500 Years Without Reason

The following exchange from SocialGalactic is a perfect example of the kind of functional brain damage Protestantism results in. Though this long post covers far more than just Protestantism, as I hope those of you who read it might appreciate.

While this doesn’t put poor SirHamster in a good light, the point here is not to single him out specifically, but rather to note what the underlying assumptions have to be for someone to think this way and be so persistently obtuse about something that is pretty much within the grasp of any normal, logical, child, aged 6 or 7 or more.

The entire exchange is below where I preserved the format of quoting each other in red text.

SirHamster’s initial comment is a partial quote and “criticism” of my blog post here.

And so it begins:

SirHamster

the idea is terrifying, which is why I purposely try to keep it out of my head, in effect, racking up a debt I am totally unfit to pay and the consequences of which are too horrific to contemplate, and I do this, not for any temporal joy in the here and now, but rather, for the good of all that might come after me.

That doesn’t sound like a good idea though.

And not rather (as we are slandered, and as some affirm that we say) let us do evil, that there may come good? whose damnation is just.

Kurgan

I smh.
@sirhamster your baseline protestantism probably cannot even begin to process my post in the correct manner.

Protestantism is essentially a binary thinking process at many, many, many, levels down.

Catholicism is not.
Because reality is not binary either in many respects.

For example:

Where the crusades necessary and overall a good thing? Yes.

Did crusaders kill people? Yes.

Was it required that they kill people for the greater good? Yes.

Is killing still a sub-optimal thing, regardless of the just and necessary reasons it might be required? Also yes.
Do sub-optimal things have a cost? Yes.

Understand?

SirHamster

Is killing still a sub-optimal thing, regardless of the just and necessary reasons it might be required?

You aren’t going to purgatory to suffer for “sub-optimal” behavior. Call a spade a spade.

Understand?

What I’m wondering is why you are advocating to do things that your conscience is too horrified to contemplate the true cost of.

Consider that a sign that you should not do it. I know I’m a blasted reason-hating Protestant and all, but I would think reason would pay heed to the warning light.

Kurgan

You aren’t going to purgatory to suffer for “sub-optimal” behavior. Call a spade a spade.

You really don’t know anything about Catholicism at all do you?

And the answer is yes. That is precisely what you go to purgatory for. Literally almost everyone does.

SirHamster

Call a spade a spade. Sin is sin. Optimization is related but not equivalent.

“You didn’t cook your steak optimally! Go to purgatory!” is absurdity.

When vocabulary is selected to dilute the meaning, that’s a yellow flag. Follow-up clarifies if this is a matter of wrong choice of words for communication of ideas, or intentional obfuscation to deceive.

Kurgan

Your binary thinking is noted.

As is your abysmal ignorance of Catholicism. And your grasp of language is definitely sub-optimal too. Not to mention logic, since your analogy of killing other humans, in your head is cooking a steak badly.

Seriously. If that is your grasp of this, there is zero point in discussing anything further.

SirHamster

Not to mention logic, since your analogy of killing other humans, in your head is cooking a steak badly.

That’s what the precision of “sub-optimal” covers.

Killing the body of a person made in God’s image is a lot more than just “sub-optimal”. Your choice of obfuscating language. Look, you end up in purgatory because of sin.

As is your abysmal ignorance of Catholicism.

I’m not the one turning off my reason because of terror and horror at the expected consequences of my own decisions.

SirHamster

If you’re serious about the expected spiritual results in purgatory for certain decisions, you should spend a lot less time glamorizing it as an awesome warrior thing to do that gets the job done.

Kurgan

Look, you are obviously terribly ignorant of Catholicism, you have literally zero understanding of what Catholics believe about purgatory and you are making completely idiotic binary assumptions about it based on your blinkered, limited, and wholly erroneous understanding of it.

Literally EVERYONE goes to purgatory with the exception of MAYBE some awesome saints that MIGHT go straight to heaven. Some of us will spend longer there because we take on unpleasant tasks. Just like someone who works in a sewer all day might take a longer shower than someone who works in a sterile environment building microchips.

