1 John 1:7 "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."
Colossians 2:14 "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;"
Nowhere in Scripture does it say one will have to undergo "purification" after death. There is no detour to heaven.
Africa is their latest fetish. Their oldest fetish is that of death and of its removal from nature and into the hand's of a political god (themselves). Scaring one into the warm hands of heaven's good graces is sociopathic for the reason that this illusion is only fostered to maintain hegemony and control of people within economic class systems. Surely in their accumulation of wealth and constant global influence, these representatives of "God" have only harmony and logic in mind for earth.
The summary imprisonment of the pope and catholic hierarchy is an important goal worth thinking about. They cannot be described as victims of having thoughts that are contrary to secularists. They are the thought police, but since the foundation has been set, the meek have inherited the unsightly duty of baton wielding. Their total lack of contempt for the people, as is the case in politics, is a lie. In fact, the whole industry of suffering and conflict is virtuous in their philosophy.
All doctrines created by the popes and catholic hierarchy should be placed in guarded environments and studied in the same manner as dangerous contagions observed by bacteriologists and virologists in laboratories. Only written works created by laymen or persons such as Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine should remain for public scrutiny. The motivations behind these creations were not based in ordered control of people's liberty and through the brutality of monolithic bureaucracy.
Well maybe it's just me, but I prefer Fr Barron when he is talking rather than preaching. He seems to be putting a little too much effort into this, and I find it exhausting to watch! I greatly respect Fr Barron, and this comment is meant to be a constructive one. Anyone else agree?
@gwalj Well friend, I was speaking to an audience of 20,000 when that was filmed. A little energy was called for. If you want to hear my preaching in a more conventional setting, go on my website. I've got more than 500 sermons in audio version there.
@gwalj For many of us who work with parents and kids in catechetical settings nowadays, his "effort" is totally worth it and greatly needed -- not exhausting at all but ENERGIZING! There's a real disparity today, as Fr. B notes, between textbooks for religion and textbooks for regular school subjects. AS TO THE WHY... Why do religion publishers do this? Why do DREs buy this stuff? Because we have a vast generation of uncatechized parents/catechists who don't know the importance themselves
...When I was a DRE with younger kids, I heard a long line of parents calling or visiting the older kids' DRE to complain that what he was trying to teach (some real meat for a change) was "too hard," insisting the point was to bring kids closer to Jesus which doesn't involve the intellect at all. Most of the kids, tho, loved having something that didn't insult their intelligence for once. Sadly, many of today's Catholic parents "Don't know how much they don't know"--yet think they know it all.
When I'm called upon to preach at my Lutheran church, or find myself at parties as the token resident apologist/chaplain, I always try to ask myself not how to dumb an idea down to a general level but how make the ideas accessible so I can raise the general level up. I end up doing the same thing in my day job at a museum... If I can explain radiometric dating of rocks to a grade 3, I can explain complex theology to a teenager, God willing.
@jmcg)2908: He meant of course the Western world. Family law, going back to Roman times, has centered on a family consisting of Father, mother and off-spring. And, of course, here in the United States, the Mormons were hounded until their abandoned polygamy, and Muslims are not allowed more than one wife, either. But of course, he was speaking in opposition to homosexual marriage, which is radically different from polygamy.
You want an example of dumb Catholicism? Try Archbishop Dolan insisting that "marriage has always and everywhere been a union of one man and one woman." Apparently he has never heard of Muslims. And this guy is the leader elected by the Catholic Bishops of the USA. Ugh!
I think there are many ways to teach faith... intellectual, philosophical books might be too hard for some people.. we have different capacities and talents... but I agree, if someone can read Shakespeare.... religious comic book is not on the appropriate level. But at the same time it might be appropriate for little ones.
Still, I think there is such a variety of great catholic writers (different levels)... If you cannot read St. Thomas... you can try Chesterton (easier)... or C.S. Lewis.. :-)
@MatyldaJola But I'm not talking about "little ones" here. I'm talking about the same high school students who are reading Shakespeare, Einstein, and Virgil. I'm wondering why we can't give them something substantive in the area of religion.
@wordonfirevideo 100% agree.For smart high school students it's a shame. I wonder if it has something to do with general program, or just wrong choice by class teacher?
Maybe teachers think that hard reading would discourage students and pull them away from faith.
As a matter of fact that "phenomenon" is also present in some churches. Many sermons are also on very low intellectual level - depends on the priest. I guess educators think that making it easier will attract broader audience.
Hi Father Barron, love your vids. I'm a Special Ed. Assistant and I am sadly stuck in a religion class with a teacher who does just what you are talking about (dumbing down the faith). She, herself only has a basic faith knowledge and the kids are being completely put off the faith. Is there anything I can do? I am studying for a Masters in Religious Ed. but am wondering what to do NOW. (It's so sad!)
This sounds JUST like my high school! Awesome literature texts, history book ALONG with primary sources xeroxed and handed out by the teacher at the start of every class period, but a shitty-ass theology book with pictures galore, and text so broad and general that you could've used it to teach ANY Christian theology class. There was nothing explicitly Catholic about it other than maybe a couple paragraphs about the Eucharist, and the painting of the Lady of Fatima on the back cover.
Father, I struggle with this. The world wasn't created nonviolently, not according to scientists and astronomers and data from Hubble, etc. Can you help me reconcile these two views, the Biblical "the world is spoken into being" and the scientific "the world (as in this planet; I'm not talking about human culture here) was born in struggle and strife and definite violence"? Thanks
@wordonfirevideo OK if I understand your statement correctly, you are telling me that "violence" is "the willful desire to harm another" - do I have that right? Hmmm. Must meditate on this. May I refine my query a bit? From what I understand, life as we understand it on this planet was born of the struggle of various forces/elements (that I barely understand) in competition with one another, and out of that friction came wonderful life. If I get a bit philosophical about it...
@wordonfirevideo (part 2)...this tells me that competition and conflict is a healthy thing, that it can be a creative power that pushes one to bring out the best in oneself. Life, after all, is not all "peace, love and fuzzy bunnies." It can be quite fierce. Where is God in this sometimes competitive life, where it seems that one of the first laws of existence is that life feeds on life? Life or nature itself can be quite aggressive & scary, but it seems it is meant to be this way....
@wordonfirevideo Or, where (specifically) is Jesus, who IS God, who IS the WORD Made Flesh, in this often ferociously competitive life we have here? There are plenty of old Gods that can fit very neatly into such a universe, but our Lord is the Prince of Peace, right? I am determined to understand this. I will "get it."
@autumnwindwalker personally I think it is stupid to think the world was born that way for the best conclusion atheist have for the first multicelled organism sounds very harmonic even though they prefer to explain it violently. I suggest you watch Expelled No Intelligence Allowed it is a show about intelligent design and atheism. after you watch it I can explain my point of creation being peaceful.
So true. I went to Catholic school as well (it was run by a Benedictine monastery), and the textbooks were a joke. Fortunately, we had a fantastic teacher for our Sophmore and Junior years, who taught his classes so well that the text was a supplement to the class, not its core. When he was teaching, it was the most interesting class in my highschool years. My Freshman and Senior years, we had other teachers who relied on the textbooks, and those Theology classes were the most boring.
The Roman Catholic Church is The One True Faith started by Jesus Christ and handed to Peter. It is the Cardinals and Bishops and Priests that have failed to proclaim this. Pastors who will not talk about homosexuality or abortion or contraception because it will bring down donation. No discipline and humility on receiving Jesus. Now it is the "priest" that is the center rather then Christ. Vatican ll gave liberals a free hand to destroy the Traditions and Holiness.
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Revaluation and John - have you read that crazy stuff?
Reading a comic book for religion, have you read the Bible lately?
Sir you really do not want all the stuff Catholics have done over the year. We can talk about The 3rd Reich and the Church, or maybe crusades. Where do you want to start with the 'rich' tradition of the Church?
@chicraig6421 Oh spare me! I've been perfectly upfront about the crimes of religious people up and down the ages. None of it tells against the church's essential goodness or the incredible wealth of its intellectual, spiritual, and artistic tradition. And friend, if you think Catholic theology is at the level of a comic book, I would suggest you read a little Augustine, Origen, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, Newman, Chesterton, etc. etc.
Father, Have you read Michael Coren's "Why Catholics Are Right"? If so, what did you think of it? I would like to hear your input and think it would make a great video. Thanks.
Its been a great week here in Ireland. Our new priminister finally gave the pope a proper going over re: the lies, cover ups, and ongoing abuses of the catholic church in relation to innocent children. Telling him that the rule of law supercedes canon law. Not being from Ireland, you would never appreciate the control the church had on all levels of government, the police, and everyday people. The church was never questioned and we have a history of destroyed lives because of blind faith!
As a catholic highschool student, I can certianly agree with everything barron is saying. Everyone consideres religion as an easy A. Its sad, really. when I graduate, I plan to write a letter to the religious department and attach this video.
@badpanda84 Yes, and to turn us from self-centerness and greed and hatred and lies and everything that opposes the the reign of God. I think abortion and homosexual behavior are among the many symptoms of the rebellion of the human race against God and His kingdom.
WASHINGTON – The Jesuit order has agreed to ay more than $166 million to the more than 500 victims who suffered sexual abuse when they were kids in Catholic schools in five states of the U.S. northwest, the victims’ attorney said.
Most of those affected are Indians who suffered abuse at the hands of priests in what is known as the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, which includes the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana, according to the local press.
Hard to understand why publishers do this. It's even harder to understand why DREs buy them. Could they just not know any intelligent young people??? (Sorry, this really is very perplexing!)
I care deeply about handing on the Faith to my family in a way which touches not only their hearts, but also their minds . Furthermore, both of my children, who graduated Magna Cum Laude and are now medical residents, DESERVE to have the Faith presented to them - in ALL its beauty and depth! Thanks!!!!
