Traditional Catholics and secular culture

[trentcath]

Really? I mean, really...

Alas you are not. He is.

[trentcath]

Unless you or someone else can substantially refute what he's saying, yeah.

Given that's it about half 1 in the morning I shouldn't and I'm also surprised I have to but here goes.

Pon,

"Results matter" means this.

I am not going to take advice about fatherhood or leading a family from a single man or a bad father.  I will take it from a father who raised 12 children and made them socially well adjusted, happily married people who can pay a mortgage and balance a checkbook.

Can't see anything to disagree with here.

I am not going to encourage my daughter to marry a man and who cannot provide for her, especially since she is going to have to have a bunch of children.  I don't want her back here.  I don't care how holy he pretends to be.  I want to see a work ethic not some tweed wearing fantasist.  Because families cost money to raise and my daughter is going to be pregnant and dealing with their children for the next 20 years so he's going to be the only breadwinner competing economically against two income households. 

Again, nothing to particularly object with.

A priest or Bishop can say what he likes, but talk is cheap.  Show me fuller churches, a more active parish life, a flourishing youth group, inspiring sermons.  Then I will open my wallet and throw in my support.  I am very reticent to support Father X just because he is Father X and makes the right sounds.

Slightly problematic, but still probably justifiable on the basis of "Judge a tree by its fruits"

I don't take medical advice from people on the internet.  Give me a double blind clinical trial and a panel of experts telling me the pill works and I will take it.  I am not going to entertain fad diets or other alternative medicine quackery.  If there are statistically significant results then show those to me.

The Catholic Church is failing the world over.  The Muslim religion has delivered nothing for 1000 years.

Delivering positive results today are medicine, technology, sensible Trads who possess good judgement, Russians, Hungarians, Trump etc.

I couldn't give a rats what a bunch of anonymous people say on an Internet forum.  Some of you are massive tossers with screwed up past lives or still living in your mum's basement.  Why should I care what you think about how to live a good Catholic life?

Herein lies the problem. If he cares so little why exactly is he here? To enlighten us poor lost souls who believe that lying is wrong and to direct us to the great truth that will set us free, namely that lying is fine if it makes you money? The problem is that here and elsewhere Greg goes to the other extreme of arguing that "minor" sins don't matter and if not sinning is an inconvenience, well just sin. He then spends 10 or 20 pages arguing with everyone who disagrees with him and ignores any arguments that are made, any saints or theology that is quoted and continues arguing for the next 10 or 20 pages. This is both a) slightly worrying behavior, because it shows that the person doesn't care a whit about finding out the truth, and b) slightly odd for someone who professes to care nothing about the views of others. Why then does he argue for so long and expend so much effort to convince others to change their mind? Because c) deep down he knows the view is wrong and needs others to approve of his view or behaviour. It is d) a cause of scandal and frankly a pretty long running one.

Now I can't pass judgment or claim to be better and I may well be misinterpreting but I fear I am not.

I'm also not going to make an argument as to why committing venial sins is wrong because I don't think that's necessary and we all know better. In sum, Jansenism is wrong but so is Laxism.

Or Bishop Williamson who for all his tough talk, when the resistance actually broke away and needed him to lead and unite them, decided to retire to the Kentish seaside.

Agreed.

"Results matter" essentially means. Piss or get off the pot.

I have had a lifetime of Trads proffering advice and criticism, telling people how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but who are very poor at supporting practical events to improve the lot of fellow Trads.  The priests are usually weak men who latch onto the carnival barkers and self-promoters and fail the large families who are going to be providing the next generation of parishioners.  Mum and Dad can't spend hours with the priest discussing modesty of dress or the rubrics of 62, because they are raising 11 children.

When do the Jansenist types ever arrange for a really fun day out where young people can socialise in a way that competes with what the secular world can offer?  They never do, because that would expose them to risk and criticism.  They criticise, condemn and complain, but they never construct.

Mostly agreed.

[nmoerbeek]

Well with Greg's affinity for youth groups I think we can conclude Greg is here for the same reason we are all here because deep down we all like a little bit of




*KK please don't ban me, it is a joke.

[Greg]

I am mostly here just to express my hatred for Jayne.

[Greg]

That cross above looks like it is made of Cadbury's Flake.

[Chestertonian]

That cross above looks like it is made of Cadbury's Flake.

I had that once.. if k get to heaven i hope they have flake bars

[Jayne]

I am mostly here just to express my hatred for Jayne.

It's a good thing that I like attention so much.   

[Greg]

That cross above looks like it is made of Cadbury's Flake.

