he founded. The Catechism has some on this. For more, see, for instance, the relevant portion of Lumen Gentium from the Second Vatican Council, which you can find online. Or for that matter Paul's letter to the Romans.

There are actually quite excellent reasons to believe the miracles of the Gospel, particularly the biggest one of all, the Resurrection. These reasons are not hard to find, if one is honestly seeking them. Extremely smart people have believed for 2,000 years that these events happened, in faith yes, but also in part because of the quality of the testimony.

Your biggest objection seems to be the "scandal of particularity" - that matters of eternal weight and inscrutable depth hinge on real people (Jesus, Mary, Paul, Moses), real events (births, deaths, miracles) and real decisions that we make about them in our lives. That strikes me as one of the biggest objections most (post)modern Westerners have to organized religious faith (the other being the demands of Christian morality). It was one of mine, when I was away from faith altogether for a decade. Two points about it come to mind:

1. The law of noncontradiction is true. God cannot be both personal and impersonal. He may be Yahweh or It may be The Force from Star Wars, but if one is true, the other is false. Jesus cannot be both the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity and also not the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Heaven, hell and sin either exist or they don't. Thus, doctrines and dogmas - those guideposts by which we navigate the unfathomable sea of the mystery of God - are indespensible and far from irrelevant. If God exists (and only fools believe otherwise) then some things are true about Him and others are not. And the truth about God is not merely the most important truth in the universe, it's a truth more important than the universe, which is but a gratuitous act of God's love.

2. The idea that God sent His Son to Earth to reveal Himself, reconcile us to Him and bridge the chasm sin created is not only supported by history but by common sense. It is a what a person God who wished Himself to be known might do with creatures like us. All our striving and searching, before and after the life of Christ, to plumb the nature of God ourselves through philosphy and mythology serves to illustrate a truth Justin Martyr remarked on nearly 20 centuries ago - we are not capable of reaching God all the way with our minds; He had to come to us. Just like the Bible says. It follows that His revelation in Jesus Christ was not meant to be some big debating society or literary club. That's one of the things I find so sane about being Catholic - it does not leave us in the position of being blind guides for ourselves, expected to puzzle out every dogma afresh with each succeeding generation, as though we are all experts in Scripture on the order of St. Jerome, philosophers on the order of St. Thomas Aquinas and linguists and seekers of the quality of St. Augustine, mystics on the order of St. John of the Cross. We do not, in short, have to be our own popes.

This doesn't mean we "put God in a box" or give up the use of our reason or stop seeking to understand God better. It means we use our reason as "faith seeking understanding," recognizing that God is a mystery but that for our good He has chosen to reveal something of Himself through the church he founded to be the "pillar of truth," our mother and teacher.

Believe me, I am not by birth a humble person with regard to my intellectual capacity, and submitting myself to an authority did not come any more naturally to me than I suspect it does to any other American. But in the interest of intellectual honesty, I had to finally assess my experiment in cobbled together New Age/quasi-Buddhist, "no one can no the nature of God" theology as complete failure - not redemptive, coherent, true or even enjoyable. Once I surrendered and realized it wasn't all about me, it became clear that the authoritative church was far less scandalous than the authority I had attempted to exercise myself.

For whatever it's worth, if you read that far.

[G. R.]

S. K. Davis,

I don't know if I agree - I mean, how much do you really have to work through in your mind to say that you want to throw in your lot with the R.C. Church? Was Anne Rice, for instance, wrong to convert to Catholicism without first working out all the confusions and ramifications of her relationship to her homosexual son? Her attitude was "I'm going to just go back, and let God work through all my issues and disagreements."

Not to wholeheartedly endorse Cafeteria Catholicism, but does not sanctification also apply to the mind? We need not first clean up our act before falling at the feet of Christ - why not just go to him and let him slowly show us where our thinking is muddled?

[Gina]

Your biggest objection seems to be the "scandal of particularity" - that matters of eternal weight and inscrutable depth hinge on real people (Jesus, Mary, Paul, Moses), real events (births, deaths, miracles) and real decisions that we make about them in our lives.

Excellent observation about the underlying problems many seem to have with Christianity, and well said.

