Yeap the whole totem pole thing as you put it. An interesting way to look at Eucharistic Adoration which is how they described Heaven, if you follow me. Just as in adoration you sit and adore in silence in Heaven you’d silently adore the trinity sitting on there thrones.
In contrast I see the coming next life as a great adventure and new challenges. Feasting with my ancestors and sitting out on adventures and enjoying festivals.
That’s really too bad. He only represents one facet of apologetics. He’s pretty hard-core and a tad triumphalistic, cocky. I favor more of the Father Corapi, JRR Tolkien, Chesterton vision of God and the Church. Powerful, One, triumphant, joyful, yet charming, loving, forgiving, and full of lifelines from God.
Also yes Michael Boris does have a bad hair piece and he seems overly focused on pain and suffering. His show helped send me BACK to Paganism.
Ahhh never thought of it that way. Always heard other Christians talk about our Post-Christian world and could see the rising of group calling themselves Post-Christian
You should see me when I did drink it. LOTS of sugar, LOADS of cream hold nose, gulp. Gargle fruit juice to kill taste. Had to get it in me to stay awake.
Ahhh well you know how Christ is described as a lover pursing and wooing us right?
**That can happen. But the fact of the matter is that life is full of bummer moments. They are not all direct obstacles from God but the result of fallen people affecting the other fallen folks around them. When I lost my job, wasn’t re-hired in my second year of teaching in my first gig at my first school district, I was devastated. I drove home having only been married less than a year, a fallen man, a loser, crushed. I didn’t blame God. I blamed the principal who had it in for me because, and she even admitted this, “you remind me of my ex husband as he looked when he was your age! You even drive an old Dodge like him!” She harrassed me and did things to me that’d knock your socks off, man. I didn’t blame God. I knew she as a sinful woman was after me. God didn’t pull her strings. It was her free will. It was part of my destiny, part of the path, the journey, it sucked, but it was life. I cried a bit on the way home to be honest. I was floored. But I went that Lent, prayed the Stations, reached out to God and had a simple faith, “wow, He really is in charge and despite being mistreated by this woman, He has plans for me.” And He did. I got hired a month later easily. I could’ve viewed it through cynical eyes. **
Okay whenever I hear talk of your god interrupting and intervening in our lives it is usually, in what I read and teachings I’ve heard, to the effect of stripping us of everything. Health, wealth, lovers, friends, family ect. So that there is only us and him.
God doesn’t want us to love only Him. He wants us to love His Blessed Mother, the saints, our neighbors, our friends, spouses, and even our enemies. They are extensions of Him. Christ exists in all of us and that fact makes it even harder to hate those that persecute us. I wouldn’t say all trials are like that of Job. Some people’s trials are intense and life-changing, sometimes horrific. But I would say that the pagan gods of old in mythology do the same thing. They can be downright petty, perverted, and they played for keeps. Whether you’re pagan or Christian, you’ll encounter trials. How do you view those trials? I view them as opportunities to grow, to get a thicker skin, and to know God’s mercy better. God doesn’t ONLY engage us and call us through sorrow, however. My wife, my children, and my friends and family have brought me closer to God than my suffering. It’s all individual experience.
To wit as I entered the church I lost in this order: My my friends, my job and my girlfriend and lost a good bit of my health. My Catholic friends said it was good ripping everything away so I could only love him.
I had an atheist friend that was horrible mangled in a car wreck. He converted and said it was god intervening in his life.
Who’s to say it wasn’t? It’s difficult to know God’s will. Perhaps the Holy Spirit enlightened him to know what God’s will was in that situation. The idea that we’ll never have accidents or suffer and that we’re only put on earth to dance like leprachauns and play the banjo with a big mug of beer is naive. We’re here to experience the joys and sufferings of life. Some have more of one than the other.
This leaves me seeing your god as more like a very wealthy and connect stalker. Who can really mess up the life of the person he is after till they have no option but to turn to him.
I’m sorry you feel that way. As I said, the gods of olympus or norse mythology weren’t exactly shrinking violets who never demanded anything painful or uncomfortable or mortal from the human race either. You sound, and I say this respectfully, like you ran away from Catholicism more than embraced something. Your pain will not go away with paganism. Your losses in life will continue. You will age, you will have setbacks, you’ll meet people you can’t stand. It’s all inevitable. You just don’t blame Christ now. I’m not sure how you rationalize it. As a Catholic, I believe my suffering has redemptive meaning and a purpose but also that God isn’t sitting in heaven with a suffering machine punching the button with abandon 24/7. Suffering happens but I think you (and I) fail to count our blessings as much as we add up our bad times and behave cynically. My wife is from the Philippines. She grew up in abject poverty with four siblings and her mom after he dad abandoned them. She had to go door to door at her mom’s behest sometimes begging for money because they had no $$$ for dinner. They’d have their electricity turned off sometimes because they didn’t pay the bill. They’d cook dinner over a campfire in the adjacent lot. My wife got one Christmas present a year, usually a blouse or pants. One gift, no more. My wife is a hard worker, very simple, always happy, very responsible, and full of character. Her upbringing built her character. It made her who she is. Her father’s abandonment played a role in her strength. It’s hard to tell if my Kate would be herself if she’d had him? Our fate is not all God’s puppetry as you might characterize it. It has much to do with our fallen humanity and the fallen sinners around us affecting our lives. God doesn’t guide a drunk driver toward a happless child in the street. The sinful drunk did his own dirty work. It’s all about free will, the capacity to love given us by God, and the sad reality that there is plenty of room to make the wrong choice in that free will. Gotta run. God bless, wolf.
Heck I was prayed over for god to intervene and interrupt my life. The pray was to the effect of me god do to me what he allowed to be done to Job. -shivers-
I simply commented on a message board several times answering what I consider a silly cult as a Catholic on a Catholic message board. I don’t think paganism should be taken too seriously and I hope other Christians and Catholics don’t take it too seriously either. My point is to make sure this silly stuff isn’t taken seriously. That’s all. No gall. That’s too strong. If I had gall I’d really be dropping the nukes. No gall at all. Fascinated? Again, self-flattery. People doing primitive rituals that don’t accomplish anything, reading old, dead stories and trying to revive fantastical man-centered pseudo-religion isn’t fascinating. I suppose I’m guilty of wondering what in the name of all that’s holy would possess a person to embrace this stuff?
I sure will agree with you that common culture is going down the ole sewer. No argument there. Where you’ll disagree with me is my hypothesis as to why…a loss of Judeo-Christian values. **…I have the greatest wife in the world, three kids ages 4, 3, and 2, a faith I love and care about, and my life has not been broken. If anything has left me a broken man it has been being a teacher in public education dealing with parents!! I’m sad to hear you feel that way about the Holy Spirit. You hope not. I’ll hope for you then. Good night…
