FrenchySkepticalCatholic wrote:

Greg wrote:

Extraordinary Form

Just passing by, and I figured I could add this -- Extraordinary Form doesn't mean it's a "supermass", but is exactly "down to earth" to its meaning, e.g. "out of the ordinary". I often have sedevacantist friends making the mistake.

 
Could someone either elaborate on, or point to a source that elaborates on the different types of mass?   I take it that all masses have at their "core" Communion, or I suppose it is more accurately called the Eucharist.   But are there are a bunch of different types?

For reference, I grew up in a very traditional and conservative branch of Lutheranism, that I was always told was very liturgical and traditional as far as Protestantism goes, but Catholicism seems liturgical on a whole new level.  Even on Easter or Christmas or Lent Wednesday services the church service was essentially structured the same so I guess we only had one type of service?

Sedevacantism is also a very interesting topic I have been watching some YouTube videos on.  There is a book called The Destruction of the Christian Tradition  by Rama Coomaraswamy that looks to argue that case very strongly, but it also seems that Papal law dictates that sedevacantists are necessarily excommunicated, even if not formally so by the church (or at least a lot of people argue that).

lacktone wrote:

Funny, before I declared atheism it was Catholicism I was brought up in. My parents were really seriously into the pageantry of that religion and insisted their 5 kids were exposed to all of it. My mother, in particular, I dubbed a cathaholic. The various steps of Catholic training kids were indoctrinated in was such a religious meme, which one can call it these days, of reinforcement that it's not a stretch to see how people succumb to it.

If the service was straight forward with bible-speak relevant to the community's make-up and needs I'd have given it some kudos for effort. But, it was just a guy in his service garb spouting the usual religious stuff, followed by the ridiculous ceremonial communion that was supposed to symbolize receiving the body of Christ, and then followed up by some closing sermonizing. This becomes a pageantry of ceremonial pomp and circumstance during the religious holidays. Forgive my irreverence but religions just make no sense to me. I see them as idol worship whereas the commandment "thou shalt have no other gods before me" gets totally blown out of the water by their existence. Religions are exactly that. Case in point, if you have a genuine sense of your god and truly believe you can worship it without channeling that worship through a religion or other agent, then why employ such a device? The sense of (spiritual) community it provides? Well, okay but that's a wholly secular reinforcement to something you should already have high and tight without externally propping it up with the herd instinct.

I say try to be your own spirituality for your own life and put some distance between yourself and the organized faith purveyors. If you can do that, you're genuinely one with your god. Otherwise, not so much.
 

Lacktone,

That didn't even attempt to answer my question.  You also seem to have a lot of misunderstandings about the ritualistic aspects of religion.

RomanJoe,

Thanks, I will definitely have to read Or

99% of people who take drugs do it for the explicit purpose of feeling pleasure.   Almost all talk of this different states of consciousness talk is rhetorical justification.  If life's goal is something higher than pleasure, then drug use is at the least unhelpful.

The other 1% of cases are more complex.

I think to answer that question properly, you would need to answer the question, do the different genders have different ends or telos?   (I have no idea what the plural of telos is, sorry.)

If the genders have different goals, then they will have different virtues, as virtues are habits that help a given entity to reach their goal.

That's a very broad question, but the classics that come to mind (which are still very relevant) are Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as well as his Politics.  Were you looking for something more specific?  

Socrates seemed to imply at times that all of his philosophical questioning was aimed at being a good citizen.  Even Plato's dense metaphysical dialogues like the Parmenides or the Sophist ostensibly aimed at figuring out things that would help citizens in daily life, like distinguishing between charlatans (sophists) and knowledgeable leaders (philosophers).