Cure of Ars

I agree with a lot of what you say. I think many if not most American Catholics in the past 40 hears have sold out and have become secular. They just keep the name and go through the motions. This is changing though. God is doing some pruning and calling his people back to be faithful. I also agree that there are a lot of good secular people. My post was not to say that secular people are bad but only boring. The secular viewpoint will never produce a Mother Teresa or Padre Po. It will never produce a saint. Because the secular viewpoint does not draw power from the transcendent so the secular life will never be transcendent. American secular and consumer culture is in trouble. The remedy is saints.

I believe that a Christian life is more exciting than a secular life. The first reason is because Christian reality is twice as big as secular reality. The inner spiritual life of having a relationship with Jesus can give meaning and purpose to even the most mundane activities of life. There is a whole dimension that the secularist does not explore. Another reason that I think the Christina life is more exciting is because it has bigger stakes. The Christian worldview is more risky. Christianity believes in eternal justice. There is a heaven and a hell. Peter Kreeft once said, "Hell and heaven make life serious. Heaven without hell removes the bite from life's drama." Anyone who has gone to Vegas knows that betting nickels gets old fast and in gambling the higher the stakes the more exciting it is. The highest value that secular society has is to gain pleasure and avoid pain while the highest virtue for the Christian is Faith, Hope, and Charity so that one can gain God. In the long run the Christian ends up beating the secularist at his own game. Look at Christmas for example. Christians try to keep Jesus at the center of Christmas. And by doing this it causes some pain. For example, Catholics do penance and works of charity during the season of advent to get ready for Christmas. But because of this Christmas is that much better and the joy is not in the gifts, food, or atmosphere but in the joy of something greater, Christ. Christians always have something greater in this world because we have something greater in the next. And this is why Christmas without Christ is boring. And it is also why non-active Catholics run to Mass on Christmas. They intuitively know that without Jesus Christmas goes stale. (To bad they miss the boat with this fact when it comes to every day life.) It is also why our society is so depressed and has the suicide rate that it has. Once one reaches the top and gains pleasure and succeeds in avoiding pain one realizes that he/she are still empty and not satisfied. Boredom sets in and after every technique is tried to gain the excitement that a pleasurable activity once had, and this fails, they loose hope. God made use this way on purpose so that we would not get stuck on the creature and search for the creator. Pleasure is good but it is not the ultimate good. We were made for God and we will never be satisfied until we are totally united to Him. The question is bound to come up, "Why then are a lot of Christians no different than secular people? They are no happier, joyful, or excited than the rest of us." The answer to this is that you need to connect with Jesus for my arguments to be true. You need to let Jesus be in charge and conform your life to him. This is where the Christian life gets scary and exciting but it also where people walk away or just go through the motions.

I did not take your post as neg. I just try to challenge people. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen and if you can't take the truth stay out of the Catholic Church. No man is an island. Your reaction to me is proof enough that other peoples choices affect you.

Usually secularism

This is true at times but what is the alternative? From my faith tradition we call it original sin. It is probably the one doctrine that can be proven by science. We all are a messed up in one way or the other. We all fall short of who we really are. Just look at the sex scandal in the Catholic Church, the news, or just inside yourself. I think it is uncomfortable to everyone to face their dark side but I think it is the one thing that all the systems are trying to deal with.

It is not possible to not believe in something. Even atheists believe that there is not a God. The systems that I listed all have some truth to them. But some are truer than others.

It can be complicated to look at all the religious and philosophical systems that address the issue of humanity. One method of organizing the different worldview systems is to look at it through the medical model. The Medical model has the following parts; Symptom, Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Prescription. System- Symptoms- Diagnosis- Prognosis- Prescription buddha- suffering- desire- nirvana- ego-reduction Stoicism- anxiety- passion- peace- passionlessness Plato- vice- ignorance- virtue- knowledge Christ- death- sin- salvation- faith Luther- guilt- self-justification- justification- faith Pascal- boredom- wretchedness- hope- the "wager" Kierkegaard- despair- aesthetic existence- authentic existence ethical and religious "leap" Descartes- uncertainty- unscientific methods- certainty- scientific method Marx- alienation- capitalism- classless society- communist revolution

Find out what he likes from your Cuz. People like to talk about themselves most of the time. I think this would at least be a good start. God bless

I think you should date a lot of different guys and do not get serious with only one at this point. You do not sound like you know what you want at this point. I don't think this is a bad thing. Good things take time. Don't be in a hurry. Just have fun and enjoy were you are at and try not to wish you were somewhere you are not ready to be. God bless

No guts no glory!