@wordonfirevideo Thanks-we are having these issues with our current CCE classes and would like to get a different curriculum for our children. Do you have a recommendation for 3-5th grade children?
With so many parishes having turned to the "comic book version" of sacred music for their liturgies, my hope is that Catholics will see the corollary argument regarding the musical arts.
Not only a smart tradition! But an exclusive tradition! Oh John Wycliffe... how will you be resurrected now? With your body cast across the River Swift. Why couldn't you just leave well enough alone? What use do the English have of Bibles and theological treaties. But alas, what use is a body in hell when its sole existence is cause you suffering there. Perhaps the Catholics actually granted upon a mercy rather than a desecration.
Totally agreed! If we are to effectively bring people to Christ, they must fully know what He's about. If politicians try to hide anything, people get peeved about it. Let's not make the same mistake with religion, hm? :)
@BlackPhantom559 i went through 22 years of Catholic schooling, and I didn't learn a darn thing about the Faith until the Holy Spirit moved me to read the entire CCC when I was 27. Best thing I ever did.
@punkpersonified I was a kid in the 70s when catechesis was so awful...burlap is the hair shirt of the 20th century. I self-catechized as an adult, too. TB2G
Amen to that! I would include The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright and some sermons by Timothy J. Keller in that list, even though they are not Catholic. Theology is the most exciting topic I can think of, bristling with detail et al.
I work in a Catholic High School and I am faced with this everyday. Including Teachers that teach error in the religion classrooms because they only have very basic knowledge. As a Special Education Assistant I have very little say in the curriculum, and it appals me that the generalized attitude is that "anyone can teach religion as long as they have a teaching certificate". Students are bored, uninterested and taught error. Prayers for the Catholic Education systems in many places are needed.
@wordonfirevideos Father, I must get ahold of those books at some point. BTW, consider yourself subscribed to. I am glad God, via Youtube, Guided me to your presntations, they're full of spirit and vibration. Peace be with you, Father +
I would also love to attend your church. how nice it would be to hear my teacher tell me to study and get passion about learning about my beliefs, not just listen to me and I will tell you what you gotta do.
"Go forth as great "catholic" lawyers, great "catholic" teachers, great "catholic" politicians, great "catholic" business leaders... What about going forth as great "Christian" laywers, teachers, politicians, business leaders? Or isn't that good enough? Do you have to be Catholic to be a "lumen gentium" and "declare the lordship of Jesus Christ"? For a guy who quotes C.S. Lewis (a protestant) so often, I find his emphasis on "catholics" (not "christians") saving the world odd.
@kkallebb I'd be delighted to see Christians bringing their Christianity to all of these areas. But come on man, I'm a priest! I naturally think that Catholics have the fullness of Christianity.
I agree with your point re: the New J. being like an earthly temple where God is "rightly praised", but when you said there is no temple there I thought of Rev 21. Do theologians write about the difference between an earthly temple of stone and the temple of Christ's body referred to by John explicitly in his gospel and in Rev 21:22? And how does this relate to Paul calling church members the temple of the living God? And how is the church the bride of Christ and also his mystical body? GodBls
@godlessevangelist Ah yes, it's such a good idea to turn to muckraking journalists in order to understand the nature of theology. That's a bit like asking Yogi Berra to comment on ballet dancing.
@wordonfirevideo How about a "muckraking" American politician, lecturer known for his adamant support of scientific and humanistic rationalism?
Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy" (1884)
If you don't want your beliefs to be ridiculed then you shouldn't have such ridiculous beliefs!
@godlessevangelist Friend, please do me a favor and read an elementary book of Catholic Biblical interpretation. Fundamentalists believe in the Adam and Eve story literally; Catholics do not. We are sensitive to the wide variety of genres on display in the Bible, including myth, legend, poetry, drama, saga--and yes, history. You are knocking down a pathetic straw man here.
@wordonfirevideo So where does this belief end and reality begin? Adam and eve? Okay, that’s way too ignorant? Noah’s Arc? Naah, same again. Jesus being born of a virgin? Hmm? Turning water into wine, raising Lazarus from the dead, etc? I think so? How about, (this is completely insane), a man executed 2,000 years ago subsequently relinquished humanity of all it’s “bad” deeds, and, if you believe in him, you can go to this magical place after you die? Myth, legend, poetry, drama,… or BS?
@godlessevangelist Not only are you clueless about Christian tradition, but you are spiritually dead, and a slave to your 5 senses. The world is much more mystical than you think.
@FrostTdot Okay, I'm "spiritually dead", even though I love my wife and three children, my community, and have great hopes for humanity as a whole. Where do I need the "spirituality" part? What more would that give me?
Do you have any evidence, any evidence at all, in any way, to say that "The world is much more mystical than [I] think". Any at all? Give it a go any you'll get a nomination for a Nobel Prize.
Your "mysticism" hurts people. Homosexuals, stem cell recipients, and science in general
@godlessevangelist Any one can love their wife and children, it's natural. It doesn't make you morally superior. You justify your actions with reasoning (do you have any evidence?). Since when is evidence an objective thing? When you connect to the Srouce/God, it's a heavenly subjective experience that no amount of "evdience" can prove it. You have to let go and im afraid it's quite a hurdle if you worship your senses in the same way you do.
@FrostTdot It's theists that imply they have some 'moral superiority' over non-theists. That was a straw man argument. An objective truth as there could ever be is that Jesus could not have been born of a virgin, or Mohamed dictated the Koran by the Angel Gabriel. Believing one of these (I'm sure you don't believe both) shouldn't get you reverence, it should get you ridiculed for your disappointingly low sense of reason.
That irresponsibility hurts people, like a woman's choice for example.
@godlessevangelist Again, you look over your "reason Bible" to tell you what is plausible or not. Your reason is your God because you think it's the highest faculty. This is where you are wrong, friend. Your fallen intelligence attempts to create arguments to demonstrate the existence of God, and this naturally is impossible to achieve. For the only argument for the existence of God is the pour soul experience that is felt in the heart, not the intellect.
@FrostTdot Yes, I use my "reason Bible", which is an innate thought process that naturally evolved over millions of years to give me direction. Not a book written thousands of years ago by ignorant men. How is that "fallen intelegence"? So for you, god exists because you "experience" you have a soul? Well, I "experience" the earth being flat and the sun travels around it, but that's not true is it? Try to open your mind to the evidence of social psychology and the cognative science of religion.
@godlessevangelist where does intuition fall into your "reason Bible"? That's right it doesn't. You left out the most important chapter. Your experience does not compare to mine because I am not using my intellect to perceive the Divine, it just doesn't work that way.
@FrostTdot Intuition is explained perfectly by human cognitive evolution. That you anthropomorphize everything (objects to processes), you see agency everywhere, you search for purpose where there is none, (other than your own), you’re susceptible to ‘Minimally Counterintuitive’ stories, you have a ‘Theory of Mind’ that projects thoughts onto others, and therefore ghosts, fairies, angels, and god. As we’ve already determined, you’re obviously not using your "intelligence" to perceive the divine.
@godlessevangelist Your problem is pride. Yes, pride. One becomes attached to the fruits of one's own intelligence as a mother to her child. The intellectual loves his creation as himself, identifies with it, shuts himself up with it. When this happens, no human intervention can help him. If he will not renounce what he believes to be riches (reason), he will NEVER attain the heights of pure prayer and true Godliness.
@godlessevangelist So in your failed attempts to advance alone on the path of reason/knowledge of God, your fallen intelligence betrays you because it either does not meet God at all or create a false image of God. Again, it's like showing a pizza delivery boy how to play with tiger woods. You can do all your 'soul searching' through your God-given intelligence and philosophy but it is only possible through experience; not without but within through inner transformation and purfication.
@FrostTdot I've studied the cognitive science of religion for a long time now and it's not a "failed attempt" to understand god. Using science, I understand god better than you.
He's a memetic social parasite that has hijacked natural human thought mechanisms like the need for purpose, the appearance of design in nature, and the fear of death, to do what every replicator (just like DNA) wants to do - survive! It can't infect the rationally minded (me) so its immune system (you) attacks them.
@godlessevangelist The plain truth is LOVE works. Sadly, I can't find LOVE in science, but I do understand LOVE in Christianity. The truth is, while human knowledge is acquired through activity of the intelligence and through human research, divine knowledge is acquired through faith. Not the dogmatic faith you love to hate but the light which by grace dawns in the soul and fortifies the heart by the testimony of the mind, making it undoubting through the assurance of hope.
@FrostTdot Love in science - read ‘THE SEX CONTRACT’: The Evolution of Human Behavior by Helen Fisher. Because the human baby brain was so big, it had to be born altricial. Because the young are such a burden to the mother, the father had to help. The glue that made this happen is love.
So where’s you’re “love” in Christianity? For a homosexual? A woman wanting an abortion? A quadriplegic needing stem cell research? The agonizingly diseased that want to die with dignity? Or even a Muslim? Where?
@godlessevangelist These are the mysteries concealed within us, o hopeless one, and NOT acquired through INTELLIGENCE (read the fine print!). the secret and divine riches that are hidden away from the eyes of the flesh, but are unveiled by the spirit (or is that non-existent too?) to those who abide at God's table through the study of the Cosmic Law. It's not as literal as you think (ex: God is an angry controlling old man). I think YOU are the one who fails to understand the metaphors. Read up
@godlessevangelist If the idea of God can be dismissed as a memetic parasite trying to survive, then any idea can be dismissed the same way--including atheism. The idea of rational thought would itself be a meme. The idea that there are such things as memes would be a meme. Rational thought breaks down entirely under such as system as we could have no way of knowing whether any thought we have has any relationship to reality at all.
@manalive24 No, you're conveniently ignoring the fundamental difference. EVIDENCE! Using reason, rationality, critical thinking and common sense based on empirical evidence that is testable, repeatable, and subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of peer review.
