/lit/ - Literature

>>12359277
>One Aquinas pill a day keeps modernity away.

To the contrary, modernity itself arose because of flaws embedded within the Church ever since Paul, if the Church sufficiently played the role set out for it, widespread irreligion, scientifism, nihilism etc would never have arisen in the first place, praising the Catholic church and Aquinas for resisting modernity is like giving a prize to a student who failed their final.

>>12359277
>taking "pills"
Fug off to /pol/ retard

>>12359277
Thomism imported the flaws of ancient rationalism and undercut the role of God's will. Franciscan theology is pure, retaining God's freedom, and actually gives us a chance to get through modernity. Aquinas himself even admitted at the end of his life that his philosophy was "all straw". The reason the church has emphasised Thomism is because its so magesterial and complete. It allows for no debate. It's the philosophical equivalent not of the redpill, but the Grand Inquisitor pill. It's a major problem and Aquinas himself would have baulked at the laughable "RadTrads" of today who want to restore Christendom, as though such a thing were even possible.

t. orthodox Catholic who took the Bonaventure pill

>>12359695
I don't believe anything you just said, but got any book recs?

>>12359277
>grounded on matter and reality, answering "To be" to the question

Let me guess, it's got something to do with God right?

>>12359412

>modernity arose from the church and not hedonism fueled humanism

JIDF spotted

>>12359654
>not having a /stack/
fuck off to reddit, faggot.

>>12360340
The church has a long history of humanism including in some of its most orthodox and conservative traditions, you low iq slow in the mind

>>12360340
He's right. The Church had to deal with challenges to its magisterium and powers throughout the middle ages. Start with the investiture controversies and go from there.

Because Catholic converts are notorious larpers

>One of the analogies between Communism and Roman Catholicism is that only the ‘educated’ are completely orthodox. The most immediately striking thing about the English Roman Catholics — I don’t mean the real Catholics, I mean the converts: Ronald Knox, Arnold Lunn et hoc genus — is their intense self-consciousness. Apparently they never think, certainly they never write, about anything but the fact that they are Roman Catholics; this single fact and the self-praise resulting from it form the entire stock-in-trade of the Catholic literary man. But the really interesting thing about these people is the way in which they have worked out the supposed implications of orthodoxy until the tiniest details of life are involved. Even the liquids you drink, apparently, can be orthodox or heretical; hence the campaigns of Chesterton, ‘Beachcomber’, etc., against tea and in favour of beer. According to Chesterton, tea-drinking’ is ‘pagan’, while beer-drinking is ‘Christian’, and coffee is ‘the puritan’s opium’. It is unfortunate for this theory that Catholics abound in the ‘Temperance’ movement and the greatest tea-boozers in the world are the Catholic Irish; but what I am interested in here is the attitude of mind that can make even food and drink an occasion for religious intolerance. A working-class Catholic would never be so absurdly consistent as that. He does not spend his time in brooding on the fact that he is a Roman Catholic, and he is not particularly conscious of being different from his non-Catholic neighbours. Tell an Irish dock-labourer in the slums of Liverpool that his cup of tea is ‘pagan’, and he will call you a fool. And even in more serious matters he I does not always grasp the implications of his faith. In the I Roman Catholic homes of Lancashire you see the crucifix I on the wall and the Daily Worker on the table. It is only the ‘educated’ man, especially the literary man, who knows how to be a bigot. And, mutatis mutandis, it is the same with Communism. The creed is never found in its pure form in a genuine proletarian.

Orwell

>>12359695
He said it was "all straw" after our Lord took him to heaven to experience just a sliver of what it would be like. It's "all straw" in comparison to the knowledge one has in heaven, although it's still likely some of the most profound thought humanity is capable of in this world. The contrast must have startled him. Imagine the joy he must have had, after Christ had told him from an icon of the crucifixion, "You have written well of me, Thomas. What would you have as your reward?"
So much joy in fact, that upon hearing this, Thomas replied with the only answer any saint really could give. "Only You, Lord."

Only after this did he say everything he'd written was as straw. All the genius of man cannot match a moment in the full presence of the divine and exalted essence of Truth.

>>12360587
Maybe Chesterton's proclamations on the pagan nature of tea drinking wouldn't ring true with a dock worker, but I'm willing to bet the truth of the gospel can still be totally communicated to any human, and change his heart, regardless of if he is a great theologian or some aboriginal tribesman. That's what really matters. The "cultural Catholicism" of /lit/ can be fun to immerse yourself in, but doing that at the expense of actual devotion to our Lord is a fatal trap the devil lays out for many. Ironically enough even the great atheist critics of Christianity seem awfully petty rambling about tea and such when compared to the fullness of what the great apologists and church fathers have laid out for us.

>>12359277
No man could lift a whole church with one hand though

Nah I don't need the cripto atheist jezuid pill

>>12360587
dammit Orwell was fuckin smart. hubris is exactly what is killing Catholicism, and America. those leaders breathing the thin air at the top don't have any idea they are making any kinds of mistakes, even as their approval is in the toilet. they are still in power. that's all the evidence they need. there are all kinds of middle layers that have a vested interest in protecting them and the regime they maintain, even as it is degenerating into chaos.

>>12360646
This. It never meant he was wrong.

>>12360646
>He said it was "all straw" after our Lord took him to heaven to experience
Through ouija board?

>>12360646
>"You have written well of me, Thomas. What would you have as your reward?"
>"Only You, Lord."
goosebumps desu

>>12360587
>Can't even detect blatant hyperbole
>Only the literary know how to be bigots

Damn Aquinas seems really interestin-
>All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me
Well then

>>12360340
It did. Nietzsche explains it well. 'the highest values devalue themselves' and all that

>>12360646
I don't believe in your faith, but I honestly feel so glad that people like you receive such exaltation from following it.