You simply don’t have the baseline grasp of the concepts here and are speaking ignorantly out of turn. And not intelligently about it either.
You’re so wrong you’re not even addressing what you think you are, because you’re a couple of categories out from the target you think you’re shooting at.

Go read some KJV and feel better or something.

SirHamster

Some of us will spend longer there because we take on unpleasant tasks.

Again, this is spending more time in there because of your decisions. And you talk about the emotions of terror and horror shutting down your reasoned contemplation of the consequences of your decisions.

Does God give you more time in purgatory for doing the right thing?

Does God give some people dirty jobs and then punish them with more purgatory time for doing the job He assigned?

SirHamster

Just like someone who works in a sewer all day might take a longer shower than someone who works in a sterile environment building microchips.

Then don’t be terrified and horrified about taking a hellishly hot shower after your earthly life to cleanse your soul. It’s just a shower, dude.

There’s some incongruence here between different parts of the position(s) you’re taking.

If calling me a binary thinker is sufficient for you to feel good about it, have at it. But it doesn’t persuade my reason.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the effect of five centuries of stunted logic and reason on the human mind. The effect of “believing” –that is, of being indoctrinated– in a binary, Calvinistic, two-dimensional, “God”.

Why, it almost sounds like the way a drunk fat German might “think” when he’s well into his cups. If you find yourself in any way persuaded by SirHamster’s “argument” I can practically guarantee two things:

1. You have literally zero knowledge or understanding of basic Catholic dogma.

2. You have a very limited ability to grasp the beauty, depth, width, truth and reality of God. Ultimately, of course, we all do, we all see through a glass darkly, but such an endemic lacuna of capability can only be the result of stunted intellectual growth, and it usually happens only with atheists, who we know are genetic misfits, or with what are essentially long-term abuses of the mind by idiotic, limited and ultimately crippling ideologies, like Islam or Protestantism. Yes, we all see through a glass darkly, but Protestantism is a welder’s face mask with some coal rubbed onto it from both sides. It only allows the simplest and brightest of light or darkness through, and as a result, the ultimate overview is invariably limited and bleak. Sincere though it might be in its error, it remains in vast error nonetheless.

Allow me then, to try to explain, as best I can, and in small steps, so that, with any luck and divine grace, perhaps one Protestant somewhere might begin to see at least a little colour into their abysmally lacking vision of “God”. It is probably a hyperoptimistic goal, but after all, we are instructed to at least try.

Titles in red bold indicate the start of a new concept. The ones in black bold are sub-concepts.

What is Purgatory?

It is a place where basically ALL of your impurities are pretty literally “burnt out of you”.

But… but… is it B-B-buh-Biblical?!

It is, of course, fully Biblical, so even the retarded concept of “sola scriptura”, should have no issue with purgatory, but as Catholics well-know, Protestants don’t actually read their Bibles, and on the rare occasions that they do, their cargo-cultist indoctrination means they have less capacity to comprehend what they read than Muslims do when reading the Koran by rote. Which is logical of course, the Muslims just learn a false teaching, while the Protestants must somehow twist their brains around to falsify a true one.

Here are some Biblical references that clearly and logically indicate that purgatory exists:

Scripture is very clear when it says, “But nothing unclean shall enter [heaven]” (Rev. 21:27). Hab. 1:13 says, “You [God]… are of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wrong…”

In light of both Revelation and Habakkuk I suppose Protestants believe themselves to perfectly clean, and fit for God to lay eyes directly upon them immediately after physical death of their bodies.

I know, it’s absurd, but as I have always maintained, the main sin of Protestants is pride. Shortly followed by utter sloth of course, which prevents them getting off their fat arses and reading about church history, the patristic fathers from the first 200 years, noting the fact that Popes existed and everyone obeyed the legitimate ones for over a thousand years and on, and on, and on. Pride and sloth. It’s literally a Hell of a way to go through life.

