How do I deal with all of this?

[admonsta]

I guess this is about evangelising myself as well as those around me…

My family were raised Catholic, although my parents became stronger and more faithful as we got older. The only one of their children still catholic is me. My older brother got into heavy metal (and other things) and ultimately rejected his upbringing and became rabidly anti-catholic. We are still a close family.

BUT, my brother frequently will post rants on facebook about how religion, especially formal religion, is the cause of all evil in the world and how it is wrong to force your views on your children and so on. I never engage him in debate because I don’t want to be yelled at, and I don’t think I’d have any impact whatsoever. My Dad does call him to account sometimes.

He recently put up some Youtube videos about something called “Jesus Camp”, which is evangelical christian thing aimed at children. It got me wondering if perhaps he was right and that religion is a form of mind control.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a believing Catholic, but it gets hard sometimes when you’re confronted with a constant barrage of arguments against what you believe. I’m not completely ignorant of my faith - I’ve done a fair bit of reading in the past few years, especially books on apologetics. I listen to EWTN frequently. I know the standard answers to the common questions. Thing is, the atheist argument sometimes sounds pretty rational as well. There are always Catholic refutations to these, but eventually it gets down to a very detailed level, and I worry that it’s becoming a matter of semantics.

So my questions here:

Do I engage in debate with my brother or leave him alone?
Do I remove him from my fb friend list so I’m not subjected to his rants (I’m kind of assuming I’m not strong enough to handle them)?
Is there a way to be certain of my faith choice, or do I just continue to raise my children Catholic and hope I got it right?

 

[phoooiee]

A person can make an argument that seems to make perfect sense for just about anything.

You have to judge the “rightness” or “wrongness” of a belief system by its fruits. Does your brother seem at peace, respectful of others, charitable in his heart? How is the charity in your heart affected when you grow closer to the Church, and how is it affected when you move further from it?

 

[Godfollower]

There’s nothing wrong with maintaining your own faith, and taking steps to strengthen that faith, without engaging in debate with people who won’t listen to your side of the debate. You would be perfectly justified, for example, in coming to the conclusion that the only way to convert your brother is by showing him what a good Catholic is like. You certainly won’t win him over by “winning” a debate with him; that will just make him more likely to retrench in his position.

As for strengthening your own faith, I would suggest:

1. 
   *]Pray every day.
   *]Maintain your attendance at Mass, especially when it’s inconvenient.
   *]Read the Bible often (perhaps even begin a plan to read the whole thing, one chapter at a time).
   *]Familiarize yourself with the Catechism and similar books to help you deepen your understanding of the Faith.
   *]When you find yourself troubled by a comment by your brother, research it. See what the Church has to say about it. Perhaps then you won’t be so bothered by it. You don’t necessarily need to pass it on to him; what matters is your own knowledge.

 

[Birdpreacher]

There is a FB setting where you can ignore his status updates (may be a more diplomatic way of ignoring his rants rather then the dreaded “unfrieneding”

As for Brainwashing, yes oh God yes it happens, but you grow out of it. I went to Catholic School as a youngin and no one is in a rush to tell kids 8 and under about how a Bible is not A Science/History Textbook. Also younger kids cant grasp their heads around much of the complex doctrine so they are more prone to just “take the teacher’s/priest word on it”. Its not quite the atmosphere for developing critical thinking and everyone’s world gets a little shattered when they realize how many cultures have Flood Stories similar to Noah. An initial uneasiness towards the theory of evolution goes without saying.

 

[Viola_Incognita]

Is there a way to be certain of my faith choice, or do I just continue to raise my children Catholic and hope I got it right?

God chose you. Accept His gift and pass it on. He got it right.

 

[Tietjen]

Do I engage in debate with my brother or leave him alone?

That depends on you, how well you can charitably dialog with someone on topics that may bring out the worst of the other person, and how much patience you have.

Do I remove him from my fb friend list so I’m not subjected to his rants (I’m kind of assuming I’m not strong enough to handle them)?

I have a son who feels the same way your brother does. I don’t have the patience to argue with him most of the time so I USUALLY avoid being drawn into a debate with him especially online. To do this, I did NOT unfriend him on FB. Instead, I clicked on one of his rants (upper right-hand corner of the post) and choose to Ignore Posts from him. This allows him to still receive private messages, be included as a “friend” and write me privately. It only prevents me from having to see the rants.

Is there a way to be certain of my faith choice, or do I just continue to raise my children Catholic and hope I got it right?

Where would you go instead? What other Christian Church was there from the beginning?

 

[chipeto]

Thing is, the atheist argument sometimes sounds pretty rational as well. There are always Catholic refutations to these, but eventually it gets down to a very detailed level, and I worry that it’s becoming a matter of semantics.

There really is more than one atheist argument, and more than one kind of atheist, though most of the vocal ones seem to be materialists (also called physicalists). Sometimes it can seem like the believer and the skeptic are jousting in the dark, that the two arguments are not really meeting head on. I believe this is because people often don’t make a sufficient effort to:

1. • define their terms
   • list assumptions and eliminate any that are not common
   I would ask you to reconsider this notion that it is all a ‘matter of semantics’, and consider the possibility that it is a matter of first principles, which we can’t do without, and which we can’t reason our way to (because then they would not be ‘first principles’).
   

