On the other hand, being just a regular member of my church, I also don't want to bring my background when I talk with my church community. Majority of people don't have the education that I had, and to explain half-assedly will just confuse them more.
It’s such a good series and probably paints a better understanding of what a fallen world means and what a proper relationship with God is like, yet using sci-fi literalism instead of religious dogma.
As someone who has read and studied the Inklings extensively, I think the fact that these few misfit professors had such an impact is astounding in that they were able to do it.
To be clear - their level of thought and depth was immense and powerful. All impact is merited. I think these sorts of collections of intellectual individuals are not as rare as we might think; they just don't break out into wider society in the way (in particular) Lewis and Tolkien did.
The average person of today (anecdotal citation here) is less read, less cultured, less knowledgeable of language, history, religion, philopsophy, and literature than the average person of yesteryear. Maybe this has something to do with it.
They're not underestimating the populace. They're catering to them in a desperate attempt to stay economically viable. The big beautiful building, supporting staff, production equipment, etc doesn't pay for itself.
Many churches are operated as businesses - ones which have realized that the easiest, most profitable mode of operation is to refrain from teaching/challenging your supporters as much as possible. Mix in a sense of tradition, some political activism, and a touch of self-righteousness and you've got yourself a recipe for a successful organization. At least until your congregation passes away and their children realize they have no use for you.
There are still a few churches out there which use the hellfire-and-brimstone approach, but it's not very effective on Gen X and younger. Nowadays, I'm certain it drives more people away from Christianity than it brings in.
However, lately I've been having the urge to dig into spirituality more, as I'm starting to suspect there can be something there, it's just that, except for a single sermon I sat in about people destroying natural rock formations that have been around for millions of years on a whim (yeah the pastor actually said millions of years), I haven't found anything that seemed worth reflecting on in church services I've attended in a very long time.
The book you posted seems interesting, I'll give that a read. I also found Tolstoy's 'A Confession' very interesting back in the day. Do you have other resources you would recommend I check out?
Are you looking primarily for Christianity or spirituality in general?
Braving the Wilderness (I haven’t finished this one)
For addiction: Breathing Underwater
New Seeds of Contemplation
By reputation: any CS Lewis, Bertrand Russel, and more contemporary is David Bentley Hart
Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch
The Four Agreements
Basically that’s what I’m see in my kindle at the moment that is relevant.
edit: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is incredible I hear the Bhagavad Gita is great Start Where You Are by Pemma Chodron is great
I'll take either. Thank you for those.
"There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be."
In this case, I would include the majority of Catholics who are oblivious today about the very basics of what the Church believes, much less why, and practice it seldomly on one hand or cliquishly on the other. When the culture becomes hostile to the faith, it is little wonder that many fall away if all that kept them there was vacuous habit and social inertia. Obviously, if your ideas are primitive and stupid, and the culture within the Church enters a malaise, and the promised rewards of defecting and joining the popular chorus seem so enticing, then you will experience defections and apostasy. The intellectual mediocrity of people like Dawkins impresses only the uneducated or the mis-educated.
But frankly, the kinds of apostasies we're seeing in the US are mostly a formality. Those defecting are effectively apostates already. They're just not going through the motions anymore, either because they're tired of faking it, or because the social incentives of putting on appearances no longer seem to exist. You might even fear being seen as a "weirdo", though you will find that most people will admire, even feel intimidated by, a well-informed and educated Catholic who unapologetically and without a feeling of shame or cowardice is frank about his beliefs.
Of course, FWIW, the Church itself is growing in numbers. It is growing rapidly in Africa and in Asia, though Catholics, and more broadly, Christians are the most persecuted group in the world (persecution also tends to produce more conversions). The West is undergoing a period of cultural decadence. Whether it will survive or whether the carcass will rot out completely, I don't know. At the moment, it looks like the future of the Church is on those continents.
Feser has written a few other books that others might also find useful. I have greatly enjoyed his writing. Some find Peter Kreeft, himself a convert, a good introduction (his "Apologetics" for instance), and I've heard some good things about Scott Hahn. These are probably good entry points before venturing into the vast literature of the last few millennia.
Oh, that's crap. There are more than 100 victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy where the Church itself covered up the crime. You can play with definitions however you want, but that is not a misperception of the Church, but a realistic view of the actions of the Church.