But let us continue…

In II Maccabees 12:39-46, we discover Judas Maccabeus and members of his Jewish military forces collecting the bodies of some fallen comrades who had been killed in battle. When they discovered these men were carrying “sacred tokens of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear” (vs. 40), Judas and his companions discerned they had died as a punishment for sin. Therefore, Judas and his men “turned to prayer beseeching that the sin which had been committed might be wholly blotted out… He also took up a collection… and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably… Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.”

There are usually two immediate objections to the use of this text when talking with Protestants. First, they will dismiss any evidence presented therein because they do not accept the inspiration of Maccabees. And second, they will claim these men in Maccabees committed the sin of idolatry, which would be a mortal sin in Catholic theology. According to the Catholic Church, they would be in Hell where there is no possibility of atonement. Thus, and ironically so, they will say, Purgatory must be eliminated as a possible interpretation of this text if you’re Catholic.

As we well-know, Protestants are ALL about sola scriptura! Only what’s in the Bible please! No matter how retarded the concept is since the Bible itself was put together thanks to preserved written and oral tradition some 300 years after Christ ascended.

And oh yeah, only the Bible, but the one Martin changed ok?! The one he ripped out seven books of, including, you know, all of James because it made his other retarded theory of sola fide look also just as retarded as sola scriptura. And to chink it he literally wanted to add the word “alone” after the sentence “we are justified by faith”.

Yeah. He did. He wanted to actually do that. As if his deletions and subtractions to an already edited version of the Bible (by Pharisees for 700 years) were not enough, he wanted to “add” to it. But you know, according to mental handicapped people like James White, that was probably all “god breathed”, and not, as every actual Christian with two functioning brain cells knows, “Martin farted”. And beer farted at that.

But wait… there is more…

In Matthew 5:24-25, Jesus is even more explicit about Purgatory.

Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny (Matthew 5:25-26).

For Catholics, Tertullian for example, in De Anima 58, written in ca. AD 208, this teaching is parabolic, using the well-known example of “prison” and the necessary penitence it represents, as a metaphor for Purgatorial suffering that will be required for lesser transgressions, represented by the “kodrantes” or “penny” of verse 26. But for many Protestants, our Lord is here giving simple instructions to his followers concerning this life exclusively. This has nothing to do with Purgatory.

This traditional Protestant interpretation is very weak contextually. These verses are found in the midst of the famous “Sermon on the Mount,” where our Lord teaches about heaven (vs. 20), hell (vs. 29-30), and both mortal (vs. 22) and venial sins (vs. 19), in a context that presents “the Kingdom of Heaven” as the ultimate goal (see verses 3-12). Our Lord goes on to say if you do not love your enemies, “what reward have you” (verse 46)? And he makes very clear these “rewards” are not of this world. They are “rewards from your Father who is in heaven” (6:1) or “treasures in heaven” (6:19).

Not convinced yet? Well, you must be a good Protestant then. The brainwashing is strong in this one, master. Might he listen to Your words directly? Let us hope.

From Jesus Himself

I Corinthians 3:11-15 may well be the most straightforward text in all of Sacred Scripture when it comes to Purgatory:

For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

No Christian sect I know of even attempts to deny this text speaks of the judgment of God where the works of the faithful will be tested after death. It says our works will go through “fire,” figuratively speaking. In Scripture, “fire” is used metaphorically in two ways: as a purifying agent (Mal. 3:2-3; Matt. 3:11; Mark 9:49); and as that which consumes (Matt. 3:12; 2 Thess. 1:7-8). So it is a fitting symbol here for God’s judgment. Some of the “works” represented are being burned up and some are being purified. These works survive or burn according to their essential “quality” (Gr. hopoiov – of what sort).

What is being referred to cannot be heaven because there are imperfections that need to be “burned up” (see again, Rev. 21:27, Hab. 1:13). It cannot be hell because souls are being saved. So what is it? The Protestant calls it “the Judgment” and we Catholics agree. We Catholics simply specify the part of the judgment of the saved where imperfections are purged as “Purgatory.”

