Posted by John on November 18, 2001 at 16:13:51:
In Reply to: brain-checking as evolution posted by jonvon on November 17, 2001 at 23:16:12:
: I don't think its necessarily "check-your-brain-at-the-door faith", i think it is very possibly an evolutionary process. for instance you said in an earlier part of this thread:
: when i was younger the first two of these three statements (uncannily) were fairly exemplary of some of my thoughts concerning my religious duty. i was actually quite concerned with such matters. this was an evolutionary place for me. i may have asked these questions somewhat early compared to other people my age. in general i am pretty much a late bloomer but in this area i was probably earlier than most. so i've moved past this kind of thinking, probably more than is healthy (i am wrestling a bit with what my current duties should be), but i think that it is a valid place to be. and it probably means that at some point in the future the person asking those questions will move on to deeper questions. you know? you can't solve quadratic equations until you have at least some of the rudimentary algebra down. also as a former and still somewhat closet catholic, i know from experience that these questions are not an avoidance of relationship, they are actually aimed at making a person's relationship with god more meaningful.
I think we are looking at the same thing and saying the same thing in different ways. To you it is just as hokey, but that's okay because people can grow out of it. To me, while they may grow out of it, I see no reason to start with incorrectness as a foundation and then have to undo it as a growth experience. But here I can argue with myself:
I used to think that it was relatively okay to throw people a bone so to speak. Give them an easy answer that would suffice for now until they were grown enough in the faith to understand the deeper principle at work. Therefore if someone asks a question like the one that started this thread it would be fine to give them the verses and say, "that's the answer." But then I realized that people tend often to NOT grow out of the mush. It's too easy to stay dependent on the easy answers. Secondly, as a philosophical point the answers are not right! The truth is that God doesn't care so much what we do as the devotion of our heart. To make people think that there is a standard of behavior required of them by God may make it easier for us to create a presentable "Christian" but it bypasses the whole mystery of grace that is so beautiful. So now I think it is better to force them from the very beginning to abandon their preconceptions, abandon the brain-washing of culture and church and learn to seek God truly from the start. Of course I have also learned that many, if not most, people will give up on this and just go elsewhere to find what they need. I went through this thing for several years at Crossover with Steve. He would preach an excellent accurate sermon that so totally challenged people that they couldn't sleep for trying to reconcile the new ideas that screamed true with the old "way things worked", the result was often that they just left and went to a church where the sermon was easier to swallow. So then should we have dumbed down the sermon and just made it easy for the new Christians to stay with us in the hopes that later we could finally get to the good stuff? Or should we have continued in the things that we knew were on our hearts even though the results were not apparent.
I say the latter. And that's what we did. And I think it was the better way. Of course there may be a place for those who do not want to push the envelope so much. I said before that these opposites were the beauty of our God. But for me at least I know that I was revolutionized in my faith by God through someone who wasn't afraid to push the envelope and even outright defy that the envelope was valid. It spoke to my deepest soul and I knew it was what i needed. I think there are others like me who need to hear the radical faith. They need to know that God is as freaky as they are (you know what I mean, that their thoughts which make them labeled as freaks are valid and God understands them) These people know a crock of (insert favorite word for vile matter) when they see it, and they don't get the button-downed pew-riding set that likes it laid out pat. So I think that those who can truly follow their faith and God's leading and remain in that more conservative vain face one set of challenges... But that isn't me. I guess I just restated my whole thing about not being able to accept the Catholic church, while respecting it.
But then I can counter that by saying that originally we were focusing on those who check their brains trather than learn to love a living God. And in that case there is no possibility that it is good. Now as for whether all who study catechism and such are brain-checked... I think we agree this isn't the case.
Wow, I could go on back and forth with myself all night. But I think I'll just wait for you to read this.
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: : All that we call "ways to experience God" i.e. worship, prayer, tongues, all of the "spiritual manifestations" are really more ways that God chooses to touch us in our foolishness. It makes no difference to Him how we get there because ultimately we are just children flying to the moon in a cardboard box.
: i like this metaphor a LOT. very nice.
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: : Right on! I understand that the Eucharist may bring a sense of utter reverence and passion about in people and that many miraculous and healing things have been performed in association with it. But I defy anyone to tell me that when i sit under the oak tree with my bare feet in the dank earth I am having any less of a transcendent holy experience. I've tried to see what the whole sacred space of church was about. I've tried to meditate in the pews before the ornate statuary and all, but once the wonder at the beauty of it all wore off I found myself spritually dry as a bone, yet in the minimal natural landscape of a dirt lot with struggling weedy vegetation I can pray like a mystic! See for me the natural world expresses God best. But for others it's the pagentry of the Catholic church, for others the jibberish they recite in an agitated mental state. If any of it touches anyone it is because God did it and has nothing to do with the means.
: cool. one of these days we've got to make it to europe. my mom was in england a few years back. she went into this church, it had been standing there for probably 400 years or more, not a huge cathedral but pretty big. she slipped into a pew and was looking at the tall stone walls and the elegance of the work and just generally digging on the vibe. suddenly from way up high came the voices of a boys choir. i can't remember if she said they were warming up or if the service was actually starting, but i remember she was totally in awe. there is something built into the ethos over there i think, and something built into those buildings that took generations to build. anyway one of these days i really need to see it. i would like the chance to worship god in a place like that.