Dr Dawkins regrets he's unable

It seems that Dr Lane Craig, that Hammer of the Humanists, is coming over on a speaking tour of the UK. Our very own British "Bright" Brights are disinclined to engage however.
Clinton R Dawkins won't play.
Likewise A C Grayling.
Polly Toynbee has taken her ball and gone home.
It's all getting rather funny to see the Bright ones affecting languid disinterest as they run for the bunker.

On the 25th October an event has been scheduled at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. Apparently the plan is to leave an empty chair for old Mad Dog Dawkins, in case, like the bad fairy, he turns up  at  the eleventh hour.
If, as seems likely, he doesn't show, Dr Lane Craig will deliver a critique of The God Delusion instead. Either way it will be an interesting event.

Anyway, all the hilarity has led to some creative video's on Youtube;  two of which, out of my largesse, I share with you here, gentle reader.





Before I go, I also want to share a  remark by "Albert" that I read in the comments here:

So why don't more people believe in God? Answer (apart from ignorance): fear of religion. Here's atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel on fear of religion:

I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about human life, including everything about the human mind… This is a somewhat ridiculous situation… [I]t is just as irrational to be influenced in one’s beliefs by the hope that God does not exist as by the hope that God does exist.

The same commenter also linked to this blog post which caught my attention.It is about the cosmological argument, and I have saved it to read propely when I'm less tired ( and I will send it to my Dominic who is doing theology at A level, this stuff is up his alley)
Here is what the blogger, Edward Fesser, says about himself:

I am a writer and philosopher living in Los Angeles. I teach philosophy at Pasadena City College. My primary academic research interests are in the philosophy of mind, moral and political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. I also write on politics, from a conservative point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective.

It might be worth a look if you like that kind of thing.

Some things I miss about our old evangelical CofE church

Are the wonderful times we had at annual church holiday week away by the sea.
And listening to J John, who was usually a headline speaker, which was always a joy.

I met him a couple of times in the canteen and was very struck by him as someone who is entirely authentic and determinedly "ordinary" in the very best sense of the word. 
I got the impression that he really did enjoy meeting and getting to know people. whoever they were.
I remember that he  bothered to chat with and get to know the name of the old gentleman who used to check our name tags as we went into the canteen.


I like that he doesn't appear to have an "on stage" persona or any odd rhetorical devices or flourishes, like a "stage voice" . He speaks well, but in his own voice, and doesn't  emotionally manipulate the audience with tricks.
I remain hugely impressed by him and I really think he is a great advert for that part of the Church of England which is very vibrant and exciting and far,far from the moribund  image that seems to get touted around in the press ( and unfortunately in some catholic blogs too).

Watch this and I'm sure you'll agree.




This is an excerpt, or rather a number of excerpts from his  excellent series on the ten commandments.
"TEN":

A video debate worth watching

Back in 2007/2008 I was moving towards a return to the church..
I was also still attending a small midweek bible study in a friends house.
My Catholic leanings were preturbing a couple of the ladies there who tried to help me to see the grave mistake they felt I was making.
For a while, every week I got a new challenge or a tract offered to me to read.
I always agreed cheerfully to read the tracts and listen to the objections. I still have one which is called "The Error of Rome".
I went away and read it and looked up all the references and claims  and searched for the Catholic rebuttals to see if they could hold water.
The following week I would return the tract with little pencil markings and notes in the margins and explain what I had learned about the catholic position as a result of researching the claims made in the tract.
Over the weeks the warmth and friendship of these two women, and the keen interest they had shown in me started to cool to a quiet froideur.
They became disinterested in me to the point of rudeness.
When I cracked a joke, they no longer even smiled ( such iron self control! )
I was hurt by their coldness towards me and felt, and still do, that their earlier interest in me had been because they saw me as another scalp for their collection of people they had managed to get "saved".
They were, I think, angry with me for not responding to their challenges in the way they had hoped and expected I would.
In fact, to their frustration, each challenge seemed to be driving me further into the bosom of Rome, or, more correctly (in their view) to the Whore of Babylon.
I'm pretty sure that I'm right in guessing that their friendship was conditional on me accepting their message, and when they saw that I wasn't compliant, they washed their hands of me.
Both of them were baptised Catholics themselves and had considerable personal issues and anger with the Catholic church.
But many of their objections were just not intellectually credible. Often the pieces they gave me to read were badly written and flaky. When we had a discussion they quickly got heated up and emotional and so I have few memories of any really rational or interesting exchanges.

I wasn't angry or hurt by their attempts to save me from Popery. I felt that they probably sincerely felt my soul was in peril and were trying to help me. I was more hurt by their stubborn refusal to have a proper discussion about it and their subsequent cold shouldering of me.
It seemed to me that they just wanted me to be persuaded by the strength of their second hand arguments without putting any effort in themselves.
They wanted to tell me that the Popes hat was fashioned after the pagan fish god "Dagon" ( or dagon the pagon to his mates) and for me to simply accept that and ask no further questions.
I'm not  an intellectual snob, I'm not even an intellectual, but it was all so unintelligent.
Some of it was unintelligent to the point of being cretinously stupid.