It's interesting that theists attempt to portrray reason, atheism, and even science as a religion. Subconsciously they know the very word "religion" is delusional, divisive, disingenuous and dangerous. It's a fascinating 'panic' defense.
@godlessevangelist Friend, like so many others, you are reducing reason to the scientific form of reason. The method you lay out is altogether valid for analyzing things and phenomena within the world of empirical experience. But it's not useful when analyzing properly philosophical issues such as the nature of good and evil, the quality of justice and beauty, the reason why there is a universe at all, etc. Religious thinking is closer to philosophy than science.
@wordonfirevideo There are perfectly adequate natural answers to "good and evil", (what is that anyway - it's like saying "short and tall"?) It's called evolution.
Our ancestors had to develop a code of conduct to survive. Those that didn't... didn't! Questions like, "why do we love our kids" are obvious if you can understand that the kids of parents that didn't love them are dead and therefore don't have kids themselves. It's very simple and far more awesome than "magic man did it".
@godlessevangelist Then Hitler and Stalin were just as morally upright as you. If it's all "evolution" and "subjectivity," how can you possibly make a coherent moral judgement?
@wordonfirevideo Millions of years of evolution has honed us to work together for the good of the hunter-gatherer group. Today, those innate instincts must be applied to humanity as a whole. That’s why the concept of a good person (helpful, altruistic, kind, etc) and a bad person, (selfish, cruel, etc) are universal. Fascism and communism, much like religions, create in group/out group mentalities that are only ‘good’ for THEM, such as murdering 6 million Jews.
@godlessevangelist If you consistently follow this relativistic account, you have absolutely no ground for saying that what Hitler did is wrong. That's why your position is extremely dangerous.
@wordonfirevideo Millions of years of group evolution has told us to do what's best for the group in order to survive. So what's "good" is innate. Similarly, the thought of incest is repulsive because any group that did it didn't survive for biological reasons. I don't need god to tell me what's "good" just as I don't need got to tell me not to have sex with my sister.
What Hitler did was wrong because it wasn't "good" for the well being of the group which in this case is humanity as a whole.
@godlessevangelist There are definite problems with your account of the origins of good and evil. First, it fails to address the issue of why behaviour ought to be concerned with the good of humanity as a whole rather than a particular "in group." So long as the behaviour contributes the the survival of that "in group," there would seem to be no basis why any other concern should matter on the basis of your theory. (cont.)
@manalive24 Further, your application of the principle seems to be highly selective. It is certainly true that incest does not contribute to a group's survival, but then neither do abortion or homosexuality. Reproduction would be the first fundamental requirement of group survival, and both behaviours are contrary to reproduction. So they would both be evil by that standard. But you have defended both. I suspect therefore that group survival isn't the ultimate ground of morality in your thought.
@godlessevangelist Actually, your theory of group evolution was precisely what the Nazis used to justify their killings, i.e. the promotion of the supreme human, Aryan race; see Nietzsche's work also; hence to the Nazi, there was nothing "wrong" about it. Using the same evolutionary standard, slavery is great and terrible--great for the slave owner, terrible for the slave; who's right, who's good? It comes down to power, survival of the fittest. Hence reform of any kind is unjustifiable.
@wordonfirevideo This naturally evolved ‘code of conduct’ can be pretty coherent, such as murder, incest, etc., but sometimes extremely subjective like the trolley problem. The way to answer these questions is by rational consensus, not by 'magical man'. Injecting an indefinable supernatural being into ethics is not only stupid, but irresponsible. (Should we persecution of gays? Is masturbation bad? Shall I kill anyone that works on the sabbath? etc.)
@wordonfirevideo I was preached Christianity in school in England as there's no separation of church and state there. I also had Religious Education classes that taught me about Judaism and Islam which kind of took the rug from under Jesus' feet. As a result, I've never been religious. To this day I've never had a answer to the question that religious belief is primarily dependent on one's parents beliefs which in turn are largely dependent on geographical location. God seems very arbitrary?
@godlessevangelist Indeed, religious belief is generally dependent on environmental factors for many. But to excuse the truth or falsity of religious belief based simply on its origin is a textbook example of the genetic fallacy. How we came to the truth does not impact whether or not it is true; it simply affects our credibility. So to some, God would seem arbitrary, while to others, not so; but that has nothing to do in either case whether or not God actually exists.
@godlessevangelist, reading your comments truly makes me marvel. I marvel that one so seemingly intelligent as you, with a vocabularly as large as yours, is so completely lost to reality. Just remember: Opinions are like ass-holes. Everybody has them.
@PraiseandadoreHim Can you give me something specific you disagree with? For example, I assume you believe that a man that was executed 2000 years ago took away the responsibility for all the bad things you've done? I you're telling me that I'm lost to reality? Wow!
Just because this garbage has been pummeled into your brain since you were a child doesn't make it true.
@wordonfirevideo As for "Why is there something rather than nothing?" The only true answer is, "I don't know". No body does. Saying YOU know because, "magic man did it" is not an answer. In fact, if it wasn't for tradition and authority, it would be rightly ridiculed. I trust the scientists at the Large Hadron Colider to advance our understanding infinitely more than any religious leader. They don't have an alternate agenda to spread their virus. Their motives are simply 'to understand'.
@godlessevangelist Can you please spare me the condescension? Contingent reality has to be exlained. We can't go on indefinitely appealing to other contingent causes. We have to come, therefore, to some non-contingent ground of contingency. Please stop referring to "magic men" and actually engage that argument.
@wordonfirevideo Yes, contingent reality has to be explained. Science is the best way to do that. Religion points to inevitable gaps and uses them to promote superstition. This gets humanity no where, and retards its progress. (Galileo & Darwin.) Your excessive use of the word "contingent" implies you're invoking the First Cause Argument? That's grasping in the dark. Answer 'what caused god', uncaused quantum particle fluctuations, and the inability to concieve of time as non linear. (Einstein.)
@godlessevangelist No. No. No. I'm not pursuing this line of questioning scientifically but rather metaphysically. I'm interested in what causes things to be. If something doesn't contain within itself the reason for its own existence, it has to be explained. We can't go on indefinitely appealing to similarly contingent things, and therefore we have to come to some reality which exists through itself. This has nothing to do with "gaps" in the chain of contingent causes!
@wordonfirevideo Using words like "metaphysically", it seems your actually trying to be unclear? Also, implying that something needs to have a reason for it's existence may be an interesting philosophical pastime but you're just being evasive. Whether a man can be born of a virgin, the universe could be created in six days, or the Bible is the inerrant word of god isn't metaphysical or philosophical. It's just stories made up a long time ago by ignorant men that are divisive and delusional.
@godlessevangelist You're dealing with so many different topics and sweeping them all away together--metaphysics, miracles, creation/cosmology, Biblical inerrancy. If God exists, miracles are possible. Catholics are open to science and the origin of the universe. Biblical inerrancy does not mean literalism or fundamentalism. Deal with the existence and nature of God before you get to things that follow in consequence of His existence or non-existence. For such arguments, see Fr. Barron's videos.
@godlessevangelist Come on friend, you're utterly ignoring the argument I've made and you're resorting to tired cliches. You exist, but you don't have to exist. I know this because you eat, breathe, and had parents. So why do you exist? You can't appeal indefinitely to other contingent things; otherwise, you've explained nothing. You must come, at last, to something which exists through itself, something which, in principle, cannot be caused. This is what I mean by "God."
@godlessevangelist And furthermore, to wonder "what caused God?" is simply to prove that you haven't grasped the nettle of the argument. God is the uncaused ground of contingency, that which exists through the power of its own essence, and hence that unique reality about which the question "what caused it?" is inappropriate.
@wordonfirevideo You saying that "god is the uncaused ground of contingency" are just words with no evidence or foundation in reality. I't just as easy for me to say the the moon is made of green cheese. Have you ever even considered that "what caused god" is naturally evolved cognitive mechanisms such as anthropomorphism, our propensity to see agency and design, our socially developed Theory of Mind, and our preference for remembering Minimally Counterintuative stories? No 'woo', required.
@godlessevangelist Those are all possible explanations, but so is "the moon is made of green cheese" if we've never been on it. In your attempt to undermine Fr. Barron's arguments, you actually provided a tool that your arguments are also susceptible to. The argument from contingency is totally based in reality, a reality that is, everywhere, contingent. Unnecessary requires an idea of necessary. Shadow requires light. Change is intelligible only in the context of the unchangeable.
@godlessevangelist: Since you mentioned the LHC, I thought I would point out that the Big Bang theory was first put forth by Georges Lemaître, who was a Catholic priest. Catholics are not Bible literalists, so you seem to be are operating from a misconception that Catholics (or Christians in general) don't accept what the LHC or other research discover about creation.
@godlessevangelist I believe you missed the point of my argument. You're still thinking inside the box. Under the meme hypothesis, eveything you listed (reason, rationality, critical thinking, common sense and the value of empirical evidence) would all simply exist as self-replicating memes. You could not use them to evaluate memes because they would themselves BE memes, passing from mind to mind attempting to survive like any other. How can you evaluate memes by means of other memes? (cont.)
@godlessevangelist All you could end up saying is "Your memes are different from my memes. I like my memes better," which is obvious. But there could be no standard by which you could evaluate a meme because every standard would itself BE a meme. I am not attacking reason and science. I am defending them. Science cannot be conducted properly with faulty tools, and it certainly cannot be conducted properly if our ideas, including our scientific ideas, can be reduced to "memes."
@godlessevangelist Beyond that, it seems to me that dismissing any idea on the ground that it is a "self-replicating meme" seems to be a variation of the Ad hominem attack, which any first-year logic student will tell you is a fallacy.