Bless you, anon. C:

Stop Reading Aquinas.

Never because I prefer Spinoza's theology.

>>12359277
there’s this catholic guy who has that painting as an icon on twitter who i see all the time

>>12359654
Imagine getting this upset over 4chan lingo

>>12364115
Mecha?

I like him he's a good poster

>>12359277
Because as a Christian theology it is heretical.

>>12359277

Augustine and Aquinas are Atheists.

>>12362873
see >>12360646

>>12362906

So that means nietzsche was the highest faggot of them all in history since he was so anus blasted about greek masculinity

>>12361800
And to think anon, you and I were created for the exact same God, and we can be made just as saintly as Thomas if we only look to our Lord each day and say "Yes."

>>12359277
So weird, I was just watching this video last night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v2pEyoU8ps

>>12363131
Is there anything that you think might help you build faith? Or anything particular that's keeping you away?
God bless you too anon.

>>12362873
Knowing God in your mind is nothing compared to knowing God in your heart

Where to start with Aquinas?

>>12359277
>Aquinas
>virile
Really now

>>12360587
Orwell was right. Catholic intellectuals are extremely pedantic and insufferable and try to micromanage everything

>t. attended Catholic uni

it's worth it because we actually read the canon but the professors are lockstep Thomists

>>12359654
Dude you're on 4chan lol. Does "anon" bother you too

>>12364632

All intellectuals are extremely pedantic anon, it's just the nature of the status of being right, the common folk doesn't care about this because being right doesn't give them status at all

>>12364659
certainly, but spending some time in Catholic academia gave me a distaste for Catholic intelligentsia.

Madness is not being devoid of logic, it's being devoid of everything but logic

>>12364686

I think the early christianity discussion is powerful and hopeful, in comparison with the modern christianity, there are lots of early christian books who were accepted in "codex" who give enough information of how to live a christian life, one of the most clearly written ones is the sheperd of hermas

>>12364541
Personally I feel that the action of attempting to believe in God itself is stifling to true faith. It feels like I'm trying top convince myself I am able to love my partner, when in reality it is a burden at the time. During those strange states between wakefulness and sleep, I feel a deeper self casting off these chains of structure, for a more pure, nameless reality. What do you think?

>>12364733
what keeps me from returning to Catholicism is that it's so demanding. Prayer every night, no meat on Fridays, go to confession, go to mass, holy hours, charity, tithes, obey the Pope, it's too much. Not to mention that the church is a reprehensible institution. No disrespect to Catholics, but I cannot reenter the church

>>12364807

You need to use the symbolism of Jesus in the passion and life, and compare it to what you know in history, the themes of sacrifice, being pure, god, and how all the circle done through christ and the phophets came to fullfilment, the idea of original sin and our fallen world

One of the main things in christianity is that you need to believe both a myth and a fact of reality, this dynamic makes it powerful to have faith

I just can't explain it, but when i focus on loving god i feel so much emotion and purpose that anything that tries to waver my faith makes me try to focus on having even more faith, i got to a point where i feel living feels better on faith than on anything else

I believe in God but cannot manage the strength to join any sort of church. I don't respect peoples beliefs when they are half-assed and unexamined, which describes at least half of Protestants today, and likely every other system as well. My faith was built out of ashes and I don't want to discuss it with people - smiling lifelong Christians throwing around jargon and preachtalk disgust me. I wish I had the humility to get past this because I know I'm no better than a Pharisee.

>>12364840
All the "demands" you listed are things that are good in and of themselves. Things that develop a sense of interior calm, peace, and joy. You should actually WANT to do those things, because everything else in life is pure vanity.

>>12364936
Being part of the Church means to be in communion with God. You are missing out on experiencing God's grace in your life, and you easily have the humility to remedy that -- you already see it in yourself today. Just take the step forward.

>>12364971
even if I wanted to do those things, I wouldn't want to do them for the pedo mafia in Rome

>>12364994
Dude you can rejoin and help us fight the pedo mafia. It is after all what you were created to do.

>>12364807
Give this video a try. This argument really aided me in beginning to have faith in God. I only link the video because it gives a better explanation than I can. You won't regret watching it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM&t=220s

There is a mental realization that God exists, and then there is the realization your heart will have sometime after if you come to terms with this. The fact that you are as nuanced as you are in your thinking about God, shows that you already probably have a deeper love for the Truth than most. Luckily enough, Christ IS the Truth. He is the literal essence of truth. And as the essence of Truth, He lends all truths we can observe their objectivity.

>>12359277

Imagine riffing off both a Jewish and a Muslim philosopher to build your own theology that could be used in the same way by Jews and Muslims...

If your theology is so ecumenical, why be a Catholic, dude?

>>12364807

Let the aesthetics persuade you, it's sinful but it's okay if you just do it once

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W4PJUOeVYw

while reading the john gospel

>>12365719
The absolute state of Catholics. Just admit you like it for the material aesthetics

>>12365593
how? Because it will a lot more than just going to mass and praying. Top to bottom reform is the only solution to top to bottom corruption. It would take thousands of new clergyman to weed out the degenerate and corrupt clergyman. What exactly is the laity supposed to do in the midst of this crisis? Any criticism directed at the clergy only earns reprisals.

>>12365730

Try it, I bet you end crying like a little bitch

That's what happened to me and I got converted instantly

>>12365745
If Catholics organized and worked as a team, they could clean up their church, but people don't seem interested in that. Very sad.

>>12365823
lay Catholics can't force corrupt bishops or priests out of the church. Lay Catholics are essentially powerless in that regard. And it's difficult for Catholics to do that if many of them refuse to acknowledge the flaws of the clergy and might even go as far as accusing you of being a bad Catholic if you do

bump