Nothing is wasted though, and it was a very useful time.
I learned a bit about some key anti catholic influences.
typically the same sources would crop up: The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop, A Woman Rides The Beast by Dave Hunt and Roman Catholicism by Loraine Boettner.
After those weeks of back and forth in the bible study home group, I had covered most of the key objections to  Catholicism and I can honestly say I gave the objections a fair crack of the whip.
The more I read, the more impressed I was by the coherence and scriptural solidity of Catholic doctrine.
It was very helpful to me in helping me to explore some difficult questions and to see if they held up under scrutiny. They did.

At around the time of the Popes visit last year, I saw this video on the Catholic Voices website.
I have been meaning to post it here ever since, but  it just stayed at the bottom of the "to do" pile.
I finally found it and watched it again tonight with the husband and one of the boys.
It is a debate between Duncan Boyd of the Protestant Truth Society and  Peter Williams, a "Catholic Voice".
The motion under debate is "We believe the Popes visit will be good for this country". Which was a little strange to me as it was pretty obvious that that was not a sentiment shared by the Revelation TV studio audience .
I was hugely impressed by the way Peter handled himself in this discussion. The audience was overwhelmingly on the side of his pugnacious opponent, who only needed to shift in his seat, or cross his legs to get a round of applause.
There were only three catholics in the audience. I know that because one of them was a friend of ours ( he makes a point about the deuterocanonical books at about 00.53)
Many hoary old anti catholic chestnuts were tossed around and Peter Williams deals with each one with the  efficiency and poise of a champion batsman.
I got the impression that most of the audience weren't really listening and had turned up expecting to see their man hitting some easy and straightforward home runs and giving the catholic a scripture lesson he wouldn't forget.
I'm pretty sure they weren't expecting to see the rather haughty Mr Boyd of the Protestant Truth Society being put so firmly on the back foot.
And to see it done with such good grace and finesse, well, for me it was just a pleasure.
 Even a particularly aggressive question from the audience at 01.22 fails to throw him and he responds with the same  patient good grace.
It's well worth watching, and learning from. I hope we see more of Peter Williams.


Catholic Voices: Peter Williams debates in Revelation TV from Jack Valero on Vimeo.

Explaining the catholic church to an atheist: Al responds

Following on from this post.















Al responded to my answer with this:

I can see the logic of a church acting as a kind of keeper of standards like a professional association. (Just like homeopaths really do need an authoritative body to tell their members that they must not tell people not to take anti-malaria vaccines.) I get all that. (Leah’s blog).
But how on earth does one get from a position of deep scepticism to one of regarding a church as ‘a truth-telling thing’? That is the area I am interested in.

Honestly. I don't really know.
That's like telling someone how to fall in love. I'm not sure how to break this down. I don't think I can.
I'm sure this is where faith is a gift of God's grace, a work of the Holy Spririt enlightening the mind and quickening the heart.


Here's how I answered him. I don't think it's aa very satisfactory answer, and I don't expect it will satisfy him. Again, any thoughts out there, please chime in!

I think there are maybe two simultaneous routes.
Firstly, the Catholic church itself.
If there is such a thing as Truth, then we ought to recognise it. It has a power that we should feel when we come across it.
When I read the writings of the Church they have the ring of truth. I find them stirring some inchoate sense of truthfulness that leaps inwardly at the sound of it.
Perhaps you have read pieces of wonderful writing that evoke a similar response in you. A sort of gratitude that the writer has articulated something that you feel to be 'true'.
There is some reading here but it is very heavy.
And the Catechism is here.
I don't think it is necessary to be a catholic, or even a believer of any sort, to appreciate the weight of the words, which, at the very least demand our attention. There really is little point reading it in a cynical frame of mind though.

The other route, which could be undertaken simultaneously, is to discern whether the God of the bible is true. And therefore also, whether the Jesus of the bible was who he claimed to be. That's a big one, and obviously a huge stumbling block for someone who is an avowed atheist.
I will say that there are innumerable very sane and level headed atheists and agnostics who came to believe through being persuaded by the biblical account of the resurrection.
Once that falls into place, you can accept the idea of a God who entered space and time and remains with us in some way.
All Christians accept the concept of a church, but they have different concepts of what that means. Some Christians see the church as being a purely spiritual thing. An invisible body of believers, rather than an actual institution.
Catholics see it as both.
The catholic concept of church however, is much more congruent with the scriptural accounts and also with the historical church, about which we know a great deal.
I'm wrapping up quickly here because it's so late and I need to get off the computer .
There is a great deal to say about this and I can't put it all in one comment.
More anon, but feel free to add any other objections etc.

(Edited to add this video by Fr Robert Barron.)
I just came across it this evening.
He makes some very interesting points contrasting the weighty and serious existentialism of Satre and Camus with the new atheism which he sees as more frivolous and shallow.
He also presents an argument from desire.
He says that our restlessness and seeking after happiness, even when we get all the material satisfaction that we want, proves that we are wired to seek God.:

" That we desire something which transcends the limitation of this world means that we have within us a sort of participation in the eternal..
Hunger is not a sign that food is a projection, in fact hunger proves the existence of food.
Your hunger proves the reality of food.
It doesn't mean that food is some sort of subjective projection, or an illusion.
So our desires are not misleading us, our desires order us to reality."

