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a new way of looking at... life >> why i want to be catholic - 1 |
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i recently decided to try and become a member of the catholic church. what? joe dobzynski jr., agnostic supreme and ruthless critic of all things christian, rookie scholar of friedrich nietzsche, and overall philosophical man wants to be catholic? well, yes, and i'd like to tell you why and would appreciate your comments as to these thoughts. you don't even have to submit them to the website. ::smile::
the first question people have asked who i have confided in has been, "why?" the romance of it, really. if i would ever be christian in the fullest sense, it would have to be catholic. i like the idea of saints and mary and the ritual of it all. it's too easy to be a christmas and easter christian in the other denominations. one of the biggest beefs i have with christianity is the lackadasical following of its members. i'm not saying catholics are perfect, nor am i saying that they represent something whereas other denominations do not. what i am saying is that when you sit through a catholic mass, when you talk to its people and their beliefs, they realize that they are catholic. and it's not simply about going to church. the very structure of the catholic church is also appealing. when you're a catholic, you are a member of the church of the whole world, not the pentecostal little sect in your hometown. it's a sense of community, in the local and global sense. for instance, when you donate to the lenten feeding program, it's being pooled all over the world to help some place in the world. that's radical change, not the nickel and dime stuff that other churches have. (note: those efforts are needed as well, i don't mean to belittle them) the ritual of the masses, the beliefs of the family, the very fact that when friday rolls around, they have to wonder whether they can eat meat or not... it's appealing to me. i like rules, yet flexibility. i like ritual, though profound and sacred ritual, not the dancing and singing i see nowadays. a friend of mine asked kiddingly if i had been brainwashed. i haven't been brainwashed because i won't buy into the political line of the whole church. using faith to decry that birth control is bad is just in poor taste, but i understand why they say what they do and the real meaning behind it. while i appreciate the community that the church brings, i understand that they are also an institution that must uphold the principles in the manner an institution must. however, we musn't commit a fallacy of decomposition to infer that all members must lean in a certain way because the church believes 'x' and 'y'. it's childish to think so. it is good to be raised with a set of morals and rules, but when adulthood comes around, we all make different choices, we develop different views, and we become individuals. it's really a conscious choice and i know what i'm getting into. i've been reading up on it, looking at different churches and their main beliefs. the whole journey is really to give christianity a fair shot. sitting on the sidelines isn't a way to understand a way of life. you need to be immersed in it. participant observation, if you will. if i find that it's not working out in a couple of years, i leave and never turn back. that's ok with me, but at least i won't be an ignorant child on the sidelines misquoting nietzsche. hell, i won't even decry christianity from the sidelines anymore. it's counter-productive. 1 | 2 |