Blind Faith

My last real post was on the irrationality of atheism. I feel in fairness, I need to address blind faith as well.
The funny thing about faith is that true faith necessitates that all you can honestly state is "I believe X." Faith, as faith, is different than knowledge. And from a purely philosophical and psychological point of view, the concept of knowledge is even a bit shaky.
But before I delve too much into that, I think it is important to note that faith should not be blind. No one should ever take the word of their parents or teachers as the word of God. Faith is the kind of substance that continually needs to be tried. This is how theology evolves.
It is all very well and good to believe in something, but it is important to know what it is that you believe in, and why it is that you believe that. For this reason, theology has changed in every single century for the last two thousand years. And within the last century, when humanism presented its case before faith, many theologians stepped up to greet the challenge and the emphases of the twentieth century reflect this.
Also, it is important to have people to look to for faith. Augustine makes it clear that the authority that Christians look toward helps direct them and gets them through the more puzzling aspects of being a believer. Authorities show the way and answer difficult questions. However, in today's world, there are so many different authorities saying so many different things, that it is important to be aware of what they are actually saying.
The biggest problem that I do see in people's faith is that they often take faith itself as the authority. It seems that many people follow the mantra "Well, I believe it, so it must be so." This is one of the greatest follies to which we as believers can fall. Simple belief in something does not make it so. It makes it even less so if there is no evidence to reinforce one's beliefs. I might believe that little leprechauns are stealing my socks from the dryer, but unless I can offer a plausible explanation, or at least one that is not completely preposterous, then my faith has no merit. Belief in a god, however, is plausible, as illustrated by Aquinas' defense from Sufficient Reason, which states that if something is, then there must be a cause for it. The cause for our universe can be a god, especially the way that philosophers and theologians account for the creation.
A quick anecdote will illustrate my point about faith. Growing up Mormon, my friends and family always encouraged us to "develop" what they called "a testimony." Essentially, a Mormon's testimony is his specific set of beliefs, most of which have very specific properties to them, such as the belief that Joseph Smith was God's prophet, and most of which are stated as matters of fact. The way a Mormon will usually present his testimony is like this, "I know that X" where X is something like "Joseph Smith was a prophet," "The Book of Mormon is true" or "Jesus is God's only Son." None of these things are reasonable to know, the way that most people talk about knowing anything. I can neither vouch for Joseph Smith's conversations with God, nor can I verify the authenticity of the Book of Mormon or even Jesus' actual life. All of these things must be taken on faith. However, Mormons not only generally state these beliefs as facts, but they use them as arguments for their positions.
But they are not alone. There are several faiths which encourage strict adherence to faith and reject normal methods of questioning or investigating. These groups discourage me. These faiths make me depressed about the state of faith in America. If we blindly follow what our leaders say, no matter how horrific it truly is, then we are no better than many of the nonbelievers say that we are.
But, I do also believe that we need something to believe in. It is perfectly fine to believe that in the hereafter, there will be a glorious reward for those who live righteous lives. It is normal to hope for a greater future, or a justification of souls. However, we cannot allow this faith to cause us to lose track of what it really is that we believe in.

New Survey

I would greatly appreciate if you guys all took this survey I wrote up for some theological research I've been carrying out over the past few months. It should only take a few minutes.
Thanks.
Survey