Explaining the Catholic Church to an atheist: my response to Al

I wrote here about a question that was put to me on a local neighbourhood forum by a very convinced atheist called Al.

I won't bother copying here the preamble, in which I explain that the following answer is only partial, but will likely be best fleshed out in response to any questions, or objections he has.

As I said in my earlier post, I got some great input from some posters at The Catholic Spitfire Grill .

Here's how I responded to Al:

Firstly, I want to briefly address the doctrine of infallibility.
Infallibity is not to be confused with impeccability ( although it usually is)


Catholics can acknowledge the shameful episodes in church history, bad priests and wicked Popes  and still see the Church as an institution that is divinely ordained and inspired ( Dante, who was a devout Catholic and believed that the Pope and the church were divinely inspired, placed at least one Pope in hell).
The doctrine of infallibilty refers to a negative protection. It holds that the Magisterium ( that is, the teaching authority of the church that rests in the College of Bishops, in communion with the Bishop of Rome) is infallible when it teaches on matters of faith and morals that have been passed down in unbroken succession from the apostles. In other words, our faith does not change. Our understanding may deepen...but teaching must always come DIRECTLY from the teaching of the Apostles as it has been passed down to us in unbroken succession.
So the church can be in error, and they can make mistakes ( like electing a Borgia) and get things wrong ( the Crusades and the inquisition were not the churches finest hours) But even if these things were bad ( although, in the context of the times, it is possible to make a reasonable defence of the Crusades) they did not result in a corresponding change in doctrine/dogma.
Even the very wicked womanising, murdering Popes did not attempt to change church teaching in order to make their bad behaviour permissible.
So a catholic can be sharply critical of the church,  and yet also be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church. In fact we have some famous saints who rebuked their Popes.
Actually, considering the history of the church, catholics often regard the fact that the Catholic church is still here 2,000 years later as something of a miracle in itself.
We do not see the authority of the Church as earned, but rather that it is a gift that no human institution, by itself, could ever live up to.


Leah is an atheist who blogs here.
She is a student at Yale who is dating a catholic boy. Her blog strapline says " A geeky atheist picks fights with her catholic boyfriend"
It's a fascinating read. Some of it is a bit over my head, but I really love following the conversations of egg heads like these.
During the course of her blog she has had many conversations about catholicism and has aquired an impressive grasp of some very complicated catholic issues.
She belongs to an email list that I am a member of and I was interested to know how she would explain the need for church authority.
I really liked her answer so I am going to c&p it here:

Even as an atheist, it makes a lot more sense to me that Christianity would be better served when people were anchored in a church rather than left to their own devices. It's an error check, at the very least. You might tell your atheist friend that belonging to a church isn't that much different that the idea of peer review in science. Both systems substantially delay the acceptance of any new idea, to prevent large numbers of people from suddenly going wrong. A new teaching has to clear a high standard of evidence and be convincing to the people with the most experience and relevant knowledge. The scientific process of peer review is constituted the way it is because people so frequently go wrong on their own. And, presuming Christianity is true, the consequences for going wrong on your own are a lot smaller if your field is theoretical physics instead of theology/ethics.

It may take a lot more doing to convince your interlocutor that the Catholic church is 'a truth telling thing' as Chesterton said, but it might help to convince him that Christianity, like any field of study, needs some kind of regulatory institution.

To that, I want to add that sometimes the authority of the Church is compared to that of an umpire or a referee. You can see that the authority that rests in the umpire, or referee, does not require him to be personally without any fault or flaw, but nonetheless the game depends on his authority in order to avoid descending into chaos.

Al has responded to say that he is reading through it and will take his time, and will give me his thoughts in due course.

I'll post here when he does.

I just want to add that I'm keeping a copy of the discussion here, not to heap scorn on Al's position, but to keep a copy of an interesting exchange, and  perhaps also because it might be of interest to other readers.

My thanks to Patricius and Part Time Pilgrim for  their thoughts on the first post.

Again, if anyone has any thoughts on this I would be interested to hear them.

Explaining the Catholic Church to an atheist

I have been having a discussion on a local forum about belief in God. As far as I can tell, I seem to be the only one who is an out-of-the-closet theist. There may be others lurking, but no one else posting apart from me.
It's a very small neighbourhood forum , but nonetheless it's interesting that the overwhelming concensus appears to be agnostic/atheist.
There was one Christian called Laurence who posted for a while. But we tangled a bit over doctrinal issues ( I felt that he just couldn't help taking side swipes at the Catholic church, even when he thought he was being reasonable) and I think I got the better of him and he seems to have decided to lie doggo for a while.
In all honesty, I think that's probably a good thing because he really was inclined to be a bit of a cartoon fundie and grist to the atheist mill. He spoke in the lingo that felt completely normal to him but often sounded quite alienating and patronising to anyone outside that milieu. As a consequence, some of the responses he elicited were quite sharp put downs and then he'd get huffy, and the conversations that ensued tended to generate more heat than light.
Anyway, he seems to be taking a back seat for a while, so I'm the resident Christian.
That suits me fine.
I have the 'joie de combat' and I enjoy a fesity back and forth, and tend to feel more exhilarated than wounded by the opposition. I think it's been good for me to cut my teeth ( apologetically speaking) in this way, on a small forum, but one where the people are mostly known and therefore tend to be a bit more accountable for their words.

