Millions and millions of people live on the belief that their little routine scenario, including what they hear at school and watch on TV, is all that exists in the world and anything that gets out of that box is madness or conspiracy theory.

From one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand Christians continue to be murdered each year in Islamic and Communist countries, and an equal number suffers all sorts of humiliations, boycotts and constraints in Western democracies. There, the anti-Christian rhetoric of the media, universities and international organizations becomes increasingly ostentatious and uninhibited, showing a clear intention to move, soon, from moral and cultural genocide to mass murder. I see the same pattern with some extension in some members of this forum.

Being a Christian has become so dangerous that I no longer conceive of another greeting to send to my friends than the good old warning that we are not born for this world, but for eternal life. It was not only to bring, but to fulfill this warning that Our Lord came into the world and died for us. His Birth would make no sense without His Death, and His Death without the Resurrection. The Resurrection, too, would have made no sense if it had left no other sign on Earth than the memory in the mind of a few witnesses, two millennia ago. But the marks of Jesus' presence in the world are so many and so constant that the only way to ignore them is to look away and cover your ears. I always see some involuntary humor when they talk about “faith in miracles”. A miracle, by definition, takes place in the physical world and is perceived with the five senses, without any appeal to the supernatural aid of faith. After all, did the paralytic walk or did he just believe he did? Did the blind man see, or did he just think, with great faith, that he saw? Did Lazarus rise or did he just, at the bottom of the grave, mistakenly believe he was alive?

It also seems to me that if, instead of making the Sun dance in front of everyone's eyes, Our Lady had, in a snap of her fingers, instantly made only eighty thousand people believe it without seeing anything, it would have been an even more extraordinary miracle. There is only one way to deny miracles: it is to refuse to look at facts, it is to exchange them for thoughts. It is exchanging, as the poet Bruno Tolentino would say, the “world as an abduction” for “the world as an idea”. Unfortunately, ninety percent of philosophers do nothing else.

As for your question: often for the individual, suffering can be the beginning of wisdom. For the community, it is the engine of violence, which pulls the car of history towards the fiery furnace on whose edge a sign announces: 'Justice and Peace', (i.e. the same old promise of the religion of Caesar archetype). If you accept suffering with total resignation and sweetness, not as a punishment or as a cosmic injustice, but simply as a normal chapter of that part of our destiny that only God understands, you end up discovering that this suffering, even though it remains incomprehensible, it increases your realism and strengthens your maturity. Often it is the pretension to understand everything that leads us to understand nothing.

Turning to the other, looking with charity, serving others and working hard are things that we demand of others, but that we ourselves do not do.

“No one has greater love than the one who gives his life for his friends.” — Job 15,13

There is also the question of Marian apparitions around the world, that says something about afterlife and our own world. The miracle of Fatima, for instance, is the central event of 20th century history. This miracle in particular is fundamental to contemporary political science because, as it speaks of the prediction of war, it is a data of analysis. It cannot be dismissed as a subjective belief.

I am convinced that the Miracle of Fatima is the central event of the 20th century, but it certainly does not enter modern culture. So who’s wrong? Our Lady of Fatima or modern culture? I think one of the two must be right; and the two cannot be at the same time.

When Our Lady, in Fatima, 1917, said that Russia would spread its errors throughout the world, She was not referring only to communism. She said: Russia’s mistakes. Communism was the first step, and now they have invented another, even worse. On the rubble of communist society, the same authors, creators and supporters of communism, want to build another empire, even bigger, on a world scale. But what do they have to offer? Russia’s own corruption and misery. There is not one miracle of Fatima, but an incredible succession of miracles

Do not forget that, in the very prophecy of Fatima, the first thing that Our Lady does is open hell to show it to the children. That is, even before making the prophecy, it already shows what hell is like. The depth, breadth and infinite clarity of what the three children saw in Fatima illuminate the historical process in such a way that everything else we think about is only a shadow...

