Yeah the concerts rarely convert because they’re into radical kindness. They get so wrapped up in the aesthetic and the text they miss the point about a group of homeless vagrants feeding people
My second child had a friend Rose, who was the daughter of a lady Mary (of course) who was Catholic like nobody I have met before or since (and I say that as someone whose dad was excommunicated because his wife left him, half my family was Catholic.) She was really nice and a true believer to the point of being batshit crazy but so gentle with her dozen kids and they were great kids. She got them a birthday party only every 5 years, we got to go to one for Rose and it was huge, with literal ponies, but the gift her mom gave her was a song she wrote and sang for her. It was awesome. I don't live in that world but will attest that some fundy Catholics are really nice people, religion does not spoil them, and they don't try to convert you.
Also when the photographer was going to take a picture of all the kids she said, I quote, "Say Jesus!"
You are complimenting them on their humanism, not their adherence to their religion. Which is fine. It’s the religion which has had to adjust itself to remain acceptable to its fee paying subscribers. As a lapsed Catholic myself , the theme of conversion, and evangelism was a fairly regular one at the weekly groaningly boring sermon. If your friends weren’t attempting to convert you I credit their social awareness, and again general humanism considering that at the back of their heads they have to agree , lest burn themselves, that you are going to burn in hell for eternity for not being a member of the same club. That trusted functional adults told me that repeatedly through my childhood while living in an otherwise decent, civil society is a credit to the social education my family and community gave me and each other otherwise. We cherry pick from the brutal bronze age texts but the pickings get slimmer and slimmer and the choices we make are filtered based on our actual humanity and ethical social standard of our time. Perhaps the official doctrine has since shifted - I grew up in the 70s/80s - but I don't really care. Crediting people for their actual actions despite their environment is where I’ve ended up. I do disagree though with you saying their religion doesn't spoil them. Being told by the apparently literal mouthpiece of God on earth that the universe was created for you and that (s)he keeps a constant tab on you and your prayers because you are a member of the club? Doesn't get much more earthly and spoilt . Like being quietly and modestly told by your parents that you are really better than all other kid on earth. If the parents choose not to spoil their kids materialistically or otherwise, thats the work and choice of the parents, not their religion, let alone the work of the imaginary cloud man.
As a heretic to Catholicism conversion was meh in my churches growing up. They were pretty clear that most people had some faith and that where they might get screwed is in the works department. We were always told to behave so well that people would be impressed by the kindness and generosity of Catholics, and that that alongside letting them come to us would convert them far better than any amount of nagging.
Ive been taking my grandma to church on sundays for about half a year now. Sermons have usually been about not being a dick and, like, donating food and diapers.
Still waiting for someone to yell about the purity of manhood or something but I get the impression they have more important things to think about.
To be fair, most religious leaders don't preach hate - but they can't normally speak out against it. Much like FOX News' excuse for spreading the stolen election lies, if they speak out against what their followers believe, they lose followers. Shit excuse, shit people.
Did Subway fund Jared's legal defenses and shuffle him, still employed, from location to location to cover up rapes (without doing anything preventing him from finding new victims through their stores, of course)?
Subway's got a lot more problems than the unsavory personal life of its past spokesperson, but the sandwitch guy at the local one is just a wretch who doesn't get commissions (or, likely, tips) for his service. I'd take a look at John Oliver's main LWT segment on Subway Sandwiches.
However, the child sexual assault scandals and cover-ups of religious ministries is not unique to the Roman Catholic Church and but is epidemic among major ones, conspicuously centered around youth ministries.
And it's indicative of a system that doesn't sufficiently vet people who work with kids (contrast faculty of public schools) and aims more to silence victims and preserve the (now false) reputation of the church rather than preserve justice and transparency and care for the victims.
It speaks ill of organizations that allegedly carry God's favor that they feel compelled to keep secrets and allow sexual violence to fester within their own ranks.
I know. When any post contains the word "catholic" pretty much half of the comments say exactly your point. The catholic church is a hierarchy, and it has god-awful middle management. But condemning an entire religion because of internal corruption is like condemning a minimum wage employee for the actions of their boss's boss's boss. The guy's just trying to make a sandwich.
A friend of mine is deeply Catholic, teaches high school American history, has progressive values (is pro-civil-rights) and explains it that he has a spot in his brain for all the church stuff, wheras the rest of his brain adheres to science and the secular morality we've developed through trial and error and beating back the dominance-minded shenanigans of plutocrats. I've met many Catholics like him.
But then theres Brett Kavanaugh and all the rest of the Federalist Society, who believe in pre-constitutional feudalism (so long as they get to be aristocrats).
So I'm pretty sure Catholics can be kind and compassionate and merciful despite their faith. But doing so is quite common.
Yeah, but that's anecdotal. I know a Catholic Guy who is a math doctor, and he doesn't have to compartmentalize his faith with his rationality, he simply doesn't see a contradiction between the sciences and his faith. He believes in a round Earth, he rejects and detests Trump worship, and is all around an amazing person, often BECAUSE of his faith rather against..
He sees Christians who do bad things in Christ's name as shameful, and he often voices disapproval for "Trad Caths" and such barbaric ideas as Prosperity Gospel.
Catholics are more like my friend, not your friend, you just need to leave the New Atheist bubble these Reddit-style forums get into.
