But now youâre the authority on all things Catholic? Just as you stumble over to the Islamic side of the field? What exactly is your point if you donât mind a direct ask?
Is God abusive for being bigger than we are? Is He abusive because He can take pain and turn it into love? And real purpose?
Fair enough. I have categorized myself as âformerâ Catholic because of the child abuse mess. No point in discussing that here. I am âinvestigatingâ Islam. That doesnât mean Iâm converting. Iâm studying it. And yes, it has a lot more problems than just child abuse. But in terms of doctrine and belief, I am Catholic. I wouldnât say I am an authority, but I have had two years of theology at university and have read extensivelyâboth Catholic and Protestant theologians. When I have a question, I go back to the catechism or Vatican II documents. They are always very logical and filled with common sense. I have yet to find anything I disagree with. It all makes sense to me, and it always has made sense.
My point is that although I completely agree that different people in the same religion can have individual interpretations of a lot of things, what I have seen on this thread seems to go beyond the optional and into the basic core of Catholicism. I guess I am horrified to see that there are a lot of people out there who perceive God in a completely different way than I do. This wouldnât bother me if we were supposedly believers in different religions, but theoretically at least we are all Catholics. Maybe Iâm naive. And of course in the normal course of events I would just say âThis is none of my businessâ and I would bite my tongue. But unless I am very much mistaken, the purpose of these forums is to discuss issues like this. If we all minded our own business, there would be no forums.
To me a God who is an accountant keeping track of sins, who punishes people both on earth and in eternity for trivial sins, who seems to take pleasure in torturing people to their breaking point, etc. etc. is not the God I am familiar with from the Gospels, the catechism, or Vatican II documents.
God wants us to be happy. God forgives. And yes, God even waives punishmentâwith indulgences, and even plenary indulgences that take away
all punishment. And whatever happened to the concept that you canât commit a mortal sin without full agreement of your will? How free are any of usâwe all have genetic predispositions, habits that are hard to break, situations we find ourselves in, etc. etc. I think it would be very difficult (not impossible, but difficult) indeed to give âfreeâ agreement of your will to a major sin. Even secular courts look at the big picture before sentencingâwhat was the background of the person? Have they committed other crimes? Are they sorry? Are they likely to commit the same crime again? Etc. If secular courts take all this into account, surely an all-knowing and all-powerful God would take everything into account on a much bigger scale.
Let me give an example: drunkenness. Yes, I drink occasionally, and Iâve even gotten drunk on a couple occasions. But I have no interest in drinking every day or even every week, or in getting drunk. It just doesnât appeal to me, and there is no temptation. But contrast that to an alcoholic, who, for whatever reasons (genetic, family example, despair, etc. etc.) finds it almost impossible to resist alcohol. So both of us get drunk. Does God see only the crime and ignore the person? Absolutely not. The alcoholic had very littleâif anyâcontrol over his actions. But Iâsince I am indifferent to alcoholâhave made a very free decision to get drunk. And even then you could certainly make a case that even I was not free, since the process of getting drunk is a gradual one, and at the beginning of the night you donât say âRight, tonight Iâm getting drunk,â you just have one drink, and that erodes your ability to say no to the 2nd drink, etc. So are both of us âguiltyâ of getting drunk? Sure. But I am much more guilty than an alcoholic, and God would judge us accordingly.
To go back to the original poster, I am familiar only in a theoretical way with OCD, so itâs hard, if not impossible, for me to put myself in his place. But surely someone who reflects on religion to that extent and has expressed sorrow for past sins is not the type of person God wants to punish in the ways discussed in this thread. And the idea of some type of âredemptive sufferingâ that somehow glorifies my own suffering and allows my suffering to somehow âhelpâ someone else is beyond my understanding. I can see where my own suffering might be beneficial to myself in some spiritual sense, but not to others. And of course any theory must be able to withstand the extreme examples: why would a newborn baby suffer, for example.
But I did get a hold of my doctor and they are going to raise my medicine for my low cortisol levels. So pray that this dose actually starts to work!
). We will see how this progresses with time. Prayers please!