Atheism from the perspective of a theist

In my experience, true, abject atheism is hard to come by. The reason being is probably because we live in such as theistic world that fully being able to deny any God existing has some kind of logical contradiction associated with it.
This isn't always the case, but I will try to explain it as well as I can. Pascal (whom I've already written about) stated that only the truly irrational deny any existence of a God, because in this existence they are inevitably damning themselves to either non-existence after life (if they are correct), or to eternal damnation. In Pascal's mind, the rational person will either believe in a God, or, failing to have enough faith for that, will at least seek some kind of God, not being content with the idea that there is no God and not being content with not knowing (an agnostic who stopped searching for God would be irrational).
And, in fact, in the world of philosophy, when atheism became a real factor, it was represented by Nietzsche, whose denial of God was so complete that he even completely denied the ethics of believers as having any real value to them.
But we have lost that sense today. We live in a morally relativistic world where we often forget that many of the basic fundamentals we follows (those not found in the universal law that all humans follow) are the result of our Christian heritage. But Nietzsche understood this. Furthermore, he understood that a lot of these basic guidelines we follow are the only things restricting us from being utterly and completely base and selfish. He understood that all humans have the "will to power" which he hypothesized governs our lives.
So, for Nietzsche, the fear of an imaginary God was a silly one, and the inhibitions that normally prevent us from trampling everyone in order to further our own desires was a silly list of pointless rules.
However, in today's world, the atheist finds himself often following these rules. Upon questioning, I find that I rarely get a coherent response as to why we, as selfishly driven humans, would ever sacrifice anything great for little or nothing (like the martyrs for example). Of course, the promise of a glorious afterlife seems to be the basic reason for a lot of people's ethical choices. In fact, I would go so far as to say most of Christendom follows many of their principles for that reason. Likewise, many other basic components of decency are lost because of their lack of emphasis in Christendom.
However, the one thing I am most perplexed about is how someone can fully deny the existence of a god. I understand that one can not believe in God, just as someone else can. However, while God is not provable, at the same time, God is not disprovable. I can claim to feel God's presence, or have a mystical experience, or see miracles or appeal to the order of the universe and our bodies, and someone else can just as easily call my experiences psychological, the miracles to be chance events and the order to not be order, but just the result of a chaotic explosion billions of years ago. However, in these refutations, my opponent has never shown how his thoughts prove no God. After all, God could have caused the big bang, evolution, chance events that continue to happen today and could have altered my psychological state to experience His presence.
So in my thinking, it makes more sense to state that one is an agnostic. It is clearly easier to say that one does not think that there is a God because he has never seen proof enough than for someone to claim that there is no God because he has apparently come by some knowledge that clearly demonstrates that there can be no God.
And so I rest with my first statement: atheism, as atheism is irrational. However, I must also add that dogmatic belief as unquestioned adherence to an unexamined tradition is also irrational.

Ex iusticia

I had kind of an insight earlier this week. One reason why I believe in God, and why so many other people have believed in God in this world, has to do with the notion of justice. I know, I've said before that we can't prove that God exists, but I'd like to think that there must be one.
I guess the main reason for this goes back to my last post. We, as humans, tend to be so corrupt. We shamelessly attack each other and often have no apparent sense of dignity. I wonder why we are like this, and many an atheist has used the evil world we live in as direct evidence of there not being a God.
However, many disciplines, chief amongst which are physics and philosophy, have taught us that every action has an equal recourse for it. Why is it, then, that there seems to be no real justice in the world? A thief breaks into a family's home and in the ensuing process kills a family member. All the rehabilitation or prison time, or community service won't bring that family member back.
Then I think of all the other atrocities we have seen in this world. We have so many people who commit so much injustice that seem to get away with so much of it. It is, needless to say, discouraging. But what is there to make up for it?
In Jewish theology, there is often times an apocalyptic motif. In fact, the entire Jewish view of history is one of a corrupt and fallen world being restored to a glorious and heavenly place. After being conquered by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, I don't blame the Jews one bit for thinking that their God must grant a just future to them.
Christians have latched onto this idea as well. The Apocalypse of John is full of imagery of the wicked being punished and the righteous being saved. The rapture is supposedly the saving of all the righteous Christians on the earth and their delivery from the hands of the wicked. The Millenium is supposed to be a time of peace following the greatest battle in the history of the world.
I don't know that I would necessarily plan on some kind of glorious end of the world. However, it helps me sleep better at night trusting that there will be some kind of justice for the oppressed, food for the hungry, haven for the persecuted, clothing for the naked, reward for the meek, blessing for the poor in spirit, etc. It doesn't have to come in this lifetime. In fact, if history shows us anything, it's that the big things only happen after long and toilsome efforts. However, i do hope and fully believe that in the end, God will take care of those who had no one to take care of themselves.
I'm reminded of the power of the Church in the Middle Ages. A lot of people wonder why it is that Christianity had such great control over all of Europe during the Medieval Era. The truth of the matter is that the Church was able to procure the favor of feudal lords. But the reason why it was so successful among the peasantry is simply this: because of the nature of the lives the peasants lived, having a glorious hope to look forward to after they die was, essentially, the only thing they really had to look forward to.
Similarly, African slaves in America became very spiritual, singing songs of deliverance as they longed for nothing more than the freedom that all human beings deserve.
I am of a similar mindset. I see the world as an unjust place with the redeeming qualities being overshadowed by its vices. However, two atheists I have spoken to recently voiced the opinion that it is only those redeeming values that we have to live for. I would then surmise that perhaps we should seek the qualities that some people express, such as philanthropism, charity, selfless giving, environmental awareness, justice and others. However, even as we pursue these options, it seems like Nietzsche's Will to Power still proves true for most humans. And it is in this case that I am forced to think the only true happiness or justice that we'll ever find does not come from this world or in this life.

