Maravillosa
Господи помилуй — мир в Україні!
- Sep 7, 2018
- 689
The following is based on a comment that I wrote on The Guardian's website for a book review of Jesse Bering's A Very Human Ending, as well as a comment that I wrote on the sex abuse scandal on the Washington Post's website:
As a practicing Catholic who strives to take my faith seriously, I would prefer that there be an objective meaning for existence, as well as a pleasant afterlife. I am not completely sure whether God exists or whether there is an afterlife, but I want to believe in the existence of God and the afterlife. I want to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate: I want to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist: I want to believe in Apostolic succession and the primacy of Peter among the Apostles. I need the structure of organized religion to keep me alive and at least marginally functional (at least for now).
Life is a never-ending succession of more or less temporary problems. I find it understandable that people who are tired of attempting to solve that never-ending succession of more or less temporary problems would want to permanently get off the hamster wheel of life, especially if there were a pleasant afterlife in store. I believe that God, although He would be sorely disappointed when people die by suicide, would be merciful to the souls of those people who kill themselves and grant them a pleasant afterlife in Heaven. Of course, people might see this line of thought coming from me as prospective self-justification: committing a sin in the expectation that God would forgive it is itself the sin of presumption. Ah well! May God be merciful to me, and to us all!
As a practicing Catholic who strives to take my faith seriously, I would prefer that there be an objective meaning for existence, as well as a pleasant afterlife. I am not completely sure whether God exists or whether there is an afterlife, but I want to believe in the existence of God and the afterlife. I want to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate: I want to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist: I want to believe in Apostolic succession and the primacy of Peter among the Apostles. I need the structure of organized religion to keep me alive and at least marginally functional (at least for now).
Life is a never-ending succession of more or less temporary problems. I find it understandable that people who are tired of attempting to solve that never-ending succession of more or less temporary problems would want to permanently get off the hamster wheel of life, especially if there were a pleasant afterlife in store. I believe that God, although He would be sorely disappointed when people die by suicide, would be merciful to the souls of those people who kill themselves and grant them a pleasant afterlife in Heaven. Of course, people might see this line of thought coming from me as prospective self-justification: committing a sin in the expectation that God would forgive it is itself the sin of presumption. Ah well! May God be merciful to me, and to us all!