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Because I think the greatest threat to the modern Western world is what C. S. Lewis called "The Abolition of Man", and more generally the denial of the created order. White supremacy, for all its manifest sinfulness and absurdity, is doing something totally different that I don't think has half as much destructive potential(not least because it has so much less chance at becoming the dominant view) in our modern world.
You should enjoy this book too then...:
https://www.amazon.ca/Orwellian-World-Jehovahs-Witnesses/dp/0802065457
This book was published in 1984 and I read it in 1985. It was instrumental in my deprogramming. I highly recommend it.
If you can't access it through purchase, your public library likely has a copy or can get it in for you.
That's just terrible. Those are some spiritually immature people.
Personally, I found this article to be an excellent explanation of what a truly Christian response to suffering needs to be, instead of the cruel Bible-thumping that happened to you. It's also been extended into a book, Doors of the Sea.
You should read JP2's works on the "Theology of the Body." He goes in depth into this issue.
As a lay person who is married, I wanted to chime in here with a recommendation for this book: https://www.amazon.com/Theology-Body-Beginners-Rediscovering-Meaning/dp/1635820073/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=theology+of+the+body&qid=1627664847&sr=8-4 because I also had the question about lust and spouses.
Yes, you find your spouse attractive (hopefully), but there is a difference between simple attraction and lust. This book does a great job of explaining. It would also show why sending nude pictures would be inappropriate.
For me in the past, the urge to have sex stemmed from a way to escape myself in state of emptiness and depression. Take a look at that book.
If you liked "1984", I would recommend that you also read "The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses" by Gary and Heather Botting. http://www.amazon.ca/The-Orwellian-World-Jehovahs-Witnesses/dp/0802065457
From Amazon's description:
> The title I Saw Satan Fall Like Lightning echoes Jesus' reply to his 70 disciples on their return from preparing towns to receive him, reporting that "even the demons obey us when we use your name" (Luke 10:17-18) In this mind-opening work Girard persuades the reader that even as our world grows increasingly violent the power of the Christ is so great that the evils of scapegoating and sacrifice are being defeated, and new community, God's nonviolent kingdom, is being realized even now.
I don't see anything controversial in this book.
Tomorrow is the feast of Christ the King. The feast was created after the end of the Great War to serve as a reminder that no matter how evil this world can be, in the end Christ will reign victorious. CTK leads to the first Sunday of Advent. The first half of Advent focuses on Christ's second coming, while the last two Sundays turn our attention to Christ's first coming in the Incarnation & Nativity.
Girard's book seems to fit into that narrative, but granted all I am reading is the Amazon summary.
https://www.amazon.com/When-God-Talks-Back-Understanding/dp/0307277275
When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God
>A bold approach to understanding the American evangelical experience from an anthropological and psychological perspective by one of the country’s most prominent anthropologists.
>Through a series of intimate, illuminating interviews with various members of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, Tanya Luhrmann leaps into the heart of evangelical faith. Combined with scientific research that studies the effect that intensely practiced prayer can have on the mind, When God Talks Back examines how normal, sensible people — from college students to accountants to housewives, all functioning perfectly well within our society — can attest to having the signs and wonders of the supernatural become as quotidian and as ordinary as laundry. Astute, sensitive, and extraordinarily measured in its approach to the interface between science and religion, Luhrmann’s book is sure to generate as much conversation as it will praise.
https://www.amazon.com/Genealogical-Adam-Eve-Surprising-Universal/dp/0830852638
From the amazon page
"In The Genealogical Adam and Eve, S. Joshua Swamidass tests a scientific hypothesis: What if the traditional account is somehow true, with the origins of Adam and Eve taking place alongside evolution? Building on well-established but overlooked science, Swamidass explains how it's possible for Adam and Eve to be rightly identified as the ancestors of everyone."
C.S. Lewis was either a twentieth-century prophet, or he was an intelligent man who could read the signs of the times. As a charismatic Christian, I'm open to either option. 😉
Seriously, though, The Abolition of Man should be required reading for anyone who wants to think about thinking. It explains how the intellectual and societal foundations were built to give us... what we have today. Lewis saw the birth pains of our current insanity.
