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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   7606 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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(Sorry, I’m migrating this over).

Pope Francis has died at the age of 88. My understanding is that all of his plausible successors are more conservative in terms of doctrine. I imagine that Latin Mass will be easier but are they likely to make any significant changes to the Vatican II settlement?

Leaving the polymarket here - seems to bet on Parolin and Tagle so far.

https://polymarket.com/event/who-will-be-the-next-pope

@hydroacetylene—if you have insider knowledge, could you make some money here? (if that would be ethical)

I mean, it’s gambling. This is inherently an unreliable way to make money.

As an aside, ‘whether gambling on the conclave is an excommunicable offense’ is an interesting wiki walk. At one point Italians took out life insurances as a loophole.

N.b. Prediction markets aren't particularly profitable, even with perfect predictions. In the US, ForecastEX's count as swaps, but generally it's considered gambling income. But even worse you e.g. get taxed on your wager amount, besides what you receive back (put in $100 at 50%, win $200, only receive $140 at the end. Settlement time and miscellaneous fees mean you'd need events under 20% certainty to generate a livable income, but pot sizes aren't not big enough to justify the effort.

Polymarket you can get some decent liquidity going, but it depends on exactly what you're talking about.

Domestic stuff, particularly previous generation, is a mess of taxes and tiny maxbets yeah.

My money is on Pope Pizzaballa 👌

Cardinal Pierbatista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem? Let's go full DBZ naming with Pope Basil as his pope name. The meme pope.

But seriously, his appointment in Jerusalem as the first Gulf War loomed, and his living through all the terrible things of the past thirty years, have given him a perspective I think the church should be willing to embrace with the highest regard, given the situation in the Holy Land.

I’m sorry, I can’t see Pope Basil without thinking of the scene in Fawlty Towers where Manuel’s ‘hamster’ (called Basil) escapes.

POLLY (lying to a guest as they search for Basil): “The chef calls the ratatouille ‘Basil’… because he puts such a lot of basil in it.

MANUEL: ”He put Basil in the ratatouille?!”

Found this resource that seems pretty in depth of who is electable and where they stand:

https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/cardinals/?_papabili=1

In theory, can't the cardinals elect "any baptized male[1] Catholic"? Seems unlikely, but we have a number of (supposed) candidates here. Somehow "J.D. Vance" seems like a particularly memeable option, but I'm not sure offhand how to align that as a punchline to a joke.

[1]: It's distinctly apocryphal, but it feels necessary to mention "Pope Joan" and the infamous chair.

Somehow "J.D. Vance" seems like a particularly memeable option, but I'm not sure offhand how to align that as a punchline to a joke.

I'm not sure how either, but given how it's become common wisdom a meme that JD Vance murdered Pope Francis by the power of cringe from meeting him, there's gotta be something in there about Catholic succession rules being the same as the Sith.

No. The conclave system is designed to insure political continuity: cardinals can be made and undone by the pope at will and Bergoglio took full advantage of this, of the 135 cardinal electors that will participate to the next conclave only 17 were not invested by Bergoglio.

The reason for the crackdown on the latin mass is that a lot of congregation that practice it are borderline scismatic, see also thinking that Vatican II is in any way in question.

I have a friend who was supposed to be touring the Vatican today, what are the odds? (Pretty good I guess, considering they usually only last a few years).
Hopefully his indulgence is refundable

Wow. I didn’t know that. I just — you’re telling me now for the first time.

He led an amazing life. What else can you say? He was an amazing man. Whether you agree or not, he was an amazing man who led an amazing life. I’m actually saddened to hear that. I am saddened to hear that.

It’s an exact quote of what Trump said when he was told Ruth Bader Ginsberg had just died.

Not quite an exact quote. Trump did not call Justice Ginsburg an "amazing man."

I am saddened to hear that.

The council of pedantic Germans approves.

My understanding is that all of his plausible successors are more conservative in terms of doctrine.

Is this true? The college of cardinals is a literal priesthood.

”Someone can have literally tens of thousands of fans for doing popular writing in a field, and the amount of extra status it gives them in the field is within a rounding error of zero. Only your reputation within the priesthood matters. “

How many legacy cardinals (those appointed before Francis) are going to be voting?

While most cardinals were appointed by pope Francis that doesn’t make them all liberal.

To start with, popes have theoretically wide liberty to pick cardinals, but in practice a lot of them are in cardinalatial positions and popes have to pick him. Especially early pope Francis cardinals were often picked by Benedict and simply not elevated to the cardinalcy yet.

But more importantly, the early progressive cardinals made a headache for the holy father so he reduced the number he appointed. The moderate conservatives appointed by JPII and Benedict have largely been replaced with elderly third worlders(pope Francis likes his appointments old, even by the standards of RCC upper clergy). These are not going to be progressive in temperament or thought.

Here is what I have heard:

Theologically Conservative Frontrunner: Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Budapest, Hungary. Primate of Hungary.

Theologically Centrist Frontrunner: Cardinal Pierbatista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Theologically Liberal Frontrunner: Cardinal Tagle, ex-Archbishop of Manilla, Philippines. Currently head of Vatican Evangelization.

There will not be any top-down changes to the Spirit of Vatican II, because the Spirit of Vatican II had nothing to do with the actual documents of Vatican II, which are all fairly benign. The Spirit of Vatican II is going to be demolished over the next twenty years by the rise of young conservative priests.

Going to start following https://x.com/pope_predictor

There will not be any top-down changes to the Spirit of Vatican II, because the Spirit of Vatican II had nothing to do with the actual documents of Vatican II, which are all fairly benign.

Can you go a little more into this? This seems like a fascinating distinction.

Also my understanding is that Cardinal Tagle is unlikely to get far because the Church has been doing so badly in the Philippines? Is that about right?

Regarding Cardinal Tagle, all I can say is that failure to generate a thriving local church doesn't mean a lack of Cardinal allies. @hydroacetylene knows more about the politics side of the equation.

The Spirit of Vatican II is characterized by the time immediately preceding and immediately following the Second Vatican Council. I'm not sure what would have gone differently if this "Spirit" wasn't a real spirit, and a demon to boot. Watch the Puppet Mass or the Clown Mass and tell me there's no demonic involvement. (I'm not sure how serious I am being here. There are many who would take this allegation more seriously.)

Rewind a bit. Why did people feel like they could have a mass with clowns and puppets? Before Vatican II, there was a very specific rubric they were supposed to follow. After Vatican II, there was a very specific rubric they were supposed to follow, one that did not recommend clowns or puppets. The rubric changed, but the adherence to it stopped. Priests either started doing their own inventions, or stepped back from their leadership role in the liturgy and allowed lay people (predominantly women who were teenagers in the 1960s) to add things to the liturgy.

The Spirit of Vatican II, most plainly put, is the attitude many took when things that seemed unchangable began to change. Many Catholics didn't (and still don't) understand the difference between small "t" traditional practices, like liturgical rites, and big "T" Traditional Doctrine, like teachings on Christology, Sacraments, and Morality. If you were alive then, and thought the mass is something the Church taught could never change, and then the Church changed it...

The conclusion a lot of people made was that anything could be changed. And if anything could be changed, it might as well be changed by themselves, in their own image and likeness.

