Ask God

>and some level of authority to discuss Bible and religion topics around the dinner table with annoying family members
No degree is gonna help you with your crippling autism.
As for your wife, it sounds like she might be the brains of the family. You certainly ain't.

>>25496704
I wish you wouldn't be so condescending, giving me a high and mighty attitude like some jackass.

>>25496704
>As for your wife, it sounds like she might be the brains of the family.

Following the path of least resistance (not doing something because it's hard) is commendable?

>>25496689
>I just want to have deep knowledge and some level of authority to discuss Bible and religion topics around the dinner table with annoying family members. But who knows maybe I could somehow have a career in it.
This is the most bashful and retarded reason you could ever do this over.

>>25496716
>This is the most bashful and retarded reason you could ever do this over.

People have a hard time processing my brutal honesty. Time and again.

if it's free, go for it.
if you're a yank or something and would need to pay for it your wife is right

The university accepted my application and said the 10 year program requires 15-20 hours of study a week. That seems pretty intense to keep up for such a long time.

I feel so torn about it, been thinking about it for months, but it's about to start now, so I literally have only days to make up my mind. Leaning towards letting my dreams die but they keep coming back

>>25496734
what's the harm in trying? worst case scenario you drop out

>>25496737
Well I could see several risks
>negatively affecting my work performance
>soul crushing defeat if it turns out to be more than I can handle

But the upside of finishing seems very substantial. (for me personally anyway, don't care what other people think)

>>25496731
>if it's free, go for it.

If I understand the information brochure correctly, it seems kinda cheap € 743,40 a year,
I guess this is normal in my euro country

Also my career is pretty unpredictible, could be that the next project (like the former) requires extensive travel. Committing myself to such a rigorous study plan would be quite limiting for many things.

But in the end there is no glory without sacrifice.

>>25496720
Seems to me that he processed it perfectly, you just don't like his reaction.

No its a waste of time for some schizo ass middle east religion that has a bunch of retarded shit like Moses somehow keeping Fresh Water fish alive after the world flood on a wooden ark or how the world was created 3000 years ago.
Focus on your kids instead. Teach them the shit to be successful. Learn subjects in your free time and teach them during the weekend to reach their maximum potential.

>>25496917
*Meant Noah not Moses

>>25496689
>deep knowledge
You don't need school for that
>authority
kek you putting abbreviations in your Twitter handle? So desperate to one-up your uncle you'd actually tell him 'as a MA of Theology...'?
Do it or don't, your problems will not be solved by this

>>25496689
Don't ask your wife for permission, just tell her that you're doing it. As long as it doesn't interfere with your job, it's none of her business, and once you've been doing it for a year or two she'll support you anyway. You're not gonna get a career in it, but you can't get a career in any field that's actually interesting these days, so all that matters here is whether or not you think it's interesting enough to be worth the effort.

>>25496970
>kek you putting abbreviations in your Twitter handle?

No for when I talk to my father about theology. He came to visit yesterday and we had a 2 hour discussion on theology which reminded me I need to get a degree in it. Theoretically you could study on your own, but it's unlikely to give the same quality of result and it's nice to be rewarded with a degree at the end

>>25497242
>You're not gonna get a career in it, but you can't get a career in any field that's actually interesting these days, so all that matters here is whether or not you think it's interesting enough to be worth the effort.

And you never know maybe it will indirectly lead to something. But I'm very happy with my current career, nevertheless it seems very uncertain (IT stuff) in the current realities of offshoring lucrative IT service jobs to low cost countries, the rise of artificial intelligence and all the rest of it. I want to ride it until the wheels fall off, but it could be over relatively quickly. (hopefully not)

>>25496689
>I don't have concrete professional plans with such a degree, I just want to have deep knowledge
You know you can just read the same books and get the same deep knowledge without paying for a piece of paper that says you read those books?