   This is the essential idea, that all good argument consists in beginning with the indisputable thing and then disputing everything else in the light of it.​

   Any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by saying what he does not dispute.​

   Only, as is commonly the case today, hardly anybody makes any attempt at defining the thing he is always denouncing, finding it much easier to denounce than to define.​

   People do not seem to understand even the first principle of all argument: that people must agree in order to disagree.​

   I do not find men now so eager to prove things, but, at most, to assure me that they have been proved.​

   It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.​

   Not one man in ten throughout the whole nineteenth- and twentieth-century civilization has had the very vaguest notion that he needed to have any first principles.

   G.K. Chesterton

   Is there a way to be certain of my faith choice, or do I just continue to raise my children Catholic and hope I got it right?

   In my case, I came to the realization some years ago that there was a fundamental question that I needed to answer: what comes first? I do not mean in a cosmological sense, I mean, for example: are love and beauty fundamental, or are they illusions, ‘emergent properties’? What is ‘real’? Everything I have since come to believe has flowed from this. Once I had answered this question for myself, the materialist and I had little room for debate, since we differ so much on first principles. We have different explanations for the world because we mean different things when we say the world.
   

   As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out. Contemplate some able and sincere materialist, as, for instance, Mr. McCabe, and you will have exactly this unique sensation. He understands everything, and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman, seems unconscious of the alien energies and the large indifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the real things of the earth, of fighting peoples or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

   G.K Chesterton

   Your question is a critical one. I will direct you to those who can explain better:
   • Introduction to Christianity by the Holy Father himself, not an easy read, but brilliant
   • Faith, Hope, Love by Josef Pieper, this is a philosophical treatise.
   • Faith and Certitude by Thomas Dubay

 

[admonsta]

Thanks to everyone who answered. I wasn’t certain I’d get any responses, or any that were useful, but you’ve surprised me with the breadth of your answers.

Godfollower - you’ve hit upon something with your suggestions - my prayer life has slipped a lot in the last few months. I need to get it back on track, and I really do need to read from the Catechism (it’s a big, scary book).

Chipeto - I will have a look at your links. Thank you very much, and for the quotes as well. It will help me with my kids too, I think it’s important to teach them how to analyse an argument, and I guess these principles are the first step in that.

 

[Ismael]

BUT, my brother frequently will post rants on facebook about how religion, especially formal religion, is the cause of all evil in the world and how it is wrong to force your views on your children and so on. I never engage him in debate because I don’t want to be yelled at, and I don’t think I’d have any impact whatsoever. My Dad does call him to account sometimes.

This is a typical argument but fails because:

1- most wars are not wors of religion (contrary to what atheists say). Most wars are fought for territory, power, greed.
Even in most wars that have a ‘religeous cause’, usually have some other cause behind it.

2- Look at the French Revolutiom, Communist Russia/Eastern Europe… Atheism thrved there and horrible things happen. Atheists often mention “the Inquisition”, but in those countries many where tortured and killed by those who upheld atheist ideas. (it’s no good saying ‘oh they were not (true) atheists but communists’ that’s a ‘True Schotman fallacy’)

3- Many Christians organization do A LOT of good in the world. The Catholic Church especially, through the ‘Charitas’ organization builds hospitals and schools, brings food. The Catholic Church is essential even in the US where they provide free health-care and help people in poor conditions.

Also a study in 2012 (*The Chronicle of Philanthropy survey of American charitable giving, “How America Gives”; *) has shown that believers are more charitable and give more than atheists in general.

MIND YOIU: I am not claiming here atheists are worse than believers, only showing that your bother’s claims are false.

He recently put up some Youtube videos about something called “Jesus Camp”, which is evangelical christian thing aimed at children. It got me wondering if perhaps he was right and that religion is a form of mind control.

Well people put up ‘Zeitgheist - The Movie’ on youtube… and it was a series of nonsense and falsehoods that a trip to the local library could have exposed.

I know nothing of this Jesus Camp, but even if this was a ‘brain-washing camp’ let’s remember how in atheist USSR they used to distort facts in schoolbooks.

But even closer to home, atheists who lie and makig outrageous claims or spamming the internet are they not also brainwashing people or trying to do so?

First of all we all instill some beliefs in kids. Atheism is a belief… and hardly a ‘reasonable one’

Brain washing is telling people continous lies to hide the truth.

Since we have shown that your brother is the one who is spreading lies… perhaps he’s the one brainwashed.

Thing is, the atheist argument sometimes sounds pretty rational as well. There are always Catholic refutations to these, but eventually it gets down to a very detailed level, and I worry that it’s becoming a matter of semantics.

Only if you really go deep in philosophy… most atheists just have common lame arguments.

Most ‘atheist arguments’ are easily enough refuted. They might seen rational at first but they are not once you check the details.

Do I engage in debate with my brother or leave him alone?

You could but prepare yourself before hand well. (Catholic Answers has many resources)

Do I remove him from my fb friend list so I’m not subjected to his rants (I’m kind of assuming I’m not strong enough to handle them)?

I would remove him in any case. What he does is not ‘argiung for atheism’ but harrassing people.
If he claims believers are so evil, why is he himself so vitriolic and unable to make good calm arguments?

Is there a way to be certain of my faith choice, or do I just continue to raise my children Catholic and hope I got it right?

If you believe Catholicism is true even if not certain, yes.

Raising your kids catholic does not mean hiding them from science or put them in ‘creationist schools’.

 

[Aggies08]

I would “hide” his posts until he gets out of this phase. He may still believe as he does, but he’ll eventually drop the ranting and raving… it may not be until mid 20’s or 30 though!