rigorist

Wikipedia? On heresy? Especially on a made-up one?

OK. I think I'll go with the Catechism for the Church's opinions on these matters.

Granting this arguendo, this is not the position you have advocated. You have advocated that the State has all rights and may on occasion allow the human person to exercise those rights.

Your statements are in conflict with the Catechism.

seebs

Fascism is subjugation of self to state, rather than to God; it is idolatry.

rigorist

Catechism ¶ 2113:

Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon." Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast" refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.

Apologist

The same arguments have been used by Protestants against Catholics. "You are subjugating yourselfs to the Church rather than God. It is idolotry." No. You are wrong.

You are creating a false dichotomy. It is the subjugating of self to state, that in doing so, you may achieve something higher. It is the destruction of one's ego for the sake of reaching the higher aims as a collective whole.

It is a false dillema that one must be subject to God or the state. The fact of the matter is that, in a Democratic Society, people, because the State has so little power, won't be willing to subject themselves to God either.

Fascism is a means to an end.

Apologist

I am saying that you are creating a straw man argument. What rights? The only right we have is to Christian freedom. Fascism doesn't contradict that.

Fascism is a means to an end. The end is very good, and the means is not morally abhorrant.

David B

But if there really were a god, and the church really represents said god, and the church is the state, is it still idolatry?

David B (disputes the first two premises, and hopes the third never comes about again)

In the West, that is - I suppose there are some states where the church is the state - but these are Islamic states rather than christian ones.

Apologist

That's more or less what I am saying. It is only idolatry when the State intrinsically opposes the Church and God. Fascism doesnt' necessarily do so.

rigorist

That is not what the Catechism says.

Smullyan-esque

Apologist, you've posted at least 3 times since David B put this up. You planning on responding?

seebs

No, I'm not.

Except that the thing higher you achieve is absolutely mutually exclusive with salvation.

You are emphasizing and reasserting, over and over, blatant idolatry; you are ascribing to the state a unique quality of God. The statement "by subjugating self to X, you achieve something higher" is absolutely false unless X is "God".

This is a sort of psychotic episode floating in the vicinity of the slippery slope argument, but without its essential plausibility.

Yes. The end is the power of the state as a surrogate for God, and like any surrogate for God, it cannot provide. The state cannot save your soul, and if you subjugate yourself entirely to the state, you have nothing left to give God.

You are doing in reality exactly that thing which the Protestants often mistakenly believe Catholics do. Catholics, while they obey the church, obey it because this is how they feel they can best obey God. Your proposed "state" is not God, nor God's representative. It is precisely that thing which the Church stands in despite of.

You are well past mere schism to idolatry, and in practice blasphemy. You reject both the theology and the practical reality of the Christian life. You would come closer to God if you rejected Christianity entirely, because at least then your descriptions of your beliefs would be truthful and consistent, and truth and consistency would be one tiny baby step towards God.