T
Tuno
Guest
Tantum Ergo,
I was born and raised Catholic and went through the Catholic school system system including high school. I was a very devoted, proselytizing and ardent Catholic. It worked very well for me. I even helped win a state wide trophy for our school in knowledge of theology. Occasionally I could stump a Priest. I guess I must have forgotten something along the way, because I missed one question, having forgotten about the Sabbath starting at sunset the previous day. Booo.
Anyway, I was one of those who prayed lots and went to weekday masses, novenas, and devotionals. I often had discussions with my non Catholic friends fully intent on converting them because I could not see that there was any alternative to my religion. It just made perfect sense and all was credible to me. More than credible, it was the lens through which I interpreted all of the phenomenon in my life.
That worked very well until I had a series of life changing mystical experiences. Most of them could easily have been taken to reinforce my faith, but one just blew me out of the water, so to speak. It totally and absolutely pulled out the rug from under my thoughts of what it means to be a person. I was unceremoniously and in no uncertain terms introduced to an aspect of myself, or of being, that had no proper or useful accounting within the body of faith I knew or from that point pursued by interview with clerics or by reading.
That incident happened some 56 years ago. It took me some years to stabilize, personally speaking, but I was fortunate. I have read of some less fortunate cases. But from some time shortly after that incident, though I remained curiously friendly with Catholicism, I knew that in one respect at least it was lacking. It is lacking in the same respect that atheism is lacking. It doesn’t give proper or useful accounting fro the ghost in the machine.
Of course it is easy to jump to the idea that it is covered by Soul, and that is true. But what “Soul” experientially means is sadly unaccounted for in our faith. If it was so accounted for, some Saints would more easily entered the rolls and others would be far more easily understood. That is to say that since the time I started searching, I have “befreinded” some of the mystics, many of them Catholic, and especially through their poetry.
But the kicker, for me, is this: it is the nature of my experience that informed the depth of my understanding of their work; it wasn’t their work that precipitated my experience.
So I completely understand that someone could be as devoted and clear in their faith as you are. But I also agree with Leela that the more one knows about religions, the clearer it becomes that they are ad hoc constructs even if they are based on a solid original revelation. This is because the receivers of such a revelation, though they might recognize the element of genuineness, are not in the same state of Awareness as the Revelator. The parts that they “get” they try to organize, and that is the end of the revelations. Both CS Lewis and Gina Cerminara (in her handbook for religious sanity) describe this process in two different and very useful ways.
So what I am saying is that religion as such, distinct from original insight, takes place, as does atheism, in the subject/object mode of human awareness. There is another side to this awareness, call it the “Intuitive” or "“carrier wave” or whatever, which when it is known in its purity, without contents, gives one an entirely and radically different basis for understanding “Soul” and “God” than do reason and religion.
This Way of Understanding has sprung up independently in all time and places despite any factors of location, culture, religion, or any other factor bearing on the Realizer. It has been protected by Mythos and Parable, which is why I often cite Mark 4:33;34.
That’s my experiential view of it. I don’t say that anyone ought believe it or not, for it is not a matter of belief, or of reason. It is something different.
I was born and raised Catholic and went through the Catholic school system system including high school. I was a very devoted, proselytizing and ardent Catholic. It worked very well for me. I even helped win a state wide trophy for our school in knowledge of theology. Occasionally I could stump a Priest. I guess I must have forgotten something along the way, because I missed one question, having forgotten about the Sabbath starting at sunset the previous day. Booo.
Anyway, I was one of those who prayed lots and went to weekday masses, novenas, and devotionals. I often had discussions with my non Catholic friends fully intent on converting them because I could not see that there was any alternative to my religion. It just made perfect sense and all was credible to me. More than credible, it was the lens through which I interpreted all of the phenomenon in my life.
That worked very well until I had a series of life changing mystical experiences. Most of them could easily have been taken to reinforce my faith, but one just blew me out of the water, so to speak. It totally and absolutely pulled out the rug from under my thoughts of what it means to be a person. I was unceremoniously and in no uncertain terms introduced to an aspect of myself, or of being, that had no proper or useful accounting within the body of faith I knew or from that point pursued by interview with clerics or by reading.
That incident happened some 56 years ago. It took me some years to stabilize, personally speaking, but I was fortunate. I have read of some less fortunate cases. But from some time shortly after that incident, though I remained curiously friendly with Catholicism, I knew that in one respect at least it was lacking. It is lacking in the same respect that atheism is lacking. It doesn’t give proper or useful accounting fro the ghost in the machine.
Of course it is easy to jump to the idea that it is covered by Soul, and that is true. But what “Soul” experientially means is sadly unaccounted for in our faith. If it was so accounted for, some Saints would more easily entered the rolls and others would be far more easily understood. That is to say that since the time I started searching, I have “befreinded” some of the mystics, many of them Catholic, and especially through their poetry.
But the kicker, for me, is this: it is the nature of my experience that informed the depth of my understanding of their work; it wasn’t their work that precipitated my experience.
So I completely understand that someone could be as devoted and clear in their faith as you are. But I also agree with Leela that the more one knows about religions, the clearer it becomes that they are ad hoc constructs even if they are based on a solid original revelation. This is because the receivers of such a revelation, though they might recognize the element of genuineness, are not in the same state of Awareness as the Revelator. The parts that they “get” they try to organize, and that is the end of the revelations. Both CS Lewis and Gina Cerminara (in her handbook for religious sanity) describe this process in two different and very useful ways.
So what I am saying is that religion as such, distinct from original insight, takes place, as does atheism, in the subject/object mode of human awareness. There is another side to this awareness, call it the “Intuitive” or "“carrier wave” or whatever, which when it is known in its purity, without contents, gives one an entirely and radically different basis for understanding “Soul” and “God” than do reason and religion.
This Way of Understanding has sprung up independently in all time and places despite any factors of location, culture, religion, or any other factor bearing on the Realizer. It has been protected by Mythos and Parable, which is why I often cite Mark 4:33;34.
That’s my experiential view of it. I don’t say that anyone ought believe it or not, for it is not a matter of belief, or of reason. It is something different.
For the most part the survey just shows what most people should have guessed using common sense.
. However, if they did the survey Athiest’s vs. Catholics on Catholicism, there should be some qualifying factors to be considered Catholic. There is a whole section of my family who tell everyone they are Catholic, but they haven’t seen the inside of a church in over 20 years. Their kids were baptized and never went back. Obviously my 7 year old would do a better job answering the survey than they would. There are Catholics and then there are Catholics. It would be uncharitable for me to say they are not Catholic because they have been baptized in the faith, but True Catholicism is a journey, and many catholics seemed to have gotten off at the first rest stop and have not yet continued the journey.