@wordonfirevideo Father, I don't mean to undermine what you're saying; I know you're doing God's work. If I could, though (with respect), I'd like to point out that the way you phrased this could lead someone to think you doubt the catholicity of those who believe that history *is* the genre of the biblical account of Adam and Eve. I know you don't mean to imply this, but I think it could be misunderstood.
@dsydebot But friend, John Paul II clearly taught that the first chapters of Genesis oughtn't to be read in a straightforwardly literal way. They best fit in the genre of theological saga.
@wordonfire I think he was right about the beginning of Genesis, up to the first "toldot". I tentatively disagree with him about the 2nd account. As far as I know, JPII never bound Catholics to his own opinion on this point. If he did, then I retract my opinion.
Otherwise, my concern is that your statement could be misinterpreted in this way:
1. Catholics do not take the Adam and Eve story literally.
@dsydebot But that syllogism doesn't hold at all. I would say that Bob, in that case, is a naive interpreter of the Bible. I would never say that he's not Catholic.
@wordonfirevideo Oh, I was sure of that. I was just concerned that someone who doesn't know enough about you from listening to your sermons and watching your videos might take away from your statement a mistaken conclusion.
Geez, it feels strange to disagree with one of our Lord's priests, especially publicly. I don't want to say anything to undermine you. If you think that my comments have done that, please let me know, and I will remove them (or feel free to remove them yourself).
@wordonfirevideo Father, although the "straightforwardly literal" reading of the first chapters of Genesis is not the best approach, I think that those chapters are *closer* to history than the term "theological saga" seems to suggest. After all, Pius XII in Humani Generis while acknowledging that those chapters do not conform to the historical method still asserts "a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own."
@wordonfirevideo Also, I am intrigued that the "mitochondrial Eve" theory seems to support, without demonstrating, monogenesis, much as the Big Bang theory may support, without demonstrating, "creation ex nihilo."
@wordonfirevideo John Paul II failed young people when he acted like he did not understand human nature, when he ignored the scandal of sexual abuse. It is not right to call him a Saint and we do not know if he is in Heaven. I am not saying he did not do much good for the catholic church and for christianity as a whole. But, he failed in other ways, ways that deeply offend god and those sins of the flesh please and fulfill people, this is why most go to HELL. have a nice day
@wordonfirevideo Sorry if I sounded like I was putting words in your mouth. EWTN describes him like he is "John Paul The Great" - like he is in heaven and like he is a Saint. Maybe God is an incest, flesh freak that looks past reality and ignores the suffering and muder of his only son ... but on the other hand, I highly doubt God is what the vast majority of Christians make him out to be in their own personal life. have a nice day
godlessevangelist on corrupting the pure message of God with mindless distractions especially those who are beginning to grow in faith. Shame on you godlessevangelist. Real shame!
"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." Matthew 18:6 (NIV)
@godlessevangelist you are like a cancer. Not only are you fighting against a zealous member of the Most High, you are distracting us true believers, especially those who are attempting to grow in faith. You do realize Satan is playing you right?
Catholics are not trained to tell the story of the faith, nor are they expected to. I challenge you to ask Catholics that you know, "Why is it a good thing to be a practicing Catholic Christian?" See how many can give an intelligible answer.
i agree that the church has had some of the most intelligent people to have ever lived and they have given written witness to God in their lives. how lucky we are indeed to have access to these today!
I think the encyclicals are also great texts of the church appropriate to highschoolers to help appreciate God's calling in our lives.
Father Barron, I got one name for you, Luigi Giussani. An Italian priest who started the Catholic movement Comunion and Liberation in response to the lack of Catholic education he found in the youth. You would be particualarly interested in his book "The Risk of Education"
Absolutely!! As a secular-graduate in philosophy, delving into the Church's intellectual tradition is exactly how I converted from atheism to Buddhist agnosticism to Deism to Catholic Theism. It's been long journey sifting the truth from the lies, and I am finally home. Thank you, Father, for standing up for the greath wealth of knowledge in the Church.
I would add that even if one does not believe in Christ (or even in God), Aquinas is still a great read. He's universally recognized as one of the greatest philosophers of the middle ages and scholastic philosophy.
Many also read and study Kant or Spinoza or Nietzsche even though they still may strongly disagree with their conclusions.
I think many tend to forget (or just do not know) that Aquinas' works are of philosophical nature and just see him as a theologian.
The point he is making here is not to teach people comprehensible apologetics but to show that Catholicism has a rich tradition of artistic and scholarly achievement. The former is certainly important, but so is the latter. I was not converted by Peter Kreeft or Scott Hahn (even though I enjoyed Kreeft's writings quite a bit) but by Dante Alighieri, Thomas Aquinas, JRR Tolkien, and GK Chesterton. Not because they are the best evangelical tool.
But because I was convinced by the Church's rich legacy that our modern self-help Evangelical books could not live up to in so far as science, artistry, and history.
Oh boy Father Barron you went from one extreme to the other. You went from comic books to thick novels and no John Hardon or Peter Kreeft. Oh the inhumanity! I have a recommendation for you. Buy your niece audio books. This way she can get away from her desk (aka "the rack") turn on her mp3 player and go for a walk under the stars. This is infinetly more enjoyable then reading classics at gun point in a desk.
@coldforgedcowboy Well how come you think it's okay for her to read "Hamlet" and Virgil's "Aeneid" but not Thomas Aquinas? Don't you think that her middle school years were the time for "in between" literature?
@wordonfirevideo...... Thomas Aquanis is great but his writtings is something that is best picked at with joy and not read cover to cover all at once. That is why I recommend Peter Kreeft to everyone I know. Peter Kreeft cherry picks all the good stuff from the classics and teaches in a way that is clear, understandable and memorable so you can learn it and share the good news of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior with the world around you. Which is ultimately the whole point of the Endevor.
All through my childhood I had a strong faith in God, but my faith in the Catholic Church started to wane as I entered my teens because I felt like everything they presented me was God for Dummies. Then, about halfway through high school, a few teachers finally exposed me to just how rich our Church's tradition really is! It wasn't long before I fell in love with my Catholic faith!
this made me laugh. I went to a Catholic school, and I remember our goofy religion book with fill-in-the-blanks like "God loves ___" (hint: the answer is everyone).
I wish I had been challenged more in my faith when I was younger. I wish I had been told to take my Confirmation seriously.
I can't go back now, but I can move forward in my faith, and I'm using this reading list!
@regression "Summa Contra Gentiles: Book One: God" - Thomas Aquinas; "Confessions of St. Augustine;" "The Divine Comedy" - Dante Alighieri; "Orthodoxy" - G.K. Chesterton; "The Mind's Road to God" - St. Bonaventure.
Purgatory is not biblical.
1 John 1:7 "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."
Colossians 2:14 "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;"
Nowhere in Scripture does it say one will have to undergo "purification" after death. There is no detour to heaven.
Mcstroke57 3 days ago
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Africa is their latest fetish. Their oldest fetish is that of death and of its removal from nature and into the hand's of a political god (themselves). Scaring one into the warm hands of heaven's good graces is sociopathic for the reason that this illusion is only fostered to maintain hegemony and control of people within economic class systems. Surely in their accumulation of wealth and constant global influence, these representatives of "God" have only harmony and logic in mind for earth.
epiksonik 1 week ago
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epiksonik 1 week ago
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epiksonik 1 week ago
The summary imprisonment of the pope and catholic hierarchy is an important goal worth thinking about. They cannot be described as victims of having thoughts that are contrary to secularists. They are the thought police, but since the foundation has been set, the meek have inherited the unsightly duty of baton wielding. Their total lack of contempt for the people, as is the case in politics, is a lie. In fact, the whole industry of suffering and conflict is virtuous in their philosophy.
epiksonik 1 week ago
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epiksonik 1 week ago
All doctrines created by the popes and catholic hierarchy should be placed in guarded environments and studied in the same manner as dangerous contagions observed by bacteriologists and virologists in laboratories. Only written works created by laymen or persons such as Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine should remain for public scrutiny. The motivations behind these creations were not based in ordered control of people's liberty and through the brutality of monolithic bureaucracy.
epiksonik 1 week ago
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The Roman Catholic Church teaches unbiblical doctorines like the trinity and celebrates Pagan holidays like Christmas
Catholics pray to Saints and Mary which is completely unbiblical.
Catholics bow down before images and statues !
Catholics have Sunday as the Sabbath.
Catholics disobey the Bible by calling the priest "Father." (read Matthew 23:9)
CATHOLICS CHANGED GOD'S COMMADMENTS !
Mcstroke57 1 month ago
Well maybe it's just me, but I prefer Fr Barron when he is talking rather than preaching. He seems to be putting a little too much effort into this, and I find it exhausting to watch! I greatly respect Fr Barron, and this comment is meant to be a constructive one. Anyone else agree?
gwalj 1 month ago
@gwalj Well friend, I was speaking to an audience of 20,000 when that was filmed. A little energy was called for. If you want to hear my preaching in a more conventional setting, go on my website. I've got more than 500 sermons in audio version there.
wordonfirevideo 1 month ago 3
@gwalj For many of us who work with parents and kids in catechetical settings nowadays, his "effort" is totally worth it and greatly needed -- not exhausting at all but ENERGIZING! There's a real disparity today, as Fr. B notes, between textbooks for religion and textbooks for regular school subjects. AS TO THE WHY... Why do religion publishers do this? Why do DREs buy this stuff? Because we have a vast generation of uncatechized parents/catechists who don't know the importance themselves
HMCyouthtube 2 days ago
...When I was a DRE with younger kids, I heard a long line of parents calling or visiting the older kids' DRE to complain that what he was trying to teach (some real meat for a change) was "too hard," insisting the point was to bring kids closer to Jesus which doesn't involve the intellect at all. Most of the kids, tho, loved having something that didn't insult their intelligence for once. Sadly, many of today's Catholic parents "Don't know how much they don't know"--yet think they know it all.
HMCyouthtube 2 days ago
Thank you for the anecdote!