>>25496827
I think most people will give you fake reasons that sound good when you ask them about their motivations. I am just telling you the truth which sounds unusually superficial to the ears that are used to hearing lofty fake reasons

>>25497554
I considered that, but it's not that expensive and that piece of paper seems like a nice thing to have. Also, it's unlikely to get the same result when just studying on your own.

my mind keeps going back and forth on the big question: do I want to put that kind of pressure on myself in the quest for the knowledge of God, or not? I have a hard time estimating the level of stress and pressure, but the guy from the school says 15-20 hours of study a week. That would mean, if you're perfect and never fail, you have to knock out 2 hours a day on work days and 5 hours a day on weekends to reach 20 hours in a spread out fashion. I guess it's possible but not sure if I can make that. Fuark

>>25496689
If you're well off then go ahead and give it a try. At worst you just lose money and (hopefully) gain some self-awareness, at best you get a degree.

>>25497631
>at best you get a degree.
plus ideally find God and life of the coming age

>>25496689
I don't want to demoralize you further but I've started this route at 29 and I bailed after the first semester for multiple reasons:
1) Universities live in a bubble. Not just in terms of volumes of arbitrary curriculum and senseless homework, but also in how they approach people, which can range from a valued customer to a piece of dirt that a high and mighty professor aims to shape. Although if you're fresh out of college, it might be a smaller shock for you than it was for me.
2) Theology in particular is the least academic of all subjects. All things be equal, it is better to know the theory and be able to cite and navigate the source materials, of course. But is it better to encounter the products of a living faith in an armchair study setting? Reading the saints, I've come to believe the answer is no. Many of them discourage delving into depths that are beyond your spiritual maturity and the advice "beware of unearned wisdom" was constantly scratching at the back of my head.
3) This is precisely about your words "I just want to have ... some level of authority". This is a completely understandable drive. But it will fuck you over.
I personally know people who have studied philosophy and despite their arguments not showing any sign of philosophical training, they expect a little extra weight to be granted to them for their studies. It corrodes difficult discussions beyond belief. The family members you argue against will be just as annoying except now your answers will be held to a much higher standard and you'll feel much more pressure because you're now in the top 1% of people who can defend the faith and if you can't do it, they will be justified in thinking nobody can. This is not a warning against carrying responsibility, acquiring competence or defending the faith, but it is a warning against 'having' authority and trying to utilize it as a tool. It's a drug and once you are a double-certified user, things can go downhill really fast.

>at some point you get tired of being an amateur and want to level up
Invest the 10 years into becoming holy and I trust you'll discover a whole new level.

>>25497661
you did the exact thing I am considering? whoah!!!

can I call you? I have a million questions

>>25497661
>your answers will be held to a much higher standard

as in they will stfu or they will do the total opposite and scrutinize it to death? logically you would expect the latter, people love to "listen to the experts"

>>25497661
I'm 38.5 years old so about 10 years older than you were at the time. This is like a legit evangelical university, that's why it will take 10 fucking years (exactly twice the full time schedule of 5 years) to do it. Not some weird online diploma mill. So I have serious doubts about my capacity to do it but on the other hand I really want it. Fuck I've been mentally going back and forth on it for months.

I try to understand why I actually want it, and I guess it's sort of the fact that I've been trying to self study all this stuff for years but I feel like I'm not getting anywhere due to lack of structure and all the good stuff that comes from a real education. But then I question if I really really want it or just like the idea of it. Cracking the books 20 hours a week for 10 years? That's a lot more demanding than the cookie cutter self study I've been doing, if we're being honest here.

I'll put it this way, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I would immediately quit my job and pursue theology full time, there's no doubt about it. Not sure if that's helpful in determining what I should do.

>>25497662
It depends on how exact is 'exact'. I enrolled full-time and my priest had recommended to do the bachelor's programme in Greek and Hebrew studies before switching to theology for the masters. But the end goal (and the starting motivations) were the exact same - becoming a well trained and competent theologian, in my case with a heavy focus on the Old Testament. I don't think I have more insight beyond what I shared, which might already be skewed by geographical differences, but for what it's worth, this is what I've come to.

