There are more non-Catholic Christians here than Catholics, which I find fascinating that so many are attracted to a Catholic forum. One wonders why this is. Why are you drawn to a faith-based forum? Could it be that you know deep down that there is meaning in this life?
I just wanted to interview some Gen Z Catholics to get the inside scoop on why they are all turning to the church. It interests me from a sociological perspective.
This is very sad. I’m sorry that their Marriage did not work. I am even more saddened that they too have fallen away from the Faith.
It was for the best.
Cade, I’m assuming both of your parents are/were faithful practicing Catholics.
I don’t think that Faithful Catholic parents should be surprised when at least some of their children leave the faith. Jesus Himself said that he came to divide, even within families.
I capitalized the “F” in faithful to emphasize the small percentage of Catholics relative to Catholics as a whole that are extreme in how they practice their faith. By “extreme”, I’m not making a judgement or a criticism. From a Catholic faith perspective, “extreme” = the ideal/preferred way of practicing the faith in all things. “Extreme” (relative to most Catholics in the Western World today) can include such things as daily Mass, belonging to an Ecclesial Community, Holy Water fonts in the home, daily devotions, daily family prayer, frequent Confession, etc. Again, it’s a fact that practices such as those are extreme compared to most Catholics today.
While it can be argued that “God is love” and the Catholic Church teaches and promotes “love” in kind, it can certainly also be argued, and credibly, that underpinnings of Christianity in general and more so, Catholicism, are: fear, guilt and shame.
When raising children in an “extreme” Catholic household, some of the children will embrace the faith and respond positively to the rigidity and scope of such devotion and adopt it for their own lives. However, a “blind spot” a lot of “extreme” Catholic parents have, is not even being able to conceptualize that some children raised in such families can be negatively affected. Some children can and do focus their thoughts and are more deeply affected by the fear, guilt and shame. Nightmares about going to Hell, fearing the judgement of their parents and resultant consequences, etc. Truly suffering from Scruples while being a child. It may or may not surprise you that there are therapies and therapists centered around the healing from “Religious Trauma” ie the psychological damage that some people can experience by being raised in an “extreme” religious family. Damage that can negatively affect a person throughout their lives and which can manifest itself in surprising ways.
Personally I don’t consider Catholicism, proper, to be a cult. People are free to worship in any Catholic church of their choosing and moreover, are also free to come and go without harsh judgement, fear, etc. I do however believe that some people within the Catholic faith, which can include specific families can take the practice and teaching of their type of faith to the level of either a cult or at least cult-like. Children raised that way will either accept, adhere to and continue practicing the faith that way, they’ll reject it. In my experience and observations “extreme” Catholic families rarely produce moderates.
In all I’ve said, am I implying that Catholic parents should be moderate in their faith for a better chance of producing faithful Catholic children/adults? No. As long as parents are not psychologically or physically abusive with their level of “extreme” practice, they’re choosing what they choose in how they parent and teach their children.
Again the “blind spot” is not realizing that some children will have a negative childhood experience from “extreme” beliefs and practices even if the parents have the best of intentions. That’s just a fact.
No, They were Presbyterian until their Pastor converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and then they become non-Denominational.
Oh for sure. Every child is different. My Aunt was very strict and half of her children have rebelled and the other half are filled with the genuine joy of Christ.
I parent like my Mom parented me. Lead by example. Have boundaries, but allow some slack.
The same way Sartre did: existence precedes essence. We exist, that’s true. But there’s no inherent meaning in our existence. It is up to us to create that meaning. Camus likewise denied that we have any inherent meaning; in fact, he goes a step further, deriding the human experience as “absurd”; I have a hard time arguing that it’s not.
Then there’s my politics, the central tenet of which is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” The purpose of a society, of government, is to provide for people. Provide for people and they’ll contribute what they can.
I’ve always found the idea that “morality” can only be rooted in Christianity or Theism to be troubling or that life has no meaning without religion. Life can matter and have meaning, for and because of its own sake, no? A person can believe and practice that life is a treasure to be protected because of its seemingly extreme rarity in the Universe. Focusing on the reason “why” we’re here can detract from living the best possible experience here on Earth and our actions to the contrary can negatively impact the lives of those who will come after us.
Murder, rape, slavery, exploitation, wanton greed, etc are wrong because they violate the autonomy each person should have a right to by being born on this Earth, regardless, irrespective of and independent of “why” there is life on Earth or “who” created it. Life is a treasure because of its uniqueness and seeming rarity in the Universe. It’s priceless because of those reasons. As such, humans, regardless of whether God exists or not, should respect life and the autonomy of others in order to promote the best opportunity for each person to live a good and enjoyable life and by doing so, also receive satisfaction in knowing that their efforts to contribute to peace and harmony will also help contribute to those who will come after us to be able to live in the same way.
It’s troubling to me when I hear things like: “Morality comes only from God. If God doesn’t exist or if people believed that God didn’t exist, there would be no morality and that would mean each of us would murder, rape, enslave, exploit, etc.” Yikes! Doesn’t that say more about those who feel that the only thing keeping themselves and others from absolute savagery is theological morality?
I want to live my life on this Earth in ways that I find most meaningful and most enjoyable. I want others to respect my autonomy. And…I want my own actions to contribute to others being able to do the same. I do not have a desire to exploit or victimize other people. I find the notions to be abhorrent, disgusting, pathetic and shameful on a basic human level.
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You do not know people if you think that they will “contribute” if they feel that the government and society owes them something. And even less so if they believe that human beings have no value. Can you tell me again what gives human beings value? Is it only what they can contribute? And if someone can contribute more, does this mean that they have more value?