If there is a well-proven fact in this world, it is the extrasensory perception during the state of clinical death. An inert body, with no heartbeat or any brain activity, suddenly awakens and describes, in great detail, what happened during his trance, not only in the room where he lay, but in the other rooms of the house or hospital, which from where he was he could not see even if he was awake, in good health and with his eyes open. This has been repeated so many times, and it has been attested by so many reputable scientific authorities, that only a complete ignorant in the matter can insist on remaining incredulous. But even some of those who recognize the impossibility of denying the fact are reluctant to draw the conclusion that it necessarily imposes: the limits of human consciousness extend beyond the horizon of bodily activity, including that of the brain. The reluctance to accept this shows that the “modern man” — the product of the culture that we inherited from the Enlightenment — has identified himself with his body to the point of feeling frightened and offended at the mere suggestion that his person is something else. It is evident that this is not just a conviction, an idea, but an incapacitating self-hypnotic trance, an effective block of perception.

The image of the self as something that resides in the body or identifies with it is fantastic, illusory, sick. It imposes limitations on consciousness that are by no means natural, much less necessary. All spiritual traditions in the world, all wisdom disciplines start with the obvious realization that the self is not the body, it is not “in” the body, but in a way it encompasses it as the supra-spatial transcends and encompasses the spatial (this is marked out by certain mathematical relationships that, in themselves, are nowhere in space).

Strictly speaking, a single episode of this type would be enough to completely refute with the nonsense that the brain, that is, the body, “creates” cognition, thought, consciousness. But the episodes are thousands, and the lack of interest of believers in this type of phenomena (more studied by atheists, New Age followers and Buddhists than by Catholics, Protestants, or even Jewish believers) denotes that the religious mind has already conformed to a diminished state of existence, in which the supracorporal soul, a fundamental condition of access to God, will only come into existence in the other world, through some magical transmutation of the bodily psyche, instead of already constituting in this life our most concrete, most substantive personal reality and more truthful, present and active in our most minimal acts as in our highest and most sublime experiences.

I understood that happiness is a more or less accidental result. Happiness is like pleasure, said Saint Thomas Aquinas. Pleasure is a side effect resulting from something that worked. It is not an objective. It is never a goal. After all, pleasure is an abstract term that designates a constellation of feelings that can differ greatly from one person to another. The pleasure is too evanescent for you to seek it. You will have to look for something concrete.

For example, what is gastronomic pleasure? Can you eat gastronomic pleasure? Of course you can't. You will have to eat something concrete. This thing can give you pleasure or displeasure. Saint Thomas Aquinas is absolutely right. You ate it, it worked, so you say you're happy. Pleasure is the name you give to the subjective side effect of something. Happiness is the same. Seeking happiness is the most useless thing in the world, because you never know what will make you happy or not. It is true that some things make you happy and others make you unhappy, so these are the things you will have to look for. Our effort is always directed to do something, to achieve something, and not to an abstract thing called happiness. This I understood a long time ago: to seek happiness is to make a hole in the water. If you seek happiness you will be unhappy, so it is better to seek victory, self-assertion, strength, etc.

It is true that the happiness that can be achieved in this world is modest and fickle, but real. One of the keys to obtaining it is: that the joys of others do not sadden you, nor do their sadness rejoice you.

What we genuinely desire from life, our deepest and most true dream, is a secret that God only reveals to us little by little. Until we catch a glimpse of it, we confuse it with all sorts of copied desires - the mimetic desires as René Girard used to call them, things, sensations and situations that we barely know about, which in general we don't know is nothing, and that only seem desirable to us because we saw that other people wanted them and, despising ourselves in the dark depths of our hearts, we imagined that we would feel a little less miserable if we became like these people. There is nothing sadder than a life devoted entirely to the search for these mirages, which, the more we adore them, the more they disappoint us.

Time is the substance of human life. The money that is lost is gained again. Time, never. Make your time worthy.

Hell consists of being separated from God, therefore excluded from the infinite possibility and locked up forever in the psychological little world you created yourself, without even a little window to peek outside. Examine your thoughts and you will see the trouble that awaits you.

Predestination versus free will is a play on words and a confusion of plans. We can only be predestined from the point of view of divine omniscience. Predestined beings, even a computer programmer can create, but to create unpredictable beings, capable of initiating new causal processes themselves instead of being simple links in a previous causal chain, well, for that it takes a God. Human freedom is an expression of divine freedom itself, which, in a partial and relative way, extends in us.