I had that once.. if k get to heaven i hope they have flake bars

Can you still eat Chocolate?  I'm am in New York end of this month.  I'll drop you off a box of Flakes.

They are banned goods there apparently.  Too tasty for Americans.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11380389/Were-stockpiling-Flakes-Brits-in-US-aghast-at-Cadburys-ban.html

[Greg]

[Davis Blank - EG]

I do not think Islam has convinced a billion people more so than it has conquered a billion people as did communism and other ideologies that threaten dissenters with immediate death.

---

From my read of Church history it seems to be rather unlikely that the vast majority of historical Catholics took things as seriously as some in this thread do (this is not evidence that either side is right or wrong, of course).  I think most historical Catholics were Catholic just by circumstance - their king converted and so the people converted, they just did what everyone else was doing (and centuries later when everyone started doing something else, they just went along with the new wave as they did before). 

Other means of conversion were the monasteries which in those times were centers of production, agriculture, learning, and civilization in Dark Age & early Middle Age times that were under constant barbarian & Muslim threat.  If the monasteries were not offering such material attractions but rather just strict lives of penance then I doubt very many would join them.  Perhaps their ability to convert back then would be more like their effectiveness today, where they seem to offer nothing material and as a result do not seem to convert anyone.  The place the Church is converting anyone today is in the third world, for the reasons I outlined above - it is bringing them worldly goods & services.

Why do you think today nearly everyone has dropped the faith and now treats science, technology and Wal-Mart as God?  Cause those things deliver the material goods.

People like their baubles and stuff.  The Church used to provide that - monasteries were centers of industry and housed the poor / travelers, cathedrals were schools of regular & higher learning, hospitals gave out bread and cared for the sick and if a king disobeyed the Pope then his excommunication threatened his entire holdings.

There are quotes from 5th century saints indicating that Frankish kings will have their lands prosper if they follow the Church.  Elsewhere bishops write flattering letters to Clovis indicating that he is a bright star and that the his part of the world shines because of his conversion.  This is all materialistic / ego boosting - had the bishops and saints approached those kings and said "alright you gotta give up A through Z, no booze no dancing, no plays no entertainment, fast and abstinence all the time, oh and by the way only a few are saved most all are damned" I think the king would just chop off their heads then and there.

Also medieval Catholicism was filled with feasts and parties that all enjoyed.  Food, drink and general merriment - those were all Catholics and the feasts were numerous.  The knights were in some ways quasi-religious as well, in the sense that their knighting was tied up with the Church as a defender of the faith.  But what did the knight get?  Land, holdings, money, power.

I think the canonized saints are the Saints because they were the rare exceptions among the rest of the ordinary Catholics.  There could be many more saints up there but God is not sending miracles from deceased grandmothers because He wants to hold up the exceptions as role models.

It is human nature for us to have a slippery slope and general societal degeneracy over time.  If the Church wants to keep the faithful at a decent level it needs to hold out a very high bar as the goal.  If it sets the bar at a more realistic level that everyone can reach - we won't simply all reach it and feel great about ourselves, instead we'll just be lazy and be worse than we otherwise would have been.  It is possible that this is related to some of the strict teachings from Church Fathers and saints.

[Pon de Replay]

I do not think Islam has convinced a billion people more so than it has conquered a billion people as did communism and other ideologies that threaten dissenters with immediate death.

I agree, and this probably accounts for the fact that Islam is not only the second largest religion in the world, but also the fastest growing.  It relies not only on having higher birth rates than the West, but in having greater retention rates in areas where the penalty for apostasy is death or shunning.  Whereas Christianity is stuck trying to retain members in areas where it competes with the free exchange of ideas (including non-Christian and atheist ones), where error has rights, and where the penalty for apostasy is a disappointed mother.  But in the conversation I was having with Greg, I was trying to measure things by results.  Mohammed got results.  You can claim results when your creed is believed by a billion people.  If, from the grave, you are still convincing disciples to follow your program thirteen hundred years later, you can claim results.  Stalin threatened people with death, too, but his program was dead within the century.  Greg is correct, of course, that Islamic society is fairly sick by our standards (and he clarified that he judges results by his own preferences).  But Mohammed was a macho Arabian warlord.  He would probably find Islamic society congenial.