Let's rewind a bit further. Why were people dissatisfied with the Mass of Pius V? The laity felt disconnected from the mass. There were lots of abuses. The most common mass was a low mass, without music and most of the fanfare that fans of the Mass of Pius V like today.

It was common for priests to try to rush through the mass - I have heard people say that most masses they went to were 20 minutes long. In order to get through the whole liturgy in 20 minutes, the Priest would have to be mumbling quickly in Latin. There wasn't as much call-and-response like there is in the new mass. The experience of many Catholics was: go to Church, pray quietly while listening to a priest mutter to himself for 20 minutes, sometimes receive communion, and walk out.

High masses were glorious time commitments, low masses were checking off a cosmic checklist. Good and holy priests would have good and holy low masses. But there were many priests who did not fill this category, and many priests who felt like there was no point in enunciating a mass spoken in Latin to God instead of in the vernacular to the Congregation.

What was the new mass, the Mass of Paul VI, supposed to look like? Done according to the rubrics, it looks like this. According to the Vatican II document discussing the Liturgy, Sacrosantum Concilium, Latin was still supposed to be given "Pride of Place." Here is how the actual council of Vatican II wanted things to develop:

  • Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.
  • Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. For it is from scripture that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms are sung; the prayers, collects, and liturgical songs are scriptural in their inspiration and their force, and it is from the scriptures that actions and signs derive their meaning.
  • It is to be stressed that whenever rites, according to their specific nature, make provision for communal celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, this way of celebrating them is to be preferred, so far as possible, to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private.

-The sermon, moreover, should draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources, and its character should be that of a proclamation of God's wonderful works in the history of salvation

  • the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites... But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.

-The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action

At no point do I see anything recommending deploying clowns.

And so it goes for the other Vatican II documents. Individual Catholics took minor developments in a certain direction (often a return to traditions and increased emphasis on teachings from earlier in Church History) and decided to make a complete rupture.

I focused a lot on the Liturgical side to this, but I could make similar write ups on what Vatican II teaches on interpretation of scripture, No Salvation Outside the Church, etc.

I have never had any trouble finding good parishes that mostly abide by the rubrics. Even so, I have noticed an increase in chant and Latin. Parishes have started doing the entrance antiphon - I never heard this as a kid. Our parish has two first-year priests, they seem a lot less gay and more knowledgeable than the older priests. There is a major vibe shift going on.

Tagle not just presides over a local church that’s not doing too great(TBH, Francis’s record as bishop of Buenos Aires wasn’t much to write home about either), he’s also too far to the left for most cardinals(Francis was definitely a liberal candidate at the time, but he was seen as distinctly centrist by the standards of the liberal wing) with a set of financial scandals and some political baggage. Add to that the Philippines’ existing reputation for poor church governance and the simple fact that after pope Francis church governance is a much more salient issue than it was in 2013(which centered around recovering from the sex abuse crisis) or 2005(which centered around how to continue JPII’s mission of regrowth).

This is a great post and very informative. I'll add a bit of my own experience.

You do a great job pointing out some of the absurdities of some masses, but that's certainly not the norm. I say this because i find the normie suburban XP mass to be even more oppressive. I reckon that most Catholics go to a normal diocesan church, they sing awful liturgical music from the OCP Gather book, they have a lay deacon give a homily that was emailed to them from the archdiocese. There is absolutely no energy.

To your point on lay people changing the mass. I find the music to be just the worst aspect of this. And i dont think any of this was done with ill intent. Its just a bunch of ex-hippie boomers singing modern catholic music in a folk rock style. I'll never forget the women who lead our music ministry when i was a kid. She sung kyrie elaison with hippie guitar riff every week. There's another problem - this style has been the normie suburban mass standard for a LONG time. At least 40 years as far as I can tell. These awful songs are now "classics" to the current crop of old people who are involved in the church. As i said, I dont want to be too hard on these folks because they are giving their time and energy to the church, but they are so misguided its a sin.

A few years ago I found a new parish that was run by a religious order in a major metropolitan city. I actually got coffee with the pastor before joining just to see who he was. He was a brand new pastor, so young. He had one other priest under him, also young, and a number of brothers to help out.

My church is the opposite of whatever the normie catholic mass is, but still fits within the vatican II / novus ordo framework. The priests have wide latitude to have a much more traditional mass if they choose. We dont use the OCP mafia hymm books. We have young cantors rather than some old lady choir.

Easter mass this year was the possibly the best easter sunday mass I've ever seen, surpassed only by Easter Vigial mass at this same church. Full on 1hr 45 min Solemn Mass (I remember as a kid at my normie suburban church that easter mass was pretty much just a normal sunday mass. the extra long mass was for palm sunday only). The church was more packed than usual as well, even for easter. Its a big church that probably fits close to 800 people comfortably, we rarely get 150 on a normal sunday and id reckon 400-500. I think the word is getting out. Attendance is surely rising at my parish.

All of this is to say that I believe @OracleOutlook when he says that the new generation of priests will demolish the spirit of Vatican II. I see it every week. I just hope that its crushed in time for me to enjoy it when im older. Its pretty much impossible to have something like this local to you right now except if your lucky or moving somewhere specifically because of a church.

Its also good to remind people that while Vatican II may have been a mistake, it does allow for a really beautiful and traditional mass. If only the normie parishes would learn this. I suspect it will be a while before that happens.

Tagging @OracleOutlook as well

The Wikipedia entry on Contemporary Catholic Liturgical Music lists "Popular composers." It's a hit list of boomers born in mostly the 1950s. Yes, the overwhelming feeling is that these people dabbled with hippie shit in the 60s but then decided they actually weren't down with the pagan beliefs and wanted to have a 401k and live in the suburbs.

If you look at the linked videos for the clown mass and, especially, the puppet mass, look at the preponderance of greyhairs. The boomers really did enjoy fucking up everything good and True.

I didn't go to my first Latin mass until my late 20s. It was a sung high mass on a Sunday. 90 minutes long. One of the first feelings I remember having after leaving was one of anger. I was so upset that my entire childhood and adolescence was spent at suburban novus ordo masses with pudgy retired hippies singing horrible contemporary hymns, Father Friendly sermons about "making sure Jesus is your best friend!", and an utter lack of energy, reverence, and glory. When you leave a latin mass now - especially a high mass - you feel like something meaningful happened. All of the motifs around spiritual nourishment and renewal that rung totally empty after a Novus Ordo actually come into tangible fruition.

Why is the Pope Predictor bullish on Robert Prevost?

Probably an artifact of the algorithm; I'm not sure why some of the more recent quebecois appointments are there either.

Cardinal Pizzaballa is a solid conservative- he's just so popular that the media tries to portray him as more liberal than he really is- and Tagle is not particularly electable from among the papabile due to liberalism and (financial)scandals.

The best chance of electing a centrist is electing a very old candidate whose papacy will be short enough to let Pizzaballa gain ground/Tagle recover it. There isn't really a 'centrist frontrunner' for that reason.

Thanks for the correction! If it's a theology or spiritual advice question I've got The Motte covered. When it's a political question... I don't really know.

Yeah, you were very competent in the one discussion I remember us having.

Sometimes I worry that I neglect growing in prayer by focusing on theological and apologetic details, which the Imitation of Christ is pretty harsh about. But Joe Hesmeyer recently said something along the lines of "If you love your wife, you find out everything you can know about her. Same with God." which makes me feel better about all the minutia I've gotten absorbed with.