In imago humani

In The Brothers Karamazov, one of the brothers, Ivan, is discussing his theological views with his brother Alexey. Following a certain popular phrase, Ivan states that he believes that if man created God, then man must have created God in his image. Alexey responds that if God was created in man's image, then the devil surely was as well.
What seems most puzzling of all is why we often times cease at explaining the movements of God, but we never have a hard time explaining the temptations of a devil. We puzzle why good people are plagued with injustices, but whenever an evil befalls a wicked man we state with self-righteous justice that "that man deserved what he got."
But the truth of the matter is, for all the praise and honor we give to philanthropic action, we are much more versed in misanthropy. Perhaps the reason why we laud those like Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day, Schindler, and others is because what they do is truly extraordinary. We are such connoisseurs of wretchedness that when we observe somewhat exhibiting truly magnanimous action we are astounded and stand in reverence.
Take, for example, Dante's Divine Comedy. The punishments of Hell are much more graphic, descriptive and moving than the toils of Purgatory or the blessings of Paradise. It may be argued that the reason why it is as such is because more men are afraid of going to Hell than of being punished in Purgatory. However, I think that the real reason is because we are so much better at tormenting humans than of simply putting them to toil, and much more than of rewarding them.
Think, for example: what great evil and misanthropic movements have taken place in the last few hundred years? Immediately we think of the Holocaust, the Spanish Inquisition, Genocides, Slavery, Religious persecution in general, Internment Camps, Political Witchhunts, Real Witchhunts, etc. But, on the other hand, what great deeds of philanthropic magnitude have been wrought? Can we think of any movement, other than recovery efforts, that was not in response to the great injustices that we have brought about before?
But we don't have only terribly evil men to look at. Stalin and Hitler are not the only men who have mistreated humans in horrific fashion. Everyday, we walk by the poor in our streets, we turn a deaf ear to the cries of the politically oppressed and sometimes we go so far as to condemn people simply because they are from another part of the world. We are all masters of wickedness. We are all workers of evil. For every time we ignore the beggar, or spurn the homosexual, or flat out scorn the political prisoner from the Middle East, we are all displaying the truly voracious, despicable side to human nature.
Indeed, if there is a devil, he must have been made in the image of man.

Ecological Theology

I just spent the last four days on a trip with my Stream Ecologist uncle up to Montana for some rafting and mountain biking. The trip was a blast, but as I spoke with my atheist uncle on the long drive through Idaho and Western Montana, I realized a lot of things about this world that I tend to not give as much attention to, specifically, the notion of us as human beings being good stewards in the environmental sense.
My father, on whom I don't rely for theological advice, often expresses his contempt at those who "preach global warming." He believes that if God gave this green earth to us, then there is no way that we can ever mess it up. I find this notion slightly comical, for during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union both amassed enough nuclear firepower to annihilate every living creature on this planet several times over. If we are able to do that completely on purpose, what sort of damage could we also accomplish simply by neglect?
In the end of the first chapter of Genesis, a story which most Bible Scholars admit is naught but a fable, God gives to humans dominion over all plants and animals of the planet.
Often times this verse is cited to give reason as to why humans are omnivorous, or why hunting is justified for us, or farming or ranching.
However, the problem is that we end up acting the spoiled millionaire heir, spending our funds foolishly, unaware of whence the money comes or how great the sum really is. Eventually, the spoiled heir, living out of his means, will use up a fortune which most men could easily have survived comfortably on for several lifetimes.
We live in a time where it is increasingly easier to be responsible stewards and live comfortable lives. But we often trade convenience for sensibility. We would rather trash deforest large areas for cattle grazing, or pollute streams and rivers rather than using safer, less "effective" chemicals. We would rather spray our produce with pesticides and herbicides which destroy the ecosystem rather than spend the extra money to breed natural predatory insects to protect our crops. We would rather build a mini mall to alleviate our apparent need to consume rather than enjoy the wetlands.
Some of us have even become criminally negligent. My uncle told me about a friend of his, Tyrone Hayes, a fellow stream ecologist specializing in frog populations who discovered that the presence of a popular herbicide, atrazine, in a thirtieth of FDA permitted levels in our drinking water will turn a male frog into a female hormonally speaking. What this means is that what we are federally permitted to ingest will turn an entire population of frogs into females, all of which will actually produce eggs. Now, at this point, we are not only destroying a species which, even according to the Bible, has been here longer than us, but we are also destroying ourselves, causing infertility in human males as well.
This is only one example of how our desire for convenience, also known as greed, is quite deadly. Rachel Carson also opened our eyes forty years ago with her book Silent Spring in which she demonstrated the dangers of DDT.
When it comes down to it, I don't believe that God will hold us simply responsible for what we do to each other in a very direct, easy to see manner, such as theft, adultery, murder, rape, but will also hold us accountable for what we do by our negligence. It isn't only what we advertise that will get us in trouble, but what we fail to advertise that will. And as stewards of this planet, it is our responsibility to care for it, a responsibility which I don't believe God will overlook at the last day.

