2cornucopias

Posts Tagged ‘Religion’

, ,

Is Any Religion True? Part II

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2011/09/18 at 6:00 AM

In part I, we noted that God has given man certain innate tendencies for which He has provided the means to satisfy these needs. We have food and drink, but we should not eat whatever we put into our mouths; we must be selective. He has given us an appetite for religion, and we can assume that he had something definite in mind rather than the myriads forms of religion abounding today. What did He have in mind?

Recently I came across a phrase that I had not heard or read in many, many years. It is a phrase that used to be quite commonplace in the Catholic world. It is the reference to the Catholic Church as “the one true Church.”  The onslaught of relativism and political-correctness has declared it a matter of bigotry and base intolerance to dare to claim that anything in the non-physical world is truer, better, more moral, immoral, false or worse than something else.  This applies usually to religion, fine arts, morality and philosophy and is the reason we find so much that is utterly base, inane, or stupid being called art, music or literature. “Experts” in these fields dare not criticize what is patently inferior. A work of “art” that consisted of a crucifix in a container of urine was acclaimed and defended by all the “right” people. Such is the sorry state of the transcendent nowadays.

The question is: “Is it reasonable to claim that a particular religion or Church is the only true one and that all others are deficient and defective?” It depends on who is making the claim. Anyone who claims to give the ultimate, final and irrefutable religious truth must be a person of unimpeachable and credible authority because so much is at stake for that individual. Otherwise, we are dealing only with religious opinion and  an opinion is no better than the facts underlying it. Martin Luther was terrified during a storm, and promised that he would enter a monastery if he was saved from the storm. Mohammed’s way of life precludes him from being a credible witness for morality. Joseph Smith, at age 14, claimed to have been given the famous “golden tablets” containing the teachings of Mormon. These tablets have never been seen except by Smith. Buddha abandoned his wife and children to go find Nirvana. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, which shuns medical doctors, regularly consulted doctors when she needed them. These, and all other founders of religions, have one thing in common…they are human and only human.

There is one religious founder who does exemplify the ideal religious founder and actually established a Church . . . Jesus Christ. The four Gospels can be viewed as true history. (Some have spent years attempting to disqualify the Gospels as true history, but they all failed.)

There are three aspects of Christ that separate Him from every other religion founder.

The first is His moral character. At one point, he challenged his enemies to declare what sins he may have committed. They had nothing to say because there was no moral fault in Him. Contrast that with the founders previously mentioned.

The second is the fact that He performed thousands of miracles witnessed by thousands of people. No other founder even claims to be a miracle-worker. (Seeing the need for miracles in Mohammed’s life, his later followers, several centuries after his death, attempted to claim he had worked miracles to enhance his image, but they could not be substantiated. There was simply too large a gap in time and, therefore, no witnesses.)

The third is the fact the Jesus Christ is still alive. It is true that he died, but then He brought Himself back to life and continues to live as the eternal God-man. All other founders are long dead, and no one expects them to reappear.

While still on earth, Christ set up a Church (note the word ”Church” is singular). “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church.” If a divine person establishes a Church, it must the one true Church. It, therefore, behooves us to determine which one it is, for if we are in the wrong Church/religion, we are in spiritual danger of not attaining our God-given goal. Finding the right Church will give us intellectual and spiritual peace and contentment. So, we look to the Divine Founder to determine the True religion, the True Church.  Christ, being Divine, established His Church on earth through Peter.  That Church is the Catholic Church.

There are a few points to consider about the Catholic Church, this one true Church.

History:  Through troubled times and profitable times, the Church has endured. Although it has never had a Golden Age, it has always been beset by problems. Persecutions (today is no exception), schisms, heresies, incompetent and immoral members. Sometimes it was more influential than at others times (Middle Ages) but, even then, problems arose.

The human element:  The Catholic Church is both divine and human in that the Church on earth has humans as members and those members have not always acted according to Church teaching. There have been a few despicable popes, priests and bishops who were not faithful.

Let me emphasize this:  No merely human organization could have survived throughout history as the Catholic Church has were it not under the guidance and protection of its living Divine Founder. “I am with you all days, even to the end of the world, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” (Note the word “prevail.” It means that Satan will always be assaulting the Church, but he will never be able to destroy it.) No other organization of any kind has such a history. The Protestant Church has evolved into 30,000 different sects and denominations, all claiming to be the true Church. The Catholic Church has remained true to the teachings of Christ and the Apostles; if they were to appear on earth, they would easily recognize the doctrine and moral code of the Catholic Church as the same teaching they taught. Nowadays no religion founder would recognize the religion he founded; all have changed so much.

