Heaven

[LittleWaySoul]

43 minutes ago, Jack4 said:

Quasar, I believe, misunderstood you, and that is very natural. Not a fault of his, not a fault of yours either. The thing is, many people take your position to a great extreme. (*cough*cough* "The Holy Spirit inspired me with this new interpretation of Scripture, so I'm founding a new Church" *cough*cough*) 

There are some others who deny Hell because they don't "like" it. I know you know that the Truths found by reason and Church teaching have much greater weight than gut feeling. Otherwise, mystics who experience dark night of the soul should leave the Church! 

Perhaps you're misunderstanding me too. My reason isn't a gut feeling or fluffy whim so much as a hope for things unattainable in this life. Thus it is exactly when dark nights happen that this reason comes most fully into play.

The mentality, clumsily put, goes something like this: "Everything is horrible and nothing will ever be good and full in my life. God is not listening to me and I will never be happy. Ok, but what are my options? Give up hope in heaven and resign myself to a crummy and unsatisfying existence for the short time I'm alive? Or choose to believe that one day there will be no more suffering and that this current suffering is redemptive?"

Ultimately, I choose the latter. This isn't quite an emotional choice, you see, because it quite often contradicts the very emotions I feel, firmly rebuking them. It requires that I stop feeling sorry for myself and think critically and practically about my situation and my options. It may not be academic, but I don't think it's a touchy feely emotional Spirit-is-moving-me thing either. At least not the way I experience it, anyway. 

Hope that makes sense!

8 minutes ago, Quasar said:

Yes, this is what I was hoping to get from people, experiences in their lives or in the lives of others that persuaded them to believe.  I don't think life experience is illogical or an intellectual crutch at all.  My concern with the argument that a belief in heaven makes us feel good therefore it's true, other than not finding it persuasive, is that I've heard often the argument that people of faith are somehow weak minded and only believe because they need to believe.  So, I do not like to think of people of faith as only believing something because it makes them feel good to believe.  About half of my extended family is atheist or agnostic, so I've heard my share of these untrue comments.

That makes sense! I've thought a lot about this idea; do I believe because it makes me feel good?

Ultimately, it's complicated. I've heard many intellectual/academic arguments that I assent to either fully or in part, so that helps bolster my belief. It needs to be personal too, though, hence my previous statements. In a sense, I am picking what seems to be the nicer sounding interpretation of life, so I can see where you're coming from there.

But on the other hand, there are many times when my faith does not make me feel good at all. Times when I'm tired of following the rules, of caring what God/others think, of obedience. In these times, it's tedious to go to Mass, it's painful to confess my sins, it's flat out difficult to believe. And yet my reason for belief stands in the midst of this too: "Okay, LWS, so you wish you could go crazy with no consequences, fine. But would that truly make you happy?" While I may want it sometimes, I believe the ultimate answer is no. Thus I cling to the faith that promises fulfillment, even when doing so itself is painful. 

[Guest]

 

"Knowledge" - one of the seven Gifts of The Holy Spirit (Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Fortitude, Piety, Fear of The Lord")

 

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/

 

BELIEF

Definition

The acceptance of something at true on a trustworthy person's word. It differs from faith only in the stress on confidence in the one who is believed. Moreover, belief emphasizes the act of the will, which disposes one to believe, where faith is rather the act of the mind, which assents to what is believed.

 

KNOWLEDGE

Definition

Any act, function, state, or effect of mental activity. Essential to knowledge is that some of reality from outside the mind is re-presented in the mind by what is called an intentional likeness or similarity to the object known. Knowledge, therefore, is assimilation of mind with object. As a result there is an intentional (assimilative) union between knower and known. We become what we know.

 

[Jack4]

20 hours ago, LittleWaySoul said:

 

15 hours ago, LittleWaySoul said:

 

16 hours ago, LittleWaySoul said:

Perhaps you're misunderstanding me too. My reason isn't a gut feeling or fluffy whim so much as a hope for things unattainable in this life. 

 

No, I had understood you. I was referring to those who take an extreme form of your position. 

[Amppax]

On 9/22/2016 at 0:52 AM, Quasar said:

If you believe in Heaven, why do you believe it's real?  Is there anything outside of scripture and doctrine that compels you to believe?  

What do you think it's like?

 

 

This is an interesting question, and probably one that I don't think of often enough. As far as existential questions go, the one that has tended throughout my life to preoccupy me is the existence of God here and now, rather than consideration of what is to come. In so far as I do believe in God (and I pray constantly "Lord, help my unbelief"), heaven tends to follow. I suppose (outside of faith) there is not much that necessitates that, though I find Aquinas' arguments at the beginning of the Prima Secundae of the Summa (QQ. 1-5) to be a compelling argument concerning the end of man. 