Idol worship

This coming Sunday is Flag Day. I will be in Montana rafting, so regrettably I won't be able to comment on it at the time.
One of the most peculiar things I can think of in my childhood when it comes to my parents trying to raise me to be a good Mormon was the high level of patriotism they instilled in me. The classic discussion in American culture and politics is always how much involvement religion should have in shaping who we are as the American people and the phrase "separation of Church and State" has always been the representation of this difference.
But over and above this my parents, and many of the parents in the communities I grew up in, instilled in their kids a kind of country worship. We were told to stand tall, not as believers, but as Americans. We were told to unite as patriots, not as Christians. We were told that the men who died for their country were heroes, and that those we fought were the enemy, but we were never told about those martyrs who died for Jesus.
I was raised to be much more of an American and a patriot that to be a Christian and a witness. But at some point, I realized that while Americanism is limited to those who live in a particular location at a specific time, I believed that true salvation and real truth was not limited in this fashion. if America is the greatest country on earth, what of those who lived before America was a nation, or those who unfortunately live in third world countries and are unable to improve their situations?
So I decided that my nationality was not as important to me as it is to other people. Furthermore, I decided that I wanted to stand by God much more than I wanted to stand by my country. In many instances throughout time, from the Romans to the NAZIs, true Christians have had to stand up against the state. Why should I pledge myself fully to a nation that is alterable according to the whims of the people who take power?
And then comes the idea of flag worship. In my house, the American flag as a holy artifact. It should never touch the ground, it should always be flown, it should never have rips or tears, and it should never be put in a situation that was disgraceful. When the flag goes by in a parade, we salute in reverence, as if it was Jesus himself. We all stand for the national anthem and face our banner. We all act as if that flag itself is the distributor of grace and the ultimate power that we have to answer to in this life.
This is what concerns me. It is isn't that our way of life is important to us. It isn't that we honor those who lead us and protect us. It is that we worship them. We adore our system so much we impose it on some and restrict it from others, all at our own whims. We worship the government and the military. We get tattoos of the flag and hang it from our houses. We love Amerigo Vespucci, the man from whom America gets its name, more than Jesus, for whom Christianity was named.