[Douglas]

That's one of the things I find so sane about being Catholic - it does not leave us in the position of being blind guides for ourselves, expected to puzzle out every dogma afresh with each succeeding generation, as though we are all experts in Scripture on the order of St. Jerome, philosophers on the order of St. Thomas Aquinas and linguists and seekers of the quality of St. Augustine, mystics on the order of St. John of the Cross. We do not, in short, have to be our own popes.

This is a trenchant criticism of Protestantism, which my Catholic friends characterize as the lone believer and his Bible, sallying forth alone against the forces of darkness.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>That's one of the things I find so sane about being Catholic - it does not leave us in the position of being blind guides for ourselves, expected to puzzle out every dogma afresh with each succeeding generation, as though we are all experts in Scripture on the order of St. Jerome, philosophers on the order of St. Thomas Aquinas and linguists and seekers of the quality of St. Augustine, mystics on the order of St. John of the Cross. We do not, in short, have to be our own popes.<<<

So how do you explain the greater theological unity of the Eastern Orthodox, who though lacking a Pope, seem to have their act together with regard to the faith?

As a Catholic, I'm just curious. And, inter alia, Augustine was a lousy linguist. Jerome was the linguist, Augustine the exegete. Being Eastern Catholic, I have issues with a lot of what they and Aquinas have written, but I do find John of the Cross to be fully in line with the mysticism of the Fathers, which is probably why he was suspect in his own day.

[S.K. Davis]

G.R.,

Actually, I'm Eastern Orthodox so I probably shouldn't be meddling in an intramural affair.

My point is, if you accept conversion into a church, that means being wholeheartedly obedient to its dogmas, even while you muddle through your understanding of them, even if you NEVER fully understand them. That's hard, but if you're not willing to do that, then you should consider waiting to go through a formal conversion.

[angel]

Rathernotsay,

Ok, I didn't understand in particular this part of your post:

Your biggest objection seems to be the "scandal of particularity" - that matters of eternal weight and inscrutable depth hinge on real people (Jesus, Mary, Paul, Moses), real events (births, deaths, miracles) and real decisions that we make about them in our lives. That strikes me as one of the biggest objections most (post)modern Westerners have to organized religious faith (the other being the demands of Christian morality)

In fact, I'm not entirely sure that I understand any of your post.

Mind clarifying?

[angel]

cantemir,
Aha. Well, he was right as to everything but motive. Honestly now, don't you know many women whose boyfriends have, in fact, used them sexually? Your priest wasn't 'hip' to the modern practice of marrying after several years of cohabitation, but that's not his fault: it has no historical precedent. I'd imagine that he wasn't the only person you shocked.

What do you mean, he was right as to everything but motive?

and

What may I infer by "I imagine he wasn't the only person you shocked"?

I have known of many men using women for sex, cohabitating or not. It goes both ways, people use each other for a variety of reasons.

People like to say well it's this way or it is not. I have seen too many shades of grey to try to say I can confidently judge all ethical situations by any one standard.

[cantemir]

Angel,

I take it that you accept the rest of my substantive points, then? :)

The point is that pre-marital (or, more often, non-marital) cohabition was unthinkable until the last generation. It was the kind of thing that got people fired and blackballed from polite society.

Your priest was right to call it wrong, but misread your future husband's motives, because in his time, most men who cohabited were snakes.

I have seen too many shades of grey to try to say I can confidently judge all ethical situations by any one standard.

Really. I'll bet that you have strong opinions once the topics get repugnant enough.

[wahappi]

Angel:

Hang in there! I spend a lot of time puzzling over the Church and her actions. I don't understand all her dogmas. I get confused by the Liturgical arguements etc.

Just recieve the sacraments, pray to Our Lord and his Mom, ask St. Michael to protect you.

Even if you don't *really* believe, God and the Saints know you and want you.

There's a classic prayer that goes "Lord I believe: help my unbelief".

Don't let all us conservative folk drive you away--I let the liberal folk do that to me years ago, and it wasn't the best thing that happened to me, or my family.

I will say a prayer for you, please do so for me.

[angel]

Cantemir,

Really. I'll bet that you have strong opinions once the topics get repugnant enough

Of course, there is no such thing as an absolute relativist, but that's beside the point.