I would only add that Christianity itself did end up being spread by the sword in some instances, and was not always innocent of blood and threat.  The pagans of Saxony who went to war with Charlemagne were given a choice: baptism or death.  And the Catholic Church could probably not claim Latin America today had it not been for the fact that her missionaries there were accompanied by armies of conquistadors.  One of the popes at the time told the Portuguese explorers that the pagans who refused to convert could be made bereft of all land & property and forced into slavery.  That had to be a helpful factor in claiming and converting South America.  Who knows, without that pope's directive there may never have been a diocese of Buenos Aires, from which would one day emerge a grinning Italo-Latino mischief-maker to descend on the Vatican in a white cassock, sipping a yerba mate.  "Call me Jorge."

It is human nature for us to have a slippery slope and general societal degeneracy over time.  If the Church wants to keep the faithful at a decent level it needs to hold out a very high bar as the goal.  If it sets the bar at a more realistic level that everyone can reach - we won't simply all reach it and feel great about ourselves, instead we'll just be lazy and be worse than we otherwise would have been.  It is possible that this is related to some of the strict teachings from Church Fathers and saints.

I don't see how this could possibly be the case—because even if it is, as soon as you concede it, you've given away the game: any bar that the Church sets, you now know you only have to go, say, half as far.  And then five hundred years later your descendants in the faith might be snickering at you: "they went half as far, but let's be realistic, humans are prone to degeneracy so the Church overcompensated.  Really, you only have to go a fourth as far as that."  It's relativism; and then the minute we admit it's relativism, it slides into meaninglessness.  If the whole point of the Church Fathers having these disciplines was all just a psychological trick, then why do moderns get treated to seeing the card up the sleeve, while the Christians of antiquity had to take it at face value?  I am almost tempted to feel sorry for the Early Christians for being duped in this manner.  But I don't, and they probably wouldn't want me to, because their stars burned incomparably bright and will last for as long as memory, while bourgeois Christianity is and will always be something of a laughingstock.

[Greg]

If we're talking real results that made a massive impact to the life of millions of humans then you'd have to include.

The Persian, Roman and British Empires.

Modern medicine and biological science including agriculture.

Modern waste disposal (sewers)

Printing Press

Electricity

Internet

Steam Engine

Powered Flight

And the next big one coming along.  Robots or machine augmentation.

[Greg]

Imagine when this is perfected and you can speak to any of a billion Chinese people all of a sudden and they hear you in their local tongue?

The world will change beyond recognition.

[Carleendiane]

Imagine when this is perfected and you can speak to any of a billion Chinese people all of a sudden and they hear you in their local tongue?



The world will change beyond recognition.

Already has and will continue to do so...

[Pon de Replay]

And the Industrial Revolution sprung from (Protestant, post-Enlightenment) England.  The Luddites and the mystics couldn't stand it, and I have a certain sympathy for their distrust of technology, such as the "dark satanic mills" spoken of by William Blake: looming black towers on the horizon belching smoke.  But without the Industrial Revolution, I would not be enjoying my favorite Christmas present this year, which is a year's worth of Spotify premium.  I essentially have unfettered access to one of the largest music libraries in human history, and if I ever get restless or bored, this library is curated by an A.I. that gauges my tastes and can recommend new music for me.  Thirty years ago I was a teenager relying on the mercy of radio programmers to play something I liked.  That seems like the dreariest dark ages by comparison.  Yesterday, in less than an hour, I created a playlist on Spotify called "80s," which is at 250 songs and counting, and is full of all the songs from my youth that have nostalgia value for me, including the cheesy ones.  There is even a song on it called "The Ballad of Jayne."

The only thing I would add to Greg's list is virtual reality.  The Matrix, of course, is a dystopian movie, because the virtual reality everyone was made to experience was just the dreary quotidian life of the late 1990s.  But if the potential for virtual reality is limitless, and people can experience anything from adventures to sex to Borgesian libraries to time-travel eras, then I imagine everyone would sign up to be happily enslaved to the technology ("ye shall be as gods").  It would be more like the movie Strange Days, only instead of people having brief rushes of VR excitement, it would be a non-stop euphoria.  It's almost as if there's a race between a future heaven and future hell: either civilization will collapse first, and people will live in the rubble of a nightmarish post-apocalyptic landscape, or nano- and bio-technology will succeed quick enough for the human race to get sucked into the endless bliss of a Singularity.  My money is on the first scenario, but I am a pessimist.  I recently read an interesting book called Sapiens, by an author named Yuval Noah Harari, who I am sure everyone here would loathe as he is an atheist evolutionist secular vegan homosexual Jew who teaches at an Israeli university, but he has another book out about potential futures called Homo Deus, and I think I might read that, too.  I find technology both queasy and completely enthralling at the same time.