Bad idea. Here is a study that I think you should read before you do anything stupid. Here is a quote and a link. WASHINGTON, DC (October 16, 2002) – A new scientific report released today reveals that condoms, even when used 100 percent of the time, fail to reduce the risk of some of the most common and potentially dangerous sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) to an acceptable level. America is facing an epidemic of STDs – more than 15 million new STD infections per year," commented Joe S. McIlhaney, Jr., MD, president of The Medical Institute. "It is imperative that Americans understand what the science says about the limits of condoms in keeping them safe from STDs, many of which can have life-altering consequences, including infertility and cancer.

I am saying that if God exists we should worship him because of who he is (an all powerful and good God). If you worship God, if there is a God, then you are being just. But if you do not worship and there is a God then you are being unjust to God because you are not giving him what he is due (worship). If there is not a God it does not matter. The logical bet is to bet that there is a God and worship. If you are wrong about God's existence and because of this you do not worship, then you are being unjust because you are not giving God his due. It is not that hard of an argument. [/u]

Natural instincts are by definition irrational. So if this is the basis for you rejection of the Church then your whole position is irrational. If you are saying that the Catholic Church tries to pressure people out of irrationality then I agree. But your position is the irrational one not mine. Guilt to the soul is like pain to the body. It can be a bad thing if it is not in touch with reality but it has a legitimate function just like pain does. Pain tells the body when something is wrong. When something needs to change for better health. The same goes with guilt. Guilt tells us when we are hurting ourselves and others through sin. I am a caseworker and have worked with people that do not feel guilt. They call it anti-social personality. I don't think that we would what to be like these people and get ride of our guilt. I will keep my guilt thank you. Why not? The problem is you do not understand the Catholic Faith. My definition of God encompasses beauty, music and all that is good. The question is not what to invest our faith in but who. Music cannot produce lasting happiness by itself. Only the source of all good can. If you cut yourself off from this source by not comforming to the Good then you will not be happy. You really do not address my arguments from my original post. Where in the post did I put people on a guilt trip? What part of my original post is a cause for fear? That we are all going to die is a reality. If you do not face this you are not in touch with reality. What would be nice is if you addressed the points that I made, head on, instead of a attacking a caricature of my faith. God bless

To stand up for the truth. If what I say is not true prove me wrong.

The problem that you might have is not with my definition of justice but the definition of God. If God is all good, all powerful and infinitely worthy of our worship than it would be unjust not to worship, because it would not be giving God his due. My basic definition of justice if give what is due to someone. The correlation is that the first argument is based on salvation of the soul. The second is based on doing the just. Both are outcomes that we can bet on because both need an act of our will. The first is act of belief, while the second is the act of worship. They are basically the same argument applied to different wanted/possible outcomes.

