Ask a Catholic

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

And that's a great part of what I have trouble with. It seems more people use religion to divide and hate rather than love. You don't need to believe to believe in religion to be a good person.

A quote popped up in my Facebook feed that is a good reply to this. I'll reply to the rest later.

“It is no disgrace to Christianity, it is no disgrace to any great religion, that its counsels of perfection have not made every single person perfect. If after centuries a disparity is still found between its ideal and its followers, it only means that the religion still maintains the ideal, and the followers still need it."

~G.K. Chesterton: 'Illustrated London News,' March 2, 1929.

The man in the video you posted is a fantastic man. We should all strive to be more like him, Christian or not. However, if your point was to state that Christianity is woefully inept at inspiring its followers to its ideals, I don't see how this video proves that. ALL religions are inept at inspiring their followers to purity, charity, and love. We are human. We are imperfect. As G.K. Chesterton says above, that would only be the fault of the religion if the religion altered its teachings to appeal to those who refuse to follow them.

Okay, one more quote before I go. I'll have to paraphrase this one since I can't find/remember where it's from:

"If you're worried there are too many heretics in church, don't worry. There's always room for one more."

[Teuthida]

So we're in agreement that religion isn't a deciding factor if you're a good person or not.


Now I pose this question to you: If Christianity didn't promise an eternal afterlife in heaven (or hell), and explicitly said that when you die, that's it, would you still be as devout a Catholic as you are?


Sort of on topic....just remembered this comic and thought I'd share.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

So we're in agreement that religion isn't a deciding factor if you're a good person or not.


Now I pose this question to you: If Christianity didn't promise an eternal afterlife in heaven (or hell), and explicitly said that when you die, that's it, would you still be as devout a Catholic as you are?

Sorry for not posting in so long. Busy life followed by avoiding giving a response because it takes a lot of time, but I'll try and start being active again.

I don't know. That's a very good question. I'm not sure what I would do. Basically, you are proposing a situation almost identical to the conclusion of atheism. In this situation, our life is only measured in our affect on others and the legacy we leave for future generations. Therefore, I would probably have an outlook similar to that of most well-minded atheists. Try to find meaning where possible and make a positive impact through my relations with others.

This has brought to mind the idea that being a Christian is ultimately a selfish endeavor. Sure, it requires personal sacrifice (sometimes great personal sacrifice), but the end goal is eternal life for yourself.

[jeepnut]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

It's been forever since I took biology (actually going back to college in a few months to continue the bio degree I abandoned a decade ago in favor of art) so looking forward to having a proper debate on evolutionary once I'm refreshed.

Worrying about trivial things such as if there is good or evil in the world is for people who have time to do so. (I personally don't believe in good and evil. They're just man-made labels.) Once civilizations begun to arise, and you had a bit of downtime, of course the human mind would wonder about these things. Would be as simple as four cave men sitting around a fire after a successful day hunting and chatting about why things are the way they are. Wondering about the way things are gives rise to new ideas, and new ideas gives rise to better techniques of solving the pressing problems.

As for morality. It is ingrained. You want your genes to pass on. That is the ultimate goal. And if not you, then genes similar to yours, so you would also care about your family such as cousins. And so on. Not sure at which point humans began to care for those distinctly related from themselves. Altruism can be beneficial though.

So I would say it's more altruism, rather than morality, since many different species exhibit that. Rather than give you hazy memories of biology class I'd refer you read up on this. It's quite interesting. It's basically do unto others. Do something for someone else and expect to get treated in kind. If someone holds out, then the whole thing can collapse. Take vampire bats. If a bat returns home after a night of bloodsucking but didn't get enough blood, another will feed the bat a share of the blood it collected. So if sometime in the future it happens to the giving bat, it can expect to receive blood on one of its bad nights.

I realized that I promised a response to this and never did so.

First off, a question: Do you agree that there is an objective morality? For instance, that there are certain actions or behaviors that are always right or wrong, regardless of the circumstances?

It seems from your statements above that you equate altruism with morality. I would disagree with this belief. While animals may be capable of forgoing a personal gain for the benefit of the group, they show no sign of having a concept of "right" vs. "wrong" like humans do. For instance, when you hear a story on the news of a mother who drowned her children, you would rightly comment that that action was "wrong" despite it having no direct perceivable effect on you. Animals do not judge actions as "right" or "wrong" because they do not have a system of morality.

Furthermore, while science may be capable of describing a mechanism by which a certain action is beneficial to humans, science is not capable of describing why human beings have an obligation to choose the correct action.

Because of this, I argue that objective morality does not have a natural explanation.

[Seth]

Catholicism was the scourge of Europe for over a thousand years.

I'm not saying many of the clergy weren't brilliant contributors to the western cultural ethos.

What I'm saying is that, there's a reason Protesters didn't give up on their right to read the Bible. Even if Rome insists the Latin Vulgate is the final say on doctrinal integrity(a farce), that doesn't erase history, Textus Receptus and the practicing forms of Christianity that predated the pagan cultural infusion of the Roman Church.

[Seth]

How about let's flip this and



Ask a Protestant.





I will posit that Protestantism was the actual catalyst for the Age of Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy – an attitude captured by the phrase Sapere aude, "Dare to know".

My family escaped France during the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre. I take separation of church and state super duper seriously.

Gavin McInnis and other Catholics would prefer to flick prayer beads and light candles whilst ignoring the books.


really though, Protestantism is effectively dead. Well almost. There's still freedom in the west. Too bad the UN is in charge of net neutrality. That's a bummer.




I would encourage everyone to read the gospels. Set one of your homepage tabs to biblegateway.

Spiritual nourishment.