After having gone to catholic school and church every week, I can only enthusiastically disagree about the former. Almost every nun I know was raised catholic and Jesus Christ, are 90% of them awful.
Do they use 9-seater vans because 90% refuse to get licenses?
Just kidding, they use public or contractual mass transport, and usually only one or two run errands.
The guilt from having sex when they’re not supposed to makes them sour
I'd say this is part of the "zeal of the convert" phenomenon, where someone who converts to a belief tends to be more fanatical than someone raised in that belief.
There's probably bias in this observation, as a couple of very loud people can drown out dozens of others and make a trend seem more prevalent than it actually is, but I also have personal experience here.
I almost converted to Judaism in my late teens, and the Rabbi I was working with shared with me a prayer he often prayed in times of struggle. "God grant me the faith of the convert, the strength of a bear, the wisdom of the aged, and the patience of a mother"
I always liked that
I’d say this is part of the “zeal of the convert” phenomenon, where someone who converts to a belief tends to be more fanatical than someone raised in that belief.
Why am I instantly thinking of people who read a book that made them decide to stop smoking?
I have it on good authority that there are a lot of lifelong Christians who are absolutely heinous people.
Good people would be good with or without religion. But religion gives bad people excuses and opportunities.
Sheer numbers assures us that there are dastards among all walks.
But yes the Christian nationalist movement does seem to have high numbers glad to dispose of the rest of us and turn the US and its states into a one-party autocracy.
Curiously, Evangelist academics have warned this could really set back the acceptance of Christianity, who will be regarded for decades the way Nazis were in the late 20th century. (Shunned and sometimes hunted.)
My Catholic high school has a teacher who is an adult convert and he's like "Don't make a short circuit with the ammeter or you'll die and YOU'LL GO STRAIGH TO HELL!!! jk there's a fuse" and "Eh that's good enough for Catholic school work" and he shows us videos about the connection between math and God
That’s funny because one of my Calc professors said to a student during a test “you can pray all you want, but no god is going to help you integrate. That’s what homework is for”
Integration is what ruined my comp-sci career. I couldn't make the numbers go. My teacher called me Baroque.
There's a connection between Math and God?
Ive been taking my grandma to church on sundays for about half a year now. Sermons have usually been about not being a dick and, like, donating food and diapers.
Still waiting for someone to yell about the purity of manhood or something but I get the impression they have more important things to think about.
they have more important things to think about.
The child rape lawsuits?
To be fair, most religious leaders don't preach hate - but they can't normally speak out against it. Much like FOX News' excuse for spreading the stolen election lies, if they speak out against what their followers believe, they lose followers. Shit excuse, shit people.
I'm no longer religious, but I probably would not be the person I am were it not for Catholic teachings. It was probably in Catholic school which taught me that you don't have to prove anything to anyone. This advice complements my maverick and individualistic personality but it isn't to say that I haven't had insecurities and not minded what others think. I was also taught to be compassionate and humble. However, the last two could only go so far as I learned growing up that it led me to being a figurative door mat for others.
Nevertheless, all of those doesn't excuse the Catholic church's corruption and sexual abuse scandals. The Catholic church also, up until recently, force left handed folks to be right handed. That is one of the weirdest superstitions and beliefs that the Catholic church has. Oh and the Catholic church is still impractically anti-divorce.
Catholics are way more based than people give them credit for
Some Catholics.
A friend of mine is deeply Catholic, teaches high school American history, has progressive values (is pro-civil-rights) and explains it that he has a spot in his brain for all the church stuff, wheras the rest of his brain adheres to science and the secular morality we've developed through trial and error and beating back the dominance-minded shenanigans of plutocrats. I've met many Catholics like him.
But then theres Brett Kavanaugh and all the rest of the Federalist Society, who believe in pre-constitutional feudalism (so long as they get to be aristocrats).
So I'm pretty sure Catholics can be kind and compassionate and merciful despite their faith. But doing so is quite common.
It's all of the child rape. There are other things (a lot of other things), but that's probably the main one.
Born again Catholics make born again Evangelicals look like amateurs.
My second child had a friend Rose, who was the daughter of a lady Mary (of course) who was Catholic like nobody I have met before or since (and I say that as someone whose dad was excommunicated because his wife left him, half my family was Catholic.) She was really nice and a true believer to the point of being batshit crazy but so gentle with her dozen kids and they were great kids. She got them a birthday party only every 5 years, we got to go to one for Rose and it was huge, with literal ponies, but the gift her mom gave her was a song she wrote and sang for her. It was awesome. I don't live in that world but will attest that some fundy Catholics are really nice people, religion does not spoil them, and they don't try to convert you.
Also when the photographer was going to take a picture of all the kids she said, I quote, "Say Jesus!"
You are complimenting them on their humanism, not their adherence to their religion. Which is fine. It’s the religion which has had to adjust itself to remain acceptable to its fee paying subscribers. As a lapsed Catholic myself , the theme of conversion, and evangelism was a fairly regular one at the weekly groaningly boring sermon. If your friends weren’t attempting to convert you I credit their social awareness, and again general humanism considering that at the back of their heads they have to agree , lest burn themselves, that you are going to burn in hell for eternity for not being a member of the same club. That trusted functional adults told me that repeatedly through my childhood while living in an otherwise decent, civil society is a credit to the social education my family and community gave me and each other otherwise. We cherry pick from the brutal bronze age texts but the pickings get slimmer and slimmer and the choices we make are filtered based on our actual humanity and ethical social standard of our time. Perhaps the official doctrine has since shifted - I grew up in the 70s/80s - but I don't really care. Crediting people for their actual actions despite their environment is where I’ve ended up. I do disagree though with you saying their religion doesn't spoil them. Being told by the apparently literal mouthpiece of God on earth that the universe was created for you and that (s)he keeps a constant tab on you and your prayers because you are a member of the club? Doesn't get much more earthly and spoilt . Like being quietly and modestly told by your parents that you are really better than all other kid on earth. If the parents choose not to spoil their kids materialistically or otherwise, thats the work and choice of the parents, not their religion, let alone the work of the imaginary cloud man.
As a heretic to Catholicism conversion was meh in my churches growing up. They were pretty clear that most people had some faith and that where they might get screwed is in the works department. We were always told to behave so well that people would be impressed by the kindness and generosity of Catholics, and that that alongside letting them come to us would convert them far better than any amount of nagging.
Yeah the concerts rarely convert because they’re into radical kindness. They get so wrapped up in the aesthetic and the text they miss the point about a group of homeless vagrants feeding people