Gilgamesh, You sidestepped my main argument. Sex has an inherent meaning. In our culture sex has two different meaning. The secular meaning is that sex is entertainment/pleasure. Now there is a lot of truth to this but it is a half-truth and a half-truth is a lie. The true meaning of sex is for bonding and reproduction in the covenant of marriage. Now sex is truly entertaining and pleasurable but this is a lesser good that is always submissive to the higher good of bonding and reproduction in a covenant marriage. In other words sex as entertainment and pleasure in only a means to the end of bonding and reproduction never an end in itself. If sex as entertainment and pleasure becomes and end in itself then the higher good of bonding and reproduction is inevitable lost and things become disordered. This is why pornography and prostitution are disordered. It is also why people who use pornography and prostitution have crappy marriages if they are able to stay married. Now let me address your arguments. The first is that you're a realist and that kids are going to have sex anyway so why fight it. To me this is not being a realist but a fatalist. You give in before the battle even starts. You don't even try. I admit that in our sexual saturated society that chastity is hard but just because something is hard doesn't mean we should give into it. There are a number of good reason to fight even though the odds are against us. 1. Because it is the truth. 2. It give our teenagers a model of character when we stand up and fight for truth even when we could ultimately fail. 3. If we succeed our teenagers will be happier and have stronger marriages, which is the building block of society. I could give more good reasons but these should suffice. Your second argument is that we should not try to scare our kids. This is a straw man argument. My argument was not based on a boogieman type information about contraceptives but the truth. I did not give a lot of drama about how scary the situation is. I just gave some statistics. It is not right to keep this information for kids. How are they to make intelligent discussions when the facts are not even presented to them? Despite the statistics you say "the risks are very very low if you take certain precautions". For arguments sake lets assume that the risks of diseases were totally taken out of the picture through technology. It still would not be safe emotionally. I am a social worker and have worked with kids that have attachment disorders. An attachment disorder is when the child does not bond with their parent. The child has a deep need to become close the parent but at the same time they have a powerful fear that by getting close they will get hurt. Having casual sex outside of marriage produces the same type of attachment disorder in male-female relationships. I have actually seen this with a lot of my friends. They really want to be committed to a relationship but at the same time they are deeply afraid that they will get hurt. This is because they have had sex with people and through this became attached but it was a lie and they were hurt. In other words sex is kind of like scotch tape. It sticks to what you attach it too. But the more things that you attach it to the less ability it has to attach again. This makes for poor future marrage relationship. But I really don't think I am going to change your opinion on this. You probably have too much to loose. You would have to change your life style. An opinion changed against ones will is of the same opinion still. But I still have to try. God bless

For those who don't know Pascal's Wager it is an argument for believing in God. The basic argument is to look at the big scheme of life as a bet. If you place your bet on there not being a God and are wrong, then you are in trouble. If you are right you gain nothing. But if you place your bet on their being a God and there is in fact a God you gain eternal happiness. If you are wrong then you loose nothing. The only logical bet is to bet on God.The logic behind this argument is solid but I never thought this argument was convincing for a couple of reasons. 1. The faith is not a saving faith motivated by love but only a cover your butt type of faith. This isn't a huge problem because in reality we probably all start our faith here and at least it gets us searching and listening for God to knock on the door. 2. The whole thing seems conniving and self-centered. 3. It does not really inspire people to change because the argument is based on a low self-centered motive. But there is an angle that satisfies the weakness I found in the argument. There is an argument that has its core in Pascal's wager but is based on the higher and more altruistic motive of justice. If there is a God, justice demands total faith, love, hope, obedience and worship. If we do not worship and there is a God then we commit an infinite injustice against an infinite being. The only way to be just is if we worship. And the only way to be infinitely unjust is to not worship. God bless

I am a Catholic. My Answer to you is that you will never be happy until you find the transcendent (the source of all happiness and all that is good). Like when St. Augustine said, "Thou hast created my soul, O God, after Thee, and it is restless until it rests in Thee." We are made for the eternal and we can never be fully happy until we find it. One thing that is for sure is that this world is not going to last. Everything that you do, everything that you love, everything that you experience, everything that you want is going to pass away. With that knowledge can you truly be happy? Can the man on death row be happy with his last meal when he knows it's his last? This is the situation that we are in without God and the only way to try to avoid it is to try to ignore the truth, to run after a 1,000 pleasures but even with this we will not be fully happy. Using just natural law it is clear to see that we can not be happy without being connected to something beyond ourselves, something transcendent. The major faith traditions throughout history testify to this. The Greeks i.e. Aristotle (and latter Christian's) recognized four levels of happiness. I am quoting the following; 1. laetus: Happiness in a thing. Thus, "I see the linguini, I eat the linguini, it makes me feel good, I am happy." This kind of happiness is based on something external to the self, is short-lived and, on reflection, we do not consider that it is all there is to human happiness. 2. felix: The happiness of comparative advantage. "I have more of this than X." "I am better at this than X." This kind of happiness results from competition with another person. The self is seen in terms of how we measure up to others. It has been called "the comparison game." Such happiness is rather unstable and, if one fails, can lead to unhappiness and sense of worthlessness. Exclusive pursuit tends to oppress others. Most people would not imagine a world as satisfactory if it was composed of only happiness #2 type people. 3. Beatitudo: (Beatitudo = happiness or blessedness). The happiness that comes from seeing the good in others and doing the good for others. It is, in essense, other-regarding action. Happiness #3 is, in some sense, at war with happiness #2. One cannot be at the same time in competition with someone else and doing the good for and seeing the good in them. Most people would prefer a world (community, family, relationships) structured around the pursuit of happiness #3 than entirely based in happiness #2. Happiness #3 is higher than happiness #2. The problem with #3 is that it is necessarily limited. We cannot be someone else's everything. For example, we or they, will die and if our happiness is contingent upon them, it dies with them. "There must be more than this." 4. Sublime Beatitudo: (sublime = "to lift up or elevate"). This category, the most difficult to describe, encompasses a reach for fullness and perfection of happiness. The fullness, thereforeeee, of goodness, beauty, truth and love. So we recognize in this category, those things that are, in a sense, beyond what we are capable of doing purely on our own. link removed So in conclusion, doing what we want (in a selfish way) does not lead to lasting happiness only connecting to the transcendent God will lead to lasting happiness. God bless

