Albert Cipriani

Dear Sir,
The book that converted me to Catholicism was Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott. Of course, since the Second Vatican Council, it has gone the way of virtually all authentic Catholic books, that is, out of print. Tan Book Publishers were the last to publish it and they are presently in bankruptcy proceedings.

I recommend that book only if you have already come to terms with the Bible being the Word of God. Page for page there is no more condense no-nonsense expose of Catholicism.

The real challenge is to arrive at the conclusion that a personal communicative God exists. Plato was a help to me in that regard, bumping my imagination off of square one.

But no book can do the job as well as you yourself listening to yourself and noting the design of all that surrounds you. The fingerprint of God is the workings of the world. Ergo, I recommend more than any book that you continue to think and think... and hang around here! -- Cheers, Albert

emotional

No, no, Albert, you've got it wrong: you're not in the superset of Christianity, you're in the subset of Islam. All Jews, Christians, Catholics and other monotheists have the truth about the oneness of Allah, they just need the message revealed through his messenger Muhammad in order to be completed. Care to disprove?

Now Albert, if you derive pleasure and excitement from telling God how great he is and cancelling your desires for his alleged words, then so be it, congrats. But know this: your beliefs have nothing to do with the real world. Only materialism can make real-world claims. God, Allah, Zeus, Ra etc are fine as ideas, but they have nothing to do with the real world. The real world is one of blind physical forces, replicators, dialectic of chance and necessity, and no Lord over the universe. Sad? Yes. But true.

GunnerJ

Albert, I find your statement that Xianity is a subset of Catholicism very interesting. Are there non-Xian Catholics? Who are they?

Also, you seem VERY disillusioned with current Catholicsm, even going so far as to declare them apostate. But certainly one of the dogmas of the Church is the Pope's authority; if he says something is Catholicism, then surely it must be, right?

In addition, I wonder why you still label yourself a Catholic if you are so disapproving of its current form. Why not start your own religion? Surely, you're not afraid of being declared a heretic by those you applied the same label to?

Albert Cipriani

Dear Koy,
You make me laugh. You make me laugh as my cat makes me laugh. It is soooo serious. I marvel at the precision with which she places each soundless paw slithering toward the litter box. What I mean to say, is, you poop with a lot of flair.

I only attempted to address the most salient points of your first post. You address every point and blotch and blob of mine. If this was a debating society, you would win on points hands down. Alas, this is just a place where blind folks are trying to come to grips with each other's version of The Elephant.

You say:


No, on all three counts. I don't pretend to know the purposes of the 24,000 Protestant denominations. If through one of them you were enabled to see yourself (not FORCED to see yourself as you are) which is a failure, then I say amen to that. We are born and buried as failures. Most never know it. Anything, cult or otherwise, that helps us see this fundamental truth of the human condition known in Catholic circles as Orignianl Sin is doing God's work.

You say:


The purpose of building on your rubble is separate you from your rubble, to get as high away into the sky from it as possible. Once you see who you are as rubble, you stop trying to build with it and start building upon it. Therein lies all the difference. Because, for your new building materials, you will have to rely on another source than yourself.

You say:


The fundamentally failed condition of all humans is not a feeling. Feeling like a failure often leads to self-delusion, overcompensation, egotism and the Hitlers of this world. But KNOWLEDGE of your failure, knowing that nothing you do, or did, or can do, (to borrow from Bogart in "Casablanca") "amounts to a hill of beans," that is pricelessly sobering. From that existential void into which your self crumbles into rubble, you can start filling your life with what amounts to a mountain of what is lasting.

You said:


This is really delightfully funny. Sticking with your imagery, I'd say that God is what exists so He can't fill us with existence. Whatever we're doing here, it's not existing. It's generally filling ourselves up with ourselves, like a snake swallowing its tail. A futile waste. The job of a cult is to drill holes in our tabla rassa to drain the pressure on ourselves and start being filled with something more viscous and lasting.

That's the best I can do and apologize in advance for disappointing you. Perhaps someday we should limit ourselves to logically arguing a single idea. Whoever uses a metaphor first loses. So I'll be at a terrible disadvantage. Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear Devnet,
You assert:


1) God, by definition, cannot lie.
2) Contradicting the truth is, by definition, a lie.
3) Allah contradicts Yahweh and Jesus.
4) Ergo Allah's religion is a cancerous outgrowth on the butt of Judaism and Catholicism, not their superset.