When I'm called upon to preach at my Lutheran church, or find myself at parties as the token resident apologist/chaplain, I always try to ask myself not how to dumb an idea down to a general level but how make the ideas accessible so I can raise the general level up. I end up doing the same thing in my day job at a museum... If I can explain radiometric dating of rocks to a grade 3, I can explain complex theology to a teenager, God willing.
CoryTheRaven 1 month ago
@jmcg)2908: He meant of course the Western world. Family law, going back to Roman times, has centered on a family consisting of Father, mother and off-spring. And, of course, here in the United States, the Mormons were hounded until their abandoned polygamy, and Muslims are not allowed more than one wife, either. But of course, he was speaking in opposition to homosexual marriage, which is radically different from polygamy.
JRobbySh 2 months ago
You want an example of dumb Catholicism? Try Archbishop Dolan insisting that "marriage has always and everywhere been a union of one man and one woman." Apparently he has never heard of Muslims. And this guy is the leader elected by the Catholic Bishops of the USA. Ugh!
jmcg02908 2 months ago
I think there are many ways to teach faith... intellectual, philosophical books might be too hard for some people.. we have different capacities and talents... but I agree, if someone can read Shakespeare.... religious comic book is not on the appropriate level. But at the same time it might be appropriate for little ones.
Still, I think there is such a variety of great catholic writers (different levels)... If you cannot read St. Thomas... you can try Chesterton (easier)... or C.S. Lewis.. :-)
MatyldaJola 2 months ago
@MatyldaJola But I'm not talking about "little ones" here. I'm talking about the same high school students who are reading Shakespeare, Einstein, and Virgil. I'm wondering why we can't give them something substantive in the area of religion.
wordonfirevideo 2 months ago
@wordonfirevideo 100% agree.For smart high school students it's a shame. I wonder if it has something to do with general program, or just wrong choice by class teacher?
Maybe teachers think that hard reading would discourage students and pull them away from faith.
As a matter of fact that "phenomenon" is also present in some churches. Many sermons are also on very low intellectual level - depends on the priest. I guess educators think that making it easier will attract broader audience.
MatyldaJola 2 months ago
Hi Father Barron, love your vids. I'm a Special Ed. Assistant and I am sadly stuck in a religion class with a teacher who does just what you are talking about (dumbing down the faith). She, herself only has a basic faith knowledge and the kids are being completely put off the faith. Is there anything I can do? I am studying for a Masters in Religious Ed. but am wondering what to do NOW. (It's so sad!)
RainBirdLori 2 months ago
The Catholic Faith is this wonderful enormous treasure. It breaks my heart that it is keep so tightly closed for so many people.
thoughtadventure 2 months ago
Did she read them?
saintoccasionally 2 months ago
This sounds JUST like my high school! Awesome literature texts, history book ALONG with primary sources xeroxed and handed out by the teacher at the start of every class period, but a shitty-ass theology book with pictures galore, and text so broad and general that you could've used it to teach ANY Christian theology class. There was nothing explicitly Catholic about it other than maybe a couple paragraphs about the Eucharist, and the painting of the Lady of Fatima on the back cover.
Sanguiluna 2 months ago
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@wordonfirevideo...Hello Father..what are your comments on other religions?
Nreedom 2 months ago
@Nreedom his comments on other religion are every where please look through many of his videos he touches on different religions many times
laffiteaumusic 2 months ago
Father, I struggle with this. The world wasn't created nonviolently, not according to scientists and astronomers and data from Hubble, etc. Can you help me reconcile these two views, the Biblical "the world is spoken into being" and the scientific "the world (as in this planet; I'm not talking about human culture here) was born in struggle and strife and definite violence"? Thanks
autumnwindwalker 2 months ago
@autumnwindwalker Violence is not the same as force. It is a willful desire to harm another. There is none of that at the origins of the universe.
wordonfirevideo 2 months ago 4
@wordonfirevideo OK if I understand your statement correctly, you are telling me that "violence" is "the willful desire to harm another" - do I have that right? Hmmm. Must meditate on this. May I refine my query a bit? From what I understand, life as we understand it on this planet was born of the struggle of various forces/elements (that I barely understand) in competition with one another, and out of that friction came wonderful life. If I get a bit philosophical about it...
autumnwindwalker 2 months ago
@wordonfirevideo (part 2)...this tells me that competition and conflict is a healthy thing, that it can be a creative power that pushes one to bring out the best in oneself. Life, after all, is not all "peace, love and fuzzy bunnies." It can be quite fierce. Where is God in this sometimes competitive life, where it seems that one of the first laws of existence is that life feeds on life? Life or nature itself can be quite aggressive & scary, but it seems it is meant to be this way....
autumnwindwalker 2 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Or, where (specifically) is Jesus, who IS God, who IS the WORD Made Flesh, in this often ferociously competitive life we have here? There are plenty of old Gods that can fit very neatly into such a universe, but our Lord is the Prince of Peace, right? I am determined to understand this. I will "get it."
autumnwindwalker 2 months ago
@autumnwindwalker personally I think it is stupid to think the world was born that way for the best conclusion atheist have for the first multicelled organism sounds very harmonic even though they prefer to explain it violently. I suggest you watch Expelled No Intelligence Allowed it is a show about intelligent design and atheism. after you watch it I can explain my point of creation being peaceful.
laffiteaumusic 2 months ago
Teachers...maybe. Publishing COMPANIES??? Good luck.
bheadh 4 months ago
So true. I went to Catholic school as well (it was run by a Benedictine monastery), and the textbooks were a joke. Fortunately, we had a fantastic teacher for our Sophmore and Junior years, who taught his classes so well that the text was a supplement to the class, not its core. When he was teaching, it was the most interesting class in my highschool years. My Freshman and Senior years, we had other teachers who relied on the textbooks, and those Theology classes were the most boring.
GruntLogic 4 months ago
The Roman Catholic Church is The One True Faith started by Jesus Christ and handed to Peter. It is the Cardinals and Bishops and Priests that have failed to proclaim this. Pastors who will not talk about homosexuality or abortion or contraception because it will bring down donation. No discipline and humility on receiving Jesus. Now it is the "priest" that is the center rather then Christ. Vatican ll gave liberals a free hand to destroy the Traditions and Holiness.
GodFamilyCountryCorp 5 months ago
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Revaluation and John - have you read that crazy stuff?
Reading a comic book for religion, have you read the Bible lately?
Sir you really do not want all the stuff Catholics have done over the year. We can talk about The 3rd Reich and the Church, or maybe crusades. Where do you want to start with the 'rich' tradition of the Church?
chicraig6421 6 months ago
@chicraig6421 Oh spare me! I've been perfectly upfront about the crimes of religious people up and down the ages. None of it tells against the church's essential goodness or the incredible wealth of its intellectual, spiritual, and artistic tradition. And friend, if you think Catholic theology is at the level of a comic book, I would suggest you read a little Augustine, Origen, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, Newman, Chesterton, etc. etc.
wordonfirevideo 6 months ago 31
Father, Have you read Michael Coren's "Why Catholics Are Right"? If so, what did you think of it? I would like to hear your input and think it would make a great video. Thanks.
maaaaaaatt1 6 months ago
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Its been a great week here in Ireland. Our new priminister finally gave the pope a proper going over re: the lies, cover ups, and ongoing abuses of the catholic church in relation to innocent children. Telling him that the rule of law supercedes canon law. Not being from Ireland, you would never appreciate the control the church had on all levels of government, the police, and everyday people. The church was never questioned and we have a history of destroyed lives because of blind faith!
newfrontier01 7 months ago
As a catholic highschool student, I can certianly agree with everything barron is saying. Everyone consideres religion as an easy A. Its sad, really. when I graduate, I plan to write a letter to the religious department and attach this video.
300killjoy 8 months ago
Great video! Thanks for sharing this and for all you do!
s216674 10 months ago
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s216674 10 months ago
I am in confirmation class and it's about the level of 2nd grade.
whitsoxdude 10 months ago
LOL from how the catholic church carries on you would have thought. that the great story was Jesus coming down to stop abortion and gay marraige
badpanda84 10 months ago
@badpanda84 Yes, and to turn us from self-centerness and greed and hatred and lies and everything that opposes the the reign of God. I think abortion and homosexual behavior are among the many symptoms of the rebellion of the human race against God and His kingdom.
billybagbom 10 months ago
WASHINGTON – The Jesuit order has agreed to ay more than $166 million to the more than 500 victims who suffered sexual abuse when they were kids in Catholic schools in five states of the U.S. northwest, the victims’ attorney said.
Most of those affected are Indians who suffered abuse at the hands of priests in what is known as the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, which includes the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana, according to the local press.
goinghomesomeday1 11 months ago
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cfanderson1 1 year ago
Hard to understand why publishers do this. It's even harder to understand why DREs buy them. Could they just not know any intelligent young people??? (Sorry, this really is very perplexing!)
I care deeply about handing on the Faith to my family in a way which touches not only their hearts, but also their minds . Furthermore, both of my children, who graduated Magna Cum Laude and are now medical residents, DESERVE to have the Faith presented to them - in ALL its beauty and depth! Thanks!!!!
cfanderson1 1 year ago 9
@cfanderson1 Absolutely right! Keep speaking up; and buy your kids the books I recommended.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago 5
@wordonfirevideo Thanks-we are having these issues with our current CCE classes and would like to get a different curriculum for our children. Do you have a recommendation for 3-5th grade children?
vickij35 7 months ago
Fr Barron is absolutely right.
RATM4LYFE 1 year ago
7 out of 8 students at Catholic colleges lose the faith. Something is not right.
xipe02 1 year ago
@xipe02 "7 out of 8 students at Catholic colleges lose the faith. Something is not right."