It's a very local forum and they meet up fairly frequently in local pubs. Although I've only gone along once, I've met a few of them and will be going again in a few weeks time.
The most recent discussion has been about belief in God, but it's just about to morph into a discussion about the Catholic Church in particular, and the rather audacious claims that she makes regarding herself.

I thought I'd make copies here of the conversation as it unfolds from this point.
If anyone is interested in reading the earlier parts of the conversation you can find that by clicking here which is where it starts.

Al is  a pretty conscientious secularist, friendly with Keith Porteous-Woods and Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society and was very supportive of the "Protest the Pope" campaign just prior to the Papal visit last year. 
I like him very much and I can appreciate that most of his objections to religion in general, and to the Catholic church in particular, are grounded in a rather noble ethical perspective. Nonetheless, I believe he is quite mistaken about the Catholic church, and I hope that I can begin to show him reasons that will lead him to reconsider his opposition.
His objection reminds me of Archbishop Fulton Sheens observation that "there are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing."

So here's the comment  I made that Al took issue with:

The concept of being a bible believing christian without an authoritative church doesn't stack up at all.
A bible only christian runs into the sand very quickly when he tries to maintain an infallible bible without an authoritative church.
You can't squeeze infallible bible juice out of a fallible catholic orange.
The church came before the bible. The early christians weren't wandering around with a bible tucked under their arms going off to bible study groups on wednesday evening.
The early church was Jewish and the Jewishness of Christianity is still very present in catholicism and in the catholic mass.
That is not the case in 21st century nu church which tends to revolve around a stirring sermon and worship songs.
That is the short answer, but I will try to put more flesh on the bones later.

Al responded:

I have as much difficulty with this as I do with bible-believing Christians of the fundamentalist persuasion. If I believe in anything it is the need for critical thinking, the necessity of questioning authority and orthodoxy, so the concept of an 'authoritative church' that includes a Pope who can be 'infallible' is, for me, well beyond the pale. And I don't want to get into a slanging match about your church, but with things like the Inquisition in its history, its record is a long way from impeccable and so I would have thought its 'authority' has simply not been earned.

I wrestled a bit with how to answer him. Not because I was stumped ( ha! as if!) but because I was a bit daunted by even beginning to answer.
There is simply so much to say and so many ways to say it.
I posted a question on an email list I belong to ( The Catholic Spitfire Grill) and asked for some thoughts about how I could answer this in a way that would make sense to an atheist.
I think that part of the problem I was having is that the question of the churches authority, presupposes a belief in God.
I'm quite used to having a discussion like this with other Christians, but Al doesn't believe in God.
The conversation was moving away from answering questions about the existence of God, and why theists are well within their rational rights, to specifically defending the Catholic Church and her claims to be a divine institution.
That felt a little strange to me, as I could see that, without believing in God to begin with, that could all easily sound deeply potty.
I got a couple of answers from the Spitfire Grill that really helped kick me off in the right direction.
In the next post I'll talk about how I responded to Al,
And meanwhile,I'd really like to hear any thoughts that anyone else has about how they would answer a question like this, and especially if there are any points that you think ought to be included!

I just nipped out for a pint of milk...

 It's been rather a while.
Has it really been three months?
Incroyable!
I got distracted elsewhere.
I found a new online place to play and being  a shallow, fickle flibbertigibbit(sp?) with only so much time to spend online, I just wandered off and left my blog hanging in suspenders.
Humble apologies to anyone who's been wondering if all's well chez battlementsofrubies.


Here's what happened:
I was invited to join a new local neighbourhood forum. The sort where people mostly post about what's happening on Coronation Street, or The Archers, or ask questions about decent local restaurants and hairdressers.
Long story short ( and I'll get round to some of the long story later) I fell in. Like Alice down the rabbit hole.
Down, down, down.

And being the scrappy controversialist that I am, and delighting in the opportunity for a bit of swashbuckling , I got embroiled in all  sorts of discussions which were very far removed from the usual more pedestrian fare.
Like Alice, I've gone among mad people. It was quite absorbing.
And I've only recently emerged blinking into the sunlight. Where did the time go?

This local forum has a bit of history because it was started in response to a growing frustration with an already well established but very badly run other local forum.

So the new forum was born, and I was invited to join.

And then shortly after, someone posted a comment about how the Pope "thinks condoms are good now"
And then someone responded and said this:

"Most of what the Catholic church (as well as other churches) says has a political aim as well as a religious purpose. I don't follow the news about the Pope, tbh, so I can't comment on the reason of his move and its timing, but I'm reasonably sure it's not because the church has suddenly come round to the right way of thinking.
I used to have several practising catholics among my friends when I lived in Italy - they all used contraception, sometimes more than one method at the same time. "Religious but not stupid", in the words of one of them."

A red rag to my bull. I couldn't let that go.

It was like letting the hare out of the trap.
And that's where it all kicked off.
You can go and read the conversation that unfolded  here.