The Triune God

Yesterday was Trinity Sunday. As a convert to Catholicism from Mormonism, the whole notion of the Trinity was one that took some time to fully wrap my head around. However, at this point in my career I feel confident that I not only understand it better than most, but I am also in the process of doing research on how others (specifically Mormons) view the Trinitarian relationship.
So it seems to me that this deserves some attention. The early Christians faced several difficult challenges in defining the Trinitarian relationship. The Arians thought that Jesus couldn't be God, but only human. The Manicheans separated Jesus' humanity from His Divinity.
But it goes back further than that. The early Christians were faced with the difficulty of believing somehow that Jesus was a lot more than a human being. The Gospel of John makes Jesus out to be God. The opening words are "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Thus the tone of Trinitarian existence is set forth from even the first century.
The gospels all set out the tone of Jesus being God. Then comes the Acts of the Apostles. With Pentecost (last week, by the way), the problem of the Holy Spirit comes onto the scene. Whereas the issue of Jesus' Divinity is somewhat problematic, especially with His unity with the Father, the Holy Spirit is a whole new problem all together. Who is this Holy Spirit that does not enter the scene (apparently) until at least Jesus' baptism? After much discussion, and careful prayer, the early Fathers decided that the Holy Spirit must also be God, and also unified with the Father and the Son.
But as most who have taken a basic course in Christian Theology or Sunday School know, the official stance of the Trinitarian formula was not fully developed until the Early councils, especially Nicaea and Chalcedon.
The one tragic part of the Trinitarian doctrine is that the more it was explained and developed, the more people that became Anathema. The Arians, the Manicheans, the Coptics, the Syriacs, the Assyrians, the Chalcedonians, the Nestorians (I apologize), the Maronites, and eventually the Orthodox Church all eventually were cut off from the Roman Church. Ideas such as the theotokos (God bearer), homousious, and the phrase "proceeds through the Father and the Son" as opposed to "proceeds through the Father through the Son" became operative in the the schismatic process.
Similarly, my sister yesterday went with me to Mass and liked to interject at every point that she thought that the doctrine supported her views. That's the real problem. The Trinity is such a blessed mystery that a lot of ways that we use to describe the relationship murkies up the water. Nobody who claims to be God has completely anti-Trinitarian views on the subject, but a lot of the explanations vary.
I think that St Augustine, one of my personal favorites among the philosopher/theologians and a Doctor of the Church explained it best. He described the relationship thus: the Son is God's word, eternally proclaimed, from time immemorial even until now. The Holy Spirit is the love shared between the Father and the Son. The Love is emitted from God to us, the Son is eternally proclaimed to us and the Father is eternally reigning over the heavens and earth.
This is not an easy notion to understand. However, to be fair, I do not believe that having a perfect understanding and knowledge of the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is necessary for our salvation.

Deus humanibus creatur

Ecumenism in an extremely broad sense has been on my mind lately. Not strictly the ecumenism sought after by Zinzendorf and Vatican II, but the ecumenism that Thomas Merton seemed to be pursuing toward the end of his life--the ecumenism that transcends religious boundaries, not simply denominational ones.
I've heard on multiple occasions the phrase, "God did not create man, man created God." On the surface, atheists tend to think that this witty phrase demonstrates a defendable argument. However, I think that this notion shows us something about ourselves, and our natural tendency to believe.
I think about this because for all of written time mankind has believed in supernatural forces. The oldest texts scholars have found are religious texts. The ancient Mesopotamians, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Germans, Persians, Indians, Native Americans, Incans, Aztecs, Mayans, Olmecs, Chinese, Arabs, Babylonians, Canaanites, Irish, Norse, etc all have texts or records that tell about their gods. Even today, out of the five biggest religions in the world, only one is not yet two thousand years old (Islam wasn't founded until the sixth century).
So why is it that all men, at all times have had beliefs in some super-powerful figure? Oft times, even those not in mainstream religions have their supernatural beliefs, such as Socrates' spiritual messenger, and today's superheroes.
Some people have noted that oft times the gods of yesteryear are related to elemental forces. Zeus, Thor, and Jupiter, for example, are all the god of thunder. Hel, Hades, Pluto, and Osiris are all gods of the underworld. Demeter is the goddess of the seasons. Frey is the god of fertility. Apollo and Ra are the god of the sun. Tyr is the god of victory. Neptune, Aegis, Poseidon are gods of the sea. Some gods even take on the role of certain occupations. Balder is the poet. Hermes is the messenger. Vulcan is the smith.
This of course tells us something about the human condition. Humans are superstitious. Even today, with all the explanations science gives us, we get spooked easily walking through a cemetary at night, become wary when we see "a bad omen" and think that some outside condition, such as a certain clothing article, is the cause of our ability to win at some sport.
But why are humans eternally superstitious? In the twentieth century, the former Soviet Union officially banned all religion because religions tell their members to pledge allegiance to God above the state. By removing religion from the people, the state effectively made themselves a religion. Propaganda about the motherland and new ethics were given to the people. All the facets of life that a faith system would normally provide, such as direction and community, were attempted to be replaced by the state.
But even for the atheist, there seems to be a greater power. Sometimes it is simply relegated as biology, instinct, chemistry, conditioning or other things. However, we seem to all feel as if there is something more at work than what we want to admit. Some call it fate, others providence. Some call it pure dumb luck and others call it chance. None of us feel as if we are in complete control. We all feel as if there is something bigger to which we must answer.
This is, in fact, one of the basic tenets of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. AA does not discrimate against atheists, but as part of the program, the alcoholics must answer to some kind of a higher power. That higher power need not necessarily be a god, or some super elemental force, but there needs to be one. It can, in fact, be something like one's children, spouse, employer, mentor, or anybody else. The fact of it is, though, they must report to somebody.
So it seems that the main thing that can be derived from this is that human beings inevitably find themselves dependent on somebody or soemthing. We rely, and put faith in something bigger than us.
To some, this demonstrates a kind of primitive, instinctual mentality that human beings have not fully grown out of. To me, this demonstrates a quirky fact about our nature that suggests to me that seems unexplainable unless it was purposefully left their by our creator.