Turning to the other, looking with charity, serving others and working hard are things that we demand of others, but that we ourselves do not do.

Nothing like the great fiction literature to develop in the reader the capacity for moral judgment. There we see many dramatic, tragic, comic or paradoxical situations that we will never encounter in our personal life, that transcend our current horizon of consciousness, but that we must know because they are part of human life and because nothing prevents them from appearing before us tomorrow or later. Imaginary experience broadens our moral understanding and prepares us to judge things wisely and fairly. Most of the wrong moral judgments come from narrow imagination.

Also, an infallible formula: before judging anyone, especially negatively, make sure that you have already become, more or less in a stable and general way, someone kind, brave, humble and capable. Demand these basic qualities from yourself, and when you attain them - because no one has the four at birth - your judgments about other human beings will be reasonably fair, as far as possible. Until you get there, restrain your impulse to judge. Virtually all the ills in the world come from people demanding more from others than from themselves.

My theory is that historical continuity across generations can only be done and told by real characters and not by metonymies. Take for example the history of the USA. Evidently, the USA is just a scenario where stuff happens, not the subject of history. This is a very common example of an metonymic confusion.

Subjects of History are the religious castes, the monarchical (like the English royal family) and oligarchic (the Rockefeller and Rothschild) dynasties and the Gnostic sects transfigured into mass ideological movements (Freemasonry during the French revolution, transfigured in the Enlightenment. Recalling that there were also Freemasons aligned with the Ancién Regime). Its action spans the centuries, over the life span of States and the horizon of vision of their rulers. I'm sorry you couldn't understand..

I couldn't agree more with your commentary. Unfortunately, confusion in the language is very present in modern times due to the analytical school in an attempt to reduce philosophy to an internal logical technique, without any concrete basis, being far from reality. It is the analysis of the text by the text, when actually philosophy must be lived. For example, french was the most beautiful and clear language in the world. After the deconstructionists, it became the most obscure and repulsive.

Philosophy is the unity of knowledge in the unity of consciousness and vice versa

If you are really interested in studying this, there is more information on this topic in this book
 

The dominance of the idea of ​​Empire is not a theory: it is a fact, and a specific fact of Western History. If it were a theory, it would claim to have a generic scope, an explanatory power over the historical process in general. But nothing similar to this typically Western fact is observed in the East, where the surge of an imperialist outbreak is an exception rather than a rule. Take, for example, the case of China, which is very powerful and yet accommodated within its borders for millennia, only falling into imperialist temptation when contaminated with Western ideas. Look at the Islamic world, perpetually divided into hostile nations and only rarely having some imperial unification initiative, which is always an temporary and unsuccessful undertaking. No, gentlemen: imperialism is not an alleged "historical law": it is a fact that has occurred in a certain part of the world. It cannot be refuted by means of theoretical arguments; it has to be discussed in the field of historical narration, which only proves it.
 

There is no more stubborn and incurable imbecile than the one who proclaims: "I only believe in scientific evidence." Most of the important knowledge is not accessible to any scientific test. Scientifically prove that Shakespeare's writings are better than those of Dan Brown. Scientifically prove that the woman you love will not put a tremendous pair of horns on you. Scientifically prove that some twenty years from now the USA will continue to exist. Devout confidence in the omnipotence of the scientific method is perhaps the greatest proof of intellectual immaturity.

Aristotle taught that ALL scientific evidence is based on some pre-scientific knowledge, which it only perfects IN CERTAIN ASPECTS. The typical modern university jerk wants to invalidate ALL pre-scientific knowledge and exchange it for some scientific proof. He will only risk taking an woman to bed when he is scientifically certain that his dick will rise.

Yes. And with regard to guilt, the problem is not guilty conscience. It is the guilty UNCONSCIOUSNESS. The fiercest accusers of others are the great bearers of unrecognized guilt. Commit a crime, forget it, and the next day you will be a tremendous apostle of social justice.

Also, there is nothing more difficult than making someone aware of his progressive unconsciousness.

Two facts about Sir Isaac that you will never find in the manuals:

(1) The main purpose of his studies was to found a new Christianity without the Trinity - a kind of "absolute unity" in the Islamic style. Failed.

