Today in World Religions, I skimmed the packet handed to us. It is to be our classwork for the next week or so. Something caught my eye, which I shall paraphrase here (because I am a poor memorizer): “Public schools can teach about religion but not teach religion because they cannot align themselves with a particular religion. However, they can present them all in a fair and straightforward manner, as facts.”
See, here’s the thing. If public schools really presented everything in the same manner with the same tone and as just facts, then it’s really NOT fair to other religions because Catholicism is so clearly superior. Yes, that sounds pretentious. But if they are presenting the facts in order to allow their students to seek the Truth, then Catholicism really is superior and nothing else, frankly, can hold a candle to that much Tradition, majesty, or common sense. No other arguments hold water. If someone is honestly seeking Truth (and not just a reason to execute their own agenda) then they will see the Light.
…geez, when I write about Catholicism and God, it’s like I’m writing in German… >_>;
Tags: Chesterton, Reflection
|
A Nod of the Lampshade @ Ink.
No – I don’t buy that. You probably just said this in passing, but since I’ve been learning about memorization and trying to get better at it, I must share this. Sure, there is some inherent ability that makes some people naturally better at memorizing than others. But just like anything else, memory can be developed. I’ve been going through the book “Memorize your Faith” and it’s about the medieval scholastics’ (mostly aquinas) memory techniques. It’s so much fun – I’ve been trying to memorize more and more and . I’ve found the claim to be true that technique is more important than natural ability.
oh and btw – interesting post. In my experience I’ve never heard someone outside of a certain religion or faith do justice to another faith. Usually people have a hard time presenting religion objectively w/out adding their own viewpoint, sarcasm, etc. I certainly noticed this in the protestant world when they spoke of Catholicism and I also notice it in the Catholic world when they speak of Protestants (except when one of the many converts speak about Protestantism). It’s funny, Protestant converts to Catholicism usually do justice to Protestantism, but Catholic converts to Protestantism almost always have an extremely distorted view of Catholicism.
[It’s funny, Protestant converts to Catholicism usually do justice to Protestantism, but Catholic converts to Protestantism almost always have an extremely distorted view of Catholicism.]
That’s probably because a Catholic who becomes Protestant often does so after a rejection of the Faith (or some aspect of it), and most likely feels guilty for doing so. A common way to mask or ignore guilt is through anger or resentment.
A Protestant who becomes Catholic, on the other hand, is often accepting a fullness of Faith to which he was only partially aware. The Protestant faith is more of a stepping stone in this case.
And yes, these are generalizations, so they aren’t true in all cases.
Ben–I was skimming the article, and I haven’t really been taught to memorize any way other than rotely. I’m a visual person, so I can see the sentence shapes and lights and darks in my head, but not the actual words. So when reading stuff in passing, I do have a harder time remembering. That and I have a memory like a sieve these days due to far too much information crammed into it.
Jess–That is quite frequently what I hear, too. But as we all know, Catholicism are oppressive and intolerant and it doesn’t REALLY matter what the Vatican says, right? =P (I hear that little spiel rom self-proclaimed atheists who have a very skewed, very misinformed view of Catholicism due to the local pseudo-Catholic culture. Though I have heard it from very left-leaning CINOs.)
you gotta get this book, then, or I’ll lend it to you when I’m done (which at the pace I go through books might be a while). It’s all about placing unwonted images in specific, artificial locations. You create these images in your head. It makes memorizing so much easier. I wished I’d have known these techniques when I was going through school.