Oh, absolutely. I also have the same tendency to focus too much on the latter things. I was reading Richard Baxter (a moderate and controversial puritan) two days ago, and found the next three or four pages after where it says section 3 to be pretty convicting. It's okay to be motivated to know about God and to defend his truth, but those shouldn't be the only things.

"I have ever observed that a violent passion called Zeal for a mans opinions, which he counts Orthodox, is so easie and natural, that there needs little means to kindle it: Nay, all the means that can be used will scarce allay the inordinate rage of it: But a Zealous love of God, and delight in him, and a Zeal in him for holiness, and against sin, and a Zealous love to Gods Truth as they hold forth Christ and Glory, and guide us to duty, this is so contrary to the nature of man, that no means is sufficient to excite it. O how easily without Grace, and against Grace do Carnal Ministers, and professors make a huge bussel in the world for their opinions, compassing Sea and Land to make a Proselite!"

And I'll cut the quote off there, even though it continues on with similar force. Do read the whole passage, it's not that long.

Brief overview of the upcoming conclave Rules: https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/conclaves/electing-a-pope/

There's 135 voting cardinals. 45 is enough to block any candidate in particular; cardinal Parolin probably already has that many in opposition. 90 is enough to elect a pope; no candidate is likely to have that number in the first round. The 'conservatives' voting as a block of around fifty is likely in the first few rounds.

Some Cardinals worth keeping an eye on in the interventions:

Oullet, Bagnasco, and Piacenza are dinosaurs, but a conclave skittish from pope Francis' behavior might like that. They're centrist center-right wingers who'll have broad ideological appeal and they have a proven track record in church leadership. They're also from developed Latin countries seen as a natural home for the church. The cardinals specifically looking for a short papacy which doesn't make major changes and emphasizes orthodoxy and conventional HR moves are likely to find their candidate out of these three; in the past Schonborn would also have been on the list, but his liberalism makes him unpredictable. Cardinal Oullet was the runner-up at the last conclave and it is very plausible that a 'compromise' candidate to give Pizzaballa another shot in 5-10 years would be him.

Erdo is probably not going to get elected, but is at the head of the conservative voting block, giving him lots of influence. Watch for cardinals who give speeches hitting similar themes.

Pizzaballa is young, not just for a pope but for a head of state in general. He is, however, incredibly popular among the rank and file, both clerical and lay, and has been since he offered to trade his life for those of Hamas's hostages.

Zuppi is rumoured to be pope Francis' handpicked successor. Aveline is rumoured to be the favorite among the cardinals in that corner. Either one of them is a semiplausible result from the conclave.

Parolin likely has a veto block to oppose him already lined up, but he really wants to be pope and he has a lot of influence.

Tagle is fairly young, but is too progressive to get elected in a future conclave. I suspect he's too progressive to get elected in this one, too, but if he tacks sharply to the right in the interventions it's possible.

are they likely to make any significant changes to the Vatican II settlement?

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-end-of-vatican-ii-era-and-future.html#more

There are roughly four factions with influence within the Church, figures like Vigano and Gracida being outliers. Besides the rupturists[ed note- far left] there is a faction that believes (or claims to believe in) some form of ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ and can even reference Pope Benedict XVI in that regard, but ultimately they believe in developing beyond that and the hermeneutic of continuity has past teachings continuously reinterpreted through the lens of the present instead of the reverse.

The third school can simply be called Ratzingerian. They adhere to an organic and holistic continuity where the Second Vatican Council is neither marginalized, nor idolized. Cardinals such as Koch, Filoni, Woelki, Nycz and most American bishops clearly fall in this category.

The fourth category is best described as semi-traditional and has Cardinal Burke and Cardinal Sarah as its most well-known supporters. The Second Vatican Council isn’t rejected, as it is by Vigano, but its dogmatic status may be downplayed or denied and various aspects of it are subjected to criticism.

The Ratzingerians likely hold a majority in the Church by ~2030 at the latest, and are likely to side with the semitraditionalists over the... I call them 'meds' because those are their leaders, but the faction that believes in developing the hermeneutic of continuity through reinterpreting past teachings. Functionally all of them are from the broader Latin world(either in Europe or in Latin America) and if one is elected in the upcoming conclave(which isn't totally implausible; Zuppi and Aveline are strong contenders if not the strongest) you can expect the Vatican II settlement to stay about the same but with a stronger trad movement. A more conservative pope would shift to the right somewhat faster but still not fast. The chances of the Vatican II settlement moving to the left are negligible.

Pizzaballa is young, not just for a pope but for a head of state in general.

Well, that is relative. He was born in 1965, so he is about 60. By comparison, Obama was elected president at about 48, Angela Merkel became Chancellor at ~51 and Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister at about 37. Being the head of a state at 60 is only young if you take the last two US presidents as a baseline.

Also, the Pope is a head of state in the same way that he is the supreme commander of an armed force -- which is to say, that while he is both, he as a very non-central example of either. Presumably, even being just the bishop of a regular European city is coming closer to describing his day job. Being a head of state technically comes with the job, but it is a minor consideration -- no contender will run on a platform of "the Vatican should increase the minimum wage or reform health care".

Just for context, Zuppi is the president of the CEI and a radical immigrationist. He is probably the most pro-open border institutional person in Italy, and a radical leftist to booth.

Yes, Zuppi’s ties to the political left are a mark against him. His religious liberalism is however quite moderate; I would expect Aveline to be more likely as a liberal pope than him, but ‘president of the Italian bishop’s conference’ is a heck of a head start.

It's a shame that Papal candidates are renamed when entering office. I'd pay money for a Pope Pizzaballa just for the meme value alone.

He could be renamed Pope Basil, to keep the theme. St. Basil was an influential theologian and bishop.

Most major and minor characters in the Dragonball saga are named for food (or rarely, clothing or musical instruments). Pizzaballa vs. Zuppi is therefore weak metafictional evidence we’re living in a Dragonball fanfiction.

Time to start chi-building exercises.

Spaceballs sequel in which Pizza the Hutt has become Pizza the Pope.

Well, we already had Palpatine as the pope 15 years ago.

I wonder if even a compromise new Pope represents a major concern for traditionalists, especially in the west.

As I understand it, the "traditionalist" catholic movement was largely underground after Vatican II all the way until the 1990s. The two largest groups dedicated to the Traditional Latin Mass, the FSSP and the ICKSP, weren't even founded until 1988 and 1990, respectively. Even up through the Benedict XVI pontificate, traditionalists were very small and fringe (again, if my understanding is accurate)

This changed when Francis got The Big Chair. His break with a lot of seemingly bedrock doctrine (see Amoris Laetitia from 2016) contributed to the strengthening of the traditionalist movement. The Traditionis Custodes (2021) has been seem by some as a direct attempt to smash the TLM (although this is contradicted in part by how Francis dealt with the aforementioned FSSP, ICSKP, and even the SSPX).

All of this is to say, nothing rallies a group like The Big Bad Enemy, and traditionalists had that with Francis to their hearts content - especially the sedevacantists and other RadTrads, including the Very Online versions.