>>25497664
The latter. As an amateur you can get away with just citing "and the Word was with God". As an expert you'll be expected to know why "pros" is here translated "with", what is omitted by this translation (which is quite a lot) and how the alternative translations/understandings are to be reconciled with the faith. It will take you an hour of focused study, but a week to explain to a dunning-kruger-struck family member.

>>25497670
>I've been mentally going back and forth on it for months.
I know that feeling. But I think it was mostly because university was the last time I was completely crystal clear about how my long term goal breaks down into smaller goals and what it takes to reach them. Since I've re-visited my relationship with uncertainty itself, I've felt a much smaller pull to formal study. I'm not saying this is what's happening with you, but it's worth a reflection.
>I'm not getting anywhere due to lack of structure
Check with the professors directly, they might be glad to give you some tutoring when they see you're serious about it.

>>25497681

Whoah, if it's not too personal, how did you manage to enroll full time at the age of 29? Did you basically quit your job and had the financial means to do so, as well as the willingness to suffer 5 years of no income?

>and the Word was with God
fucking John 1:1, I bulldozed my dad's "beliefs" (as an atheist) in the holy trinity. It's only since the KJV that English translations started to capitalize the "word" and referring to it as "him" rather than "it". This factoid blew his mind. The trinity is absolute bullocks, pagan neoplatonic horse shit.

>>25497681

Also, have you considered going back after it at one point or have you found peace with the idea of not becoming a theologian?

>>25497661
Listen to this anon. Couldn't have phrased it better myself.
t. walked same path and arrived at same conclusion

>>25497750

So you're basically saying I should let go this stupid dream and just continue self study to my heart's content? That's the most likely thing I will do. But still feels somewhat like a failure. Would be nice to have a degree in theology, something to fall back on in case my field of work goes to hell ( which seems to be the case due to capitalism)

>>25497661
>you're now in the top 1% of people who can defend the faith


fuark you make it seem even more awesome than it already did

>>25497863
The only job opportunities in theology are ministry and academia. And to get a chair in academia you need to be in the top 1% of candidates. Even then, speaking to professors and doctoral students, it's clear that they're jaded by the work. The accumulation of knowledge doesn't necessarily lead to wisdom. Academic study of sacred texts or commentaries is something very different from a traditional seminary formation that emphasizes prayer over erudition. The mentorship you might get will be professional rather than spiritual.
On the other hand, going into ministry for the $$$ sounds like a terrible idea no matter how you look at it. How will you sleep at night knowing your own motives? Wouldn't poverty teach you more about God than all the Biblical scholarship in the world?

>>25497868
No you can also be a high school theology teacher in christian schools, shit seems pretty cool. Probably terrible pay, but assuming by then A.I. and offshoring will have destroyed my present career, maybe it will be appealing

>>25497873
That's ministry.

I somehow feel semi irrationally that committing to something so hard would inevitably damage my focus on my work, but this is probably lazy person's coping, trying to sell myself the idea that I shouldn't do it


ehhh

I'm just going to "postpone it" (in my mind) until I am retired/win lottery/suprisingly have a big inheritance (doubt it) so that I can continue focusing on my work without too much pressures outside of that. And of course keep lord maxxing and reading theological books to my heart's content

thoughts? is this this the way lads? or will I regret bigly 10 years down the line?

>>25497557
>autistic person doesn't understand why 'brutal honesty' isn't a praiseworthy trait in itself
It's a cliché at this point

>>25497904
I am genuinely curious why? And people have said I am autistic but I completely disagree, it's just that I am not a fucking normie who lives and thinks like one

>>25497880
Of course it would distract from your work. If it doesn't then you're not taking it seriously enough to master it; and the catch-22 is that if you had a chance to master it in the first place, then your love of the subject would already be distracting you from your work. The degree would seem more of a formality or an inevitability than a choice.
That you point to the authority of the degree, or the expertise itself in polite discussion, manifests your desire to impress others by completing this path. Your honesty is praiseworthy here, but either for philosophy or theology, that isn't good enough. For the students who are meant to be there, study is like breathing, they cannot not do it, and the academic environment was originally a natural habitat and a spiritual path in its own right reserved for a specific personality type. That has changed as higher education has become a big business and overproduction of elites has destroyed the field. You would be a part of the cancer that is killing it, from how it sounds. No offense, just trading honesty for honesty.