Spes

Most of my posts tend to be fairly academic. I'm going to try to stray away from that for today.
I'd like to talk about hope today, the forgotten virtue. Love and faith are always lauded and given so much attention, but hope is usually glossed over.
But why hope? What virtuous merit does hope have? I believe that faith is the virtue meant for the scientist and the scholar, and love is the virtue meant for the miserly. But hope is the virtue of the artist. Hope is the poet's virtue.
It is the artist--the writer, the painter, the sculptor, the poet--that truly sees life for what it is. So many philosophers have sat on their high chairs and hypothesized about life and its purpose, but the ones that have truly captured our attention are the ones who speak to us. The ones who know the human heart and speak with the eloquence of a person whose soul is more than cold steel and mechanics.
This is the way that we work as humans. We aren't machines. We don't calculate and plan. We don't always do what's rational. We have more needs than simply a suitable climate and food and water.
The artist truly thinks with his soul. His art does not depict something mathematically articulate or scientifically unique. It depicts true human essence. The artist knows what true emotion is.
So it is that the artist also knows how depressing life truly is. We are surrounded by greed, lust, pride, wrath, gluttony, sloth, and envy. We destroy others' lives for our private benefit. We walk all over those we think under us. We treat humans like common tools. We scorn, despise and hate other people because of how they were born. We wage war against others for nothing other than to make sure we feel secure.
How are we supposed to find any requiem in this despairing life? We live for maybe a hundred years and die, and that's it. The poet sees through the crap that we have hidden our true insecurities within and comes to one of two conclusions: all life ans society is a sham and there is nothing worth anything, or that there must be more to life than what we see.
This is why hope is the virtue of the poet. Hope gets us through the truly depressing. Hope tells us that there must be more to our existence than a short chance to become whatever we can in a few decades. Hope tells us our fifteen minutes of fame is not the greatest extent of who we can be. Hope tells us that all our efforts are not in vain. Hope tells us that there is some bright future waiting for us. Hope is the forgotten virtue, but the virtue that will truly make everything worth it.