If a New Pope is elected who, on day one, states "Yeah TLM is fine for whoever wants to celebrate it. Bishops don't need to ask for approval anymore. Go for it." does this take a lot of the Righteously Indignant (TM) wind out of the sails of the traditionalists? I don't know, but much hay was made for a reason during the Francis Pontificate.

Electing Pizzaballa would be, I think, a epoch defining moment for the church for the better. If there's a Cardinal out there (besides Zen) who has "future Saint" written all over him, it's probably Pizzaballa.

The FSSP did not exist before 1988 but that was because they were part of the SSPX before the Econe consecrations and saw steady growth immediately after under JPII and Benedict- nothing like the massive influxes during PF or post-covid, but still growing. The SSPX has seen some setbacks but mostly same story, steady growth(although much more complicated in their case because they got started by absorbing groups of independent trads) and has been operating out in the open since the seventies.

Now sedevacantists do sometimes become normal trads based on who's the pope. That's certainly possible. But there's so many different sedevacantist groups and so many of them are actual cults or run by completely insane people that shedding the relative normies was an inevitability anyways.

Any outside chance for Arborelius?

He’s definitely electable. Not on my shortlist but it’s possible.

Much memeing from the fact his last meeting was Vance of all people.

Yeah. My reflexively Trump-hating parents have already informed me of how inconsiderate if not monstrous it was of Vance to force a man on death's door to meet him; of how that may have been the strain that killed him.

Not that Vance or Pope make any difference in our lives here.

Example: Dalai Lama Quietly Cancels Scheduled Meeting With JD Vance

>Be Pope

>Latin American

>live in walled city-state with strict immigration

>criticize Trump administration for deporting members of gang famous for Satanic black mass human sacrifice initiation

>drops dead

What did God mean by this?

This user has requested that I give them a one-month ban for personal time-management reasons. This ban is not a response to their posting quality and will have no bearing on future mod decisions.

Enjoy the break, @Iconochasm.

And on Easter of all days.

It would have been so much funnier on Good Friday.

Why didn't he think of the memes?

As much as a lot of us complain about Pope Francis's progressivism, we can't deny that the Church has been seeing somewhat of a renaissance over the last few years: https://www.ncregister.com/news/easter-2025-new-catholics-by-the-numbers

The Pope Francis critics will say that this is despite him, but it's difficult not to see that his grace, and his kindness, likely also have an effect on the way that people view The Church.

I mean... anecdote and all, but my wife and I are trying to find a church right now, not because Pope Francis made Catholicism more progressive, but because that was nearly the last straw. We feel like all the promises of a secular, expert run society we were promised in the 90's just opened up fresh new horrors we could have scarcely imagined, and are ready to try to retvrn and believe in Christ. I find myself questioning 40 years of staunch atheism by the fruits it's bore, and am totally ready to just start going to church and see what happens.

And in that search, Catholicism is virtually the top sect we are most hesitant to consider, behind "Unitarian" which at least near us codes to "Whatever goes man" loosey goosey "spiritual but not religious" non-faith.

Then again, we've encountered a lot of very conservative Catholics near us that have invited us to services with them next week, so we'll see how that goes.

Why not seek truth instead of willingly undertaking a new life of added delusion?

This isn't the first time I've seen people here, atheists, "looking for a church". It boggles my mind.

What are you really looking for? If you look inside your heart and ask it?

It's probably something like freedom from anxiety, more connection, etc. I would start from there.

My understanding of my faith as an atheist who converted, is that seeking truth led me to Christ.

What I'm really looking for is love, forgiveness, and mercy. Christ provides that.

Interesting! What sort of truth did you find, and how do you define Christ?

Thanks for asking! It’s too long a story to get into now but the basics were listening to Peterson and John Vervaeke talk about how reality and truth can differ between “objective” reality versus “narrative” or “participatory” truths.

It’s a deep rabbit hole but long story short I went down it for a few years and ended up believing Christ was the Son of God, both in fact and in narrative.

Try turning this around, though. You’re pretty pro meditation and so I assume “seek truth” corresponds to enlightenment.

But try looking at it from another perspective: meditation means putting your mind into an incredibly unnatural state, hyperfocusing on the internal experience of that, heavily guided by ancient texts, and assuming that the result tells you anything meaningful about the state of the world.

I’m not trying to attack Buddhism here, I’m saying that there is no known way to seek truth that doesn’t also look a lot like seeking out delusion from the perspective of a nonbeliever. In practice Buddhism, like Christianity, is benefiting from a cultural belief that ‘it works’, backed up to some extent by statistic and anecdote. Unhappy people are willing to seek truth / consider delusion and accordingly partake in whichever of these traditions they feel most comfortable with.

It sounds like he trusted people in the 90s whom he no longer trusts, which was also part of why he dismissed Christianity. If the 'experts' were clearly wrong about other things societally, then why could they not also have been wrong about Christianity? Hence an increased openness.

Have you looked into Orthodoxy? I had similar issues with Catholicism and found a home in the Orthodox church.

See, I really don't like how exclusionary the Eastern Orthodox tend to be. Why not recognize Christ's body throughout the world, even as it's racked by various grevious schisms? Why worsen them? At least the Roman Catholics are sort of willing to recognize the other church bodies, especially post Vatican II. And the ecclesiology seems kind of broken with the way that schisms happen—e.g. was the entire East not part of the church for taking the wrong side during the Acacian schism? And then just became, at once, the church again when they reconciled? And, like, then you have to disclaim the Church of the East evangelizing China in the first millenium just because they didn't follow Ephesus.

I'm quite happy over here with my Protestantism that's willing to recognize the entire community of the faithful, regardless of nation, as assemblies of my brothers in Christ, and parts of his single visible church.

I belong to a very exclusionary tradition and from my perspective orthodoxy is, yes, exclusionary, but without rhyme or reason. There doesn’t seem to be the most common thread uniting the Russians and Greeks and Syrians in contrast to… the other Syrians. But at the same time they exclude eastern Catholics who, in practice, are distinguished by venerating JPII as a saint and having moral theology which is stricter than the mainstream but definitely within bounds for the EOC, and exclude the oriental orthodox churches whose differences are basically those of rite and canonization lists.

Catholics at least have the pope(and it cannot be overstated the degree to which nobody likes sedevacantists and Catholics grasp at no true Scotsmans to exclude them). I really don’t know what Eastern Orthodoxy’s unity is, especially with the recent splintering.

I feel the same. I’m happy with conservative Anglicans on the more traditional end of things. I can recognize other Christians even if I have disagreements in (though I have various degrees of separation depending on how far you get from the traditional understanding of Christianity and the sacraments.

Hmm I think the schisms are a tough one man. On the one hand yes I do think being inclusive is good... on the other hand the OP was complaining about how churches are too inclusive and that has been a big problem. I think Protestantism is the shining example frankly. Once you throw open the doors to including other churches, you lose the ability to have real standards on what represents the actual Church.

Oh, I'm not saying anything goes. I'm just saying to recognize your fellow Christians as such. I agree that the Protestant world is too splintered, and has diverged from its foundation in various problematic ways (e.g. most modern protestants don't care about the Eucharist).

But it's not the case that you lose all ability to have standards. I mean, consider when Protestant churches were generally national churches. That probably doesn't have much of the problems you have in mind, since Eastern Orthodoxy is also organized in a national-ish way.