But your example is also anecdotal? Catholics aren't more like your friend or more like his. They're both Catholic. It's a diverse group. Sweeping generalizations don't help anyone.
I'm no longer religious, but I probably would not be the person I am were it not for Catholic teachings. It was probably in Catholic school which taught me that you don't have to prove anything to anyone. This advice complements my maverick and individualistic personality but it isn't to say that I haven't had insecurities and not minded what others think. I was also taught to be compassionate and humble. However, the last two could only go so far as I learned growing up that it led me to being a figurative door mat for others.
Nevertheless, all of those doesn't excuse the Catholic church's corruption and sexual abuse scandals. The Catholic church also, up until recently, force left handed folks to be right handed. That is one of the weirdest superstitions and beliefs that the Catholic church has. Oh and the Catholic church is still impractically anti-divorce.
Sheer numbers assures us that there are dastards among all walks.
But yes the Christian nationalist movement does seem to have high numbers glad to dispose of the rest of us and turn the US and its states into a one-party autocracy.
Curiously, Evangelist academics have warned this could really set back the acceptance of Christianity, who will be regarded for decades the way Nazis were in the late 20th century. (Shunned and sometimes hunted.)
After having gone to catholic school and church every week, I can only enthusiastically disagree about the former. Almost every nun I know was raised catholic and Jesus Christ, are 90% of them awful.
My Catholic high school has a teacher who is an adult convert and he's like "Don't make a short circuit with the ammeter or you'll die and YOU'LL GO STRAIGH TO HELL!!! jk there's a fuse" and "Eh that's good enough for Catholic school work" and he shows us videos about the connection between math and God
That’s funny because one of my Calc professors said to a student during a test “you can pray all you want, but no god is going to help you integrate. That’s what homework is for”
I'd say this is part of the "zeal of the convert" phenomenon, where someone who converts to a belief tends to be more fanatical than someone raised in that belief.
There's probably bias in this observation, as a couple of very loud people can drown out dozens of others and make a trend seem more prevalent than it actually is, but I also have personal experience here.
I almost converted to Judaism in my late teens, and the Rabbi I was working with shared with me a prayer he often prayed in times of struggle. "God grant me the faith of the convert, the strength of a bear, the wisdom of the aged, and the patience of a mother"
Why would I need to be more specific about the different branches of Catholicism? The author in the screenshot doesn't do that either. They simply point out their observation that lifelong Catholics tend to value broad teachings that aren't necessarily specific to Catholicism, while adult converts become fanatical about doctrinal minutiae. In other words, the former is relaxed about their faith, while the latter is zealous.
I then related that to my own experiences, where someone who is raised in a belief system tends to be less aggressive about those beliefs than someone who converts to later in life - i.e. the "zeal of the convert." This observation isn't exclusive to Catholicism, it's just being made into relation to it in this instance. This phenomenon isn't even exclusive to religion, as one can observe it with political beliefs as well.
I don't think anything here requires a differentiation between branches of Catholicism, because the observations are about the act of converting, not about what specific belief system the converts moving to and from.
I'm completely lost. How and when did this become about religious people behaving badly? I am 99.9% sure that the point of the original topic was a commentary on how recent converts tend to be more enthusiastic about their faith than people raised in the church, regardless of what the individual beliefs actually are. The example beliefs from the original post ("feed the poor" and "women shouldn't drive") are just examples to help characterize this dichotomy in an amusing way.
In fact, that second example, about women and driving, is almost certainly not an actual Catholic doctrine. Any search for the full phrase leads only to reposts of this image, and I'd wager it was made by just stringing together some Christian buzzwords for humorous effect. While I don't doubt some Catholics do believe women shouldn't drive, I also very much doubt they'd use the phrasing and justification found in the original post.
The example wasn't 'more enthusiastic' tho. It was 'combing through minutae for excuses to be a dick'¹ and it rang extremely true, because people choose religions for reasons, and a big one of those reasons is to feel sanctimonious about being a dick²
¹which is absurd! You don't need an excuse to do that! Look at me!
²which is absurd! You don't need a religion to do that! Look at me!
I, and presumably others, associate obsession with religious minutiae with religious fervour. I have a lot first hand experience with this, as some of the most ardent Christians I knew were also the ones who were eyeballs deep in apologetics and church history (and also adult converts). It makes a certain amount of logical sense too, as you wouldn't expect a casual church-goer to care that much about all that.
With that in mind, it isn't a big leap to connect the original post to the phenomenon of the zeal of the convert.
What it comes down to, then, is that the original post has more than one layer to it. Rather than focus on the difference between charity and dogmatism, I chose instead to highlight contrast between the simplicity [of charity] and the convolution [of dogmatism]. Once again, my personal experiences informed the way I approached this post.
I think the big thing here is that Catholicism has a clear set and well defined dogma, but it’s not just that. Converts tend to have the dogma but they lack more or less everything else about Catholicism. That includes the community values (for better or for worse) and the folk traditions. Instead they tend to double down on the aesthetic and general cultural understandings.
In short, they believe monks should be Benedictine and not a smiling Franciscan sharing his meal with a homeless person or a Jesuit studying the stars to bear witness to their glory.
I’d say this is part of the “zeal of the convert” phenomenon, where someone who converts to a belief tends to be more fanatical than someone raised in that belief.
Why am I instantly thinking of people who read a book that made them decide to stop smoking?