It's even short! https://www.amazon.com/Abolition-Man-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652942
I'm sorry that this was your experience.
If you want clarity on the topic, consider reading Christopher West's book, Theology of the Body for Beginners, which helps to clarify the Church's stance on sexuality.
That's a great question! I think it was CS Lewis who likened sex to fire--it is indeed a good thing and can bring a lot of warmth when used within a house in a chimney, it's a terrific aid for cooking, etc. But when it out of control it can wreak havoc and burn whole villages down.
Chastity is not about "not having sex" (that's called continence), but about living God's plan for our sexuality, and in reverence for the glory of God's image in the other--chastity is the force that frees love from egotism, use, and violence. The marital act, when lived in the spirit of a total gift of self among spouses, is a mutual conferring and participation in Christ's love for his Church (cfr. Eph 5:31-32) and according to Christian mystic Adrienne Von Speyr, it can even bring forth graces of conversion and holiness. However, when sex is lived outside of the marital bond, it becomes a mockery and a negation of the holy image it represents--akin to trying to Baptise someone with motor oil. It can't help but be an egotistical self-seeking activity that negates the spousal meaning of the body.
As a sidenote, I think you'll profit a lot from reading any sort of book expanding on this; my personal favorite being Christopher West's Theology of the Body for Beginners. You'll fall in love with God's plan for sexuality and marriage, and see yourself experiencing a desire to avoid any kind of sin that would disfigure this sign.
I understand. He said he knew there might be more than one most recent common ancestors of humans 'in different times though he points to the one in 6000 years or so before which aligns with genesis and offers this book:
He claims this book "debunks" that Adam and Eve conflicts evolution: https://www.amazon.com/Genealogical-Adam-Eve-Surprising-Universal/dp/0830852638
You’re not going to find a single ever to a question this hard. My favorite book on the subject, though, is The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?.
Any ever will always involve the imperfect falleness of the world: free creatures choose to do bad things.
You should help her see why sex is not only "allowed" and "not a sin" in marriage (as you know), but also an actual, positive good which is part of out sharing in God's free, total, and faithful love (it is as man and woman together that we're his image [cfr. Gen 1:27] and it is in marriage that we participate in Christ's love for his Church). I don't know if you're familiar with the Theology of the Body, but a great reading you can both share is this introduction by Christopher West. The basic theme is that sex is a sign and participation in God's love, and thus also a means of growing in holiness, and even healing from wounds.
Puritanism has unfortunately caused many evils, and this is why some have a lot of trouble understanding why something that was previously "bad", "shameful" and "sinful" before marriage can suddenly turn to its opposite after a marriage ceremony. The answer is that sex is not bad (and never was). It is a beautiful gift from God (He invented it in the first place), but it must be lived in the context of a free, faithful and total gift of self (ie. marriage) to be a true communication of what it is. Seeing the body as 'evil' springs from the gnostic heresy that said that creation was a bad thing (and only the spirit a good one) and thus denied that Christ could have truly incarnated among us (by failing to imagine that God would have anything to do with the material existence that we have).
>At least this creationist says that they are: Martin Lubenow, "Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils." He cites by evolutionists who said that homo erectus was living in Australia in historical times, if I remember right, not pre-historic times. https://www.amazon.com/Bones-Contention-Creationist-Assessment-Fossils/dp/0801065232
Can you cite the page number or chapter? I have the book for just such reference purposes.
At least this creationist says that they are: Martin Lubenow, "Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils." He cites by evolutionists who said that homo erectus was living in Australia in historical times, if I remember right, not pre-historic times. https://www.amazon.com/Bones-Contention-Creationist-Assessment-Fossils/dp/0801065232
St. John Henry Newman once wrote that 'false ideas may indeed be refuted by argument, but by truth alone can they be expelled'. Besides the daily Rosary, what killed in me the appetite for watching porn (after 6 years of addictive behavior towards it) was John Paul II's Theology of the Body. I'd recommend you to start with Christopher West's brief introduction to it in Theology of the Body for Beginners. Once you get a hold of God's awesome plan for marriage and the body, you won't want to go back to cheap falsifications of it.