We covered a lot of stuff. At some point we were joined by a chap who works as a full time evangelist for the local Baptist church. He was very indignant by my defense of the churches teaching on contraception and wanted to know where all that was in the bible ( such grist to my popish mill!).
Later, when things had become quite convoluted, a newcomer asked for a precis of the discussion up to that point.
One of my interlocutors said this:

"Clare thinks her ability to string a sentence together in an effective manner will disguise the fact she is basically an RC supremacist standing in the way of sensible precautions for Africans likely to contract HIV"

Charming.
I responded by graciously thanking him for the compliment regarding my wordsmithery.  I noted that the appellation "RC Supremacist", when spoken, becomes "arsey supremacist" which  isn't necessarily so wide of the mark as it happens. 



It was feisty, and reasonably good natured, mostly.
Only a fellow swashbuckler could understand my interest in discussions like these. Some friends of mine are completely mystified by why I would want to engage in an exchange that they would find draining and even hurtful.
But I don't. As I said, I enjoy the parry and lunge. I find it energising.
And having to answer my critics means that I learn a lot too.
It's a good discipline to have to be very careful about the claims one makes when ones audience is hostile and ready to seize upon innacuracies or exagerrated claims as proof of my idiocy.

At times I fancied I was one of  those scrappy little karate kicking girls in Japanese films who end up taking on, and taking out , a roomful of men. As soon as one is dispatched, another pops up.


It was exhilarating at times, and frustrating at others.


One of my most challenging objectives was to make a point pithily without using too many words. That was hard. There is so much to say!

Mostly I struggle with brevity and want to cram too much into my response.

At one point I was told:

"Whether you like it or not if humans had (or do) follow the Catholic church's teaching on contraception there would be a total disaster. "

This was fairly typical of the general point of view.
And it did get a bit wearing constantly explaining why it was that, whether they liked it or not, if everyone followed the catholic churches teaching on sexuality, HIV would burn itself out within a single generation.


It should  be obvious that the Catholic church is not simply telling people to cast off their condoms and carry on regardless.
And it should be easy to see how  a catholic living a chaste life is at far less risk of catching HIV, than the sexual incontinent who puts his trust in the salvific power of the mighty condom.
But it isn't obvious at all to those who have been thoroughly inculcated with the slick marketing of the condom alongside the concept of "safe sex".
The condom is defended with a religious fervour.
Any criticism of the "safe sex" credo and the condomistas go spastic.
My interlocutors, who mostly saw the church as the enemy of poor Africans and women everywhere,  seemed to imagine that hordes of sexually incontinent risk takers will mysteriously become obedient to the churches teaching in one area only: that of condom use.

It was an interesting conversation. But if you don't have time to read it, watch this video instead for a short nutshell presentation of why the Pope was right about condoms not being the answer to the problem of AIDS:







Anyway, in the three months I've been away from here, it's because I've been busy over there.
We went from condoms to arguments for the existence of God, to discussions between the Baptist evangelist and I about Sola Scriptura and free will ( he doesn't believe we have it) to the authority of the church.
Inevitably we ended up with the hottest of hot potatoes: abortion.
I went out to meet the culture, as Fr Barron would say, with musket, fife and drum.




Anyway, that's what I've been up to online lately.
I'm sorry I've been gone so long .
It's nice to be back.

How a Rabbi led me to Rome

I've written before about my interest in Judaism and how it led me to a new appreciation of the liturgy, the sacraments and eventually back to the church that I'd wandered away from some years before.
I appreciated the way the observance of the feasts and seasons strengthened the Jewish identity and acted as a teacher of eternal truths in every generation.
I recall reading about how, for Jewish people, celebrating the  Passover meal was seen as a way of being mystically present, across time, at the moment when the children of Israel escaped from their Egyptian pursuers across the Red sea..
In this way,  despite the accident of separation by time and space, each generation could, in a sense, "be there".
I couldn't help but be reminded that Catholics view the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in a similar way. That through it, the veil between time and space is lifted and we become mystically present at Calvary.
What hadn't made any sense to me at all as a cradle Catholic, suddenly fell into place as an Evangelical with an interest in the Jewish people.

The pennies, once they started to drop, all fell pretty quickly. And having meandered slowly and  carelessly away from the church, I sprinted back to it at quite a lick.
Having arrived, I was fascinated, and delighted to find that I was not alone. That others had found their way back through discovering the Jewishness of the Catholic church.
It really makes sense to me that what went before, while a shadow of what was to come, was not simply thrown overboard, but found it's fulfilment in the light of recognising Christ, his passion, death and resurrection.

Taylor Marshall is one of my favourite bloggers. He took the circuitous route to Rome and writes eloquently about the reasons why. Here is how his story starts:

"I was not always drawn to the Catholic Church. I once resisted it with great force. As a college student I believed that Pope John Paul II was the Antichrist, and boldly concluded that the Catholic Church was the Scarlet Whore of Babylon described by Saint John in the Apocalypse. I even handed out Jack Chick tracts and left them in the toilet stalls of the dormitory (looking back, a rather suitable place) for fellow students to read. Today my wife and I (and our five children) are Catholic, Roman Catholic..."

Read the rest here.