>>25497911
now that you're saying that I don't have what it takes I want to prove you wrong so badly and prove to myself that I can be something


ahhhh fuckkkkk this shit is not breaking its hold on my mind

>>25497904
I feel this isn't a fair assessment, I was not praising myself, I was just pointing out that your very negative view of my motivation may be unreasonable as many people may have the same motivation but lie about it for virtue signaling purposes

>>25496689
>I just want to have deep knowledge and some level of authority to discuss Bible and religion topics around the dinner table with annoying family members.
You want a masters degree in theology to win religious arguments with your family? Not only is it not going to help you do that, it's a stupid reason to want the degree in the first place.

>>25497911
but overall I agree with your assessment, unfortunately

>>25497921
>You want a masters degree in theology to win religious arguments with your family? Not only is it not going to help you do that, it's a stupid reason to want the degree in the first place.

Why wouldn't it help? What an outrageous statement. This is like saying that earning a black belt in judo isn't going to help you in scraps with family members

>>25497915
Anon, I am a random stranger on the internet, so my appraisal of your character shouldn't motivate you one way or the other. The best I can give is my honest take based solely on what you say. If you were to prove me wrong, I wouldn't be around to admit defeat. Just take my spiel for what it's worth: if it seems reasonable to you, consider it, but if not, ignore it. This level of impulsivity won't serve you in either case.

>>25497925
>If you were to prove me wrong, I wouldn't be around to admit defeat.

If you'll still be alive 10 years from now, you'll still be here. Let's not kid ourselves, boyos.

>>25497929
I'm not a regular on /lit/ and I'm discerning a contemplative vocation so odds are I won't be around

>>25497932
I was joking but also not joking, friend.

>>25497934
Reconsider it after you have burned away your ambition, I would say. If it's in your nature then your ardor will increase the less you want to prove yourself or be someone.

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>>25496689
If you are ALREADY gainfully employed and happy with it, sure enter the BA theology program. If you want greater job security and more pay, get a degree for the field you're already in. A theology degree is what you make of it, and what what you get out of the program depends as much on how much you're personally willing to do research on your own outside of the classroom bc the classroom while interesting at times is meant for undergraduates just out of their teen years.

Years of study of ancient greek language, theology proper from Aristotle and Plotinus to Aquinas, papal encyclicals, Church history, Catholic social teaching, ethics, philosophy of language, and phenomenology have pretty well set me up to be a strong candidate for an MA in Philosophy, Theology, minor in Classics... or unemployment. If you go, be prepared for part of it to be, at times, also a political indoctrination; formation not into the Church or an interior life, but to correct opinions on social justice topics. And do NOT go to a protestant seminary or one of those bible colleges, find a program at a real university.

And "being right at the dinner table" is probably the worst reason you could enroll for.

t. theology degree anon

>>25497945
I feel super blessed with my current career, it's like a miracle to me and I wish it could go on forever. I'm very worried about the future of this stuff though (IT services) with everything that has been happening (offshoring to india and eastern europe, artificial intelligence etc)

theology is just extremely fascinating, although I could never see myself doing it professionally at all to be honest.

So you're really doing all this stuff? Whoah, mirin hard anon! Wish I could go back to age 18 and do all this stuff full time in university, but it's 20 years too late to realize all of that.

