Becoming a Priest

[Sammaellofi]

I would argue that Christianity is a religion that was started with the intent of being built upon thinking for yourself without the aid of the church.  That didn't last a couple centuries.  Now it is as opposed to that as it could be.

[Humanicide]

I'm there as a parent for guidance and support, not overarching control.

This is another juicy topic.

Based on what happened to my generation, the parents who offered "choice" failed and the parents who offered consistent answers did OK.

Right.  Humanicide, think about it like this:  many of us were raised Christian, yet we still managed to think for ourselves.  We weren't ruined by it.  In fact, my theory is that if you're taught a consistent and systematic way of thinking as a child, you have a reference point to deviate from and to contrast new ideas to.  If you teach them no strong way in particular they are left twisting in the wind altogether.  

I wasn't raised Christian. I don't know many who weren't raised Christian.

My point was never to imply that parents should just say "yeah you figure it out, kid". What I'm getting at here is that the opposite extreme (this is MY way of the world and it is THE ONLY way) is just as destructive. A consistent lifestyle and mentality can help to establish good footing for a child. I'm just against helicopter parenting and ruling over a child as a merciless tyrant.

[Tancred Hauteville]

I would argue that Christianity is a religion that was started with the intent of being built upon thinking for yourself without the aid of the church.  That didn't last a couple centuries.  Now it is as opposed to that as it could be.

1. I think it is worth considering whether most people can actually think for themselves at all.
2. Perhaps people need to submit to authority before they can actually think for themselves. Hence the neccessity of the Church.
3. More people "think for themselves" today (in large part due to the the Church), are we better off for this?
4. There is nothing wrong with submitting to the wisdom of those who have greater insight, it indicates reverance, respect, humbleness and above all wisdom.

Christ died so that we could all....think for ourselves? Too much public education for you friend....;o)

[Sammaellofi]

1. History shows that people who are left to make their own decisions get better at it over time (i.e. Early U.S., Ancient Greece, Texas after Civil War)
2. The church can unify already existing values and beliefs, but it is no substitute for a strong community
3. No one thinks for themselves today.  Picking out which clothes they wear is nothing compared to defending their own property and maintaining their own agriculture, actions that require real decision making skills that we have out sourced to avoid making decisions.  Meanwhile people who succumb to their baser instincts and live lives of vice cannot be said to be making decisions at all, but avoiding them.
4.Agreed

[Tancred Hauteville]

1. We may want to say that History shows that A PEOPLE who are left to make their own decisions get better at it over time. Although History also shows that when too many people are making too many decisions a people usually perishes (Ancient Greece, the Early U.S., Texas after Civil war), or reverts to some form of extreme Monarchy or Oligarchic rule. ie. Rome after the Republic.

This is what I am warning against, the notion that all people should be taught to "think for themselves", and the belief that in so doing everyone will be able to make a sound decision on everything. The reality is that certain people are better suited to make certain decisions based on there natural (and supernatural?) capacities. This is inherent in the structure of reality, are we to assume that the Son of God was not aware of this reality and thus preached a message of think for yourself, heed no authority but thine own reason? This is just the rehashed philosophy of Protestantism.


2. The Church may be an intergral part of a strong community though. I would go so far as to say that a people's sense of self, identity and values are fundamentally related to there religious worldview and are thus related to the Church, certainly this would be the case for the Middle Ages?

3. I completely agree, thats why I had originally put "think for themselves" in qoutations. Yet all these people truly believe they are thinking for themselves. Which leads me back to point # 1 in the original post I made. (Deciding to avoid a decision is still a decision though)

4. Glad we came to some agreement.

[Sammaellofi]

That extreme Monarchy you refer to is actually what I believe to be the natural order that people fall into without the hands of empire sheephearding people around. 

But I think (and this is just my opinion based on my own reading of history) that you are putting the cart before the horse with the church.  I believe a religion that preaches strong values is useless without those values already being inherent in a population, which is why different peoples practice religion differently depending on how their society is structured.  I think no church can give people values, and that there are only two ways to bring forth values and that is 1) By example of society (which could have a church at its core or else some other value system based on adhering to the laws of nature) or else or 2) DNA, which I am believing in more and more, but for the sake of argument, I'll stick to the former, since that latter is out of our control. 

I think a church is a crutch that might keep ritual and maybe even morality strong, but is also easily used as a tool to make the soul submissive to interests other than the society's own. 

Your original argument (and I hope I am not misrepresenting you, and if so, correct me or disregard this) was that a person in order to do good must submit to something higher than himself.  I'll agree on a couple things about this statement.  I agree when you say some people are better fit to lead than others, but I believe when society is left to a natural order, these people rise to the top on their own, and I also agree that self denial is something very important, but I believe people need to run their own lives and judge their own actions and that a society becomes stronger when it does this.  I agree with Machievelli when he says that societies that are use to making the decisions on their own are better at it, because I have seen it in history, and the opposite as well, where people who have their decisions made for them become stagnant and useless. 

[Conservationist]

I believe a religion that preaches strong values is useless without those values already being inherent in a population, which is why different peoples practice religion differently depending on how their society is structured.

This is why traditionalists view religion, culture and government as inseparable -- they are voices of the same essential idea, which is the identity of the ethno-cultural group.

[Sammaellofi]

I was kind of thinking this when reading Varg's book (don't laugh), that religoin is not something used to give people morals, but something that develops alongside those morals, at the same time, with back and forth going on.  Things that are done for a certain reason has the reason become forgotten and lost in linguistics, but still manages to preserve the ritual and always appears true because the action is still adventatageous in the eyes of nature. 