I find myself questioning 40 years of staunch atheism by the fruits it's bore

What fruits did you expect not believing in a god to bear? This seems like a strange reason to change one's belief in the nature of reality. I don't think god exists, but I don't expect to gain anything from that belief. I just know that life is meaningless and we're all just atoms, and nothing happens after we die. Whether I benefit from that or not is irrelevant, it's just how I think things are.

ready to try to retvrn and believe in Christ

Since you're choosing to believe, why not retvrn a little farther and believe in your culture's traditional religions? Unless you're actually from the middle east, that is.

Since you're choosing to believe, why not retvrn a little farther and believe in your culture's traditional religions?

Do you really think that your culture is the same as that of pre-Christian Europe (assuming that's your heritage)? No, not at all. The Europeans nations have been Christian for 1500 years, plus or minus a couple hundred, depending on the place. The cultures that we have been in, or that we were in at all recently, have been thoroughly steeped in Christianity. Those pagan men of 2000 years ago may have been your ancestors, but they were not really a part of your culture, your nation.

No, no, the place to return, at least, for the American (if it is returning to our roots that we are doing), is to traditional American mainline Protestantism, the religion of sober, hardworking men with large families clamoring after divine truth and a pious life. The old denominations have been captured by lefties, but there exist remnants to be found.

Of course my culture isn't the same as pre-christian Europe, but it's also very different from Christian Europe. I obviously have no intention of becoming a pagan, I'm just pointing out that it's pretty arbitrary to define some specific point in time as "traditional", especially when we can trace back before those traditions even existed. I find the idea of "traditional christianity" especially ironic because christianity at one point was an attempt at rejecting existing culture and replacing it with one true globalist religion.

What are your thoughts on Orthodoxy?

What fruits did you expect not believing in a god to bear?

I can't speak for them, but in my case I guess I'd describe it as "a more effective interface with the realities of life and human existence." Various portions of my life and mind that had not been working well under the Christianity I was raised with got much worse when I became an atheist, and then much better when I returned to being a Christian.

I just know that life is meaningless and we're all just atoms, and nothing happens after we die. Whether I benefit from that or not is irrelevant, it's just how I think things are.

I'm skeptical people believe much of anything because "that's just how they think things are", mainly because I've observed that it's not why I've believed things in the past or present. I think pretty much all reasoning is motivated one way or another.

Assuming he is a white American, his culture's traditional religion is Christianity, and it has been since before there was his culture.

Well it depends how far back you go. White Americans came from somewhere, and there were plenty of European traditions before Christianity displaced or co-opted them. Returning to the "tradition" of Christianity seems a little unsatisfying, considering that it's really a generic set of traditions that are practiced by Christians all over the world, rather than something unique and local to a particular culture. It seems like the idea of traditionalism is that "our ancestors were right." Christianity says that our ancestors were all wrong, for thousands of years, and then a guy in the middle east figured out the truth, and from that point on it's been a steady march toward enlightenment as the Truth is spread throughout the world. That seems like the antithesis of tradition.

Christianity says that our ancestors were all wrong, for thousands of years, and then a guy in the middle east figured out the truth

You're getting pretty strong pushback on this phrasing, for good reason. Most are arguing the "ancestors were wrong" angle, which is very fair. I'd like to push back on the idea that the Christian's claim is that Jesus claims he figured out the truth.

Jesus never said he figured out the truth. He said he IS the Truth. He isn't a sage in the desert who discovered something outside himself. He said that he is sent. He says that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The way to salvation isn't to learn what he has learned, it is to follow him. "No one can get to the Father except through me." Not "through my teachings." "Through me."

This is absolutely bizzare, if you have studied global religions. Jesus is unique in this regard. He doesn't claim to have brought fire from the gods, he claims to be the flame. He doesn't claim to have received divine revelation, his followers claim that he is the divine revelation.

His teaching is secondary - a nice lovely tantalizing icing - compared to his life, death, and resurrection.

Interesting, though that seems like a very abstract distinction, and not something that really contradicts what I said. From my point of view, Jesus was just a guy who claims to know everything about how the universe works. If a guy like that appeared in 2025, we would call him mentally ill.

I am willing to listen to people who claim they understand how the universe works when their explanations allow me to make testable predictions, and those predictions are verified. This holds true even when only some of their explanations are testable; the testable ones increase my confidence in the non-testable ones.

Most people appear to do likewise.

And where did those European traditions come from? If the game here is simply to trace back as far as we can, then we should look at the first man. What did he believe?

I would suggest that he walked in the garden with the LORD, sinned and was expelled, and fathered us all.

There really isn't a good way for someone to return to the "European traditions before Christianity". Modern neo-paganism has almost nothing in common with actual pre-Christian paganism. They share some of the same names for gods, and that's about it. 95% of their practices are things that were made up in the 1800s by the occultists and romanticists of the time.

As an example, how many practitioners of Asatru join the military in order that they may hopefully die gloriously in battle, so that they may be chosen by the Valkyrie to join Odin in Valhalla? How many of them respect the marriage oaths, since the souls of adulterers will be consigned to Nastrond to be devoured by wolves and poisoned by serpents? How many of them, when they have grown old or sick, will pick up a gun and attempt death by cop? After all, those who die of old age or sickness are consigned to Hel's cold halls. How many of them will even consider human sacrifice, as their ancestors did among the hanging trees of Uppsala? How many of them support slavery, as the three adulteries of Rigr clearly separated the races of thralls, churls, and jarls?

The fact is that we don't really know all that much about northern European paganism, and what we do know the neo-Pagans mostly don't do. They're cosplaying as pagans, making it up as they go.

While I agree that most neopagans are mostly making it up, there's at least two people buried in Arlington under a Mjolnir symbol. Can't post link cuz I'm on mobile but it was a Fast Company article from around 2013 that talked about it. I also personally know an Odinist who's an Army officer, and have met others who don't describe themselves as such but certainly have an affinity for the symbols of such (with varying degrees of seriousness and understanding)

It's interesting, while reading that list of beliefs I couldn't help thinking how much of that has permeated so thoroughly into western culture. Maybe retvrning to paganism would provide spiritual comfort to the type of men who are drawn to glorious battle, and don't want to grow old. Christianity tells us that suicide is wrong, even if you're too old to enjoy life, but so many people intuitively seem to feel otherwise.

I don't really see how these pagan beliefs are more outlandish than anything in the Bible, if taken literally.

You are entitled to your opinion about what is/isn’t outlandish- quite literally, it’s not the sort of thing there can be an objective discussion over, but factually there are people walking around who literally believe the things that Christians believed in 1000 AD, and who put those beliefs into practice. It is unclear that you can say that of heathens.

I don't really see how these pagan beliefs are more outlandish than anything in the Bible, if taken literally.

The trouble is that nobody does, including the neo-pagans. They mostly just get together and try to cast spells and protect the environment. You get lesbian Wiccans calling on the blessing of fertility goddesses, and not recognizing the irony of that one bit.

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One of my brothers in law is a "pagan". Which basically means fat slob reddit atheist cosplaying to "own to the cons" and just being a complete degenerate manchild. As well as some bizarre victim identity because "Christian's killed my forbearers and stole all our holidays".

How do you reconcile this view with Christian views of Aristostle?

Christianity says that our ancestors were all wrong, for thousands of years, and then a guy in the middle east figured out the truth

No, this is definitely not what Christianity says. Not that our ancestors were all wrong, and not that a guy 'figured out' the truth.

