1. Tell them you used to be a Catholic, but are no longer.
2. Explain to them why you are no longer a Catholic.
3. Explain to them why a full grown woman might have more rights than a zygote.\
4. Discuss why you might be reluctant to send children to schools with track records of protecting pedophiles.
5. Suggest that the Church's limits on debate in Catholic colleges are actually a stifling of intellectual freedom.
6. Point out how idiotic the idea of papal infallibility is.
7. Point out the Church's adaptation of pagan saints and rituals.
8. Discuss the Church's history of violent intolerance.
9. Discuss the Church's collaboration with Fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Francisco Franco.
10. Point out the Church's indirect responsibility for violence and intolerance against homosexuals.
11. Point out various revisions the Church has made to its own doctrine.
12. Note that Catholic charities are not the only way to help the poor.
13. Point out how Catholic schools are in many respects indoctrination centers meant to brainwash children.
14. Discuss how the American Catholic Church is increasingly dependent on immigrants to keep its numbers up.
15. Mention all the former Catholics you keep meeting at Unitarian Churches.
16. Counter their arguments about how the longevity of the Church proves it's right by noting that Buddhism is older.
17. Note how all the best Catholic politicians are not particularly devout Catholics.
18. Discuss how the majority Catholic countries in Europe are largely secular.
19. Mention the Church's genocidal policies on AIDS in Africa.
20. Laugh at them when they post absurdist YouTube videos comparing President Obama to Hitler.
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6 comments:
1. Tell them you used to be a Catholic, but are no longer.
Well, of course. I used to be evangelical. That I rejected exclusive evangelicalism for the Catholic Church implies a critique of the evangelical faith. When people criticize that which you love, you naturally spring to its defense, whether that thing be your mother, your church, your sports team, or your choice of sandwich to order at Subway.
2. Explain to them why you are no longer a Catholic.
I have no response to that.
3. Explain to them why a full grown woman might have more rights than a zygote.
This all depends on what rights a zygote deserves, what rights a grown woman deserves, and why. You haven't solved anything with the label "zygote".
4. Discuss why you might be reluctant to send children to schools with track records of protecting pedophiles.
I can understand your reluctance. I would be interested in your evaluation of most public schools (American, not English). From what I understand, the rates of abuse are just as high there, and often higher.
5. Suggest that the Church's limits on debate in Catholic colleges are actually a stifling of intellectual freedom.
It's not a limiting of "debate". It's a limiting of what a professor is allowed to teach with his natural authority. You wouldn't allow Ken Ham (or any other "creation scientist") to teach biology in a freshman biology or geology course. You might let him debate a biology professor, but you wouldn't let him teach the untaught. Ironically, Ken Ham calls that kind of common sense "stifling intellectual freedom".
6. Point out how idiotic the idea of papal infallibility is.
No more idiotic than an infallible Bible, it seems to me. But I'll need more than that to go on.
7. Point out the Church's adaptation of pagan saints and rituals.
I know. Ain't it cool? I personally love the fact that when God comes to us and sets us free, he enables us to use all the good things of the world for his own glory.
8. Discuss the Church's history of violent intolerance.
Yawn. Every society is violently intolerant. That doesn't make the church right in that. It does, however, make it human.
9. Discuss the Church's collaboration with Fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Francisco Franco.
A. See reply to 8.
B. Really? You don't think you should ever work with a political leader that you don't agree with 100%? Really? Because that sounds like a Republican.
10. Point out the Church's indirect responsibility for violence and intolerance against homosexuals.
Unfortunately, any condemnation of wickedness is an opportunity for vicious people to freak out and commit injustice. I think we could all agree that terrorism is evil and should be condemned. That does not, however, make our condemnation indirectly responsible for the torture of real or suspected terrorists under the CIA or other branches of the US government.
Unless we overreact and make it worse than it actually is, which I grant Christian society has sometimes done vis-a-vis homosexuality. But even then, even if we think the terrorists are about to destroy New York with a nuke, we still don't have the right to torture.
11. Point out various revisions the Church has made to its own doctrine.
This is actually called "development of doctrine", and the acknowledgment of it has been around for a long time. I actually took a graduate course in it at my very devout and orthodox university.
12. Note that Catholic charities are not the only way to help the poor.
Is this a political point or a religious point? If religious, I've never heard a Catholic say this. If political, your argument is certainly not with the Catholic Church but with crappy American political philosophy.
13. Point out how Catholic schools are in many respects indoctrination centers meant to brainwash children.
Other than the brainwash part (which is absurdly polemical), all schools are indoctrination centers. That's the whole point. But if in your experience you've found that Catholic schools are interested only in rote parroting of theological formulae, I submit that that is a reflection of the intellectual weakness of the people at that school, and not an attitude of the church as such. I've not found that to be the case among intelligent Catholics.
14. Discuss how the American Catholic Church is increasingly dependent on immigrants to keep its numbers up.
Yup. But when it comes to the work of God, size doesn't matter. ;-)
15. Mention all the former Catholics you keep meeting at Unitarian Churches.
You go to Unitarian Churches? Why?