Objection!

The Protestant respondent will immediately spotlight the fact that there is no mention, at least explicitly, of “the cleansing of sin” anywhere in the text. There is only the testing of works. The focus is on the rewards believers will receive for their service, not on how their character is cleansed from sin or imperfection. And the believers here watch their works go through the fire, but they escape it!

First, what are sins, but bad or wicked works (see Matthew 7:21-23, John 8:40, Galatians 5:19-21)? If these “works” do not represent sins and imperfections, why would they need to be eliminated? Second, it is impossible for a “work” to be cleansed apart from the human being who performed it. We are, in a certain sense, what we do when it comes to our moral choices. There is no such thing as a “work” floating around somewhere detached from a human being that could be cleansed apart from that human being. The idea of works being separate from persons does not make sense.

Most importantly, however, this idea of “works” being “burned up” apart from the soul that performed the work contradicts the text itself. The text does say the works will be tested by fire, but “if the work survives… he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss.” And, “he will be saved, but only as through fire” (Gr. dia puros). The truth is: both the works of the individual and the individual will go through the cleansing “fire” described by St. Paul in order that “he” might finally be saved and enter into the joy of the Lord. Sounds an awful lot like Purgatory.

So… yeah. As I said, Protestants don’t read their Bibles. And if they do they have the reading comprehension of a lobotomised lemur on cocaine.

But back to what purgatory is actually like…

As far as I know, even Protestants understand that Hell is, well… hellish, because of the absence of God in pretty much all His forms.

I am sure you have heard the concept that the fires of Hell, which burn more than actual fire, are at least in part, the result of distance from God. The very real knowledge that you are eternally doomed to a place with no mercy, no love, no grace, etcetera is, indeed, terrifying to anyone sane of mind.

Well, purgatory is actually a level of Hell. The only one from which, after sufficient purification, you can escape and go to Heaven.

There are many traditions of various Saints having been shown or having experienced purgatory and being permitted to tell of the experience. And it has been described by almost all of them as an unimaginably painful place to be. Some described a second in there being worse than all the misery of your worldly physical life.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty terrifying to me. And again, I think it would do so to anyone normal. So it is only natural that, though we are all sinners to one degree or other, we all hope to spend as little time as possible in there.

So, now that we hopefully have some baseline understanding of Catholic dogma, we come to the “accusations” of SirHaster. Some against me, and some against God, as is ever the way with atheists and heretics. Let us count, note and comment on them.

It is best if we comment on them in a logical order rather than in the haphazard order they may have appeared in the exchange on SG.

1. First his atheist-like lack of understanding about God and our relations to Him:

“Does God give you more time in purgatory for doing the right thing?“

Obviously not. This should be obvious to anyone, which is his point, and then he follows up with the atheist like nonsense.

“Does God give some people dirty jobs and then punish them with more purgatory time for doing the job He assigned?“

This is the old “switcheroo” of the atheist. God doesn’t “give us” dirty jobs. Because Calvinism is retarded. We ALWAYS have a choice. That is the whole point. It is not God assigning anything to us. We live in a world of sin because it is under the dominion of Satan.

Given that reality, you will at times be faced with choices that are extremely difficult no matter which you pick.

In my case, I am not martyr material. I am “make the other bastard die for his belief first” material.

Which, between the choice of perfect love and fighting to your last breath for a better state of things here in the temporal world is, as I say, sub-optimal.

The actions of people like St. Ignatius of Antioch are, probably, and certainly in Catholic belief, more perfect than those of say Jean Parisot de Valette. One walked to Rome for a year to be eaten by lions for his faith, the other fired the heads of Muslim prisoners into the camps of the enemy Mohammedans sieging Malta.

