BORN AGAIN

( / insensitivity )

nabisco, what you said about people misinterpreting their emotions is v. interesting. how does emotion misinterpretation happen?

BUT: those outpourings themselves are not inherently different from the outpourings of emotion exhibited by teenage girls at boyband concerts, kids at a Dashboard Confessional show, weepy-eyed viewers at a particularly powerful film, or E-d up ravers -- in fact I'd make very strong comparisons between the sense of a naive E-d up first-time raver (that some sort of peerlessly pure love exists between the warehouse walls) and that of the born-again. In both cases, the point is context: the surroundings tell you that when you have an emotional reaction, it means X, and then when you have the emotional reaction, you're inclined to believe that second bit about what it says.

Not to mention which the born-again emotional reaction is one that's tempting and appealing to anyone with any sort of problem (i.e. any of us): it is the collective dream of an absolving parents, it asks you to just give up and feel okay about yourself and trust that something (Christ) will make your life okay if you only trust it. Which is another case of the framework biasing the results: if you do do that, if you do give up and recommit, chances are your problem will indeed get better. But it will have gotten better based on your own actions -- your own decision to develop some sort of fortitude in its face -- and you will be stuck thinking in the framework that was set out for you, that somehow Christ is the actor, and not just the prop that made you act.

What I see in the question is Anthony saying "I felt this way." My point is that you can feel those things without it meaning in the least that the religion is good or right or what you need. In fact, I think it tends to work the other way around: the religion asks you to feel those things because we all feel them regardless.

A decision to embrace Christianity, though, is rarely arrived at through simple rationale (...) There is something in the heart that bears witness to the message, but don't mistake it for a sudden revelation of your own sinfulness, and the accompanying shame; or the joy felt at the possibility of eternal Redemption.

Curious -- did you take the standard steps to salvation as perceived by the conservative Christian church; i.e. confessing sin and accepting Christ's atonement? (I'm not trying to proselytize)

But if after the 'born again" process you then can go on and acquire a knowledge about what Christianity truly is then it is not a bad thing, but that may be difficult. I would say the best way to do that would be to pretty much ignore whatever the chuch tells you, and read the Bible as honestly as you can and deeply critize it to find it's real truth. Starting off into christianity may be a unstable thing especially if it is based on an emotional "birth".

I would recommend that you check to see if you are ever unwilling doing these things out of duty, and not out of a love for God. In my opinion I think it is worse to do these things out of duty than to not do them at all.

Anyway, I haven't been a Christian in years, but I still can't dismiss the notion of the holy spirit.

This makes me want to strip the "religious" part off of it, which however much Dan and Colin might deny it is exactly what they're doing: they're saying "ecstasy is real it says nothing about religion."

And Aaron please note that I'm not saying all religion interprets or manipulates your emotions after the fact (though some do). My point is that religion by definition interprets your emotions before the fact -- i.e., it hands you an interpretation of them, a framework for understanding them, so that when you do have them you take that as a confirmation of that framework and you do interpret them that way. (The biggest and most pliant of those frameworks is "there was a reason God meant that to happen," which, once you swallow it, can never be challenged.)

Religion creates a space that allows people to have these emotional responses, so long as they accept that particular interpretation: people enjoy shaking, quaking, and speaking in tongues, only some filter it through the context of religious belief and others filter it through the context of drugs.

What if you just eliminate the "not-divine" and call everything "devine." God is all-powerful, and sovereign over everything anyway, right?

Im sure youre aware the Catholic church does not condemn anything in other religions that is good and true. Nor does it deny salvation can occur through other christian churches/other religions and non believers in God who are "people of good will".

Who condemns you? Why do they condemn you? The Catholic Church never declares that any deceased person can not be saved. God will have the final say there. Search your own conscience in your heart as it is the ultimate arbitrator on moral matters- not the church.

Hey Im probably not saying anything you dont already know, I guess my question is are you considering leaving the Catholic church?

After the fact, I may very well determine that this feeling of a sacred presence was just questionable clams I'd eaten earlier -- but the feeling of a sacred presence was there.

So I'm not asking about the "faith" part -- I'm not asking "how do you know that's actually God and not bad gas" -- I'm asking "why do you call one one and the other the other?" How can you categorize between the two without "naming" both of them, deciding -- at least in part -- what they are and how they operate and how they present themselves to you?

(Anyway, I don't think people should ever talk about faith, as to anyone else but the speaker it's indistinguishable from willful delusion and it can't communicate anything.)

Same way most priests could be quite happy in the big C church. Faith or more correctly beliefs are worth questioning, seeking, testing, examining. Similarly with art and science - that which cannot be questioned isn't worth it. Or worthy of it.

So if I've defined the divine at all, I've only defined it in relation to my own feelings and experience of it, which tells me fuck-all about its essential nature.

Come give me your sweetness
Now there's you, there is no weakness.
Woman, don't you know with you,
I'm born again?
Lying safe within your arms,
I'm born again.

I was half, not whole,
In step with none.
Reaching through this world
In need of one.

Come show me your kindness
In your arms I know I'll find this.
Woman, don't you know with you,
I'm born again?
Lying safe within your arms,
I'm born again.
Lying safe with you I'm born again.

Actually, I think the Catholic Church believes salvation is only through Christ, and that salvation cannot not occur for non-chirstian religions or non-believers of "good will".

There are many many Papal encyclicals confirming salvation outside the strictist sense of "the church". This "wider church" includes other religions and non believers. While this not a recent teaching if you wish to gain a deeper understanding of this the document to read is the Lumen Gentium from the Second Vatican Council.

You should be careful in saying that the church "believes salvation is only through Christ"

Catholics believe salvation occurs through or in the Church. But that they are always saved by the grace of Christ.

Hope that helps?