I've been Catholic, and the Church exists to extend the existence of the Church. Any other action is in service to that goal.
And there is plenty of moral outrage for coverups, no matter the source.
Please. People hate the Church because it says it is one thing and is another. The media is critical of the Church because the Church has tried to make itself the authority on people's behavior, yet itself behaves in a reprehensible manner. Maybe it should just go back to being the Mafia's bank and just obliquely supporting drug cartels and human rights abuses via loans?
Your whole comment is just whataboutism. You've an opportunity to refute the assertion that the Church knowingly covered up abuse of children, and you've decided that if others have done it, it can't be that bad.
Heck, if the Church defrocked the abusers (those in need of its "cures") when they were reported, and took actions to keep them from abusing and answer for their crimes to the legal authorities, no one would have this (particular) problem. But the Church didn't, because it was protecting itself. The Church is more important to the Church than the victims of those crimes.
Hence, the Church exists to ensure the existent of itself, and all it's actions are in service of that singular goal.
Frankly, moral outrage at child sexual abuse and the systematic cover up of the abuse and protection of the abusers is justified. If the Bible is written in such a way that such moral outrage is a sickness, then it is truly awful foundation to base your morality upon.
But thank _you_ for minimizing the responsibility of those covering up the crimes and ensuring that they could continue.
Moral outrage is not a sickness - moral outrage is thinking God's thoughts after Him and so is to be commended!
Also, no evidence of any god exists, but that is another argument. Let's stick with arguments that postulates the existence of a God in the Catholic tradition.
First, according to the Bible, papal infallibility has whatever the Church does held as law in Heaven. Stupid rule, but there you are. Therefore, if we judge that covering up and enabling child abuse is immoral, then the Church is by its own rule, immoral. Well, that doesn't work out so well for the Church. So let's leave that aside.
The Catholic Church (and other denominations) tries explain evil (and thus side step the "All Good, All Power, and All Knowing -- pick two problem of God), but claiming that it is all part of God's greater plan. The difficulty here is that it doesn't side step the problem, but tried to solve it by adding a layer of abstraction to it. What you end up with is that God's plan has to be definitionally immoral because it came from the mind of God.
The answer is, of course, who can know the mind of God? It sort of kicks the can down the road much the way the Millerites (now Seventh Day Adventists) do on the end of the world and QAnon does with Trump coming back (was it January 20th? Or March 6th? Or March 20th?). Evil exists because God's plan demands it, but somehow removes the responsibility of God's plan from God.
So, the children were abused by the men acting in God's name because God's plan demanded their suffering, but God owns none of the responsibility because you can't possibly understand the reason that God required the suffering of those children. Nice work, if you can get it.
Free will (in the Catholic tradition) allows the ability to see the harm that actions do upon others, but somehow we are supposed to turn a blind eye to that done under the protection of God. Because those children were clearly not under the protection of God.
Divine Physician, indeed. Physician, heal thyself.
I don’t see anything about the general population, but to bring up schools is whataboutism. Unfortunately predators seek out jobs that will put them close to children. The Catholic Church coverups go up to the chain of command and they continue to let pedophile priests serve. These issues were well known to the church but they let abuse continue and did not turn priests over to the police. Are you not outraged by this? If your son or daughter was abused by a priest who has been abusing others for decades would you not blame the church?
I grew up in a conservative congregation with a difficult-to-understand theology. I went through some dark and nihilistic points in my life but after being exposed to Jordan Peterson's study of Christianity as the mythology that underpins the culture of the west I developed a deep appreciation for these ideas and now consider myself a Christ follower.
Religion exists because of that conceit, that notion that either something is immediately explainable or that it is supernatural. Science exists because the idea that something isn't understood now doesn't mean that we (as a species) won't ever understand it.
We stand on the shoulders who have come before us, and not one of them was a god.
Criticizing a flashlight for being a poor saw is a flaw in the criticizer, not the flashlight.
Once I was exposed to better theology and philosophy of Christianity I was blown away. Edward Feser’s ‘The Last Superstition’ helped open this up.
I have no idea why the level of discourse is on average so primitive, I think church leaders have been systematically underestimating the populace.