Exactly the best way to "covert" ( can't think of a better word now) people to atheism is to send them to a catholic school
badpanda84 10 months ago
With so many parishes having turned to the "comic book version" of sacred music for their liturgies, my hope is that Catholics will see the corollary argument regarding the musical arts.
botheredsoul 1 year ago
Not only a smart tradition! But an exclusive tradition! Oh John Wycliffe... how will you be resurrected now? With your body cast across the River Swift. Why couldn't you just leave well enough alone? What use do the English have of Bibles and theological treaties. But alas, what use is a body in hell when its sole existence is cause you suffering there. Perhaps the Catholics actually granted upon a mercy rather than a desecration.
MobiusCoin 1 year ago
It began with the dumbing down of the Liturgy. Lex Orandi Lex Credendi.
avyanez 1 year ago
Totally agreed! If we are to effectively bring people to Christ, they must fully know what He's about. If politicians try to hide anything, people get peeved about it. Let's not make the same mistake with religion, hm? :)
Bladepaw18 1 year ago 9
@BlackPhantom559 i went through 22 years of Catholic schooling, and I didn't learn a darn thing about the Faith until the Holy Spirit moved me to read the entire CCC when I was 27. Best thing I ever did.
punkpersonified 1 year ago 3
@punkpersonified I was a kid in the 70s when catechesis was so awful...burlap is the hair shirt of the 20th century. I self-catechized as an adult, too. TB2G
kentuckyliz 11 months ago
The five Catholic books he listed are recommended/required reading at my Catholic college.
DJDizzy113 1 year ago
@DJDizzy113 Lucky!
botheredsoul 1 year ago
Amen to that! I would include The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright and some sermons by Timothy J. Keller in that list, even though they are not Catholic. Theology is the most exciting topic I can think of, bristling with detail et al.
caveatemp 1 year ago
I work in a Catholic High School and I am faced with this everyday. Including Teachers that teach error in the religion classrooms because they only have very basic knowledge. As a Special Education Assistant I have very little say in the curriculum, and it appals me that the generalized attitude is that "anyone can teach religion as long as they have a teaching certificate". Students are bored, uninterested and taught error. Prayers for the Catholic Education systems in many places are needed.
RainBirdLori 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideos Father, I must get ahold of those books at some point. BTW, consider yourself subscribed to. I am glad God, via Youtube, Guided me to your presntations, they're full of spirit and vibration. Peace be with you, Father +
Serge165 1 year ago
@Serge165 god works for YouTube now? MAN, they must be paying well!
SithRage 1 year ago
@SithRage Close, God used Youtube as a conduit to guide me to Higher knowledge that I could expand.
Serge165 1 year ago
dumbed down........ try doing RCIA
colinpostnz 1 year ago
I TOTALLY AGREE. Watered down theology is very unattractive.
Enigmatik691 1 year ago 2
I would also love to attend your church. how nice it would be to hear my teacher tell me to study and get passion about learning about my beliefs, not just listen to me and I will tell you what you gotta do.
docwindigo 1 year ago
Fr. Barron: How about "Mere Christianity" by C.S Lewis?
FrostTdot 1 year ago
"Go forth as great "catholic" lawyers, great "catholic" teachers, great "catholic" politicians, great "catholic" business leaders... What about going forth as great "Christian" laywers, teachers, politicians, business leaders? Or isn't that good enough? Do you have to be Catholic to be a "lumen gentium" and "declare the lordship of Jesus Christ"? For a guy who quotes C.S. Lewis (a protestant) so often, I find his emphasis on "catholics" (not "christians") saving the world odd.
kkallebb 1 year ago
@kkallebb I'd be delighted to see Christians bringing their Christianity to all of these areas. But come on man, I'm a priest! I naturally think that Catholics have the fullness of Christianity.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
FYI, Father, @ 2:30 the city is not the temple in the New Jerusalem...
Rev 21:22 "And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."
tracepublishing 1 year ago
@tracepublishing The city has become what the temple was.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
I agree with your point re: the New J. being like an earthly temple where God is "rightly praised", but when you said there is no temple there I thought of Rev 21. Do theologians write about the difference between an earthly temple of stone and the temple of Christ's body referred to by John explicitly in his gospel and in Rev 21:22? And how does this relate to Paul calling church members the temple of the living God? And how is the church the bride of Christ and also his mystical body? GodBls
tracepublishing 1 year ago
He promised two minutes, but he took nearly three! Don't trust these guys with your soul.
rgainsburg 1 year ago
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
-- H L Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy, "Sententiæ: Arcana Coelestia" (1949).
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Ah yes, it's such a good idea to turn to muckraking journalists in order to understand the nature of theology. That's a bit like asking Yogi Berra to comment on ballet dancing.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo How about a "muckraking" American politician, lecturer known for his adamant support of scientific and humanistic rationalism?
Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy" (1884)
If you don't want your beliefs to be ridiculed then you shouldn't have such ridiculous beliefs!
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Friend, please do me a favor and read an elementary book of Catholic Biblical interpretation. Fundamentalists believe in the Adam and Eve story literally; Catholics do not. We are sensitive to the wide variety of genres on display in the Bible, including myth, legend, poetry, drama, saga--and yes, history. You are knocking down a pathetic straw man here.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago 3
@wordonfirevideo So where does this belief end and reality begin? Adam and eve? Okay, that’s way too ignorant? Noah’s Arc? Naah, same again. Jesus being born of a virgin? Hmm? Turning water into wine, raising Lazarus from the dead, etc? I think so? How about, (this is completely insane), a man executed 2,000 years ago subsequently relinquished humanity of all it’s “bad” deeds, and, if you believe in him, you can go to this magical place after you die? Myth, legend, poetry, drama,… or BS?
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Not only are you clueless about Christian tradition, but you are spiritually dead, and a slave to your 5 senses. The world is much more mystical than you think.
FrostTdot 1 year ago
@FrostTdot Okay, I'm "spiritually dead", even though I love my wife and three children, my community, and have great hopes for humanity as a whole. Where do I need the "spirituality" part? What more would that give me?
Do you have any evidence, any evidence at all, in any way, to say that "The world is much more mystical than [I] think". Any at all? Give it a go any you'll get a nomination for a Nobel Prize.
Your "mysticism" hurts people. Homosexuals, stem cell recipients, and science in general
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Any one can love their wife and children, it's natural. It doesn't make you morally superior. You justify your actions with reasoning (do you have any evidence?). Since when is evidence an objective thing? When you connect to the Srouce/God, it's a heavenly subjective experience that no amount of "evdience" can prove it. You have to let go and im afraid it's quite a hurdle if you worship your senses in the same way you do.
FrostTdot 1 year ago
@FrostTdot It's theists that imply they have some 'moral superiority' over non-theists. That was a straw man argument. An objective truth as there could ever be is that Jesus could not have been born of a virgin, or Mohamed dictated the Koran by the Angel Gabriel. Believing one of these (I'm sure you don't believe both) shouldn't get you reverence, it should get you ridiculed for your disappointingly low sense of reason.
That irresponsibility hurts people, like a woman's choice for example.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Again, you look over your "reason Bible" to tell you what is plausible or not. Your reason is your God because you think it's the highest faculty. This is where you are wrong, friend. Your fallen intelligence attempts to create arguments to demonstrate the existence of God, and this naturally is impossible to achieve. For the only argument for the existence of God is the pour soul experience that is felt in the heart, not the intellect.
FrostTdot 1 year ago
@FrostTdot Yes, I use my "reason Bible", which is an innate thought process that naturally evolved over millions of years to give me direction. Not a book written thousands of years ago by ignorant men. How is that "fallen intelegence"? So for you, god exists because you "experience" you have a soul? Well, I "experience" the earth being flat and the sun travels around it, but that's not true is it? Try to open your mind to the evidence of social psychology and the cognative science of religion.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist where does intuition fall into your "reason Bible"? That's right it doesn't. You left out the most important chapter. Your experience does not compare to mine because I am not using my intellect to perceive the Divine, it just doesn't work that way.
FrostTdot 1 year ago
@FrostTdot Intuition is explained perfectly by human cognitive evolution. That you anthropomorphize everything (objects to processes), you see agency everywhere, you search for purpose where there is none, (other than your own), you’re susceptible to ‘Minimally Counterintuitive’ stories, you have a ‘Theory of Mind’ that projects thoughts onto others, and therefore ghosts, fairies, angels, and god. As we’ve already determined, you’re obviously not using your "intelligence" to perceive the divine.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Your problem is pride. Yes, pride. One becomes attached to the fruits of one's own intelligence as a mother to her child. The intellectual loves his creation as himself, identifies with it, shuts himself up with it. When this happens, no human intervention can help him. If he will not renounce what he believes to be riches (reason), he will NEVER attain the heights of pure prayer and true Godliness.
FrostTdot 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist So in your failed attempts to advance alone on the path of reason/knowledge of God, your fallen intelligence betrays you because it either does not meet God at all or create a false image of God. Again, it's like showing a pizza delivery boy how to play with tiger woods. You can do all your 'soul searching' through your God-given intelligence and philosophy but it is only possible through experience; not without but within through inner transformation and purfication.
FrostTdot 1 year ago
@FrostTdot I've studied the cognitive science of religion for a long time now and it's not a "failed attempt" to understand god. Using science, I understand god better than you.
He's a memetic social parasite that has hijacked natural human thought mechanisms like the need for purpose, the appearance of design in nature, and the fear of death, to do what every replicator (just like DNA) wants to do - survive! It can't infect the rationally minded (me) so its immune system (you) attacks them.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist The plain truth is LOVE works. Sadly, I can't find LOVE in science, but I do understand LOVE in Christianity. The truth is, while human knowledge is acquired through activity of the intelligence and through human research, divine knowledge is acquired through faith. Not the dogmatic faith you love to hate but the light which by grace dawns in the soul and fortifies the heart by the testimony of the mind, making it undoubting through the assurance of hope.