Today on his blog, he makes this announcement:

I'll be on Al Kresta's nationally syndicated radio show today (June 30, 2010) talking about "How a Rabbi led me to Rome," at 3:10 pm Central Time.
If your city doesn't have Catholic radio, you can listen live through the internet by clicking: here. 

I'm taking my laptop upstairs with me so I can listen to it while I'm giving Marie-Aibhlinn her last feed of the night.She gets kind of tetchy when I try and read a book and breast feed at the same time. She keeps reaching round and grabbing at the pages.
So I'm looking forward to just sitting back and listening to Taylor Marshall instead.
I just thought I'd share in case anyone else would find that as interesting as me.
Goodnight all!

"Without God we are nothing"

An interesting debate between Cardinal Pell and a fellow called Dan Barker, who was an evangelical preacher and is now an atheist activist.
I'm putting this up here, partly so that I can find it again myself ( my bookmarks are now so bloated that putting anything away in there is like tucking the needle into the haystack)
Here's the blurb:

"Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, and atheist Dan Barker debated the topic: Without God We Are Nothing, at Macquarie University. A vigorous and lively debate was had, with over 300 people in attendance. The debate was structured so that each speaker received ten minutes to present their case, then had a chance at rebuttal, and finishing off with a few minutes to directly cross examine the other. There was then time for questions from the audience.  Part 1 of this audio presents the main arguments and rebuttal, with part 2 presenting the (very lively) cross examination, and some hard hitting questions from the audience."

I found the opening introductions a little long winded, and  the topic of the debate was somewhat unclear which I think led the two opponents to argue to slightly different themes at times.
Nonetheless it was interesting. I tried really hard to suspend my own bias and give both men a fair hearing, but I came away feeling that Cardinal Pell had presented the stronger case, and presented it more clearly.
If you're interested you can download it here.

Tradition!

I'm a bit busy at the moment, owing in part to the fact that we have 4 birthdays in January ( well technically 3 birthdays that are actually IN January, but I'm counting Gabriel because his big day is the 5th feb which is as near as dammit January as far as I'm concerned)
I take full advantage of the January sales naturally.
We don't have particularly extravagant birthdays here but we do have birthday traditions that must be honored. "Tradition!" as Tevye famously insisted on, without which life would be "as shaky as a Fiddler on the roof".
Our hallowed birthday tradition always includes the following:

• Sugary cereal ( I confess here to wincing a bit as I throw Golden Nuggets, Cocoa Pops and a Variety pack into my trolley. Should the paparazzi catch me sailing up the aisle of my local supermarket, I'd rather be caught accessorising my basket with fresh parmesan from the deli, a bag of organic rocket and a loaf of ciabatta. I'm not sure how I came to be snobby about food. I was raised on Findus Crispy Pancakes and Angel Delight)

• Obligatory birthday banner and balloons. Even our oldest gets the Tweenies birthday banner and he was 20 years old on the 11th.

• A cake, iced, with as many bits of plastic 'decoration tat' as can be reasonably squeezed on. Old favourites are the football boots and football and the little plastic train. Some variety is permissible and many years have seen many decor newbies come and go, but the faithful football boots have seen us through many seasons and it doesn't look like they're going anywhere.
  

• Evening meal of the birthday boy (or girls) choosing. This one is usually a takeaway. Pizza Hut has been a perennial top pick, but I'm happy to report that as my olders are getting older they are more interested in opting for something different. I'm bored of Pizza Hut. We might have a Thai curry or something Lebanese.

• Lastly we try to celebrate the one whose birthday it is. I like to be mindful that this is an opportunity to be consciously grateful that we have them in our family. We are celebrating the day that they arrived and it is a good time to let them know that we are glad they came! Sometimes we retell stories about the day they were born. They seem to never get bored of this. When I was within an hour of giving birth to son no.1 I was denied an epidural on the grounds that I was within half an hour of giving birth ( siting an epidural when the head is crowning is like cutting someones hair while they are jogging) When they told me 'no' I told them to get a gun and shoot me then. Nothing like the second stage of labour to get your histrionic streak to assert itself. Anyway, my point is that this is the sort of reminiscence that my sicko family never tire of hearing. " Dear son, how glad I am of the day you were born, what a blessing it was to hold you in my arms for the first time and clasp you to my bosom. And did I ever tell you that just moments before I asked them to get a gun and shoot me? " *fond sigh* It's so bonding to share precious memories!

