Comments for Reason, Conversion, and Plausibility at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 15 out of 15 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 25 May 2013 01:23:29 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6608 When I reverted to the Church after 31 years as a committed "devout" evangelical Christian, I truly was taken aback by the uncharitable remarks and loss of friends due to my conversion. Over these past 7 years I realize there may be another force behind these reactions. I don't disagree that it has to do with our plausibility structures pre-existing, but there is a "dark one" who operates at many levels. He rejoices in confusion and fights tooth and nail against the Church Jesus started. He delights in division, and when another believer aligns once again with the church Christ started, he gets ticked. That may explain the irrational and sometimes extremely vitriolic response we receive from those who we felt were rational, devout, thinking Christians. When they here we returned to the Church, sometimes their response is not unlike the spewed pea soup from a head twisted fully round under the power of the devil, from a movie in our teen years(The Exorcist) Yeah, some may say, "You always be talking bout the debil" but I really have to believe there is a demonic hand in some of the responses I have seen to my conversion/reversion. - russ Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:45:04 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6604 Great article. Many it seems come back to Catholicism. I too am a cradle Catholic, attended Church regularly. Live in cloister, studied my Latin for the Jesuit priesthood, but was not the Catholic I desired to be. My father, the greatest, called me some time ago to view the McLaughlin(sp) Group and on the debate was Father Neuhaus. Here I thought myself as catholic and began my own journey back to the Catholic I wanted to be. Mr. Beckwith welcome back, we need more like you to be the champions of the true faith, Roman Catholicism. Sic Transit Gloria - JoeMcCarthy Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:55:35 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6600 Great post! In my own conversion I found my belief that the Catholic Church was an apostasy was less fixed than the seemingly obvious fact that all the extra-Biblical information we have from the early church all describes the Catholic Church, not some sort of modern Protestant conglomeration. Though I have gone from being fundamentalist to Catholic, the constant belief through it all is this: I still cannot understand how anyone can read Irenaeus or Augustine and see anything but Catholicism. However, plenty of people smarter and holier than I see anything but the Catholic Church in the early church writings. - Sarah Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:05:35 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6581 Amen, Bill. Well said. "What do I mean by a “plausibility structure”? I mean by this those beliefs that we virtually never question but nevertheless help us to assess other beliefs that we are asked by others to entertain." Yesterday I heard an interview on Book TV with Anna Quindlen, columnist for the NYTimes (at least at the time of the interview in 1993) . If there were ever an example of "plausibility structure" as defined above better than this, I don't know what it might be, especially when she was asked whether she gave more credibility to the testimony of Anita Hill or Clarence Thomas. I just had to smile, remembering this essay when, with the most sincere gravity, she said that, of course, she believed Anita Hill. She didn't want to accuse (now) Justice Thomas of lying, but maybe he was just confused on a few things. Of course. - Louise Sun, 17 Apr 2011 12:57:54 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6580 Here is THE plausibility structure: 1. The Roman Church is Apostolic, i.e., It traces Its lineage through Popes and Bishops directly to the Apostles. All Protestants sects began in 1517 or later. 2. The Church has the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ. No Protestant sect possesses this Gift. 3. The Church has the sacerdotal priesthood which possesses the charism (Gift of the Holy Spirit) which is necessary to confect the Eucharist at the Consecration during the Mass. Today, ALL other religions are man-made. - Bill Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:34:52 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6577 Interesting explanation for a very complex and mostly individual decision. If we read carefully the Gospels, most interchange between Jesus and almost anyone are in fact conversions to Him. And these conversions encompass most any creed. The Acts are the continuing story of conversions. In fact, that is what the whole Gospels are about. It would be interesting to develop a follow up each of these encounters and try a classification or organization of them. I'll begin immediately. IF anywhere soon I have something I'll share. Just as an example, one of the first "conversions" is aimed to Nicodemus, a rich and distinguished principal of the Sanhedrin, who in fact is not attested as a convert up to the last chapters where he appears to recover , with Joseph of Arimathee, the corpse of Jesus. What a conversion I may add! - Ramon A Sanchez Sat, 16 Apr 2011 14:39:23 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6576 Thank you for a very insightful article. This makes a lot of sense to me and it explains a lot about the dialogues I have with Pentecostals who seem to have a pre-formed, set-in-stone opinion about Catholicism regardless of what logic or facts they are presented with. Do you have any suggestions of how, other than with intense prayer, one can help lower these walls of their plausibility structure in order to be more open to Catholic teaching? - Yvette Sat, 16 Apr 2011 13:20:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6574 I am regularly accused on the internet by protestants of being a religious dilettante, having dipped my toe in several protestant pools before