So our ancestors who believed in multiple gods weren't wrong?

The bible literally says that the pagan gods are a) real and b) demons. The traditional Christian position would be that there is no difference between Asatru and satanism, not that Asatru is hilarious larping ridiculousness.

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No; Christianity has always (until very recently and only in the West) understood that there are many, many gods, divine beings, whatever you want to call them. Our conception of 'monotheism' is incredibly anachronistic and silly. I'm unaware of any monotheistic religions.

"I believe that in the huge mass of mythology which has come down to us a good many different sources are mixed—true history, allegory, ritual, the human delight in storytelling, etc. But among these sources I include the supernatural, both diabolical and divine. We need here concern ourselves only with the latter. If my religion is erroneous, then occurrences of similar motifs in pagan stories are, of course, instances of the same, or a similar error. But if my religion is true, then these stories may well be a preparatio evangelica, a divine hinting in poetic and ritual form at the same central truth which was later focused and (so to speak) historicized in the Incarnation. To me, who first approached Christianity from a delighted interest in, and reverence for, the best pagan imagination, who loved Balder before Christ and Plato before St. Augustine, the anthropological argument against Christianity has never been formidable. On the contrary, I could not believe Christianity if I were forced to say that there were a thousand religions in the world of which 999 were pure nonsense and the thousandth (fortunately) true. My conversion, very largely, depended on recognizing Christianity as the completion, the actualization, the entelechy, of something that had never been wholly absent from the mind of man. " C. S. Lewis, "Religion Without Dogma?"

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Not according to the Christian tradition!

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How do you "try" to believe in something? Why not, say, Shintoism, given your motivations?

Don't let the people online and their questionable motives disuade you from attending a Cathlic church. My wife and I went through nearly the exact journey you did for the exact reasons. I am a "cradle catholic" (that is: I was raised catholic from the cradle), and my wife was part of a non denominational evengelical protestant christian church as a child.

We both left the church for different reasons during our teens, and were both extremely annoying internet atheists for 15+ years.

The things you are feeling about The Church being a stable force in an unstable world are correct. The Catholic Church has existed as an institution for between 1700 and 2000 years, and has been a background force keeping western civilization alive through every major war, every pandemic, every crisis, through the 'dark' ages, through everything.

The tradition is extremely alluring. There's something difficult to describe about participating in a ritual that has been practiced nearly without pause, for 2000 years. There is no other way to engage with your role as a member of western society than that, and there is nothing more long term stable than that.

If you want something even more traditional, find a Traditional Latin Mass. Despite what people online say, this is very much alive and well, and growing. Even my parish, in a very progressive part of a very progressive city, has a mass which is largely in latin, with very little singing, etc.

Something I think you'll find if you pursue this (I hope you do, like I said my wife and I did for the exact same reason you are and are now somewhat vocal about what a good choice it was) is the large gap between the internet, and The Church. This is a feature imo. Good luck.

Could you talk more about your actual faith? - as opposed to the woes of the world that have led you back to it?

The church is freaking cool. That’s just a given. Crusades, dope gear, eternal heaven, long ass running institutions, an enemy (or thousands) … I’m not being facetious, all cool things.

But how do you believe? Why do you choose to believe this rather than any Indian thing, and Japanese thing, any anything? Is it just that this is the Western version of something you want?

Your answer doesn’t just have to be about you per se - just maybe your ideas surrounding the entire thing.

Aside from Sam Harris and a few others, I always fairly hated atheists. I probably am one, maybe. Maybe agnostic. Like my music genres, I don’t care - it’s all metal.

However - no religion is correct. And we [[[all]]] (((know))) that. It’s just a tale built upon other tales seemingly and there’s a thousand of them.

I guess I want to know what a man of intelligence has to say about it.

I thought about going to church a few times in the past decade but the dreaded ‘ this isn’t true ‘ always reared its head.

I know what you mean by "no religion is correct" or I assume you mean it cosmologically, as in "no religion correctly describes the cause of existence." I was going to say you mean it metaphysically but morals are part of metaphysics, and there is one provably morally correct text and it is the Bible. I also know that is quite the claim and is itself worthy of a separate discussion so I will collapse it to this: as a set of rules for the people of a society to follow, we find empirically Christianity produces outcomes superior to all other belief sets.

The reason this discussion exists, the reason this website exists as a place for this discussion, the reason for the internet, for your internet-connected device, for the grid that powers your device, is the give or take 2,000 years of Christianity that raised this civilization.

What we can say of Christianity that we cannot say of any other faith on this planet is how perfectly it is tailored to key human biotruths. No other faith approaches Christianity's understanding of man, of his weaknesses, his wickedness, his worst excesses, but and of course also, our strengths, the best of ourselves, and how we use these to address our shortcomings. How we may edify ourselves and conquer the worst of ourselves in pursuit of becoming the best of ourselves. This flows out, it defines the people and the nation, it raises the civilization.

Take monogamy: most men who have ever lived did not procreate. In religiously-proscribed monogamy, until death, women were given value beyond their wombs, and men were simply given value. This implicitly but so crucially and truly individualizes, it recognizes the inherent value of the person. For each and every man to be a husband and each and every woman a wife, that we might be joined as one. Civilizationally this produces buy-in. As the couple is wedded and has children, they are invested in their place, in their community, in their people and in their nation. Young men who are not invested in their nation time and again burn it down, it is the precipice the West hangs upon today, large numbers of unmarried young men with little or no hope for the future, just waiting for the match.

Islam explicitly endorses polygyny and the keeping of concubines, as does Hinduism. Buddhism and Taoism do not circumscribe, and polygamy has a history of being widespread in China, among other traditionally high-practicing nations. Shinto also does not circumscribe, though Shinto endorses monogamy and polygamy was historically rare in Japan, a practice limited to their elite and largely for heir production and the securing of alliances. Similar most to Western Europe. Why is it that the most highly developed nations on this planet are the most historically monogamous?

And Christ preached this in Rome in the first century Anno Domini. Morality is a technology and I wish I could recall the exact analogy I read on this point because it was a historian who understood far, far better the moral context of Rome and he put it in appropriate technological terms for these principles to have emerged during Tiberius' reign. Western civilization's moral framework laid out entirely in a few years of Christ's teachings, was it like if they had instead progressed to landing men on the moon? It feels appropriate, as Aldrin took communion there.

This moral framework, this inconceivable leap forward--if God walked this Earth as a man, it was as Christ, and his historicity is not at question. The totality of manuscripts and indeed the existence of Christianity is attestation of its namesake. But here we do have a critical problem in the debate. The naturalist historian and the layman atheist operate from a fallacious first premise: Miracles can't happen, so this text is false. If the texts lacked any and all content the naturalist could dismiss on first-principle rejection of the supernatural the accounts would be universally accepted as overwhelmingly true. But the miracles are in the accounts, foremost that he rose from the dead. If it didn't happen, why did his first followers believe he did? We reinvite that fallacious premise. The premise is God doesn't exist, the premise is miracles can't happen, so they don't conclude that they were lying, they premise that they were lying and reason back.