Anyway, smoothly seguing from the discussion of tradition. I have mentioned before how my fascination with/affection for all things Jewish was really significant in my return to the Catholic church.
I am delighted to have found this blog which is right up my philosemite alley.
And it's podcastastic. Here's a list of some of his talks:

Jewish Roots of Catholicism Podcasts by Taylor Marshall

• Jewish Messiah, Catholic Christ
• Jewish Tevilah, Catholic Baptism
• Jewish Passover, Catholic Mass
• Jewish Manna, Catholic Eucharist
• Jewish Levites, Catholic Clergy
• Jewish Vestments, Catholic Vestments
• Jewish Temple, Catholic Cathedral
• Jewish Synagogue, Catholic Parish
• Jewish Nazirites, Catholic Monastics
• Jewish Marriage, Catholic Marriage

I love listening to podcasts. If I could think of one good reason to take up jogging it would be so that I could get a bit of peace and quiet and listen to a podcast. Sadly that isn't going to happen because I find jogging ridiculous. At least it is when I'm jogging. If you saw me jog you'd agree with me. I'm one of those people who can't run. My legs go in the wrong directions and I get traumatic school flashbacks of being cruelly mocked. I think yard for yard I'm actually slower when I jog than when I walk.
Digressing again.
Anyway, I am determined to get these talks by the admirable Mr Marshall onto my uncool, hand me down, first generation ipod and listen to all of them.
He's also written a book called The Crucified Rabbi which I am resisting at the moment. Podcasts are more time efficient at the moment and besides I've got a teetering pile of half read books beside my bed which reproach me every evening. I don't need to add any more just yet.
I like this video for the book though and I love the music ( something warbly and Jewish and then Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve)

Hate debate?

I enjoy a ( friendly) argument. But it can be hard to find a willing partner.
With my husband, whose temperament is completely different, I have to temper my natural impulse to toss every question back and forth several times and examine it from every angle. To him, this is being picky and splitting hairs.
I think it's energising to have a spirited debate. He finds it draining, isn't excited about the minutiae that I find so stirring, and prefers what he calls a 'live and let live' philosophy ( not, despite the implication, that mine is conversely 'kill or be killed' lol!) and he is not fascinated by following minute points to their ultimate conclusion in the way that I tend to be.

I realise how irritating my 'arguing hobby' must be to some (ok most) but in my defence, it does come with a plus point in that I'm not touchy or easily offended when people disagree with me. Au contraire! Another opportunity to indulge in my favourite hobby!

On one of the home ed email lists I subscribe to, a question was posted about some 'friendly banter between the poster and her good friend who is an atheist.
This is what he said to her:

"Is that the sort of love that leveled Sodom and Gomorrah, flooded an entire planet leaving only two survivors and committed various other genocidal atrocities eg Judges 19:29 , 20 , Numbers 31:18 , 25 and various others? Oh yes, Old Testament god, before the image makeover."

She wondered if anyone had anything interesting to say.

One of the responders said that it was better not to engage him as he was probably only wanting to make faith look foolish and to win the argument. She suggested praying for him instead and offered some very lovely suggestions for how to pray very specifically for him.
Her response got me thinking. Because of course she is right. But she probably isn't an 'amiable arguer' and, like my husband, tends to see comments like this as contrary and even hostile.
I don't. Because it's the sort of thing that I would say and sincerely not mean any offence at all.
So I thought I'd respond giving the perspective of an amiable arguer, because we are a sadly misunderstood and dare I say it, even unappreciated lot.
(Of course I don't know if the chap in question is in fact 'amiable' but since the poster describes him as a dear friend, I'm going to assume he is.)

Here's what I said:

Can I offer another perspective from someone who enoys the cut and thrust of friendly argument?
Sometimes this kind of provocative rhetoric is meant to actually drive the conversation forward rather than stop it in a hard place.

I've been around the tracks a bit in my spiritual journey and when I was questing it was a real treat to meet someone who was bright, articulate, willing to engage in some banter without getting easily offended and not afraid of tackling the hard questions.
I often asked hard, possibly offensive questions myself, not with the intention to provoke or to win the argument ( even though it may have looked like that) but because I really was sincerely interested in whether there could be a reasonable answer, however unlikely that may have seemed to me at the time.

I think a discussion of this nature can easily run all over the place and when it does it loses it's focus and therefore it's power to help us to think and even change our minds.

With the atheism/theism discussion I would use a similar approach to the one I use when discussing the issue of abortion. Be willing to discuss the hard issues, but first clarify why you believe your baseline principle or belief is reasonable and valid.

For example, with abortion, I start by explaining that I believe abortion is wrong because it involves killing a baby, and it is always wrong to do that. Then follows ( hopefully) a spirited discussion on the nature of what it means to be a baby or even human, in order to elaborate further. Once we have established that, it is easier to discuss the hard questions like abortion in the case of rape or fetal abnormality. Or at least, the discussion makes more sense.

Likewise, when discussing the issue of belief in God, I would first want to nail down some of the reasons why I believe it is reasonable, sane and logical to hold this belief.
The bottom line is that Gods existence isn't really something that we reasonably accept or reject because we like the sound of Him and approve of what He does.
We are free to accept or reject the idea of God based on those feelings, but the existence of God, or the non existence of God doesn't change according to our view.
It's either true or it's not.

And that's another very good question for another day.
Please leave me your thoughts, contrary or otherwise. I know you'll be amiable!

A book that changed my life

I've been tagged by Elizabeth.
The theme is "A book that changed my life".
Thing is, I've been racking my brains and I'm not sure if I can come up with the definitive Life Changing Book.
I've probably read quite a few that were a part of a life changing process, but none that quite deserve the full accolade.

If I were to pick one however, the most obvious, and the most recent candidate, would be The Mass Of The Early Christians by Mike Aquilina.



It was a book I came across entirely by accident.

