My views on catholicism

[Cerril]

Alright, as any of you who read my posts know, I'm a pretty ardent Atheist here.

That said, my family ranges from nominally catholic to ardent catholic on my mother's side, with one of my cousins getting her master's in Theology at the moment. So I've been exposed to a lot of Catholicism, both good and bad.

My dad's side is more liberal, more 'right wing nondenominational christian,' and my dad is a worse Atheist than I am - worse in the sense of less well thought through, so my upbringing was about as neutral as anyone could manage. I did the church thing and the study thing but never any pressure from the belief or obesiance angle from my family.

Now I enjoy discussing religious thought, spent and spend a lot of time reading and talking and really am trying to get a handle on what Catholicism -really- is. So here to the meat of it:

--Something I really enjoy is the concept that it's possible that everyone is saved. I know that most Catholics tend to brush this aside as a 'we don't know, but' sort of argument, but I think the very real possibility is something that needs to be there to be even remotely acceptable as a religion. I've been down all the philosophical arguments about justice and mercy, what damnation really is, and all that, but it comes down to one thing - no person can be denied salvation who believes the truth when presented full in the face with it. If, when I die, I (and presumably DS) am presented with God and Jesus and the full knowledge of why everything is the way it is, I'm not going to stand there, point my finger, and go 'no, that's not right.' That, in my opinion, should be enough so long as I'm living my life honestly as well.

--Second, the pope. Now I've pretty well been swayed to understanding this whole infallibility thing, IF you swallow the rest of the religion. It's not a terribly rough path to get from the bible as a whole to Papal infallibility, once you get the limitations and are willing to take the first step. I'm not going to go that far, myself.

--Pope II. It's very nice of them to accept that there is a lot of human corruption within the church and has always been. Every office has been allowed to contain some pretty terrible people. This isn't news, but it's good to hear it. Once you get past that admission, with the Catholics saying that they aren't any less subject to being terrible people than anyone else (though understandably, it's sort of a given that bad people = bad Catholics. I'll buy that too, even if the official press engine seems to differ from time to time), it's easier to get down to asking whether following their code makes -better- people.

--Natural Law and Happiness. My outlook on life and morality is pretty much that I'm intending to be as happy as possible throughout my life. God or no, we shouldn't be here to be unhappy (and I'm not using 'happiness' in the sense of pleasure, more an overall satisfaction and sense of well-being) for even a moment. Circumstances differ, but within our power there's no point in willingly causing ourselves to be worse off if it's avoidable. Thing is, Catholic philosophers tend to agree when pressed on the point. It would be a bit silly, especially these days, to tell us that God is telling us that we should strive to be less happy. Sure, we might differ on whether or not it's the case that homosexual behavior, promiscuity, or birth control actually makes the invidual less happy in the long run, but that's quibbling if you get down to the root of the argument being the issue of fulfillment and a good life (not just afterlife).

--Obesiance. When you get right down to it, being Catholic is about obeying. You obey pretty much everyone above you (better be careful the person above you really knows more and has the authority you think he does, or you're just making a bad choice... logical fallacy of appeal to authority, et cetera, and no one's going to tell you it's morally correct), and to a large extent obeying what you're told is more important, morally, than whether or not they're right. That's where the atrocities and general badness we've seen come in. Now I understand the theory, that most of us don't understand a lot of what's right and it's better to take the word of an expert than go with our gut, since our gut is a pretty selfish entity most of the time. I tend to differ in areas where I'm particularly well informed, though, and that runs the gamut from issues of practice all the way to issues of doctrine. So that's where I tend to part ways with the Catholic Church and most organized religion in general.

But all that's not to say I don't admire a lot about the thought. If it were treated as an area of moral philosophy rather than doctrinal religion, I'd say they're pretty far ahead of the game. Most of the bad press comes from misunderstandings (some doesn't, and I don't mean the stuff about individuals). There's a lot of consistency, a lot of well woven together thinking and writing, but when you get right down to it, even the strongest points all come back to faith in the end, though it's hard to see.