Intellectually I know St. Ignatius is a better man than De Valette. I really do. But my heart is not that pure. And here on Earth, I am far more likely to behave like Jean Parisot de Valette. And sub-optimal though that behaviour is, I believe it is still required. It is required by us, humans, here on Earth.

It might not be required by God. His ways are, after all, so far above ours as to be inscrutable.

Perhaps, we would all be better off submitting like St. Ignatius and thereafter, having let our enemies slaughter us and our children like lambs, the second coming would happen sooner and all would be well thereafter. And God might make it all reconciled to itself even on Earth. Sure.

But I am just a mortal man, with no great delusions about my place in the scheme of things, and from my small level of understanding, it seems to me, that if we are not to fight for our loved ones, for truth, justice and beauty also here on Earth, then, are we not cowards? Are we not letting the demons “win” even if only in an earthly sense?

Were the crusades and the fighting against the Moslems at Malta all just so much ado about nothing?

I don’t think so.

And perhaps, that is my error. But I cannot, in good conscience, see it as such. And of course, doing so or not is my choice. Not preordained by God, other than, perhaps, in the type of soul I may have, which may predispose me more towards some errors than others.

And that answers the first part of SirHamster’s false premises:

The choice is indeed mine. It might be an error and I can’t tell, I can only do what I honestly think is best. Fully knowing that my “best” can — and undoubtedly will– result is some error and thus some “punishment”, or, more precisely, purification to be required.

Now let’s look at his more insidious one: why would God punish you more for doing what some of us might think or feel is almost inevitable.

But the fact is God does no such thing.

Purgatory is not a “punishment”. It is a grace.

God allows us into His perfect presence despite our filthy habits, behaviours, erroneous beliefs, and tragic errors.

The process of “removing” these impurities from our being, mind, soul, or whatever parts of us they are embedded into, we experience as terrible pain and suffering; because we are so weak and stupid and wrong, and we are so attached to our errors they are literally embedded in our DNA, and being “stripped” of them, one nerve ending and neurone at a time, feels like Hell. That is why we suffer. Not because God is some sick sadist as the Atheists and the Protestants would have you believe, with their stunted ideology.

It is perfectly logical that a son that is headstrong, wilful, and not evil, but set in his erroneous beliefs, may go against all the warnings of his father not to climb the slippery rock face unaided, or in that particular manner, or even at all. But if the son does it anyway, because he is shaped that way, his soul strives for that peak, against even his own at least intellectual –if not heartfelt– understanding, then, what is a father to do? Assuming the son has reached the age of reason and has heard your warnings and yet still chooses to do it, because some part of him, however in error, yet still deeply a part of him you also love and respect, chooses to climb anyway, would you deny him?

Would you force him not to climb? And stunt that part of him that is perhaps mostly in error, certainly unwise, yet not without justice or love or respect for you, his father? And a part that is certainly, not without a certain (healthy, not egotistical) pride you might feel towards him, your son? Would you then, stop him by force?

If so, then it is you who lives far more in the worldly way than I, because I could not.

And if that son then falls, and breaks a leg badly, and you, as his father have to lift him up, causing him even more pain, in order to put him in your car and driving over miles of bumpy road while his thigh-bone is jutting out of his leg causing him agony at every tiny movement, would you not do it anyway?

Are you responsible and to blame for his choices made in fullness of his adult and informed reason and will and choice?

Or are you just a loving father doing what needs to be done so your son can live?

And in God’s case, live eternally in His presence, not just here on Earth.

Hopefully, if you have understood things up to here, you will, I truly hope, have understood that the Protestant view of God, free will, and Purgatory, is a blinkered, washed out, limited, binary, caricature in 8-bit grayscale.

