How has CAF helped you become a better Catholic?

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My family is a bunch of cereal killers. A couple of boxes a week, I think.

Um, sorry. That was off topic…
 
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Yeah, you know, I was thinking there was something not quite right about that word, though it seemed spelled correctly. lol

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It’s your thread, so I don’t feel too bad about following you, taking it off topic.

Unicorns, and rainbows, and presents, oh my!
And butterflies, and horseshoes, and hearts!

I have serially been out of the cereal aisle, far too long.
 
Even as a kid, I’ve always felt bad for Lucky the Leprechaun being harassed constantly by a gang of unsupervised youth for his cereal.
 
Just like at CAF, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
 
These forums have been an integral part of my development has a Catholic. I joined just a month after I converted in 2004. For me, the key over time has been figuring out who’s trustworthy and who’s not. There are many posters here who are pure gold in their knowledge and temperament.
Zach said:
Yes like the news threads they wouldn’t appear to unless we go to that forum.
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Good point! I found that once I made CAF into what I needed by ignoring the chaff, it became very helpful for my spiritual development. Losing the ‘ignore’ feature from the old site has made it a bit harder, but the removal of the news threads from the main page has been a huge boon for me.

We’re talking about the site as if it’s one place, but really some of these sub-forums might as well be considered different websites. One could easily say Prayer Intentions is an amazing, supportive Catholic website while World News is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. It all depends on which subforums you decide to hang out in.

I’ve also learned so much from the priests who dedicate their time to making knowledgeable posts here, such as @edward_george1, @Don_Ruggero and @FatherSebastian. Sadly, Fr. Sebastian was driven away by one particularly disrespectful poster with an agenda :cry:

Regarding the secret place, I’ve been here almost 15 years and I don’t even really know what that is! I think I looked into it once and realized that I’d never qualify because I don’t post frequently. Now I wonder what I’m missing 🤔
 
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It’s the Regular’s Lounge. It only became a thing with the new CAF.
 
I’m in graduate school right now and recently took a class on community building online. There is getting to be more data that shows that particularly young people, do cultivate relationships with others online. Teens see their online communities as real relationships and helps them be connected to others. It is the world they live in. Many teens are addicted to their phones because they need the connectedness to their communities. There are definitely issues with false projections of happiness, creating different identities in different communities, and the instantaneous nature of online community communications. There is the good and the bad.
 
So where is this Lounge? I just went through every page of the site and read all of the rules pages. I see no reference to it anywhere. Do you only see it if you’ve been given access to it? I’m surprised I can’t even find a description of it (which I know I saw one one point).
 
There is a description to a lounge feature in the trust level break down descriptions for this platform. I’ve been gone for awhile and forget what platform this is, but if you google “lounge” and [name of this platform] you would likely find it mentioned.

The lounge shows up when you have access to it. It’s kind of nice, but nothing is perfect. 😃

To put it extremely roughly, you need to be a very very active member for somewhere between one and three months. And that’s only part of it.
 
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Got it, thanks! That’s the page I had read in the past. For anyone interested, it’s the Trust Level 3 section found at Understanding Discourse Trust Levels.

Wow, reading 25% of all threads and posts! That seems daunting. And that explains why I gave up on it. For technical privacy reasons, I can’t log into CAF on my phone, so all the thread reading I do on my phone doesn’t count. Oh, well. Have a secret beer in there for me! 😃
 
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WingsOfEagles said:
If one is scrupulous and thinks everything is a mortal sin, it’s pretty impossible to be in a state of grace all the time.
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St. Therese had this very problem. With God’s help she was able to get out of it and have so much confidence in God’s mercy that she upset the other nuns in her convent.

Of course that didn’t mean she decided it was okay to go sin. She still tried diligently to avoid sin and improve her behavior. And of course, being a nun, “sin” for her was stuff like feeling uncharitable towards another nun who made a slight noise during prayer time.
 
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FiveLinden said:
Curious to know if anyone thinks the interventions from unbelievers like me make them better Catholics?
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Actually, yes, because atheist objections to belief and religion make me think deeply and “patch the holes” in my own belief system :pray:t2:
Or if there are ways I’m being uppity as a believer, it reminds me we are all human beings on this little planet and it doesn’t cost me to see with the eyes of compassion.
 
FiveLinden said:
Curious to know if anyone thinks the interventions from unbelievers like me make them better Catholics?
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Yes. It challenges us to explain ourselves, it helps shakeup potential problems of groupthink, and it helps with empathy for those with similar beliefs or unbeleif in our lives.
 
Do once you’re out, they don’t let u back if you’ve been suspended?

😦
 
CAF has helped me up unto a point. When I was 15 I had major anxiety issues and worry about hell. The apologetics on this site has definitely helped the 15 year old me in 2013 to go to confession.

Unfortunately, I have allowed my OCD to use religion as an excuse to replace common sense. That is a PERSONAL issue and not something I can blame the forums for.

I have been humbled to pray for sinners on this forum, I have learned to despise the sin, but to love the sinner and pray for them.

In short, CAF was training wheels for me as a young teenager way back. Now I need to put on my big boy shoes and use common sense.
 
FiveLinden said:
Curious to know if anyone thinks the interventions from unbelievers like me make them better Catholics?
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Not really, but I am happy to talk with/ see participation by any non-Catholic or non-believer who’s able to discuss in a civil manner, without either trying to convert Catholics to his way of thinking, or saying it’s all balderdash and becoming rude, or getting bothered by purported Catholic inferences/ implications about them.
 
I know who to ask, or, at least where to get directed to to find a truthful answer, even if I don’t like it, at first.

I don’t feel all alone as a Catholic.

I like that there are some good & holy priests who post here. And the prayers for others, that is wonderful. That’s helped me a lot.

Posters who have explained things to me that I didn’t understand.

That this is a relatively safe place for a Catholic to post without getting one’s religion attacked.
 
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