Why do people not believe--how did it happen?

[Tom317]

How are we surprised by a spiritual warfare? :ehh:

What are the weapons that we have been given to wage war against the wiles of the enemy? :bible1:

Consecrate yourself to the battle set before you.

Only surprised at how fast, how far, and how nearly completely we have fallen.

 

[Tom317]

I think many generations have considered themselves to be the worst or most morally corrupt. Yet, as another poster pointed out, this may be the first to completely reject the reality of sin.

I heard one of the apologists on CAL speaking the other day about the genesis of the Nicene Creed. He said that while Catholics today see the Church as fractured and falling into all types of heresy, our current condition couldn’t possibly compare to the near disaster that occurred during the early years of Christianity when the dissenters nearly ripped apart the Church. That little snippet from that show really helped me to put things into perspective.

Except that 80-90% of professing Christians do not in any meaningful way hold the faith. The list I sighted above is just the tip of the problem, there are hundreds of others issues. I truly believe the world has never see Christian apostasy at the level we see today.

 

[Tom317]

I don’t know. If you have a generation that says it is wrong, but only give social reasons, and doesn’t back it up as a moral wrong, then I think the generation of people that they raise will use this information to analyze their situation socially only, and not morally. This will lead to most of them choosing to live together, because they only know it as wrong for social reasons, and not moral. So if it seems to cause no harm socially, they move in. The only thing they have stopping them is that their parents don’t like it. It’s not like they have learned it is wrong, as in WRONG. They weren’t taught that living together is anything on par with killing, for example.

Of course, once enough couples are living together, it becomes difficult to see the social wrong on an individual level. You still might, though, with statistics.

The question is, why did the original generation only explain it in social terms, and not moral? Had learning it on those grounds always been sufficient before?

I think it reflects an amazing loss of faith.

 

[blessedtoo]

Except that 80-90% of professing Christians do not in any meaningful way hold the faith. The list I sighted above is just the tip of the problem, there are hundreds of others issues. I truly believe the world has never see Christian apostasy at the level we see today.

I understand and I hesitate to disagree with you but I think we need to understand our present “times” in context. While it may be true that a good majority of Christians do not PRACTICE the tenets of their faith, most do accept that Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. In the early Church, that very doctrine was still being rejected. Can you imagine the majority of Catholics refusing to believe Christ was divine?

 

[Al_Masetti]

Secular beliefs of the modern world are very seductive.

Some time back, I read some book with a “medieval” flavor to it. When I was done with the book, I happened to be walking past a Catholic church and went in to visit the Blessed Sacrament.

And … when I was standing in the entrance … with the door open … I could see the altar, with the sunlight filtered down through the stained glass windows … and there was the remnant smell of incense … and when I turned my head, I could see cars and trucks and hear planes flying overhead.

And I turned my head again, and there was this “medieval” church.

The effect was “stunning”. My brain was still in the “medieval” flavor of the book, I could see the “medieval” altar, and, at the same time, I could see the “modern” world. I was in both worlds at the same time.

And I could “see” and “feel” the pull from both the “medieval” world and the “modern” world … both at the same time.

And this was just from standing in the doorway of a church.

What happens when the “stimuli” from secular temptations get really serious!!!

What happens when the pull from the modern world get really serious. There are SO MANY modern temptations, so skillfully crafted to be attractive and tempting.

It takes real intellectual WORK … DELIBERATE effort … to retain that necessary interest in “medieval” grace and “medieval” values.

You really have to think about it. It is sooo easy to commit to the world of secularism.

Seductive.

The Church is there … available … but makes no effort to seduce us.

 

[Tom317]

I understand and I hesitate to disagree with you but I think we need to understand our present “times” in context. While it may be true that a good majority of Christians do not PRACTICE the tenets of their faith, most do accept that Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. In the early Church, that very doctrine was still being rejected. Can you imagine the majority of Catholics refusing to believe Christ was divine?