I have read C.S Lewis in depth (though not his fiction). I have read alot of stuff on Americancatholic.org. I have picked through Thomas Merton and The Carchecism of the Catholic Church. I have also read Flannery O'Conner (even wrote a paper on her story "revelation" The paper was about her story and the nature of Grace) The only religions that I haven't read much about are Judaism and Islam.
Thing is, just because someone writes about something (this includes sacred texts) doesn't make it *the* truth. This excludes stuff like mathematics or alot of sciences . That stuff can for the most part be proved in some way empirically.
So it goes to follow that say some priest says 'only men can be priests, because he(Jesus) only chose men diciples'. well, I think God came down as a man because he wouldn't have gotten very far as a woman in those days, and of course then, if he wanted his word to be spread, you have to have male diciples. However! This is how many centuries later and there's no reason why women couldn't fit the bill except tradition says nay.
I'm not sure if I'm being clear here, but if you are supposed to seek truth but you don't come to the same conclusions as others who's to say what really the truth is? Maybe God.
One can say that God dictated the truth in the Bible or the Koran or what have you, but these are just men interpeting something written by dead men who say God dictated it to them. Nobody really knows except for maybe the dead men. And God.

[angel]

Ok, please disregard my last post. i'm tired and I'm not sure I'm being very coherent in expressing my thoughts, thanks.

[Kip Watson]

Angel,

Jesus is a lot more concerned with the state of your heart than your mind, and 'mind' includes what doctrine you assert.

The Gospels are full of criticism of those with great scriptural understanding who reject the living God in their hearts (g. 'they do not know my Father', 'they hold the keys of the temple but do not go in' 'the first shall be last' etc), and Christ shows himself forgiving towards those with true hearts and simple faith, however far from optimum doctrinal understanding they are (the Good Samaritan, 'the servant who knows not his Lord's wishes will be punished with few stripes', the Publican's prayer, the Centurion etc).

In fact, Jesus most vehement criticisms are against those who waste the understanding God has given them on legalistic argumentation. ('Vipers', 'hypocrites', ''theirs will be the sign of Jonah', the steward beaten with many stripes, the unjust steward thrown in prison, etc.)

The sheep know the Shepherd and the Shepherd knows his sheep. But as for the hired hand...

[rathernotsay]

Ok, I didn't understand in particular this part of your post:

>> Your biggest objection seems to be the "scandal of particularity" (snip)<<

In fact, I'm not entirely sure that I understand any of your post.

Mind clarifying?

Actually, what I wrote is about the best I can do, and other than picking with the margins of my writing, I'm not sure I can. I'll give it one more shot.

The general gist of my post was that you seem to have trouble (rightly or wrongly) accepting the idea that some things people believe about God are true and some things people believe about Him are false and that the truth or falsity of those beliefs matters and can, at least to some degree, be judged.

Lots of people have the same trouble, for a variety of reasons. One I mentioned and you cited with a question mark is that some people find it absurd to think the infinite, all-powerful Creator of the universe chose to put infinite weight on finite, concrete persons and events, particularly a series of them that showed up about 2,000 years ago, with regard to which we must make choices. Or that those events were brought about through a history of a "chosen people" or a given church or scripture. Although we're not good at it, thinking about the God known to the philosophers, that abstract sketch, is a lot more comfortable for us than thinking about the family portrait of the God who chose a particular moment in time to come as a flesh-and-blood man (nothing about the plan of salvation, including the era in which it took place, is accidental) uncomfortably like us and all too personal - the one who loves us more fiercely than we love anyone, numbers the hairs on our heads, knows our every thought, makes serious demands of us and will someday judge us. Another reason for this trouble, one which, in retrospect, is more explicit in your posts, is a (not altogether wrong) sense of egalitarianism, for instance your legitimate concern about those with false beliefs "frying." It's unpleasant to say: "Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, even fellow Christians, you're wrong." Of course, we try not to be polemical about it. But still, to say something is true is to say at least some other things are not true. Thus, to many in our culture, making truth claims about God is taboo.

The bulk of the rest of my post was mostly sketching arguments that:

1. The particularity of God's plan actually makes a lot of sense.

2. Truth and falsity about God by definition are critically important and infinitely relevant, and not completely unknowable.

3. It doesn't necessarily follow from this that those who get something wrong about God, particularly through not fault of their own, fry. It is quite true that, as another poster mentioned, God is much more interested in our loving Him back than He is in our acumen as theologians, the caveat being that the more we know the truth about the one we love, the better we can love Him.