Which beings us to the far lesser accusation of…

2. My “glorifying” my choices.

He firstly accuses me of turning off my reason:

“I’m not the one turning off my reason because of terror and horror at the expected consequences of my own decisions.“

Which in his limited and binary thought processes is all he understands when I state that I simply choose to not dwell on the time I will have to spend in purgatory. I do not dwell on it because it is pointless and counter-productive for me to do so. Unlike most people perhaps, by luck, misfortune, fate, or divine grace, I am far more aware than most what my actions and reactions may be given almost any set of extremes. Like that headstrong son, it is not that I do not believe or love my father enough. It is not that “I shut off reason” either, quite the contrary, if I am to succeed at all at climbing that slippery rock-face, I need to concentrate every ounce of reason I may have, in making the smartest moves I can in the climbing of it. For any tiny lack of focus can and probably will result in my falling spectacularly to my doom.

If I let emotions like rage or frustration or fear, take hold of me, I am unlikely to fare well.

“Ah, but what about your overall choice of climbing in the first place! You are abandoning reason there!“

No, no I am not. And perhaps, if you are a Protestant, you are too damaged by your upbringing to see it. I have explained it above, but let me try once more here too.

Within that mostly unwise, mostly wrong, mostly foolish choice to climb, there is a spark of faith, and truth, and belief in beauty and justice, that is inextinguishable. It will not go out even in the darkest storms and the howling of a million demons at our door.

And above all other qualities I may have or gain in life, I know, with a certainty that is born only of undeniable faith –a faith I always had even when I denied what I thought was “God”– that it is the one tiny part of me, that probably, might, secure my salvation.

It is easy, especially from the outside looking in, or even internally, especially when we are young, to assume or make the mistake of pride in this regard. It may present as such. It may even be wrapped in it in youth. And it is mostly misunderstood by others as pride, but when you get to its core, that tiny but never-extinguishing spark, is of, from, and dedicated wholly to, God. To his Beauty and Power and Truth and Justice. Probably, above all, once you get past even its very core, which is rooted in Justice first and Love second, but beyond it all, right at the center, perhaps, its real driving force, is Beauty.

But there is one last point I want to address, and this is a category error on SirHamster’s part, which is again, the result of stunted theological development and imagination:

3. My supposedly frightened conscience

“What I’m wondering is why you are advocating to do things that your conscience is too horrified to contemplate the true cost of.“

And therein is perhaps the root category error of it all. My conscience is not horrified at all or in any way by the concept of Purgatory. Quite the contrary, my conscience is perfectly at peace with it.

It is my human, earthly mind, attached to my worldly flesh and sensations, that is terrified at the idea of purgatory and the amount of time I may have to spend in there. My conscience is perfectly at ease. My conscience is fully committed to the concept of the ends justifying the means and the idea of us having to fight here on Earth too, as I have already explained above. It is only my weak, human flesh that is afraid. As is the weak human flesh and sensations of all but the most saintly of saints. But as I have said and know, I am no Saint Ignatius. Nor am I ashamed of saying so. I doubt you are either.

So no, I am not switching off my reason, nor glorifying my choices. Nor is my conscience in turmoil.

Far from it. I am only, in fact, letting those few, who may have souls that are shaped similar to mine, know that our way –though undoubtedly sub-optimal, undoubtedly not the wisest– still, after all, and after all the pain and strife we must inevitably endure for our choices in being this way, is too, loved by God.

We will fall. We will break our bones. We will not listen and be headstrong and we will be called prideful and arrogant or violent and un-pious, or wrong and stupid, or even –laughable as it is when you consider how carefully we reason our way up our chosen slippery rock-faces– that we have abandoned reason.

But know yourself. Know what really drives you. And trust that even God tells us, those of us like that, terrible creatures though we might be, are yet, loved by God.

After all, was David not best loved by God?

And he made it so his friend would be killed just so he could fuck the man’s wife.

I’m fairly sure I’ve not crossed that line, nor am I likely to. For all their bad actions and choices, God still loves such men, and in fact, if memory serves, they are even described as being men “after God’s own heart”.

I’ve always understood that to mean that our passions, though when not well-directed cause endless problems (for which, in purgatory, we will pay) are yet, an indication of a quality that God loves.

And if that is not beauty, what is?

[ X ]

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