They'll just throw the "absence of evidence is not proof of absence" excuse and just claim that what we currently know about history is based on gaps.
In reality it is actually fine to say something likely didn't happen if there is enough reason to believe evidence of that would have been discovered by now but most people aren't historians and they take advantage of plausible deniability and do the usual nut picking
The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?
God created free creatures. Free creatures make bad choices. Ultimately, you’re question is “Why hasn’t the final judgement happened yet?” We don’t know the answer to that, but broadly speaking, because God is merciful even to the evil.
>What is the range of your beliefs regarding the nature of Satan?
To understand the nature of Satan you need to understand the process of scapegoating and ritual sacrifice and how it was made obsolete by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In simple terms, in the symbolic trial and sentencing represented by the ritual sacrifice, Satan is the accuser, as the etymology of the same implies.
>Anyone believe Satan is embodied walking the earth? Symbolic/ metaphorical? Somewhere in between?
Following the above, Satan is the temptation we all have to deposit the responsibility for our sins over a scapegoat. Nobody can escape from that unless they believe that Jesus Christ already made the ultimate sacrifice.
>What is the source and rationale for your beliefs
https://www.amazon.com/See-Satan-Fall-Like-Lightning/dp/1570753199
>and how does it impact your daily living?
It strengthens my faith when I see how our modern world is reverting to scapegoating after rejecting Jesus Christ.
The answer is probably more sophisticated than you're actually interested in. But I believe the explanation of Rene Girard as described in I Saw Satan Fall Like Lightening . The short, short version, which only serves to introduce the idea to people actually interested in learning, is that the crucifixion revealed the evil power in human nature for what it was. Since Adam (literally or figuratively) there had been an evil impulse to deal with difficulty, frustration, and unhappiness without outbreaks of violence. Humans will justify their violence and even create divine justifications for why it is actually good. Girard, an historian, literary critic, and philosopher, will compare the crucifixion to various ancient human sacrifice rituals and say the main difference is that in the crucifixion humans are made to sympathize with the victim and the story forces the audience to recognize their complicity in undeserved death.
Now there is more to this from God's perspective I am sure but this is enough for humanity to wrestle with. We see the same dynamic going on today. A random internet user might inflict the best violence they can get away with on others through insincere questions and bad faith responses to make up for their own unresolved difficulty, frustration, and unhappiness. Of course, their victims are not innocent like Christ but the violence is just as mindless.
The quote is from ‘The Doors of the Sea’ by the theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart, but it’s in reference to a discussion in Karamazov, yes.
> I don't think the story of the fall is a literal historical event,
You might be surprised by Joshua Swadamkss’ demonstration in his new book that the evidence absolutely does not contradict the possibility of a literal Adam and Eve about 6,000 years ago.
> evidence for animal death before the existence of humans though
Irrelevant to whether there was a literal Adam and Eve, as Joshua Swadamkss demonstrates in his new book. The evidence absolutely does not contradict the possibility of a literal Adam and Eve about 6,000 years ago.
I'm not Fr. Andrew, but I think The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? is really helpful in seeing how a star, volcano, tectonic plate, or tsunami can be both material and spiritual. There is only one reality, and it is inhabited by bodiless beings as well as us bodied beings.
Thats is awesome!
To learn more about what the priest was saying please consider reading Theology of the Body: for beginners John Paul II's teaching here is amazing and is more than a teaching on the dignity of the body but how we as humans should live a right relationship with the Lord and how that looks in relation to concupiscence, marriage, celibacy, etc.
For a Nietzschen atheist I'd suggest The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? since it confronts challenges to faith that are actually substantive and not based in misunderstanding.
The Brothers Karamazov for bonus points.