1 - Leaving the dead lying around causes disease
2 - We bury the dead to keep this from happening
3 - We lighten the morbidity with a pleasent story about the body passing to another world
4  - Generations of this have us forgetting why we buried them
5 - We still remember the story because poetry is more interesting than science
6 - Burying the dead is still a good idea, so that poetry appears true and sacred

Or something like that.  It's a hand in hand kind of thing.

[Tancred Hauteville]

That extreme Monarchy you refer to is actually what I believe to be the natural order that people fall into without the hands of empire sheephearding people around.  

I do not disagree with you here. I should correct myself and say that extreme democracy leads to tyranny (whether post-republic Rome was a tyranny is debatable of course). In a healthy society, each member is subject to the laws of one's caste and the circumstances that define that caste. Each member should only be allowed to make decisions that are relevant to the healthy functioning of his caste,  and family. For example, a farmer should have to make all the decisions that are required of him and learn from his mistakes, and pass those things onto posterity so that they may thrive. However, the farmer should not be making the decisions of the religious and/or aristocratic caste.

I doubt we disagree here.

But I think (and this is just my opinion based on my own reading of history) that you are putting the cart before the horse with the church.  I believe a religion that preaches strong values is useless without those values already being inherent in a population, which is why different peoples practice religion differently depending on how their society is structured.  I think no church can give people values, and that there are only two ways to bring forth values and that is 1) By example of society (which could have a church at its core or else some other value system based on adhering to the laws of nature) or else or 2) DNA, which I am believing in more and more, but for the sake of argument, I'll stick to the former, since that latter is out of our control.  

 

You raise an interesting point!

But I think Conservationist hit the nail on the head here, religion etc are expressions of the soul of a people. Perhaps I am wrong but you seem to be suggesting that the Church (lets just say religious authority eh?) is some sort of inorganic power strucutre grafted onto a people. And moreover that it debilitates their capactiy to think for themselves and is thus a long term detriment to the well being of a people. Would that be correct?


I simply disagree, having taken the piece provided by Conservationist, I agree that any religious authority as the expression of the essential soul of a people. The religious authority is the upholder and protecter of the ideal a people has for itself. When one submits to the authority of the religious caste one is attempting to mould one's character and life in accordance with the instinctual ideal one has for one's self anyhow.

Perhaps we can both agree that in a Traditional society we do not have to worry about people thinking for themselves, because the religious authority is an expression of their innermost desires anyway?

Your original argument (and I hope I am not misrepresenting you, and if so, correct me or disregard this) was that a person in order to do good must submit to something higher than himself.  I'll agree on a couple things about this statement.  I agree when you say some people are better fit to lead than others, but I believe when society is left to a natural order, these people rise to the top on their own, and I also agree that self denial is something very important, but I believe people need to run their own lives and judge their own actions and that a society becomes stronger when it does this.  I agree with Machievelli when he says that societies that are use to making the decisions on their own are better at it, because I have seen it in history, and the opposite as well, where people who have their decisions made for them become stagnant and useless.  

Monarchy is best, the best leading is best. Whether or not this is natural is debatable and to assume that this will happen naturally reeks of the romantic view of human nature, viz that man left alone and given space blossoms like a flower with his highest and best faculties naturally taking over. Is that true of society? Do the best naturally rise to the top, or do the weeds always try to suffocate them?
Society, I think, naturally tends towards disorder unless there is a counter-prevailing force.

 Each person must make profound decisions, with you I agree here, but what those profound decisions will be should be based on one's station in life.

[Annihilation]

Thomas Merton.

- from "Contemplation in a World of Action", page 22-23.

Tradition is not passive submission to the obsessions of former generations but a living assent to a current of uninterrupted vitality. What was once real in other times and places becomes real in us today. And its reality is not an official parade of externals. It is a living spirit marked by freedom and by a certain originality. Fidelity to tradition does not mean the renunciation of all initiative, but a new initiative that is faithful to  certain spirit of freedom and of vision which demands to be incarnated in a new and unique situation. True monasticism is nothing if not creative.

The creativity in monastic life springs from pure love: the natural desire of man for truth and communion first of all, and the supernatural gift of grace in the spirit of the Risen Lord, calling man to the highest truth and most perfect communion in the Mystery of Christ. Love is not mere emotion or sentiment. It is the lucid and ardent response of the whole man to a value that is revealed to him as perfect, appropriate and urgent in the providential context of his own life. Hence there are innumerable ways in which an can be awakened from the sleep of a mechanical existence and summoned to give himself totally in the clarity of love. To restrict vocations to this or that narrow area, as if there were only one way to love, is to stifle the spirit and the fetter the freedom of the Christian heart. Why are people so intent on refusing others the right to see a special value in a life apart from the world, a life dedicated to God in prayer "on the mountain alone" when the New Testament itself repeatedly shows Christ retiring to the the solitary prayer which he himself loved? Certainly one can find God "in the world" and in an active life but this is not the only way, any more than the monastic life is the only way. There are varieties of graces and vocations in the Church and these varieties must always be respected. The specific value that draws a Christian into the "desert" and "solitude" (whether or not he remains physically "in the world") is a deep sense that God alone suffices. The need to win the approval of society, to find a recognized place in the world, to achieve a temporal ambition, to "be somebody" even in the Church seems to them irrelevant. They realize themselves to be called to a totally different mode of existence, outside of secular categories and outside of the religious establishment. This is the very heart of monasticism; hence a firmly "established" monasticism is a self-contradiction.