Yes, I would agree that rejection of Christ as divine would be terrible in this modern world as if was in the early Church. However, there are over 2 billion who claim to be Christians of some sort, and yet 80-90% of them reject entire chunks of the faith. While it is true most of them still hold that Jesus is Savior and God, many of them do NOT think that Jesus is a required believe to get to Heaven.

The Bible predicts a great postasy in the end times, one is not being paranoid to think that 1.6-1.8 billion people rejecting major tenets of the faith might be the beginning of that period of time.

 

[Tom317]

Sooner or later there will be a “last generation” before the events that lead to Jesus’ return. I suspect whoever that is here when that happens will NOT believe it is them.

 

[Ramalama]

I believe this started with the industrial revolution. When we found men could tame continents, cure disease, and work many other wonders, it was only natural for man to think he replaced God.

When the wonders got really big as science advanced, people believed they could really understand and mold the universe to their desire. What scientist today doesn’t believe man can understand literally everything? Most would say we are only a few years from it – or maybe even that we’re there now! Doesn’t that mean man believes he’s God?

Once man became God, everything could be fixed. Nothing, literally, was impossible. So - what possible harm could sex, drugs, and rock and roll do?

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. We really need it!

 

[rwoehmke]

Let us go back 46 years to the 60"s. Our political leaders got us into a fruitless war in South East Asia. They lied and equivicated as to why we needed to be there and also about what progress was being made on the very nebulous war front. Our younger generation and many older folks rejected a society that was so corrupt and in doing so rejected many things held sacred by that society like morality, the military industrial complex, etc. They substituted their own values of free love, shared property, freedom from the draft, etc. Every notion an adolescent mind might treasure became the norm among a generation that has continued on to teach those ideas/values to succeeding generations. Our College and University professors came out of these rebellious youngsters and continue to teach junk to our young. The values of the “Great Generation” were rejected because of the greed and war mongering of the generation that followed. In the long run our defeating of the communist threat cost us our values.

 

[Benedictus]

I believe this started with the industrial revolution.

I believe it started long before that with the Black Plague. Half of Europe’s population died in the pandemic; whole villages were wiped out. People began to question the Church that was unable to protect them. Over the centuries, people began to question the need for God at all.

No doubt there were other important “milestones”: the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, the World Wars, and the sexual revolution.

 

[dessert]

How are we surprised by a spiritual warfare? :ehh:

What are the weapons that we have been given to wage war against the wiles of the enemy? :bible1:

Consecrate yourself to the battle set before you.

Yes, I agree we should pray especially for the ones that are fallen away. I was one of them and some maybe a handful were still fervantly praying for me and telling me that they were.
And they reminded me to go to church.
I am meeting lots that have been away from mass for 20 years and I just share with them the words from the mass and ask them to give it another try, not neccessary that they attend my parish, but to go to the closses one they have. Or tell them to go for Easter and hope the message will get through.
Keep praying
I know I fell away because I was not praying with the church.
Dessert

 

[rtconstant]

Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux!

Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!

 

[Tom317]

Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux!

Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!

The cross is our light and Jesus will cast satan aside for us, and has already one the battle when He died on the cross.

Yet, it is all still a mystery as to how these things happen.

 

[rtconstant]

The cross is our light and Jesus will cast satan aside for us, and has already one the battle when He died on the cross.

Yet, it is all still a mystery as to how these things happen.

True my point was more to do with the poison. As time goes on the poison of Satan seeps deeper into our society. How does it happen? I don’t think there is really a satisfactory answer to that. When you look at the evil that has consumed the world since the very beginning it becomes apparent that the oddity isn’t in how things have fallen this far. Instead we should be in awe of the miracle of Christ’s Grace that it has kept us all going this far, and that we can still see beacons of the light out there.

 

[Tom317]

True my point was more to do with the poison. As time goes on the poison of Satan seeps deeper into our society. How does it happen? I don’t think there is really a satisfactory answer to that. When you look at the evil that has consumed the world since the very beginning it becomes apparent that the oddity isn’t in how things have fallen this far. Instead we should be in awe of the miracle of Christ’s Grace that it has kept us all going this far, and that we can still see beacons of the light out there.

Agreed.