finally (and happily) committing to Catholicism. I think I had to revise my own "plausibility structure" in order to accept Catholicism as a possible option. I am going to think more on this, so thank you for your thoughts. I enjoyed the rational tone of the article. Maybe I'll read your book, too. - Judith Ginn Beauford Sat, 16 Apr 2011 05:53:02 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6573 I get accused regularly on the internet by protestants of being a religious dilettante, having dipped my toe into many protestant pools before committing finally (and contentedly) to Catholicism. I'm going to think more about my own "plausibility structures" because I think, in fact, mine had to change, just as you say, so that I could accept Catholicism as a reasonable option. Thanks for the article, and I appreciate your rational tone. - Judith Ginn Beauford Sat, 16 Apr 2011 05:48:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6572 Nor is this the only inconvenience which the man of study suffers from a recluse life. When he meets with an opinion that pleases him, he catches it up with eagerness; looks only after such arguments as tend to his confirmation; or spares himself the trouble of discussion, and adopts it with very little proof; indulges it long without suspicion, and in time unites it to the general body of his knowledge, and treasures it up among incontestable truths: but when he comes into the world among men who, arguing upon dissimilar principles, have been led to different conclusions, and being placed in various situations, view the same object on many sides; he finds his darling position attacked, and himself in no condition to defend it: having thought always in one train, he is in the state of a man who having fenced always with the same master, is perplexed and amazed by a new posture of his antagonist; he is entangled in unexpected difficulties, he is harassed by sudden objections, he is unprovided with solutions or replies; his surprise impedes his natural powers of reasoning, his thoughts are scattered and confounded, and he gratifies the pride of airy petulance with an easy victory. -- Samuel Johnson, Adventurer No.85, Aug. 28, 1753 - John Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:01:13 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6568 I wish Belloc were more widely published. I don't know why Ignatius Press has not picked up his canon. Maybe the book reported on here a week or two ago will light the spark. I am reading "How the Reformation Happened" for the second time, and finding it more and more applicable to our own time. His historical method can be applied to any age, and especially our own. What a mind he had! What Mr. Grump says about this site is certainly true. (I am glad that he feels welcomed.) However, since the editors "eschew the word 'blog', we can't very well nominate it for the 'Best Catholic Blog" contest, can we. :) God bless all the editors, essayists, and commenters of TCT, and a holiness-inspiring Passion Week to all. --L - Louise Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:56:29 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6567 Great analysis. I think you've hit upon the root of many frustrations we feel when someone else "just doesn't see" the thing that led to our conversion. The uncharitable but understandable response is often what you witnessed in Protestants' attitudes to your conversion: you were never really Protestant; you had some deep-seated Catholic thing-a-muh-jig; you didn't read ALL the writings of XYZ scholar. When people tell me they left the Catholic Church for Protestantism or atheism or whatever it might be, though I try to get to what the root of the issues were, ultimately you have to respect someone's decision and not attribute ulterior motives to it. Better to give them the benefit of the doubt that they sincerely believed that their move was in the best/truest direction. God bless! - Devin Rose Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:06:03 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6566 "Moving from one theological-Christian tradition to another". Unfortunately, these are not interchangeable as one, Roman Catholicism, is the TRUE FAITH. All other religions, with the exception of Eastern Orthodox, are man-made. As Louise knows from reading Belloc, there is no religion called "Christianity" and there never was. - Bill Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:59:44 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6565 If spiritual life's a journey, I followed the signpost marked "Agnostics, turn here" and have never looked back except now and then to see others straying from path to path, ever wandering amid thickets of hazy philosophies. I admire those of you who have such certitude about your faith, who seem to be unbending in your belief systems. Yet, I am cursed -- if that's the right word -- with an intelligence that wars against any sort of blind faith in the unbelievable. It's not that I have to see to believe -- Christians will tell you that by believing they see -- but rather that the world as we know it makes little sense. We live in a chaotic cosmos that is beyond understanding and I am not satisfied with Paul's "explanation" that we "see through a glass darkly." While I am here and alive on earth, I want to be able to understand life's meaning and yet I see nothing beyond the grave, which to me seems to me to be the best end and rest that anyone can hope for. Still, I read TCT every day because it is one of the few sites where one can participate civilly without the obligatory ad hominem of other forums in which any view that does not comport with one's own is dismissed rather crudely. Here, one finds tolerance -- even for those of us who would like to call you brothers and sisters, but remain at best distant relations wandering to find their lonely kin. - Grump Fri, 15 Apr 2011 05:35:42 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/reason-conversion-and-plausibility.html#comment-6563 Rod Dreher comes to mind. - ottmar Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:01:26 +0100