Zero
None of it, however, deals with the
reality that there are millions of Catholics worldwide, and failing to account for what they believe and how that relates to interpersonal function will do nothing to help you resolve these obviously deep-seeded anti-religious ideas.
In high school I skipped school for the first time to attend to a friend of mine who was suffering suicidal tendencies. The attendance counselor didn't know what to say, and thus referred me to the disciplinary dean, who was equally befuddled and referred me to a priest (Father J):
J: Well, as you know, the school is concerned about your behavior.
T: I like to think I have my reasons.
J: I'm sure you do. It's well-known that this is a unique circumstance, and I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do.
T: Honestly, I woldn't worry about it. You know my habits, anyway. It's not like I missed anything I would have paid attention to in the first place.
J: Which is another concern to me. Is everything okay?
T: Well, aside from the obvious, yes.
J: And your friends are doing alright? Who are your friends, anyway? Joe? Jeff? Sarah?
T: Among others.
J: You worry about them, too, don't you?
T: Of course. They're my friends.
J: And how's Jeff doing? I've been worried about him. He stopped coming to see me, and Mr. _____ tells me he's listening to Satanic heavy metal.
T: Um ... er ... (Note aside--I could not figure out how to tell Father J that I was the one who introduced the young man in quesiton to "Satanic heavy metal"; it wasn't all Satanic. Just Agony Column, Slayer, King Diamond, and a few others.)
J: And Sarah, I know she's been having a hard time?
T: I think we all do. It's our job.
J: (laughing) Sometimes I think you're right .....
(The conversation continues in that manner for another ten minutes until Father J, resigned to reality, settles on merely asking if I would like him to pray for anyone. I tell him his daily course will suffice, and I wander back to class having evaded twenty hours of detention for skipping four classes.)
Honestly? For all the bizarreness of Catholicism, they've always been fairly easy for me to deal with. One of the reasons for this is their modern sense of tolerance. Sure it's notstalgic to see some fundamentalist calling for the revocation of one's human or civil rights over matters theological, but Catholics have long-since learned that in order to properly stand before God and address questions of will and evangelism, they must simply accept the fact that people are people, and you do their best from there. Now, if they could just get the altar-boy fetish under wraps ....
As to issues of the First Commandment:
In a topic on that very point, I've been pushing the idea that the First is a measure against
henotheism, a phenomenon which is asserted in the early history of what would become the Judaism we know and love. Henotheism is variously defined as "worship of one god without reference to the rest" and "making whatever the going deity was at the time supreme". (Paraphrased from a dictionary, and from Basham's summary of Max Mueller.)
For the Jews, then, it may have been a recognition of the fact that some Jews will live under oppression, and be obliged to honor local customs. Just keep Yahweh-God foremost in faith, as such.
In Christianity, it's a different story. The most likely time for the birth of Christ according to celestial phenomena would have been in June or July, and not in December. The first "Christmas" on December 25 coincided with various pagan solstice celebrations most commonly recognized today as the pagan Yule (December 22). According to the astronomical principle of precession, the solstice occurred three days later than at present, in other words, December 25. Easter, as well, is asserted to be a pagan adaptation, and in the early days of the church the Devil ceased representing the Jewish heirarchy when Christianity turned its focus to pagan conversions instead of Jewish conversions. The Catholic Church has gone out to the world aware that God could possibly have "left some people out" by the localization of time and space necessary for Christ's mission, though this can simply be addressed in the notion that God has appeared in so many societies to so many people, so to speak, that it is all one and the same. At this point, it seems to become a matter of name-recognition and market-share. But nonetheless, it does seem to justify in its own right the adoption of coinciding festivals to constitute Christian holidays.
The divinity of the saints and of the Virgin Mother is not placed "before God" as the rhetoric goes. I suppose this accounts for the divine pantheon of the rosary.
It's all a matter of what God's reality shows you, and the insistence that God Itself remain foremost above all else.
:m:,
Tiassa