You do not understand the Catholic position. Masturbation is not wrong because it is pleasurable. If this was the case drinking a glass of wine would be sinful and clearly the Catholic Church does not teach this. Pleasure is not the ultimate good. There are times when pleasure needs to be sacrificed for something greater. Selfishness and masturbation both amount to loving only yourself, which isn't love at all. There are two key purposes of making love: union and procreation (bonding and babies). Masturbation achieves neither, since the center of the sexual act becomes "me" instead of "we." Rather than being in control of sexual desires, masturbation excites lustful thoughts, causes you to expect immediate sexual gratification, and trains you to look to yourself for sexual fulfillment. Think of it this way: Love is a gift of self. You cannot give what you do not possess. So, if you do not have self-control, you cannot truly give yourself to another. Though sexual sins are highly addictive, God's healing grace is stronger. Like any other sin, this one can be overcome. Take courage and keep your eyes on Jesus, who will complete the good work he has begun in you (Phil. 1:6)."

The problem with sex education in public schools is not that they teach too much but that they do not teach enough. Children are taught the plumbing of sex, insert tab A into slot C, but that is it. They do not dive into the more essential issue of what does sexual intercourse mean and what is its purpose. They teach a limited biological view that reduces our sexuality and human beings to animals. Sex in its truest expression is an act of love. It is a laying down of one's life for the other (Eph 5:25). Sex is how two become one flesh. Sex is never safe. "Safe sex" is the lie that has been taught to our children. "Use protection and there will be no negative consequences." This lie has hurt many people. It has lead to broken hearts, people using and abusing each other, abortions, sexual transmitted diseases, and broken families. Sex is a powerful expression. It is the expression of love between two people and this love is able to be enfleshed and given a name after nine months. It also has the power of death through disease, abortion, and divorce. It is so powerful in fact that it can only be contained safely within the Covenant commitment of marriage. Teaching abstinence and chastity is the only way to make sure that our children are safe and that they develop the character to pick good partners and develop healthy relationships. This is only scratching the surface of the theology of human sexuality. I ask all people of good will to defend and promote the truth about the meaning and purpose of human sexuality. Here is a study that has been released. Here is just one fact that it gives. "There is no evidence of any risk reduction for sexual transmission of human papillomavirus infection (HPV) even with 100 percent condom use." HPV causes cervical cancer and can lead to infertility. A lot of our teens have HPV especially females and many of them do not even know it. Here is the web site. link removed Here is a booklet that I encourage you to give to the unmarried people you know especially teens. It is entitled Pure Love and it is written by JASON EVERT. link removed God bless

Be cool. When I mess up I always like to tell myself, "That which does not kill me will make me stronger." Or I guess wiser would also be a result. It's never ok to take your own life. If you do it will be your biggest screw up yet. I will keep you in my prayers. God bless

Glad to meet another Catholic Anamarie89. Please check out this forum. link removed It is really cool. Tell me hi if you do decide to post there. I am using the same name there as here. God bless

"What do you think will happen to those who choose to practice a alternative religions?" Good question. It depends if you are in good conscious following God. If you know that Jesus is God and that he established the Catholic Church and you then reject this then you are in trouble. If you don't know this by no fault of your own and you try to follow God then God is not going to send you to hell for something that is not your fault. This is the basic answer. Here is the official long answer from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life."[332] "Outside the Church there is no salvation" 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?[335] Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.[336] 847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.[337]

I am a Catholic and I know there are a lot of misunderstanding and just general questions that a lot of people have. If you have a question please ask. Please only ask one question at a time per person. God bless