Attofishpi writes: However, I believe the fact that we have been warned that God MAY exist will likely make some second think their intentions of immoral behaviour, and hopefully result in less 'evil' actions from such people.
I hope a few comments of mine will not rouse too much ire.Flannel Jesus writes: Ah, behaving well out of fear, the sign of true moral character.
First, I must say that I have read Atto for months and months now and, I notice, that he has next to zero comprehension of the inner structure of the Christian religion and philosophy. I could not say this in such a way that it is not a critique, that would be dishonest, and what I note is odd and peculiar but not atypical: raised in Catholicism, but the post-Vatican ll perversion of it (that according to traditional Catholics), he shows what happens when one becomes separated from the 'inner structure' of the religion as a religion and philosophy. When that happens, all relationship to the substantial structure of the religion, which is based in clearly expressed doctrines, is lost. Atto cannot, for reasons of ignorance (of these doctrines) make any intelligent statements about Christianity and, oddly but predictably, he regards any such statements and allusions to such doctrines as superfluous. In any case this is what I have gathered.
I naturally draw a distinction between the intensely subjective and idiosyncratic nature of Atto's experience (which he refers to as something like the true and honest inner dimension of Christianity) and the intellectual, and Protestant, theological ordering of Immanuel Can. There is one other fellow whose name I forgot who bugged-out of here months back. That guy associated with he Eastern Church (Nick_A whose last post on this thread and forum is here). But it is these few (and possibly Phyllo) who have some actual relationship with Christianity. The rest of us here, unless I am mistaken, have positions completely outside of Christianity in nearly all senses. Most are or less thoroughly opposed and their efforts are (more or less) to bring down the structure (as opposed to building it up).
But Atto can be studied (examined, questioned, looked at) as an example of the destructiveness of the various 'reform' processes of Vatican ll which have, again according to Catholic traditionalists, led to extremely destructive currents entering the Church itself. It is a difficult topic, I admit, but their arguments are not incoherent.
Lex orandi, lex credendi: the rule or influence of what one's prayers are composed of, the content of one's enunciated prayers (which can be extended to mean all that one honestly and truly believes and therefore recites as part of one's "lived liturgy"), determine what one "believes", which I take to be more than simply statements that one makes about some aspect of doctrine, but the entire way that one lives life -- this is what Lex orandi, lex credendi actually means.
[Latin phrases remind me of Sanskrit phrases (though Sanskrit is really & truly a metaphysical language without parallel): simple statements have inner dimensions of meaning and reference that have to be parsed out through careful examination.]
It is curious to me that one of the major oppositions to traditional Christianity comes from those on the front of *radical sexuality*. First, it was homosexual rights. And incrimentally it progresses from those rights (granted) to ever-new demands for the *right* to give oneself justification for many other radical (or "liberated") sexual forms. The *curious* part is that it will not stop. It is in the nature of sexual license that once permission is granted or attained, that a next step is inevitable.
But I do tend to agree with conservative traditionalists that sexuality is one of the major engines of rebellion against so-called 'established social orders'.
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Lex orandi, lex credendi
