Any Rebuttals To This Video?

[Era Might]

I agree with you that such a catastrophe would bring utter destruction, and it's not something I look forward to. But my point is that the loss of faith we see is attributable largely to the ease and comfort that predominates Western society, take that away and things like suffering can be very transformative.

 

I don't think suffering has ever been "transformative" in society. Even on a personal level suffering is only transformative for someone who is mature enough. Generally, suffering leads to desperation and further breakdown. Ease and comfort can lead to other problems, but it is also a condition for any kind of positive stability, social or personal. Suffering and catastrophe may lead to "faith" of a kind, but it is unlikely to be stable, mature, Christian faith. And it will lead to just as much faith in other "saviors," political and otherwise.

 

I think this actually relevant to the video because seminaries are an example of a stable environment where people are allowed to grow and develop into a ministry. And when a crisis of faith comes along, which is a form of suffering, it destabilizes a person. And when someone no longer trusts something they have given their life to (for example, a minister who has witnessed corruption in his religion), then that really leaves him without a foundation. It takes a very mature person to get through that, and sometimes that maturity only develops after the crisis has destroyed you. But that's why we pray, "Lead us not into temptation," because no person who knows what the world is like should harbor any kind of wish, implicit or explicit, for the hills to fall down around you.

[Apteka]

Interesting. But why would those without faith enter into a seminary?

 

I'm not saying those who enter into seminary don't have any faith, I'm sure they believe in God and feel they have some vocation in ministry. I question whether they have *the* faith, in other words, whether they actually believe in Catholicism as it has been taught for centuries, or whether they believe in some form of contemporary caricature of it. And if they do hold the faith, what is actually taught in many seminaries is itself pseudo-Catholicism. There is already a purulent and wide-spread ignorance among Catholics in general, and amidst this are many teaching that would be classified as heterodox. The issue in Catholicism actually runs much deeper than simply a naïve seminarian stumbling on textual criticism.

[Apteka]

 

 

I don't think suffering has ever been "transformative" in society. Even on a personal level suffering is only transformative for someone who is mature enough. Generally, suffering leads to desperation and further breakdown. Ease and comfort can lead to other problems, but it is also a condition for any kind of positive stability, social or personal. Suffering and catastrophe may lead to "faith" of a kind, but it is unlikely to be stable, mature, Christian faith. And it will lead to just as much faith in other "saviors," political and otherwise.

 

I think this actually relevant to the video because seminaries are an example of a stable environment where people are allowed to grow and develop into a ministry. And when a crisis of faith comes along, which is a form of suffering, it destabilizes a person. And when someone no longer trusts something they have given their life to (for example, a minister who has witnessed corruption in his religion), then that really leaves him without a foundation. It takes a very mature person to get through that, and sometimes that maturity only develops after the crisis has destroyed you. But that's why we pray, "Lead us not into temptation," because no person who knows what the world is like should harbor any kind of wish, implicit or explicit, for the hills to fall down around you.

 

 

This is a whole new topic within itself and we can discuss it for days. Let me simply offer this for meditation:

 

 

 

"Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful."

[Era Might]

This is a whole new topic within itself and we can discuss it for days. Let me simply offer this for meditation:

 

 

 

"Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful."

 

6 million people were killed in the Holocaust, the culmination of two World Wars and the fanatical attempt to create order out of that chaos. I'm not sure how Victor Frankl's book says anything about the idea that a huge apocalyptic breakdown is what the world needs to usher in some kind of holistic Christian civilization.

[Apteka]

6 million people were killed in the Holocaust, the culmination of two World Wars and the fanatical attempt to create order out of that chaos. I'm not sure how Victor Frankl's book says anything about the idea that a huge apocalyptic breakdown is what the world needs to usher in some kind of holistic Christian civilization.

 

Read the last book of the Bible, my friend. There is nothing novel about suffering being transformative. The secret to the mystery of suffering is that God permits it at times because it is good. This is incomprehensible to a secular person, but ask the disciples of Dharma or Tao, and they will understand what I mean. Anyway, I welcome you to have the final word in our mini discussion.

[Era Might]

Read the last book of the Bible, my friend. There is nothing novel about suffering being transformative. The secret to the mystery of suffering is that God permits it at times because it is good. This is incomprehensible to a secular person, but ask the disciples of Dharma or Tao, and they will understand what I mean. Anyway, I welcome you to have the final word in our mini discussion.