16. Counter their arguments about how the longevity of the Church proves it's right by noting that Buddhism is older.
Sure. That's a stupid argument. And special creationism is older than Darwinian evolution. So what? Age suggests only that there's a substantial amount of truth somewhere there.
17. Note how all the best Catholic politicians are not particularly devout Catholics.
A. What's your definition of "best"? Karl Rove was a pretty good politician from one point of view.
B. Politics is not the point nor aim of the Church. That's like saying the best quarterbacks in the NFL are not particularly good family men. Okay. So what?
18. Discuss how the majority Catholic countries in Europe are largely secular.
Yeah. It sucks when large numbers of people believe what is not true. I fail to see how majority rule has much to do with truth.
19. Mention the Church's genocidal policies on AIDS in Africa.
Really? Are you sure about this? Have you researched the studies regarding which policies have resulted in the most AIDS reduction? I'm not 100% up on this, but from what I understand, some sociologists have been admitting that the church has a real point in its positions. It would be an interesting discussion, though.
20. Laugh at them when they post absurdist YouTube videos comparing President Obama to Hitler.
This isn't the province of Catholics. This is the province of American conservatives who feel embattled and afraid.
But, yes, it's pretty stupid.
A response:
4: Yes, but we don't see the American public school hierarchy moving pederast teachers around to conceal their identities.
5: There is a difference of barring out right stupidity and barring any type of intellectual inquiry that challenges the status quo.
6: I consider any form of religious infallibility stupid, whether attributed to a book or a man.
10: Homosexuality is not evil or a sin. Stop taking your morality from the rantings of Old Testament writers with sunstroke.
11: If it's orthodox and devout, it doesn't deserve the label university.
13: Like hell they don't try to brainwash you. I went to one. They do.
15: Because I AM Unitarian, you frakking moron.
20: If you think that has nothing to do with Catholicism, check out the YouTube Channel RosaryFilms.
Expatriate,
In regard to #15, you're right. My reply was snarky, and I apologize. There was no excuse for making a crack like that.
In regard to #10. My point is that your argument is with the Church's stand on homosexual behavior. But that's not what you said. You were suggesting that what would (I assume rightly) offend the Catholic is the argument that the Church, by the very fact of its condemnation of something, was therefore responsible for vicious people's irrational reactions against it.
My point was that that is clearly not true in a case that we can agree on. What makes the homosexuality situation different is that you can see no real reason for the Church's position.
Which you have acknowledged.
In regard to #5 (on intellectual inquiry). If you are under the impression that there's little or no intellectual merit in the philosophical and theological positions of the Catholic Church and that she only maintains her "authority" among the faithful by keeping them from challenging the intellectual status quo, then it seems to me you haven't taken the time to truly research the issues.
You come off almost exactly like the creation "scientists" who imagine they know why people believe in Darwinian evolution (because they're wicked people who want to oppose God), and so they never actually take the time to look at the evidence fairly. They just skim evolutionary literature looking for points to snipe, and then publish enormous screeds with nary a well-researched point and sell them to people who do not have the time or the ability to examine the evidence themselves.
I was raised as a special creationist (though my parents were pretty scientifically oriented), and though I had read all the books that pretended to destroy Darwinism, when the time came to examine the evidence fairly (including whether Genesis was truly a story of material origins or not), I discovered that the Darwinians had a much stronger case than I had been led to believe. But I would never have found that out if I had just continued to think that Darwinians were just a bunch of godless hacks.
I'm sorry to break it to you, Jonathan, but I don't think you have truly made much of a break from your fundamentalist origins. You have just exchanged one form of intellectual slavery for another. Exchanging papal infallibility for Biblical infallibility is not much of a trade.
As for your comment that I do not know much about Catholicism, I would politely point out that I spent most of my education in Catholic institutions, from elementary school to my bachelor's degree, only going to secular institutions when I entered graduate education.
As part of this, I have received religious instruction from a number of representatives of the Catholic Church, including ordained clergy. I have also read the works of some Catholic philosophers, such as St. Augustine and George Weigel, and came to the conclusion that much of what they wrote is sophistry.
Expatriate,
Hmm. Well, interesting. I was going to say much the same about you. The terms in which you have stated some of your points (especially the points that touch on women's rights and homosexuality) indicate that you are probably somewhat naive about the source of your own ethics. It is possible to attend Catholic schools in this day and age and get very little genuine Catholic teaching presented to you (for one), and entirely to misunderstand that which has been presented to you (for another) because of prior cultural philosophical commitments.
But now that we are being polite to each other, I realize that, while this would be a fascinating and worthwhile conversation, in which we would both probably learn a lot, it is really the kind of conversation that we ought to be having with our friends and families. I just do not have the time. Someday if we get to meet and know each other, we can argue this out over a beer and perhaps come to better understand one another.
So, I apologize for my arrogant intellectual sniping. It was wrong. I'll let you have the last word (unless you want to ask me a direct question).
Be well,
Jonathan
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