How does government not then become your god? We see in North Korea that the dictator is worshiped like a god. His image is displayed in their homes. A group of doctors were brought in to do cataract surgery and when they could see, they gave glory to their communist dictator (either out of fear or genuine worship).
But you gotta serve somebody
I have made the claim that atheists cannot be moral. That is not my claim. My claim is that there is no such thing as morality if God does not exist, because good and evil would not exist. Rape would be nothing more than atoms bumping into one another. And why would that matter? And if your argument is that furthering the species gives meaning to something, then you would then have to argue that rape gives these clump of atoms meaning. And I have had a moral relativist argue that in some cases, rape is therefore a moral good, in the case that the human species is not reproducing at a sustainable rate (at least he is intellectually consistent, but I argue that rape is never a moral good).
No.
Why does the universe matter?
And why does that matter? Going back to the example I gave of rape. What if my best lived experience here on earth would be raping others and furthering the human species so that there are others who come after us? These others have value then, so what I would be doing could be argued as a positive not a negative.
But, let’s say in the case of over-population, then the positive meaning of my life might be to kill my offspring or others whom I deem have less meaning.
My first question is, what is a person?
What is good? What is joy? Clearly these are something that you believe give human life meaning. Correct?
Let me try to clarify what I am saying. Morality comes from God, but this does not mean that atheist cannot be moral. Objective morality is, in spite of what someone believes. However, if morality is relative, which many atheists do hold to, then morality would not matter, because it would only matter what someone believed is or is not moral.
And if there is no God, then morality would indeed be relative. And if morality is relative, then nothing really matters other than what you believe matters. Does this make sense?
What I find confusing is this. And this is my next question for the atheist who tries to convince a theist that there is no God. If you fear, or (to use your words) “find it troubling” that most theists believe that these evil acts would be meaningless if there is no God, then why would you try to convince theists that there is no God?
It says that it doesn’t matter what it says, because nothing at that point would matter truly. So, say you are right and there is no God. Then what anything says about anything is meaningless.
Again, this is relative if there is no God. If all the evil things give meaning and enjoyment to one’s life, then that is what then matters in a Godless universe.
What is respect?
Why? I know these questions are annoying and I do not intend them to be. My point is whey do these things matter if they are subjective.
Again, subjective and meaningless if God does not exist.
What gives human life value and meaning? What brings each individual joy? Then if an individual in not experiencing joy, does that then make their life meaningless and void of value? What perceived good they do for others? What if they either do no perceived good or feel that they are doing no good, does that then make their life meaningless and void of value? I could go down the list of things that you mentioned give your life value.
The Christian view is that our value comes from who God is and who we are in Him, in spite of how one feels or values oneself. And without God (in that He does not exist), there can be no such thing as good, love, meaning, and joy. In a world where God exists (this world) even those who do not recognize God do have value and meaning, and can do good, love, and experience joy, in spite of their unbelief, because of Who God is, not because of how they feel about themselves or about others.
The same way Sartre did: existence precedes essence. We exist, that’s true. But there’s no inherent meaning in our existence. It is up to us to create that meaning.
But then I said that “to each according to their need,” which invalidates everything you said.
You may not have read a previous post of mine in this thread. I’m not an Atheist. I have no idea if God exists or does not exist. I’m open to the idea that God exists, but perhaps due to limitations in my own intellect, I’m not capable of believing something, truly believing something that I don’t know. I wouldn’t try to convince a Theist to reject their belief in God. If a person believes in God and does not force that belief on others and promotes and contributes to supporting and respecting individual autonomy, more power to them. Objectively, religions that hold a belief in an afterlife can be and often are an effective coping mechanism for humans to address our instinctual fear of death.
What is a person? A human being.
As I’ve stated before, murder, rape, slavery, exploitation or victimizing someone violates their right to autonomy, full stop. I believe each person has a right to exist without intentionally being harmed by someone else. And I believe each person has a basic human duty to respect individual autonomy.
An example we’ve seen recently with the Epstein files and the level of intentional harm some people in positions of power, etc have committed towards others bears this out. Some might argue that without God, morality is entirely subjective and the monsters that have perpetrated such acts of exploitation and victimization believe they’re morally justified because they can. “Might makes right.” I don’t believe such actions are legitimately objectively defensible, because such actions violate the individual autonomy of others.
Who determines this?
Ideally it’s self determined
If I told you you were love incarnate, would you believe me?
No, I don’t think so
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Emphasis on Ideally, until it isn’t. That is the problem with Marxism. It will eventually be forced upon involuntary individuals. And then will lead to starvation and genocide ; )
It doesn’t have to.
At this point, you’re just making absolute claims. Anyone can just say stuff.
Catholic education necessarily leads to an overwhelming and misplaced sense of guilt in students. See? I can do it.
All i know is atheism is about materialism for this world? Which is why they often go with Communism strong central government, type of rule? To undermine majority religion and good traditional culture.
Whereas Loyalty and faith is very monotheism. As compared to paganistic belief systems often.
So interms of community. One has a value based difference.
I guess i will see what your response is here? Since the only difference, with disbelief in God means, is simply a seperation from those types of communities. Thats all it means
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I’m sorry but that’s complete nonsense.
Communism isn’t about a “strong central government.” Get that idea out of your head, because it’s wrong. Communism is ultimately about the abolition of government. And the “traditional cultures” you speak of are often rooted in patriarchy and exploitation, so yeah, they should go.
The rest of that, I don’t even know what you’re trying to say.