 

The last book of the Bible doesn't claim that a holistic Christian society will emerge from its Apocalypse. It says that God will put an end to everything.

[Apotheoun]

It is an ancient Catholic teaching that suffering is redemptive. I always loved St. Augustine's homilies on suffering, especially when he references the suffering of the Church back to Christ's agony in the Garden, that is, to when Christ sweated blood from His body, which St. Augustine interprets as the martyrdom of the Church throughout time.

Edited September 15, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

All Christians can, with St. Paul, say: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." (Colossians 1:24)

[Era Might]

It is an ancient Catholic teaching that suffering is redemptive. I always loved St. Augustine's homilies on suffering, especially when he references the suffering of the Church back to Christ's agony in the Garden, that is, to when Christ sweated blood from His body, which St. Augustine interprets as the martyrdom of the Church throughout time.

 

Suffering can be redemptive if it finds mature soil, or is a step toward maturity. But when you have some catastrophic social breakdown, when mothers are prostituting themselves and babies are starving to death, when men are dying by the millions on a battlefield, when hatred and corruption has overrun society, etc., this is no romantic "transition" to some holistic Christian society. It is offensive to suggest that we need is some kind of deadly catastrophe in order to bring about the reign of God. That is naive fanaticism, precisely the kind of fanaticism that made room for Nazism. WWI and WWII were, for Hitler, precisely this kind of apocalyptic catastrophe that would clear away the decadence and lead Germany to a glorious uncorrupted new society.

 

Edited September 15, 2013 by Era Might

[Apotheoun]

I wrote a paper years ago that touched on the issue of Christian suffering. It can be found by clicking the link below:

 

The Conversion of St. Paul and the Unity of Christ and the Church

[Apotheoun]

 

 

Suffering can be redemptive if it finds mature soil, or is a step toward maturity. 

Suffering is a part of the Christian life, and that is true whether the person is mature or immature, because being a Christian is an extension of the incarnation, and the suffering of the head must be reproduced in the body. Salvation is by sacrifice, i.e., by the sacrifice of Christ, but not in a simple historical sense of an event of the past now remembered through the reading of texts, but by Christ's one sacrifice being made present in the Church, and in each individual member of the Church, both liturgically and in our daily living of the faith.

[Era Might]

Suffering is a part of the Christian life, and that is true whether the person is mature or immature, because being a Christian is an extension of the incarnation, and the suffering of the head must be reproduced in the body. Salvation is by sacrifice, i.e., by the sacrifice of Christ, but not in a simple historical sense of an event of the past now remembered through the reading of texts, but by Christ's one sacrifice being made present in the Church, and in each individual member of the Church, both liturgically and in our daily living of the faith.

 

I'm sure whatever you just said will put food in the mouth of a starving baby.

[Era Might]

And, by the way, a breakdown of society has nothing to do with whether one is a Christian or not.

[Apotheoun]

I'm sure whatever you just said will put food in the mouth of a starving baby.

Where did I say anything about not practicing charity? All I said is that Christians are called to live the passion of Christ in their lives. Christ said that the poor will be with us always, does that mean that He also refused to help the poor? I simply stated a fact, that suffering is a part of the Christian vocation, and you ran with that in order to take a cheap shot by implying that I am for letting a baby starve. Come on, get real.

[Era Might]

Where did I say anything about not practicing charity? All I said is that Christians are called to live the passion of Christ in their lives. Christ said that the poor will be with us always, does that mean that He also refused to help the poor? I simply stated a fact, that suffering is a part of the Christian vocation, and you ran with that in order to take a cheap shot by implying that I am for letting a baby starve. Come on, get real.

 

I wasn't implying that. My point was about Apteka's fantasy for a catastrophe. I have no problem with the idea of redemptive suffering. I wasn't saying you don't want to feed a starving baby, but that ideas about "redemptive suffering" don't turn social chaos into the kind of social renewal that Apteka imagines. When people are suffering, chances are social breakdown is going to lead to more suffering and going to lead people to acts of despair and survival, not "holistic" Christian virtue. It is good when Christians are able to endure suffering positively, because the Christian then becomes a stable influence...that's different from imagining that one big giant fireball will cure the world of its ills.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Era Might