Why is quitting the Catholic church spoken of as some type of drastic, hard step?
I say this as a serious question, not as a snark or anything. Because I did it without a second thought and was hardly pained over it. I was raised Catholic, never practiced of my own will, quit identifying as Catholic in high school without even much of a conscious decision. It meant nothing to me. I don't even consider myself a "cultural Catholic" because it wasn't even a big influence on my upbringing. In fact if anything I'd identify as a cultural Lutheran because that's what my dad's side of the family is, it's a bigger part of the culture of my region, and it's the church my family started going to more often anyway once I was in high school in my formative years. As far as I'm concerned my Catholic upbringing is just a bunch of meaningless junk from my childhood. I also am still a Christian and even got baptized again this year because I decided I was going to do this for myself and not because it's what my parents wanted. I just don't understand hearing about how something is such a harsh, painstaking step when the choice for me was far easier than choosing what electives to register for in college.
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Well, that persuades me.
Keep digging, scottie. It's immensely amusing.
But "higher" theology, following Plato and Platonism, had problems. And in the end, the very highest theologies are really as simple as belief in Santa Claus.
Consider this rather Platonistic theology of our Christian God, this argument for the existence of the universe, and/or of God: the assertion is that 1) the universe must have had a cause; 2) so what caused it? 3) There cannot be an infinite series of causes; there must be some original, ultimate cause, back there somewhere. If the universe had an ultimate cause or a maker (a problematic assertion in itself), then that cause must not itself have something that make it, in turn. The origin of the universe must have had an "uncaused cause." Something that was itself not caused.
And 4) so it is triumphantly asserted, that the universe must have an ultimate cause. And for various reasons, the most likely candidate would be God; God must be the "uncaused cause," (or "unmoved mover."
Thus 5) God exists.
But this elevated theological argument for the existence of God, is simply silly, said Bertrand Russell and others. It ends up begging dozens of relevant questions. Especially: WHERE DID GOD HIMSELF COME FROM (as Bertrand Russell objected). To say that he is "uncaused," is just to make a raw assertion; that he "just is." He just appeared out of nothing. And that appearing needs no explanation, it is asserted. But that is not logic, or a proof, at all; that is only raw, arbitrary, assertion. Or belief in magic; in conjuring. Things appearing out of thin air.
So in the end, this major argument for the origin of the universe and for God, this high theological argument ... is just as simple as the belief in any other magical trick. Or belief in invisible things that appear out of nothing. Or belief in a magical flying man in a red Santa suit.
And in fact, we can go through most of the most elevated theologies, the highest expressions of Christian spirit ... and find that at bottom, none of them ever really rise above the level of belief in Santa. And belief in magic.
Continuing the Aristotelian quest for God as first cause, Aquinas began to suggest that the root concept for everything, is "being." The reasoning here was that for anything to be anything, for the universe to exist, it has to BE. So philosophers focused on "Being" as the root, the "cause" of everything.
But like most theologies, Aquinas' high theology was wrong. Confusing being analytically prior, with being causally or actually prior. Many here seemed to imagine a sort of giant amorphous "Being" floating in space, prior to the existence of the physical universe. But critics now say that you can't have being, without something existing. Being is a predicate of existing things; not the other way around. How could anthing have "being," how could there be being, if there were no things existing? If there were no things that "are"?
There cannot be "being," until something IS. Until that, it has no being.
For millennia therefore, thousands of philosophers have looked for a metaphysical origin to the universe; looking for "first causes" and "being." But recently - in the time of Russell, and Wittgenstein, and then Quine - philosophy began to suggest that essentially all metaphysics ("before physics" was just following confusing, random, misleading implications of words. Or there was a very subjective element to metaphysics.
Everyone was allegedly looking for the origin of the universe. But without success. Especially the search for a "first cause" seemed to just propose one false origin after another; to just arbitrarily settle on our own subjective favorite thing, or methodology, as our cause, or our "given." Because of this subjectivity, eventually recent philosophers like Richard Rorty began to speak explicitly of just giving up on Metaphysics. Today Philosophy is largely dominated by this school, now called "Analytic Philosophy." Which regards the search for ultimate origins or Metaphysics, as useless speculation.
The chief criticism of Metaphysics, and metaphysical things like "being," has been that our knowledge on first things is so slim, that we all (including all Philosophers and theologians) just end up just projecting our own favorite biases or hobby horses, our own methodological roots, as "first cause" or origin of the universe. We want "Reason," or "God," or "Being," our alleged methodological "given," as the origin. But finally Rorty said, c. 1970, the notion that we can be allowed such an arbitrary "given" is just to give in to prejudices and subjective desire; Rorty criticizing the "myth of the given."
In the end, we all tend to just "give" ourselves some favorite thing, as the origin of the universe. So that Metaphysics, the search for origins, end up being always just a childish giving in, to our subjective bias and desires. Our choice of "first cause" always tend to be just a sly gift to our biases; an undeserved holiday from responsible thinking.
Or in other words? We give ourselves an indulgent ... Christmas present. Giving ourselves the fatal luxury of ceasing to think critically. And just allowing our major and heartfelt wishes and prejudices, to stand as the origin of everything. Imagining the universe as a sort of generous, indulgent ...
... Santa Claus, of course. Giving us "givens," as undeserved presents.
In the opinion of many philosophers today, the Analytic school, it is not the ceasing of metaphysical investigations (and the encouragement of natural investigation) that is self-indulgent; it was Metaphysics itself that was the problem. It was the interminable positing our own favorite biases and likes (our "Father," our "Mother," etc.), as first cause, as God, that was fatally self-indulgent.
He gave us the earth as a Christmas gift. We unwrapped it. Played with it for awhile and then broke it.
As was our town and our state, for the most part. Massachusetts in the 60's and 70's.
There were differences among us. Catholicism is as disjointed and tribal as any centuries old religious structure. I'd go to the Irish church. My neighbor would go to the Lebanese church. My buddy up the street would go to the Italian church.
Yet the background for us all was coherent. It was as much a part of our culture as anything else, religious or otherwise. In that sense we were cultural Catholics.
But to get to your question, I don't see quitting the Catholic church as the point for me. I don't even see it as quitting. It was never a game that I would choose to quit or not.
I appreciate what it taught me and relish that community for what it's worth, though I move on.