Why one true Church?

Humans like certainty. We don’t like to be unsure of important aspects of life. Finding the one true Church gives us that certainty. The fact that all contemporary religions (except Buddhism and Hinduism) were founded long after the Christ, who is both man and God, established the Church, and the fact that are all man-made tell us that they cannot possibly have come from God.

The teaching of the Catholic Church is based on the doctrine set forth by the divine Christ. The others are merely human opinion, theory or fantasy. Besides, no human can be remotely qualified to set up a divinely-approved religion.

The Magisterium (teaching authority) of the Church was established by Christ, too. “Whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatsoever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” This statement made by Christ transfers to the Catholic Church the authority to speak in God’s name, an authority which gives Catholics the peace of mind to know that if they follow the Church, they are following and submitting themselves to the Divine Will. That is not a small matter.

Finally, the Church, following the teaching Christ and the Apostles has the means to assure salvation to those who sincerely seek it through the Sacramental system. The seven Sacraments of the Church keep the believer close to God as he treads the dangerous pathways of earthly life. Confession, for the believer, is concrete evidence of forgiven sin. The Holy Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper) for the believer is a concrete expression of Emmanuel, God with us.  Holy Orders guarantee of Apostolic succession and authenticity.

In contemporary life, this whole article is a daring sally into the politically-INcorrect. Bear in mind that the whole concept of political-correctness is based on a lie or an unrealistic view of life. The pied pipers of this attitude do not live in the real world. Years ago, when this nonsense began, the city council of Pawtucket, RI passed an ordinance that a manhole cover was to be renamed a “personhole” cover. They cancelled it when the ridicule became too much. We live in a world filled with wars, hatreds, uncertainties and irrational ideas. The Catholic Church, whether you believe it or not or like it or not, has stood the test of time (2000 years). God is with the Church, and I’d rather be a member in good standing of God’s Church than any human religion I can think of. Wouldn’t you?

, ,

Is Any Religion True? Part 1

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2011/09/17 at 1:01 AM

One of my memories of childhood is the time a friend and I were taken to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass. In front of the building, there is a life-size statue of an American Indian astride a horse with his eyes cast upward and his arms outstretched in supplication. The inscription on the base reads: “Appeal to the Great Spirit”, a testimony to the innate tendency toward religion in human nature. In fact, archeologists have discovered only two small groups of people who did not seem to have religion as a part of their culture.  Throughout human history, religion has been a part of culture.  Religion seems to be as natural to man as thinking.

Not only do religions abound, but they come in many forms. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are monotheistic. Greek and Roman mythology were polytheistic (many gods) as were the Arabs prior to Islam. Hinduism is both pantheistic (all is divine) and polytheistic (300,000,000 gods). Buddhism, often called a religion is actually non-theistic; it has no real concept of a deity. It is more of a philosophy of behavior.

In the modern world we make up quasi religions and worship ideas rather than deities. Professional atheism has become a religion. Darwinian evolution has ceased to be a part of science and has become a religious cult totally intolerant of opposing views. (The science of molecular biology has devastated the theory of evolution, but you will never hear this from the media, the education establishment or science partisans.) There are also “religions” based on tolerance, relativism and determinism, among others.

While the Creator may have instilled a penchant toward religion in human nature, man has certainly distorted and denigrated the religious tendency. Human religion is full of contradictions, absurdities, irrational beliefs and, sometimes, downright evil activities.

The world is awash in relativistic and political-correctness claims that we should not pass judgments on any religious beliefs because that would show bias and prejudice, the great sins of the modern Western world. We are told that we can never use such terms as: “better” or “worse”, “good” or “bad” or “true” or” false.” The result has been that since we cannot deal with religion in any rational or responsible way, it should be relegated to the level of a personal hobby with no societal impact or importance at all.