Te Rogamos

I thought prayer might be an appropriate topic to cover. Recently in my house, the topic of "reverence during prayer" was discussed, so it seems as if a more thorough examination of the subject is necessary.
I previously mentioned that the only true prayer is "Thy will be done." I hold to this. I feel as if I could end my post right here, but I think there is still more to be said. I also previously mentioned in my post on religiosity that wordy prayer is a kind of false piety.
So what is it about prayer that captures us so much? Many religions use prayer in a very scheduled, systematic fashion, with certain prayers for certain hours of the day and certain circumstances that require prayer, etc.
I've noticed that most faiths embrace some sort of pre-set prayer. I find this peculiar. Did not Christ himself say, "When you pray, use not vain repetitions?" (Matthew 6:7). So why is it that Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Mormons all have set prayers? Why are we asked to repeat a prayer that somebody else is saying?
The true question to ask here is whether or not it is a true prayer if the words are already set aside.
Another thing that seems peculiar to me is that we are often admonished to thank God in our prayers. The Old English use of pray was the same as a request. To say, "I pray thee" is the same as "I ask you." Sometimes at Mass we use the Latin form when we offer up our intentions with the "Te Rogamos" which literally means "We ask you." A prayer, it seems, is strictly a pleading.
The assumed posture for people who pray is always one of a beggar. We often times lie prostrate or kneel down. We bow our heads to show our servility. We clasp our hands together in the state of begging. The act of praying is designed to be a demonstration of how low and vile we are and how great our God is.
Truly, Christ himself lauded the tax collector whose prayerful stance was one of utter unworthiness (Luke 18:13-14).
I once heard an atheist offer a prayer at a dinner. Before discovering that the man was an atheist, I thought to myself that it was the most arrogant, inflated and self-indulgent prayer I had ever heard. When I learned that he didn't even believe in God, I wondered how it was that his image of prayer was so skewed. I had a slight feeling that his prayer was in mockery, but at the same time I realized that it was highly likely that it was also due to the example set by his Christian friends.
So, perhaps there needs to be a reform in our worship with regards to the way that prayer is seen. Perhaps instead of praying in a very elaborate fashion as if we were trying to impress someone with our eloquence we should simply declare, "God have mercy on me, a sinner." Instead of our lofty orations, we should beg God as the truly penitent do. Our prayers need to be stripped of pride and laid out as humble petitions to an infinitely more perfect God.
So, in our assemblies and in our homes, we need to remove the pomp and circumstance of prayer. There is nothing celebratory about prayer. Instead of demanding respect and reverence as if we ourselves are channeling God, we need to acknowledge the lowly state we ourselves are taking on. There is no glory to be had by being the one offering the prayers. There is no grandiosity in being chosen to offer a benediction or an invocation. I don't mean to say that we should not pray, only that our attitude about it needs a definite reform.

Souls intertwined

I feel remiss in never mentioning my girlfriend in any of these blog posts. In a blog about personal theological reflections, I think it is somewhat excusable, but nonetheless I wish to make up for it. So this blog post is dedicated to my darling Alexa, who brings so much joy into my life.
When it comes to love, I have a hard time taking a strictly Catholic view on the subject. Don't get me wrong, I fully accept that there are some people that God wants to be married and some that he doesn't, but I have a hard time with some of the subtler doctrines.
Like homosexuality, for example. The official stance of the Church, as outlined in the Catechism is that homosexuality is not a choice nor is it a sin, and that we are to welcome our gay brothers and sisters into the Church with open arms. However, the Church officially does not recognize homosexual marriage and it condemns sex outside of marriage.
But that is a topic for a different time and place.
Being raised Mormon, I have certain ideas about marriage and love that other faiths do not have. My parents, and my two older brothers and their wives were married in Mormon temples. Mormons believe that they can be married forever, and that when they're married here on earth, they'll be married in heaven as well.
And while there are a lot of Mormon doctrines that I don't like (especially the deification that comes along with the Mormon idea of eternal marriage), I am somewhat partial to this one. Of course, the Roman Church cannot espouse this idea because this would undermine the whole idea of the celibacy of the clergy.
So here's where I'm torn: I understand why it's important for priests to be celibate. How can one devote his whole self to the Church when he has familial obligations? How can one be encouraged to have a family if he has no time to devote to them? Of course, other traditions, most notably the Orthodox Church, allow their priests to marry, but not the bishops.
But what of the families? What about those who are so happy in their marriage that they never want it to end? What salvific value does the sacrament of marriage have, if it all ends at death?
My first post was about love. I want to reiterate it. Love is what it's all about. If you are able to find someone who loves you, you'll understand. Love makes every day worthwhile. Love makes the dreadgery of life exciting. Love makes us do things we would never do. Love transforms us.
This is why the Evangelist John proclaims that God is love. God is all that is good and right. Love is all that is good and right. I believe that perhaps God, in His infinite wisdom and glory, will not end whatever relationships we have on this earth. Those we love here, we will be able to infinitely love in the afterlife. As we become engulfed in the ultimate love that is God, I believe we will not lose whatever love we have for each other here.
Can you imagine a sadder ending to life than for everything to be over? Instead of the story ending "happily ever after" it ends "and then they died and their love was lost forever." Why would a God, who is love, who is all that is good, and whose ends are always just, allow the brightest thing in the universe to die out while our souls live on?
I believe that in the eternal communion of souls, those who find their souls intertwined shall still be intertwined. I believe that God does not allow our love to die with our bodies.