THREAD

Christian CONFESSIONAL time:

I read the bible on my own from a young age. I always felt the gospels were plain: the church is supposed to be an ascetic, communal movement.

After a very long time, I accepted that most of Christianity has never been about that, and...1.x

2.x ...never will be.

So I left.

I still pray, I still support the idea of it as a positive force. But I accepted the whole "thing"/"game" isn't about me, isn't for me. It's for other people. And I'm meant to spend my life as a friendly neighbor, working on something else...

3.x There are plenty of reasonable arguments for why a movement should mature from being reactionary (early church) to in-power (high church); why the church should stick around. Merits much longer treatment. But that level of meta-thinking requires a lot abstraction away from..

4.x. ...the gospels and even Paul (which disagree imo). And no one wants to be a churchgoer "ironically", "for the memes", or "insincerely as a supportive neighbor". Plus that's a little insulting to the people there who are sincere, and you can never treat with them honestly...

5.x It's like your girlfriend asks if you love her, and you can only say "I respect you". Worse than just breaking it off.

6.x Obviously I come out a protestant/evangelical bkgrnd. Seems to me there's more accommodation in Catholicism for simply honoring the rites and trusting the "miracle" of faith occurs later; less emphasis on conversion event and emotional display. I'm comfortable in Latin Mass..

7.x ...and no longer comfortable in other styles, esp. mega-church. So maybe I will participate in that way. There's also reasons not to. We'll see

8.x. I agree with this in theory. But imo there's no basis for it in the Gospels themselves. Are you Catholic? It seems to me there's no room for this kind of thinking as a Protestant, bc it is reactionary/fundamentalist... https://twitter.com/BasedProShops/status/1346535307152404484?s=20

9.x. Feels to me like Protestantism is in Arrested Development. Like it either should have reformed Catholic church and returned to it, or formed rival high-tradition like Eastern Orthodoxy. Bc again, the only lifestyle justified by the Gospels (by themselves) imo is ascetic monk

10.x ...and if you want to build an advanced civilization on Christianity, it requires this superstructure of doctrine/abstraction not found in Gospels, but built on top. And maybe I'm fine with that but Fundamentalists aren't. You don't see them moving into communes tho

My interpretation:

Catholic = "magical" mode of operation. Syncretic
Protestant = "rational" mode, rejects magical/symbolic thought. Stranded in between continents/systems, arrested development

@0x49fa98

11.x Magic is essentially shitposting. You rely ironically on the power of the memes in faith until it doesn't feel ironic anymore. Yea? And then everyone gets swept up into it. A romantic approach to life, not a clinical one. I am fine with this. Perhaps Cath mysticism is it

12.x

Rationalism: "ACKSHUALLY"
Magic/Faith: just DO IT