I've blogged before about how I used to assume that what happened at Mass on a Sunday was very different from the practice of those first Christians. I imagined that it was inevitably the result of years of religious practice, the accretions of changing customs down through the centuries.
I mean, the Actual Factual Jesus wouldn't have gone in for all that 'Sit. Stand. Kneel' routine would he?
Obviously not right?
Obviously.

So, as a happily free range Christian I became really interested in the Jewishness of Christianity and wanted to learn more.
As a consequence of this, I held a couple of Seder meals.
During the preparations for the second one ( only in 2008) I was thinking alot about how very 'liturgical' the Jewish year was. It struck me as a very helpful thing that they had a structure to hang the year on in which they called to mind certain key events in their history as the people of God.
Turning this over in my mind got me thinking about church. What exactly did they do, those first Jewish Christians when they got together to 'do church'?
The more I pondered it, and the more I observed the Jewish traditions, the more inconcievable it seemed to me that the first Christians simply gathered together for a rousing rendition of the first century equivalent of Shine Jesus Shine and then listened to an 'excellent talk'.

These thoughts were disturbing me, not least because I liked the worship and the excellent talk and had found the Mass experience pretty moribund and so so.

So. Feeling a bit panicked by these unwelcome, rather 'catholic' thoughts, I approached a Learned Friend. She was an ex Catholic herself, who has been attending a Pentecostal church for some years now.
At the time, what I really wanted was for some clever person to give me the answer that would lay to rest this nagging sense that there was something missing.

My Pentecostal friend, who in the past had been someone who was very game when it came to tossing ideas around, chewing the fat and being generally philosophically inclined, seemed like the ideal person to turn to for some answers.
In short, it was a disaster. She felt picked on and put on the spot by my questions. She said she wasn't interested in the questions and she didn't care about the answers. My seeking answers was evidence of my 'not getting it'.( 'It' being that the things of God could not be discerned intellectually, but rather were known spiritually)
She had a 'heart' relationship with God, and I, on the other hand, had a 'head' relationship.
Ouch.
If I'm honest, I felt pretty hurt and misunderstood at this point.

But I also didn't buy her concept of the 'head' vs the 'heart' business. After our conversation I thought about the things she had said alot. She rated her 'heart' approach to knowing God as a notch up from my 'head' approach. That was clear.
But the thing was, I knew that her diagnosis of my 'problem' was way off base.

After losing Olivia, I had, in fact become aware of a much deeper level of trust in God, and, probably for the first time, a really clear and tangible sense of His goodness and trustworthiness.
Infact I felt closer to God than I ever had before.
Anyway, weren't we to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength?

But here's the thing that led me to this book:
One of the things I was asking her about was the practice of the early Christians, how they worshipped, what they did when they were no longer proper 'synagogue going' Jews.
I expressed the question thus:
" I mean...you know...what did they do when they got together for their "mass". What did they do then ?"

When I said "mass" I was just straining for the right word for "Christian get together". I could have said "Pow wow" or "fellowship meeting". I didn't actually mean Mass. I 'knew' they didn't have Mass back then. I mean...I wasn't stupid ( aside: Yes. I was.)

Here's what caught my attention though. Her response was SO emphatic. She was annoyed at my use of that word. She shot back with great forcefulness and stressed each word:

"There. Was. NO. Mass. In. The. Early. Church!!"

After speaking with her, on account of her emphatic, and even irritated response, my curiosity on this point was even more piqued.
I Googled this "Mass Early Christians"

It was a serendipitous Google.
The first result was a book of almost exactly that name.
Amused at my result, and intrigued by the title of the book, I ordered it from Amazon there and then.
Two days later it arrived. Two days after that I finished reading it.

In short, I learned that indeed there WAS a Mass in the early church.

Here's a snip from the Amazon blurb:

In The Mass of the Early Christians, author Mike Aquilina reveals the Church's most ancient Eucharistic beliefs and practices. Using the words of the early Christians themselves -- from many documents and inscriptions -- Aquilina traces the Mass s history from Jesus' lifetime through the fourth century. The Mass stood at the center of the Church's life, evident in the Scriptures as well as the earliest Christian sermons, letters, artwork, tombstones, and architecture. Even the pagans bore witness to the Mass in the records of their persecutions.

In these legacies from the early Church, you ll hear and taste and see the same worship Catholics know today: the altar, the priests, the chalice of wine, the bread, the Sign of the Cross...the Lord, have mercy ...the Holy, holy, holy ...and the Communion.

You ll see vividly how Jesus followed through on his promise to be with us always, until the end of time.

After reading it I knew that I could never see things the same way again.
The 'Mass experience' would never again be moribund and so so. And I knew that my questions had been finally answered.
I was going to be going home.

Making assumptions.

There is a fascinating discussion going on at Visits To Candyland at the moment on the Catholic doctrine of the assumption into heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I'm learning alot listening in to the discussion these eggheads are having.
I've even jumped in myself. My contributions have been in the manner of a child at a dinner table butting in on the conversation of boffins discussing string theory, with my own thoughts on whether the moon is made of cheese.
Suffice to say, I'm a bit in awe. but it's interesting nonetheless.


The empty interior of the sarcophagus in the tomb of Mary, in the Kidron Valley.