Ideas have consequences, and the abandonment of age-old religious standards in the West has led to a precipitous decline in rational and moral behavior in general. Watch any newscast and you must conclude that the world is going insane. For example, the Federal Department of Education has decreed that one need not know grammar, spelling or be able to write coherently to be hired to teach English. Multiplying this over and over, the insane are running the asylum. Wars, crime, economic collapse, moral perversities, gross incompetence in government at all levels haunt our waking moments.

The questions now must become, “Can there be a true religion amid the mishmash of contemporary religions?” And, “Did the Creator intend something other than the religious cornucopia of today’s world?” If there is one thing that is evident in nature, it is that the Creator is rational and set up the universe in an orderly and systematic way without conflicts, distortions or contradictions. He surely envisioned the same with regard to the religious tendency He put into human nature.  If so, there must be a form of religion that is also orderly and rational, and, therefore, in accord with the divine plan.

To assert that the Creator intended that mankind live in a religious hodge-podge is to deny the goodness and wisdom of God. If He designed man to be religious, it means that humans were meant to have some relationship with God. If this is so, there can be only one way to attain that relationship, and anyone serious about it will want to find that one way.

The belief that God may have set up a particular way to reach Him gives man a goal or purpose in finding that way. Man, by nature, is an explorer and discoverer, but modern man says there is no true religion. Modern man picks whatever one appeals most . . . or, better still, he simply doesn’t pick any religion. Who cares!

If the Creator ordained that man should be able to learn something about Him, it becomes incumbent on God to make it possible to do this. If humans could not perceive and find a true way to God, it would mean that God is demanding what humans cannot do which would be a gross injustice. Fortunately, that is not the case because any normal person can observe nature, its workings and arrive at a logical conclusion that nothing so intricate and complex could ever have created itself, and from there, one proceeds to the idea of a true God.

Objectively speaking, man is a religious creature; however, humans can and often do suppress this tendency. Millions do it every day. It also does not guarantee that humans will find the true path to God. Millions are members of contradictory faiths. To those who do believe there is a God and are sincerely attempting to find Him, He did make available to them a sure way to Him. The Indian sitting on the horse did not have the benefits of later philosophy and theology, but he did know there was a Being to whom he owed allegiance. This understanding put him miles ahead of the arrogant moderns who dismiss the very idea of a Supreme Being, who reject the transcendent, who have all the important answers to unimportant questions, whose ignorant egos direct their superficial lives and whose ultimate fate may not lie with The Great Spirit.

(In part 2, we will try to find that unique religion.)

, , ,

The 800-Pound Gorilla

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2011/08/06 at 7:49 PM

The Western World (North America and Europe) is awash with all types of philosophies competing for dominance and control.  Vying for attention are relativism, hedonism, environmentalism, skepticism, nihilism and least that many more.  One of these false philosophies seems to have taken the lead because it really includes many others under it’s umbrella.  Its name is Secularism, the philosophy that tries to exclude God and  religion from any meaningful  role in human life.  Historians offer different dates and causes for the rise of this false set of ideas, but I suggest that secularism began in the Garden of Eden with the conversation between Satan and Eve.  This was the first attempt to show that God was a minor figure in the human drama, that His commands were mere suggestions, that you could get away with ignoring them and that, in fact, by getting rid of God man could become like  God.  Satan was the first secularist, and this tells us the real origin of this set of beliefs.

Secularism has several features.  The first is a basic animosity toward religion in general and Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular.  It is atheistic and/or agnostic (meaning we can’t really know anything about God . . . if there is one).  Religion, therefore, has no place in public life, no place in government, no place in education or law.  If one must have religion, keep it to yourself.  Whenever religion attempts to raise a voice in the public arena, it is to be crushed if at all possible . . . call the ACLU and have some judge declare that the “offended” atheists should prevail over the majority who espouse religious sentiment.

Secondly, this false philosophy endorses total personal freedom in the matter of morals “as long as you don’t hurt anyone.”  Thus, under this umbrella we find liberal and radical feminists who support abortion, and the homosexual rights groups that are succeeding in making the deviant acceptable or at least tolerated.  Moral laws based on religion are to be rejected.  After all, if there is no God, how can there be divine moral laws? As one might expect, those who champion freedom from moral laws generally have sexual laws in mind.  There can be no agency that has any authority to regulate moral law.  (If a civil law happens to be the same as a religious law, the civil law will be accepted because it comes from “true” authority.)  The new standard for personal morality is: “If I like it, it’s moral; if I don’t like it, it’s immoral.”  Or, “You have your morals, I have mine.”  When asked what he thought of the “new morality”, the famed English convert to Catholicism, G.K. Chesterton, replied, “It is neither new nor moral; it’s just our old friend sin.”  How true!