You may have achieved a new world record in your fallacies per word ratio. I count three, a fallacy of composition, reification, and equivocation when you assert:


Sorting out your sordid tangle we get the following logic:
1) The real world is real.
2) Ergo, real-world claims or materialistic beliefs are real, too.
3) Albert's beliefs don't qualify as real-world claims or materialistic beliefs.
4) Ergo Albert's beliefs are irrelevant.

Mine is just as vapidly logical, but shorter:
1) Devnet is a fool.
2) A fool is named Devnet.
3) Albert is neither.

-- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

ecco

Nope! Hope, and belief, in gods has ben the cause of many "justified by the faith" brutalities.

When you go to church I assume that you drop a dollar into the hat. The dropping of the dollar, along with the kneeling, the eating of wafers, the confessions, the praying, etc. are expressions of your "hope in God's existence" and the hope that someday you will reside in his heaven.

Me, I drop a dollar at the local lottery terminal in the hope that I will win millions of dollars. The odds against me ever winning are about 1 in 50,000,000. Nevertheless, I can hope. I have seen other people win the big money. Have you ever heard from anyone in heaven?

Realistically, my chances of winning are indeed slim, but they are a hell of a lot better than your odds of getting into your nonexistent heaven.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Ecco the Hopeless,
Your hope in the lottery is no hope at all, no matter what the odds.

To illustrate, there was a twilight zone or Out of Limits episode once that showed this guy winning at cards, roulette, whatever he touched. He could not loose. All the women flocked to him. The drinks were on the house. You name it, no matter what he wanted he could have.

It only took him a short time (the amount of time required would be inversely related to one's spiritual intelligence quotient) to realize that he had died and was in hell. Getting all our desires met (which is not at all the same as getting what we hope for) is at best a distraction.

For your sake, I hope you win the lottery soon. So you can start to appreciate how much fulfilled desires leave us empty. Then, unlike Ringo with that hole inside him choosing all the impossible method of fulfillment, you may choose God. Good Luck, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear Rimstalker,
You ask,


Most Catholics today are Catholic in name only. Most Catholics today are merely Christians, followers of some vaguely imagined Christ, doing what they will based upon their will.

The old retort used to accent the obvious, "Is the Pope Catholic!?" is no longer germane. I don't know nor care to speculate (as Sedevacantist do) whether or not the Pope is still Catholic. Only God and eventually the Church can judge him. It's more than enough for me to be forced to doubt.

Anyone who is not even a Christian cannot be called Catholic. Catholicism is not a race you are born or baptized into. It is the superset of revealed truth. Christianity is its subset. So your phrase "non-Xian Catholics" is a non sequitur.

You ask,


The Pope's authority resides in the office of the papacy, not the personhood of the bishop who reigns in that office. Similarly, the U.S. President's authority resides in the constitution (which he swears to uphold) not in his person. Thus, were the President to order a first strike on the U.S., he would no longer be the President but a traitor, and be treated accordingly.

As a President who becomes a turncoat should not be obeyed, so too, should a Pope who falls from office not be followed down. As bad as either Pope or President is, we are obliged to follow them. Not until their badness is expressed in a violation of their oath of office (e.g., violating the constitution, contradicting the Deposit of Faith) are we then conversely obliged to resist them.

You ask,


There is no "current form" of Catholicism. It is the same today as it was yesterday as it will be tomorrow. Thus, I call myself a Traditional Catholic to distinguish myself from the modernist crowd who subscribe to the new and improved "current form" of Catholicism.

You ask,


I sincerely wish I could be afraid of being declared a heretic. No Catholic today has any fear that the modern apostate Catholic Church hierarchy will brand them a heretic. Anything and everything goes, now. That really is the issue. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

CodeMason

I'm fairly certain Albert was pulling our legs when he made that argument, but just in case he wasn't:
1) Allah, by definition, cannot lie.
2) Contradicting the truth is, by definition, a lie.
3) God contradicts Allah and Mohammed.
4) Ergo God's religion is a cancerous outgrowth on the butt of Islam, not its superset.

Albert Cipriani

Dear CodeMason,
The only God that by definition cannot lie is God-God, the nondescript non-specific, non-denominational, theological construct which is merely an idea, not a representation of that idea. Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, are all potential representations of that idea.

Ergo, any representation of God, from the burning bush to the word Yahweh, to the historical Jesus, to Mohammad's Allah, is subject to truth analysis. If God exists, He cannot lie by definition. But anybody, word, or bush claiming to represent God can... and all to often do. Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

[ January 17, 2002: Message edited by: Albert Cipriani ]</p>