FrostTdot 1 year ago
@FrostTdot Love in science - read ‘THE SEX CONTRACT’: The Evolution of Human Behavior by Helen Fisher. Because the human baby brain was so big, it had to be born altricial. Because the young are such a burden to the mother, the father had to help. The glue that made this happen is love.
So where’s you’re “love” in Christianity? For a homosexual? A woman wanting an abortion? A quadriplegic needing stem cell research? The agonizingly diseased that want to die with dignity? Or even a Muslim? Where?
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist These are the mysteries concealed within us, o hopeless one, and NOT acquired through INTELLIGENCE (read the fine print!). the secret and divine riches that are hidden away from the eyes of the flesh, but are unveiled by the spirit (or is that non-existent too?) to those who abide at God's table through the study of the Cosmic Law. It's not as literal as you think (ex: God is an angry controlling old man). I think YOU are the one who fails to understand the metaphors. Read up
FrostTdot 1 year ago
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manalive24 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist If the idea of God can be dismissed as a memetic parasite trying to survive, then any idea can be dismissed the same way--including atheism. The idea of rational thought would itself be a meme. The idea that there are such things as memes would be a meme. Rational thought breaks down entirely under such as system as we could have no way of knowing whether any thought we have has any relationship to reality at all.
manalive24 1 year ago
@manalive24 No, you're conveniently ignoring the fundamental difference. EVIDENCE! Using reason, rationality, critical thinking and common sense based on empirical evidence that is testable, repeatable, and subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of peer review.
It's interesting that theists attempt to portrray reason, atheism, and even science as a religion. Subconsciously they know the very word "religion" is delusional, divisive, disingenuous and dangerous. It's a fascinating 'panic' defense.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Friend, like so many others, you are reducing reason to the scientific form of reason. The method you lay out is altogether valid for analyzing things and phenomena within the world of empirical experience. But it's not useful when analyzing properly philosophical issues such as the nature of good and evil, the quality of justice and beauty, the reason why there is a universe at all, etc. Religious thinking is closer to philosophy than science.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo There are perfectly adequate natural answers to "good and evil", (what is that anyway - it's like saying "short and tall"?) It's called evolution.
Our ancestors had to develop a code of conduct to survive. Those that didn't... didn't! Questions like, "why do we love our kids" are obvious if you can understand that the kids of parents that didn't love them are dead and therefore don't have kids themselves. It's very simple and far more awesome than "magic man did it".
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Then Hitler and Stalin were just as morally upright as you. If it's all "evolution" and "subjectivity," how can you possibly make a coherent moral judgement?
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Millions of years of evolution has honed us to work together for the good of the hunter-gatherer group. Today, those innate instincts must be applied to humanity as a whole. That’s why the concept of a good person (helpful, altruistic, kind, etc) and a bad person, (selfish, cruel, etc) are universal. Fascism and communism, much like religions, create in group/out group mentalities that are only ‘good’ for THEM, such as murdering 6 million Jews.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist If you consistently follow this relativistic account, you have absolutely no ground for saying that what Hitler did is wrong. That's why your position is extremely dangerous.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Millions of years of group evolution has told us to do what's best for the group in order to survive. So what's "good" is innate. Similarly, the thought of incest is repulsive because any group that did it didn't survive for biological reasons. I don't need god to tell me what's "good" just as I don't need got to tell me not to have sex with my sister.
What Hitler did was wrong because it wasn't "good" for the well being of the group which in this case is humanity as a whole.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist There are definite problems with your account of the origins of good and evil. First, it fails to address the issue of why behaviour ought to be concerned with the good of humanity as a whole rather than a particular "in group." So long as the behaviour contributes the the survival of that "in group," there would seem to be no basis why any other concern should matter on the basis of your theory. (cont.)
manalive24 1 year ago
@manalive24 Further, your application of the principle seems to be highly selective. It is certainly true that incest does not contribute to a group's survival, but then neither do abortion or homosexuality. Reproduction would be the first fundamental requirement of group survival, and both behaviours are contrary to reproduction. So they would both be evil by that standard. But you have defended both. I suspect therefore that group survival isn't the ultimate ground of morality in your thought.
manalive24 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Actually, your theory of group evolution was precisely what the Nazis used to justify their killings, i.e. the promotion of the supreme human, Aryan race; see Nietzsche's work also; hence to the Nazi, there was nothing "wrong" about it. Using the same evolutionary standard, slavery is great and terrible--great for the slave owner, terrible for the slave; who's right, who's good? It comes down to power, survival of the fittest. Hence reform of any kind is unjustifiable.
richgr1123 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo This naturally evolved ‘code of conduct’ can be pretty coherent, such as murder, incest, etc., but sometimes extremely subjective like the trolley problem. The way to answer these questions is by rational consensus, not by 'magical man'. Injecting an indefinable supernatural being into ethics is not only stupid, but irresponsible. (Should we persecution of gays? Is masturbation bad? Shall I kill anyone that works on the sabbath? etc.)
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Man, who taught you religion? You must have been raised in some hyper-fundamentalist environment.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo I was preached Christianity in school in England as there's no separation of church and state there. I also had Religious Education classes that taught me about Judaism and Islam which kind of took the rug from under Jesus' feet. As a result, I've never been religious. To this day I've never had a answer to the question that religious belief is primarily dependent on one's parents beliefs which in turn are largely dependent on geographical location. God seems very arbitrary?
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Indeed, religious belief is generally dependent on environmental factors for many. But to excuse the truth or falsity of religious belief based simply on its origin is a textbook example of the genetic fallacy. How we came to the truth does not impact whether or not it is true; it simply affects our credibility. So to some, God would seem arbitrary, while to others, not so; but that has nothing to do in either case whether or not God actually exists.
richgr1123 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist, reading your comments truly makes me marvel. I marvel that one so seemingly intelligent as you, with a vocabularly as large as yours, is so completely lost to reality. Just remember: Opinions are like ass-holes. Everybody has them.
PraiseandadoreHim 1 year ago
@PraiseandadoreHim Can you give me something specific you disagree with? For example, I assume you believe that a man that was executed 2000 years ago took away the responsibility for all the bad things you've done? I you're telling me that I'm lost to reality? Wow!
Just because this garbage has been pummeled into your brain since you were a child doesn't make it true.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo As for "Why is there something rather than nothing?" The only true answer is, "I don't know". No body does. Saying YOU know because, "magic man did it" is not an answer. In fact, if it wasn't for tradition and authority, it would be rightly ridiculed. I trust the scientists at the Large Hadron Colider to advance our understanding infinitely more than any religious leader. They don't have an alternate agenda to spread their virus. Their motives are simply 'to understand'.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Can you please spare me the condescension? Contingent reality has to be exlained. We can't go on indefinitely appealing to other contingent causes. We have to come, therefore, to some non-contingent ground of contingency. Please stop referring to "magic men" and actually engage that argument.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Yes, contingent reality has to be explained. Science is the best way to do that. Religion points to inevitable gaps and uses them to promote superstition. This gets humanity no where, and retards its progress. (Galileo & Darwin.) Your excessive use of the word "contingent" implies you're invoking the First Cause Argument? That's grasping in the dark. Answer 'what caused god', uncaused quantum particle fluctuations, and the inability to concieve of time as non linear. (Einstein.)
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist No. No. No. I'm not pursuing this line of questioning scientifically but rather metaphysically. I'm interested in what causes things to be. If something doesn't contain within itself the reason for its own existence, it has to be explained. We can't go on indefinitely appealing to similarly contingent things, and therefore we have to come to some reality which exists through itself. This has nothing to do with "gaps" in the chain of contingent causes!
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Using words like "metaphysically", it seems your actually trying to be unclear? Also, implying that something needs to have a reason for it's existence may be an interesting philosophical pastime but you're just being evasive. Whether a man can be born of a virgin, the universe could be created in six days, or the Bible is the inerrant word of god isn't metaphysical or philosophical. It's just stories made up a long time ago by ignorant men that are divisive and delusional.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist You're dealing with so many different topics and sweeping them all away together--metaphysics, miracles, creation/cosmology, Biblical inerrancy. If God exists, miracles are possible. Catholics are open to science and the origin of the universe. Biblical inerrancy does not mean literalism or fundamentalism. Deal with the existence and nature of God before you get to things that follow in consequence of His existence or non-existence. For such arguments, see Fr. Barron's videos.
richgr1123 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Come on friend, you're utterly ignoring the argument I've made and you're resorting to tired cliches. You exist, but you don't have to exist. I know this because you eat, breathe, and had parents. So why do you exist? You can't appeal indefinitely to other contingent things; otherwise, you've explained nothing. You must come, at last, to something which exists through itself, something which, in principle, cannot be caused. This is what I mean by "God."