4. The Christian and particularly Catholic view (and I nod to our Orthodox brothers, as well) makes a very great deal of intuitive and logical sense when it comes to seeking what is true about God.

I hate to post something that may be provocative and then leave, but I'm likely not going to be able to keep up the conversation unless maybe I really botched something. Thanks to all who responded to my earlier post, in whatever vein.

Angel, this, again, is offered for whatever it is worth from someone who has walked part of his journey in terrain reminiscent of yours, so far as I can tell. I'm a big believer in "seek and ye shall find" and "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." They go together, I think. If we seek the truth about God for its own sake and His own sake, He will help us find it, guaranteed. My best advice is to simply give the claims of the church the kind of hearing you would want to give to anyone you wish to be fair to, and spend a lot of time in prayer about it, particularly with the Blessed Sacrament.

I should take up for my man St. Augustine before I go, though. He was of course a great exegete, but he was a teacher of rhetoric and a terrific writer, as well. Genius seeps from every page, even in translation. "Linguist" was an inexcusably poor choice of words when I really meant writer. As for his status as a theologian, Eastern Rite Catholics recognize the same Doctors of the Church those of us in the Roman Rite do, don't they?

[rathernotsay]

Errata:

Or that those events were brought about through a history of a "chosen people" or a given church or scripture.

The events and people I'm talking about were not brought about through church or scripture, of course. I meant authoritative churches and scriptures are scandalous in a similar way.

... to come as a flesh-and-blood man ... uncomfortably like us and all too personal ....

And uncomfortably unlike us, of course.

[firinnteine]

Augustine may or may not have been much of a linguist, but he's a pretty darn interesting semiotician, about fifteen hundred years before "Semiotics" was invented ("there is nothing new under the sun") -- see his early dialogue The Teacher.

[Dcn. Michael D. Harmon]

I hope everyone who has contributed to this thread remembers to pray for Angel and her husband, that God would reveal Himself more and more clearly to them. She has a considerable amount of intestinal fortitude to have been as open and honest as she was about her faith. Yes, the Christian faith is rational (except where it's superrational -- not, please note, irrational) but that doesn't mean anyone ever gets argued into belief. Faith is a gift from God, and comes by His grace, without which none of us would be saved.

God bless you, Angel. Keep asking questions, but ask them of God, too. He will answer them all, sometimes in very surprising ways.

[cyrano/rox]

May I come in here?

I am a Christian, of the Eastern Church, a convert from modern philosophical agnosticism.

I would speak to the theomachists:

You who reject such Christianity as was shown to you, I salute you. Nobly have you spurned or stepped away from the images of a God you could not accept.

With honor have you walked out on churches that preached self interest and sought illegitimate power.

In high justice have you looked back on the ill deeds done in the name of the cross and refused to do another.

You hold the religion up to the finest ideals you can find, and see that men have fallen short for the shabbiest of reasons.

I salute you, but I have something to ask.

Whence your honor, justice, wisdom and ideals? Whence the clear and strong sense that power has been sought, gained, and used without legitimacy? Whence, even, the idea that God ought to be just, noble, wise and disinterested?

The old gods were none of these, or not consistently. For one story of Jove conferring a just sentence, there are three of his adulteries. Shiva has a dangerous, sardonic humor; Thor can't stay sober. Moloch and Baal accepted the sacrifice of infants; Huichipotchtli and associated deities are unspeakable. Usurpers; cannibals; patricides; spoiled and anxious heirs of that great estate, the world. Ourselves, in fact, writ large.

Power should not be wielded for personal gain; armies should not be deployed to slaughter those who disbelieve; women should not be treated as things by men. Persons are not expendable, nor fungible, nor consumable; wealth is not to be withheld from those in need.

These are radical new thoughts that appears about two millennia ago, though there were flashes here and there before. Not before Christ were these thoughts integrated both with worldly justice and the numinous something that claims us.

Though out of fashion in literature, and taking a smaller place than erstwhile in the English Major’s Enchiridion, it is much adopted in private life. That is, rejection of God as described by, for example, Calvinism, your local well-meaning fool of a preacher, censorious old ladies, rightwing essayists, windbags blown up to the girth, but not the heft, of Chesterton.