(2) He had tantrums and started hitting people for no reason.

After the Americans twice accepted to have as president a total stranger with false documents, why can't they also accept a mentally disabled person?

A fact that few take into account because few know it: there are more mentally ill people among celebrated scientists than in the general population.

Death is one of the few empirical certainties we have. An idea is evaluated by its ability to face death. Only what matters to us is mortally important, the truths for which we would die, and which are worth more than life. Ninety-nine percent of what we think is of no importance. Getting rid of vanity and adopting death as a criterion is a good start in philosophy.

Besides, fear of dying is like fear of shitting: it is fleeing the inevitable.

Just giving my thoughts on it... I can't tell what the object in front of me is about, much less your life. Everything is unique, words most of the time are only analogies that we use to grasp something that is real and cannot really be defined and much less understood by them, if not by contemplation. Be well.

It depends for what you are struggling for; money, power, fame, etc; or love, sacrifice, fight for the good, which is the struggle that many saints all over the world, despite many religious and cultural differences, strive to attain it and then became the role model for their particular society. Jesus is the most striking example, but there is also Gandhi, Muhammad, Buda, etc.

In Greek myth, it is told that most people would be destined for Hades (the mansion of the dead), and Heaven would be destined for those few heroes who sacrificed themselves and fought for what is right. This archetype is present in all the founding mythologies of different civilizations that have never even come in contact with each other.

Yes, this imaginary exercise makes it possible to discover who you are; and then becoming that, that is, yourself, in real life.

Love is not a feeling, it is a way of being. It is an inner oath to defend your loved one to death, even when he sins seriously against you. Love is really, as Jesus said, to die for the loved one. When we expect love to make our lives more pleasant, instead of sacrificing our lives for it, we are without love and life. Love is the most fearful of challenges, but when you know it, you never want anything else. I suggest reading Ortega y Gasset's essay about it.

The exercise is about realizing who you actually are, not some bidimensional being that you have invented for yourself and/or your friends, but finding out who you really are. It is also about finding out what your gifts are, and then planning your life accordingly.

For this exercise to be fully fruitful, you will need to have some sense of eternity. Especially because, no matter if you were the emperor of the world, or reproduced like Genghis Khan and had 1000s of sons and daughters, everything here on Earth will be temporal and one day it will end, and no one will remember. One day nobody will remember what the USA, the Roman Empire, Mozart, etc was like. If you don't have that sense of eternity, you fall into the culture of death that most people find themselves with, that deep down, behind every act, is accompanied with a desire to die. Of course it will be like this, nobody wants a life that does not have a perennial meaning, therefore that it is meaningless. Maybe that's why some people here on the forum are so upset with people just mentioning God....

We can speak of an successful life only when one’s relationship with an eternal God motivates each of his actions. Not only accidental acts, but all, one by one, there is no single act that can be explained outside this dialogue. Who does the guy talk to, who does he respond to? If we erase this connection, his life becomes a collection of meaningless acts. There are individuals who are already born in this eternal realm, and this is what Plato was saying when he was talking about the Supreme Good. God (or the Absolute, if you like) does not want nothing for us beside being ourselves, and this is the first step to know God, to be truthful to ourselves, not living a posing life to others that is a lie, it is false.

So, it is not really about being rare or ordinary, but truthful.

Be well!

Then he didn't need to mention God, but he did — JerseyFlight

Hate crimes are criminal acts motivated by bias or prejudice towards particular groups of people. What you are saying is an serious prejudice against the gypsys (i.e. me as well), and really, anyone who believes in God (jew, muslims, etc). "Mentioning God" is not the subject of the post, so it is obvious that you are an religious intolerant. You are already denounced to the site moderator. Also, FBI investigations of hate crimes were limited to crimes in which the perpetrators acted based on a bias against the victim’s race, color, religion, or national origin, but now the Bureau became authorized (since Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009) to also investigate crimes committed against those based on biases of actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or gender, so I am warning you to be more careful of your own prejudices, and keep them to yourself. I am saying this because this is not the first time that I see you doing this to me..

There are things that are good for a instant, others for a while. Only a few are forever.

Sure, no problem :)