I say all this, and I believe it, even as I know this isn't a place for proselytizing nor me the suitable evangelist. I also know this isn't something that can be reasoned into. I've personally always felt the truth of Romans 1, that God is evidence in his creation. I do wish I could impress this feeling on others, I think it's the only thing that I would ever view as something I could give as testimony, that I can step back from myself and invite this awe in creation and axiomatic apprehension of the creator. But these are words on a page and saying how obvious it is to me has worth only to me. I might then appeal to logic, at one point I had here a full formula for the argument, but you can't logic yourself into this either. Even if I convinced you of Christianity's moral supremacy and its historic solidity or else you found my logic unassailable, even if you then for a time pursued it, you might and rightly feel it was for the wrong reasons, that your heart wasn't in it, that you were lying to yourself.

I don't know what to say, I don't have the words, and this isn't the venue.

It is nice to feel truly known. I've been thinking a lot lately about Orson Scott Card's depiction of love. Ender of course; to defeat the formics he needed to understand them truly. To understand truly was to love them, to love truly was to understand them. This I must believe informed Card's depiction of the character Jane, an AI that started as a program to understand Ender, and she does, and she loves him, it is in loving him she gains her specific personage. So I'll say again, it is a nice thing to feel truly known. It is nice in this to have something that makes sense of existence.

But this is me, and maybe you don't feel like you need to make sense of existence, or that you feel your view of things already makes enough sense of existence, and you don't need any more. You might also wonder if I am reliant on this, if I need this to be true, if I am as guilty as making the conclusion of its truth my premise, and reasoning backward. On the last you'd be right, it's what makes me an unsuitable evangelist, my lack of testimony. I know it's true. Not for any moment, I've had no definable spiritual moments, nor do I feel like I need to. I know it's true regardless. Why, though, and what good is that to tell others? You can tell it's true by the way that it is. Such elucidation. I don't have the words!

You say you've thought about going to church a few times in the last decade, but each time "this isn't true" rears its head. Why, then, do you think you consider going? This might be worth considering, and deeply, how this feeling has arisen repeatedly within you despite your belief that you know better. Maybe you do know better, just not in the way that you think.

However - no religion is correct. And we [[[all]]] (((know))) that.

We do not all know that.

Yes, faith claims are unfalsifiable. That does not make them wrong; it makes them unprovable. Every set of ideas comes down to unfalsifiable eventually.

Well, not quite unfalsifiable. Proving a contradiction would falsify. And, of course, at the last day.

We're in the same boat, you and I. I nearly went Anabaptist twenty years ago after comparing each branch's doctrine with the Bible. The only thing that saved me was my realization that I had no reason to choose the Bible over the Quran, the Talmud, the Guru Grant Sahib or the Tao Te Ching.

Since that moment I've been an atheist, and I agree that outspoken atheist spokesmen all suck. But who cares? They are not the leaders of an organized religion; I don't have to justify associating with them because I am not.

Yes, I've just finished my digital Lent, so this all might sound a bit hypocritical, but it's like denying your children Christmas presents because Christmas has "Christ" in it.

Isn't doing nothing the most foolish option, due to Pascal's wager?

Isn't doing nothing the most foolish option, due to Pascal's wager?

Take the chance that God even exists in the first place, then divide that by the chances that he doesn't care about worship, or doesn't like cynical odds-based worship, or doesn't actually punish anyone, then divide whatever value you have left at this point by all the mutually exclusive religious options with nothing in particular to recommend them over one another, and what are you really left with?

Nothing worth restructuring your life over. If I actually considered vague abstract probabilities like this worth acting on I'd probably be doing all kinds of dumb shit all the time.

The wager presupposes too much. What if God wanted burnt offerings or specific prayers and not just belief? What if she's really pissed you imagined her as a bearded dude once?

Then it's in your interest to estimate the probability space and act accordingly. Not to assume everything magically cancels.

Throwing up your hands and doing nothing is lazy and irresponsible, considering the stakes.

Pascal was quite right to criticize this attitude of carelessness or dismissal in Pensées 195:

Before entering into the proofs of the Christian religion, I find it necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in indifference to the search for truth in a matter which is so important to them, and which touches them so nearly.

Of all their errors, this doubtless is the one which most convicts them of foolishness and blindness, and in which it is easiest to confound them by the first glimmerings of common sense, and by natural feelings.

For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that point which ought to be our ultimate end.

There is nothing clearer than this; and thus, according to the principles of reason, the conduct of men is wholly unreasonable, if they do not take another course.

On this point, therefore, we condemn those who live without thought of the ultimate end of life, who let themselves be guided by their own inclinations and their own pleasures without reflection and without concern, and, as if they could annihilate eternity by turning away their thought from it, think only of making themselves happy for the moment.

Yet this eternity exists, and death, which must open into it, and threatens them every hour, must in a little time infallibly put them under the dreadful necessity of being either annihilated or unhappy for ever, without knowing which of these eternities is for ever prepared for them.

This is a doubt of terrible consequence. They are in peril of eternal woe; and thereupon, as if the matter were not worth the trouble, they neglect to inquire whether this is one of those opinions which people receive with too credulous a facility, or one of those which, obscure in themselves, have a very firm, though hidden, foundation. Thus they know not whether there be truth or falsity in the matter, nor whether there be strength or weakness in the proofs. They have them before their eyes; they refuse to look at them; and in that ignorance they choose all that is necessary to fall into this misfortune if it exists, to await death to make trial of it, yet to be very content in this state, to make profession of it, and indeed to boast of it. Can we think seriously on the importance of this subject without being horrified at conduct so extravagant?

This resting in ignorance is a monstrous thing, and they who pass their life in it must be made to feel its extravagance and stupidity, by having it shown to them, so that they may be confounded by the sight of their folly. For this is how men reason, when they choose to live in such ignorance of what they are, and without seeking enlightenment. "I know not," they say ..."

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I don't think so, personally. Back when I was an agnostic I had people propose Pascal's wager to me, but it didn't really seem like a good bet to me. It seems to me that God would have more respect for honest skepticism than feigned belief (at least to the extent he distinguishes the two at all, which he might not). Accordingly, I felt in terms of Pascal it was better to continue to honestly disbelieve and seek answers, rather than pretending to a belief I didn't have.

Well, then look for options that don't require belief, and do those?

Or at least be researching the options extremely diligently on the off chance that one of them is true and you're convinced or God directly causes faith in you (for the positions that believe that happens) or something.

Any of these paths seem obviously to dominate over uncaring atheism.

But how do you believe?

In my understanding, digging into how Belief itself actually works helped a whole lot. It appears to me to be trivial to observe that the consensus narrative about the nature of belief is pretty clearly wrong, and it is that an ingrained acceptance of that consensus narrative that causes people to be "unable to believe". They "believe" that beliefs are forced by evidence, and that the evidence is all on one side on this issue, so the choice is between rationality and irrationality, and they are already strongly committed to rationality, so the cognitive dissonance eats them up.

But in fact, beliefs are pretty clearly not forced by evidence, and the relevant evidence is not all on one side on this issue. People are believing what they want to believe, always have and always will. "Belief" is not a deterministic result of evidence, it is a prerational act of the will. Once this is understood, belief becomes much, much easier to control.

But evidence definitely matters!

It does. Just not in the way I was taught it did, and not in the way many people appear to claim it does.