The third feature is the absolute toleration of anyone’s immorality and unquestioned acceptance of any stupid or illogical idea that comes down the pike.  “Who are you to say I am wrong?”  The secularist world easily tolerates contradictions.  Abortion is good; abortion is bad.  No problem; the secularists accepts both.  (The fact that accepting contradictions violates a basic principle of correct thinking, does not seem to occur to such people).  Tolerance trumps logic anytime.  Needless to say, there is one group to which this sacrosanct rule of tolerance does not apply . . . Christians.  Their “crazy” ideas cannot be tolerated; only the “crazy” ideas espoused by the secularist are acceptable.

Secularism is thriving in the U.S. and Europe.  The Constitution of the European Union contains not a single reference to anything religious.  There seems to be no force capable of diminishing its ongoing thrust because the secularists control the organs of power.

The media of every type is grossly biased against religion, traditional morality and its ideas.  Christians are usually depicted as dumb, hypocritical and prejudiced.

The élite colleges, universities and law schools are  teaching secularism.  One professor, a Catholic, who was teaching a course of Catholicism, said at the appropriate point in the course that Catholicism believes that homosexual activity is immoral.  The homosexual crowd managed to get him fired (these are, by the way, same people who preach tolerance); however, the backlash was so great that the professor was reinstated.

Government at all levels has become increasingly non-religious.  The current administration endorses many activities that used to be called sins: Abortion, partial-birth abortion, embryonic stem cell research, gay rights and many more.

Our Lord said to measure results and effects to know the value and nature of a cause.  Philosophies come and go.  Yes, they do, but they also leave their mark.  Nazism was a  false philosophy that certainly left its mark and left behind millions of graves.  So also, Communism.  Secularism, when successful, leaves behind ultimately unworkable societies because it is a philosophy that runs counter to human nature. It does not fit human psychology and the aspirations built into man by the Creator.  Whether you believe in a Creator or not, remember this: Simply believing something to be a certain way does not make it so.  Objective reality does not change to fit an error in belief.

And how have we fared after several decades of the celebrated “sexual freedom”?  50,000,000 babies killed because they were inconvenient to someone, never before seen rates of sexual diseases, the psychological and philosophical contradiction of same-sex marriage, easy divorce, child abuse, a significant rise in crime rates, rejection of authority by too many people.  Have there been some positive effects of this “sexual freedom”?  Can’t think of any!

Secularism has also impacted Christians, a very broad term used in the US that includes the Christmas-Easter attendees and the truly devout.  Statistically, Christians have fallen for the secularist’s line in large numbers.  There is little difference between the beliefs of secularists and the behavior of many Christians.  “Just our old friend, sin” making a reappearance.

Eve didn’t realize that her friendly snake was actually an 800-pound gorilla in disguise.  Secularism is  Satan’s latest disguise.  Eve thought she could do business with Satan, and we know what happened.  We can enjoy all kinds of false and silly beliefs about God, but bear in mind that He does not change Himself to fit human beliefs or errors.  God is God, and it is man who must change to conform to Him.

Otherwise, that 800-pound gorilla . . .

, ,

Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion

In 10 Colleen Carroll Campbell on 2011/07/30 at 7:03 AM

National Catholic Reporter
February 4, 2000
Book review: SPIRITUAL MARKETPLACE: BABY BOOMERS AND THE REMAKING OF AMERICAN RELIGION By Wade Clark Roof
Princeton University Press, 384 pages, $24.95
By Colleen Carroll

In his newest book, religious commentator Wade Clark Roof examines America’s religious landscape and details the ways Baby Boomers have changed it. He credits the post-World War II generation for everything from America’s growing tolerance of religious diversity to its growing distrust of external religious authority, and his take on those changes is overwhelmingly optimistic.

Roof, a sociologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara who traces his own religious beliefs to the unrest of the 1960s, argues against the stereotype of the self-centered Boomer and declares, “There is now greater spiritual maturity on the part of Boomer Americans.”

Read more: http://www.colleen-campbell.com./articles/020400NCR.htm