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist And furthermore, to wonder "what caused God?" is simply to prove that you haven't grasped the nettle of the argument. God is the uncaused ground of contingency, that which exists through the power of its own essence, and hence that unique reality about which the question "what caused it?" is inappropriate.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo You saying that "god is the uncaused ground of contingency" are just words with no evidence or foundation in reality. I't just as easy for me to say the the moon is made of green cheese. Have you ever even considered that "what caused god" is naturally evolved cognitive mechanisms such as anthropomorphism, our propensity to see agency and design, our socially developed Theory of Mind, and our preference for remembering Minimally Counterintuative stories? No 'woo', required.
godlessevangelist 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Those are all possible explanations, but so is "the moon is made of green cheese" if we've never been on it. In your attempt to undermine Fr. Barron's arguments, you actually provided a tool that your arguments are also susceptible to. The argument from contingency is totally based in reality, a reality that is, everywhere, contingent. Unnecessary requires an idea of necessary. Shadow requires light. Change is intelligible only in the context of the unchangeable.
richgr1123 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist: Since you mentioned the LHC, I thought I would point out that the Big Bang theory was first put forth by Georges Lemaître, who was a Catholic priest. Catholics are not Bible literalists, so you seem to be are operating from a misconception that Catholics (or Christians in general) don't accept what the LHC or other research discover about creation.
jimmo42 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist I believe you missed the point of my argument. You're still thinking inside the box. Under the meme hypothesis, eveything you listed (reason, rationality, critical thinking, common sense and the value of empirical evidence) would all simply exist as self-replicating memes. You could not use them to evaluate memes because they would themselves BE memes, passing from mind to mind attempting to survive like any other. How can you evaluate memes by means of other memes? (cont.)
manalive24 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist All you could end up saying is "Your memes are different from my memes. I like my memes better," which is obvious. But there could be no standard by which you could evaluate a meme because every standard would itself BE a meme. I am not attacking reason and science. I am defending them. Science cannot be conducted properly with faulty tools, and it certainly cannot be conducted properly if our ideas, including our scientific ideas, can be reduced to "memes."
manalive24 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist Beyond that, it seems to me that dismissing any idea on the ground that it is a "self-replicating meme" seems to be a variation of the Ad hominem attack, which any first-year logic student will tell you is a fallacy.
manalive24 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Father, I don't mean to undermine what you're saying; I know you're doing God's work. If I could, though (with respect), I'd like to point out that the way you phrased this could lead someone to think you doubt the catholicity of those who believe that history *is* the genre of the biblical account of Adam and Eve. I know you don't mean to imply this, but I think it could be misunderstood.
dsydebot 1 year ago
@dsydebot But friend, John Paul II clearly taught that the first chapters of Genesis oughtn't to be read in a straightforwardly literal way. They best fit in the genre of theological saga.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfire I think he was right about the beginning of Genesis, up to the first "toldot". I tentatively disagree with him about the 2nd account. As far as I know, JPII never bound Catholics to his own opinion on this point. If he did, then I retract my opinion.
Otherwise, my concern is that your statement could be misinterpreted in this way:
1. Catholics do not take the Adam and Eve story literally.
2. Bob takes the Adam and Ever story literally.
Conclusion: Bob is not a Catholic.
dsydebot 1 year ago
@dsydebot But that syllogism doesn't hold at all. I would say that Bob, in that case, is a naive interpreter of the Bible. I would never say that he's not Catholic.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Oh, I was sure of that. I was just concerned that someone who doesn't know enough about you from listening to your sermons and watching your videos might take away from your statement a mistaken conclusion.
Geez, it feels strange to disagree with one of our Lord's priests, especially publicly. I don't want to say anything to undermine you. If you think that my comments have done that, please let me know, and I will remove them (or feel free to remove them yourself).
dsydebot 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Father, although the "straightforwardly literal" reading of the first chapters of Genesis is not the best approach, I think that those chapters are *closer* to history than the term "theological saga" seems to suggest. After all, Pius XII in Humani Generis while acknowledging that those chapters do not conform to the historical method still asserts "a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own."
manalive24 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Also, I am intrigued that the "mitochondrial Eve" theory seems to support, without demonstrating, monogenesis, much as the Big Bang theory may support, without demonstrating, "creation ex nihilo."
manalive24 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo John Paul II failed young people when he acted like he did not understand human nature, when he ignored the scandal of sexual abuse. It is not right to call him a Saint and we do not know if he is in Heaven. I am not saying he did not do much good for the catholic church and for christianity as a whole. But, he failed in other ways, ways that deeply offend god and those sins of the flesh please and fulfill people, this is why most go to HELL. have a nice day
PerfectCharity 1 year ago
@PerfectCharity I'm not following you. Did I say that John Paul is a saint and that I know he's in heaven?
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Sorry if I sounded like I was putting words in your mouth. EWTN describes him like he is "John Paul The Great" - like he is in heaven and like he is a Saint. Maybe God is an incest, flesh freak that looks past reality and ignores the suffering and muder of his only son ... but on the other hand, I highly doubt God is what the vast majority of Christians make him out to be in their own personal life. have a nice day
PerfectCharity 1 year ago
@PerfectCharity Well, I'm not EWTN.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo thanks. have a nice day
PerfectCharity 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist
godlessevangelist on corrupting the pure message of God with mindless distractions especially those who are beginning to grow in faith. Shame on you godlessevangelist. Real shame!
"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." Matthew 18:6 (NIV)
FrostTdot 1 year ago
@godlessevangelist you are like a cancer. Not only are you fighting against a zealous member of the Most High, you are distracting us true believers, especially those who are attempting to grow in faith. You do realize Satan is playing you right?
FrostTdot 1 year ago
Catholics are not trained to tell the story of the faith, nor are they expected to. I challenge you to ask Catholics that you know, "Why is it a good thing to be a practicing Catholic Christian?" See how many can give an intelligible answer.
thoughtadventure 1 year ago
Thank you Father
i agree that the church has had some of the most intelligent people to have ever lived and they have given written witness to God in their lives. how lucky we are indeed to have access to these today!
I think the encyclicals are also great texts of the church appropriate to highschoolers to help appreciate God's calling in our lives.
angersjay 1 year ago
Father Barron, I got one name for you, Luigi Giussani. An Italian priest who started the Catholic movement Comunion and Liberation in response to the lack of Catholic education he found in the youth. You would be particualarly interested in his book "The Risk of Education"
Greenmist14 1 year ago
Absolutely!! As a secular-graduate in philosophy, delving into the Church's intellectual tradition is exactly how I converted from atheism to Buddhist agnosticism to Deism to Catholic Theism. It's been long journey sifting the truth from the lies, and I am finally home. Thank you, Father, for standing up for the greath wealth of knowledge in the Church.
mypolicy9 1 year ago
You forgot one book - St. John of the Cross' Dark NIght
petrusbarjona 1 year ago
Thanks for this Fr. Barron! I loved it!
kategatsby 1 year ago
I my country there are few Catholic books
and most of them are Catholic "comic" like textbooks for school
I believe there are only 20 different Catholic books on my island.
only one version of the bible is sold that is The Good News version.
Yet the bishop magically wants us to "evangelize" people on our island.
How can we do that when the church does not provide us with the material.
The only Catholic education we get is in Catholic schools.
Which is no help in defending the faith
1gamester 1 year ago
I would add that even if one does not believe in Christ (or even in God), Aquinas is still a great read. He's universally recognized as one of the greatest philosophers of the middle ages and scholastic philosophy.
Many also read and study Kant or Spinoza or Nietzsche even though they still may strongly disagree with their conclusions.
I think many tend to forget (or just do not know) that Aquinas' works are of philosophical nature and just see him as a theologian.
Entropy3ko 1 year ago
The point he is making here is not to teach people comprehensible apologetics but to show that Catholicism has a rich tradition of artistic and scholarly achievement. The former is certainly important, but so is the latter. I was not converted by Peter Kreeft or Scott Hahn (even though I enjoyed Kreeft's writings quite a bit) but by Dante Alighieri, Thomas Aquinas, JRR Tolkien, and GK Chesterton. Not because they are the best evangelical tool.
Oreosforlunch 1 year ago
But because I was convinced by the Church's rich legacy that our modern self-help Evangelical books could not live up to in so far as science, artistry, and history.
Oreosforlunch 1 year ago
Awesome video!
TheSurvivor03 1 year ago
Oh boy Father Barron you went from one extreme to the other. You went from comic books to thick novels and no John Hardon or Peter Kreeft. Oh the inhumanity! I have a recommendation for you. Buy your niece audio books. This way she can get away from her desk (aka "the rack") turn on her mp3 player and go for a walk under the stars. This is infinetly more enjoyable then reading classics at gun point in a desk.
coldforgedcowboy 1 year ago
@coldforgedcowboy Well how come you think it's okay for her to read "Hamlet" and Virgil's "Aeneid" but not Thomas Aquinas? Don't you think that her middle school years were the time for "in between" literature?
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo...... Thomas Aquanis is great but his writtings is something that is best picked at with joy and not read cover to cover all at once. That is why I recommend Peter Kreeft to everyone I know. Peter Kreeft cherry picks all the good stuff from the classics and teaches in a way that is clear, understandable and memorable so you can learn it and share the good news of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior with the world around you. Which is ultimately the whole point of the Endevor.
coldforgedcowboy 1 year ago
Thank you so much for this, Father!
All through my childhood I had a strong faith in God, but my faith in the Catholic Church started to wane as I entered my teens because I felt like everything they presented me was God for Dummies. Then, about halfway through high school, a few teachers finally exposed me to just how rich our Church's tradition really is! It wasn't long before I fell in love with my Catholic faith!
NMikeM 1 year ago
My Lord, how true. Thank you Lord for Priests such as this...
Yankeegator 1 year ago
She's reading Hamlet ... but her religion textbook is a comic book. Exactly my thoughts as I taught 7th grade religion recently.
jsignal 1 year ago
Thanks for inspiring us. I will surely delve more into our Sacred Tradition.
FalcaoWesley 1 year ago
Amen! Amen! Amen! I will start at home with my nine-year-old.
marnieBCN 1 year ago
this made me laugh. I went to a Catholic school, and I remember our goofy religion book with fill-in-the-blanks like "God loves ___" (hint: the answer is everyone).
I wish I had been challenged more in my faith when I was younger. I wish I had been told to take my Confirmation seriously.
I can't go back now, but I can move forward in my faith, and I'm using this reading list!
thecommentmonster 1 year ago
Could someone list the books he mentioned at the end? He spoke too fast for me to understand the first and last book he mentioned.
regression 1 year ago
@regression "Summa Contra Gentiles: Book One: God" - Thomas Aquinas; "Confessions of St. Augustine;" "The Divine Comedy" - Dante Alighieri; "Orthodoxy" - G.K. Chesterton; "The Mind's Road to God" - St. Bonaventure.
ElvisRockatansky