We reason from axioms. Axioms have a shape. That shape allows some evidence to fit inside, and excludes other evidence. Or to be more accurate, it fits specific interpretations of evidence and rejects others. Axioms sufficiently specific so as to be useful generally reject significant amounts of evidence, but this is ignored because they organize a much more obviously significant central mass of corelated evidence, and this evidence-mass is central to the focus of the person adopting the axiom, so they are motivated to ignore the outliers. If the outliers become sufficiently relevant, they might switch to a different axiom that accommodates them, but evidence in and of itself does not cause this to happen.

That's my understanding, at least.

the dreaded ‘ this isn’t true ‘ always reared its head

I find it helpful here perhaps to share this early passage from Ratzinger (later Benedict XVI)'s Introduction to Christianity which sheds light on how this condition is inescapable.

Anyone who makes up his mind to evade the uncertainty of belief will have to experience the uncertainty of unbelief, which can never finally eliminate for certain the possibility that belief may after all be the truth. It is not until belief is rejected that its unrejectability becomes evident.

It may be appropriate at this point to cite a Jewish story told by Martin Buber; it presents in concrete form the above-mentioned dilemma of being a man.

An adherent of the Enlightenment [writes Buber], a very learned man, who had heard of the Rabbi of Berditchev, paid a visit to him in order to argue, as was his custom, with him, too, and to shatter his old-fashioned proofs of the truth of his faith. When he entered the Rabbi’s room, he found him walking up and down with a book in his hand, rapt in thought. The Rabbi paid no attention to the new arrival. Suddenly he stopped, looked at him fleetingly, and said, “But perhaps it is true after all.” The scholar tried in vain to collect himself—his knees trembled, so terrible was the Rabbi to behold and so terrible his simple utterance to hear. But Rabbi Levi Yitschak now turned to face him and spoke quite calmly: “My son, the great scholars of the Torah with whom you have argued wasted their words on you; as you departed you laughed at them. They were unable to lay God and his Kingdom on the table before you, and neither can I. But think, my son, perhaps it is true.” The exponent of the Enlightenment opposed him with all his strength; but this terrible “perhaps” that echoed back at him time after time broke his resistance.5

Here we have, I believe—in however strange a guise—a very precise description of the situation of man confronted with the question of God. No one can lay God and his Kingdom on the table before another man; even the believer cannot do it for himself. But however strongly unbelief may feel justified thereby, it cannot forget the eerie feeling induced by the words

“Yet perhaps it is true.” That “perhaps” is the unavoidable temptation it cannot elude, the temptation in which it, too, in the very act of rejection, has to experience the unrejectability of belief. In other words, both the believer and the unbeliever share, each in his own way, doubt and belief, if they do not hide from themselves and from the truth of their being. Neither can quite escape either doubt or belief; for the one, faith is present against doubt; for the other, through doubt and in the form of doubt. It is the basic pattern of man’s destiny only to be allowed to find the finality of his existence in this unceasing rivalry between doubt and belief, temptation and certainty. Perhaps in precisely this way doubt, which saves both sides from being shut up in their own worlds, could become the avenue of communication. It prevents both from enjoying complete self-satisfaction; it opens up the believer to the doubter and the doubter to the believer; for one, it is his share in the fate of the unbeliever; for the other, the form in which belief remains nevertheless a challenge to him.

Perhaps anything is true. Perhaps I have an invisible unicorn. That seems like a really weak defense of faith.

It isn't a "defense" or frankly a whole argument for faith, let alone Christian faith specifically. You're missing the point if you're trying to parse it as that. It's quite literally the first chapter of a book that does contain that if you want it, but that's not why I'm quoting it.

The point of the story is that the general feeling and condition of doubt is inescapable. We do not and can not know any metaphysic to be true from experience alone. Anything we do is ultimately under the rubric of dealing with things we do not comprehend.

What if Russel's teapot indeed? I personally hold that claims of knowledge on metaphysical matters are unwise, and that we have to deal with a condition that is and remain mysterious. If acting as if invisible unicorns or Saturn orbiting teapots existed granted visible boons, I'd consider the idea even if I am unable to reconstruct a logical justification for it.

To not consider it because anything could be true seems silly. The world is full of things we can't understand and still use.

the large gap between the internet, and The Church. This is a feature imo.

Yeah, I definitely would agree with that. If my parish was anything like the terminally online Catholics you see on social media and stuff, I would've probably run away a long time ago. But it's really nothing like that. They are just a bunch of normal people trying to do the right thing and get closer to God.

I'd recommend historic protestantism. So neither modern evangelicalism, nor the woke mainlines. If you DM me your area, I could probably find some churches that have a reasonable chance of being good.

And in that search, Catholicism is virtually the top sect we are most hesitant to consider, behind "Unitarian" which at least near us codes to "Whatever goes man" loosey goosey "spiritual but not religious" non-faith.

My experience has been that you are most likely to find "spiritual and religious" where the religion is tied to the geography, or at least the community. The clearest examples of this are all old-world; Shinto in Japan, but also Lutheranism in Germany or Anglicanism in England.

This is difficult to replicate in the United States, but it seems like the most authentic Baptist congregations are in the Bible Belt; the really convincingly Lutheran Americans are all in Minnesota (or thereabouts); if you live in Utah then you may as well be Mormon. Catholicism in, say, California seems to be two faiths, really--depending on whether your congregation is Woke, or Hispanic. I don't have much experience with Jewish worship but my impression is that it's a lot more immanent in Manhattan than it is in, say, South Dakota.

Of course I say all of this as someone who is not looking for a church, but who has spent a lot of time thinking about religion and who sometimes has reason to wish I were more susceptible to faith than I am.

We feel like all the promises of a secular, expert run society we were promised in the 90's just opened up fresh new horrors we could have scarcely imagined, and are ready to try to retvrn and believe in Christ.

Although I'm sympathetic to your thinking and I don't wish to discourage you, it should be pointed out that the age of Christendom had no shortage of horrors.

In fact, as a striking example of how Nothing Ever Changes, people have been calling for a retvrn to counteract cultural degeneracy since at least the 1100s, as documented by Sigebert of Gembloux:

"Whatever their sex, rank or fortune, whatever their religious connections, who can ignore this dreadful turmoil? What else are women everywhere talking about at their spinning-wheels, and craftsmen in their workshops, but the confusion of all human laws, the overthrow of Christian standards, sudden unrest among the people, crazed assaults on ecclesiastical decorum, servants plotting against their masters and masters mistrusting their servants, betrayals among comrades, treacherous plots against the powers ordained by God, friendships broken and faith neglected, malicious and perverse doctrine contrary to the Christian religion brought in by official license– and worst of all, all these monstrosities allowed by the permission, supported by the consent, endorsed by the authority, of those who are called the leaders of Christendom."

My advice: look for a Protestant church that says they believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God (the nice thing about sticking with the Bible is that it will keep you from going off the rails either in the progressive direction or in the cruel and authoritarian direction) and that has a strong sense of community (self explanatory).

And on a more spiritual level, be ready for faith to sneak up on you gradually. It’s like muscle that gets stronger as you work it, but you have to put in the work.

I’m happy for you that the spirit is calling you back to the fold. I walked the same path a few years ago and it was one of the best things that ever happened to me / my family.

Assuming you are in the USA, you might want to look into either Anglican Ordinariate(the republican rite of the Catholic Church) or a more old-country eastern rite parish.

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