[White Knight]

I think it is a fascinating bafflement that after 5000-9000 years of human history and questioning, the 21st century is questioning  one of the big five all time ever asked questions regarding our humanity and its future. Humanity from all kinds of civilizations have believed in some form of afterlife, its not just something supernatural in us that leads us to believe this. The natural order of logical awareness brings us through sound reason to the conclusion or there beyond the possibility of a afterlife, regardless of how it was understood in our past, our present, and or future. The idea that people just live and die and then nothing happens is absolutely the most pointless discouraging thing humanity has ever comprehended in its existence, it makes life so pointless that life is not even worth being in if it were ever remotely true. 

 

[<3 PopeFrancis]

On 9/25/2016 at 0:35 PM, Quasar said:

 

On 9/25/2016 at 8:03 AM, Peace said:

Hmm. From a Catholic perspective I think that the intellect is more of a power of the soul than a function of the brain. Moral questions such as "is it wrong for me to kill", "should I love my neighbor?" or "will I obey or disobey God?" are questions that our soul considers and answers. Animals, who also have brains, are incapable of making moral decisions because they do not have souls (in the same sense that humans do).

But I am not sure exactly how our intellect interacts with our brains, as far as memory, controlling our bodies, etc. is concerned.

I don't know how the interaction plays out, either, but people with brain injuries or brain diseases sometimes have impaired intellectual abilities, sometimes including what we would consider impaired moral decision making.  So this tells me that the intellect isn't entirely separate from the material, organic world of biology.

 

Yes.  I've seen that people who are generally happy and receive some type of brain injury can change.  It can completely change one's personality.  Their morality changes also which is the part I do not understand.  

[Guest]

16 hours ago, <3 PopeFrancis said:

 Their morality changes also which is the part I do not understand.  

Speaking of mental illness, moral choices can be quite screwed up.  If a person sufferers episodic mental illness it can seem to the sufferer and to those around them that there are two entirely different people operating in the sufferer.  There isn't.  One's understanding of what reality is and is not can be screwed up (psychosis) and one's understanding of what one believed and how one behaved outside of the episode is sometimes the extreme opposite to the normal beliefs and behaviour outside of an episode.  This is all absolutely confusing to sufferer (and those around them) and can be entirely destructive of way of life and relationships.  It can be personally destructive to the sufferer as well since they may have no more understanding of what happened than anyone else.  A confusion of identity can occur: "Who am I? which one am I really?" I think I could possibly explain it further, if I only had the language to do so.

For those suffering MI 24x7 their thinking can be entirely confusing, even impossible, to follow and along with that moral choices and behaviour may be socially and morally off the chart.

Since the above are not regarded as morally responsible, I wonder if it could be that the powers/faculties of the soul (memory, understanding and will) are expressed through the brain and if the brain is malfunctioning, diseased - whatever, problems can then occur in exterior expression and behaviour?  But entirely out of my depth.

(Powers of The Soul understood to be memory, understanding and will HERE ).

[<3 PopeFrancis]

6 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

For those suffering MI 24x7 their thinking can be entirely confusing, even impossible, to follow and along with that moral choices and behaviour may be socially and morally off the chart.

Since the above are not regarded as morally responsible, I wonder if it could be that the powers/faculties of the soul (memory, understanding and will) are expressed through the brain and if the brain is malfunctioning, diseased - whatever, problems can then occur in exterior expression and behaviour?  But entirely out of my depth.

(Powers of The Soul understood to be memory, understanding and will HERE ).

We receive the gift of intellect and knowledge at Holy Confirmation  God is compelling us to Heaven.  The difference, I believe @Jack4, is we use the intellect to recognize God and our heart to love Him   Along with graces that God and Our Lady gives the degree to how much we love Him is proportionate to how much we get to know Him.  The degree in how much we know Him  is proportionate to how much we love Him which compels us to search for His truth therefore cultivating the intellect. and so forth and so on. It doesn't end ever. 

[Guest]

My take is also that the soul and its faculties and the body with its functioning (includes the brain and mental functioning) are not two isolated entities here on earth, they are a partnership working together at the one and the same time and need each other here on earth and have been fashioned by God to do so - not as a nicety as it were but as an essential Plan of God in material creation.  A marriage if you like, united as one until death when the body decays completely but not the soul..........until the resurrection of the body, when soul and body are once more united as one and the saved are glorified (with all it means), and when I hope most all questions will be answered.

I do have no clue either how the interaction between soul and body may in actuality and intimately take place while we are on earth - have never really given the subject research and thought.

edit: just occurred to me that "save my soul" expression has a reason.

 

 

Edited September 30, 2016 by BarbaraTherese