>>25497924
It's so stupid for several different reasons

1. You're going into getting this degree in the most unacademic way. Let's you have Bible opinion X and your family has Bible opinion Y. You don't go into pursuing the degree to show your family X is the correct opinion, you'd be working backwards from a conclusion. You're supposed to go into it with an open mind, maybe your family is right and Y is correct. Maybe you're both wrong and it's Z.

2. A degree isn't something you get to wave around to show you're right about shit, that's an appeal to authority logical fallacy. You still need things like well reasoned arguments and empirical evidence to demonstrate you're correct.

3. If your family is working backwards from conclusions as well, you'll never win the argument. It wont matter if you have a masters degree, well reasoned arguments, empirical evidence. You'll have wasted a lot of time, effort and money just to have the same conversation 10 years later. People in general are like this when it comes to their closely held religious beliefs. They don't listen to facts or reason, they just believe whatever the fuck they want to believe. It's a fact of life.

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>>25496689
>>25497868
Accurate post. If you go into academia for theology you will move to wherever the jobs are, and that will likely be someplace you don't want to be. Likely even in a ghetto. Fordham is an amazing school, for example, buried in the Bronx NYC. Catholic Theological Union? Just a few miles from the south side of Chicago. Outside of that yeah employment would be ministry (social work in the real world, working with college students on retreats and formation at a school) or working a religious private school or w/e which is its own beast. The pay is not what you want. If you're interested in ancient history, archaeology, lost languages etc the recent x-ray/laser tech is interesting but yeah the most insufferable people are that way because they really are geniuses who read a dozen languages. Been wanting to learn Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic but desu I'm burned out.

>>25497961
you're making a lot of assumptions there but alright then

>>25497965
this further strengthen my superstition that I must not tempt fate too much and focus 100% on my present career until the wheels fall off due to capitalism and its self destructive practices leading to loss of jobs for people in 1st world countries

Is it true that James White is a fake phd? I noticed that he appeals to emotion a lot and seems like a fake academic. For instance he leads with stuff like "becoming a parent changes you..... and then becoming a grand parent changes you even more" to explain why he completely changed his eschatological views, that's when I stopped taking him seriously. This is like the opposite of what a true believe or true scholar would do.

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>>25497956
>IT
That's a real rough one y'know. I don't want to say it's doomed because networks and servers aren't gonna fix themselves and they'll be the basis of the coming Great Unemployment caused by displacing every midwit admin employee on payroll for a subscription agentic AI that doesn't need health insurance. I'd get a practical degree in something not expendable. Not theology. I enrolled long before AI was gonna be a thing.

>it's 20 years too late to realize all of that.
Thanks for the mires but it is never too late anon I promise you. Non-traditional students exist, especially at night classes.

And there's the thing nobody tells you about: the crisis of faith. After you know that translation errors in scripture recorded Exodus as crossing the 'reed sea' instead of the red sea, for example. Questions that will bother you like how quantum physics butts up against forms (μορφη), energies (ενεργια), substances/essence (ουσια) of classical metaphysics and remains in use by the Church to the present. How does phenomenology, the study of consciousness and the relation between Self and Other/Subject and Object, sit with a deity who is missing and defined by mystery and working unseen. Shit like that is a spiritual trial as well.

>>25497978
>life experiences change you
wow deep. if he's a phd he's not a very good one. a lot of the real theologians i've met are way more interested in political change and speaking on works of social justice (but not doing them). They might have a spiritual life but I doubt it.

>>25497980
not a day goes by without tremendous existential fear of the impending wipe out in my industry. I feel there's realistically not a lot of great options at this point in my life. Can't just abandon ship now at cruising altitude. Need to go down with the ship and then see what can be done. Unfortunately I have a lot of siblings who will fight me tooth and nail for inheritance when it eventually comes.

>>25497986
if becoming a grandfather changes your eschatological views, you're a fucking joke, it has nothing to do with everything and so on and so forth

>>25497945
>>25497965
We are the same. I even went to Fordham, for undergrad. Can confirm that the library was the most helpful part of my time there on the whole. One thing not yet mentioned is that in addition to the political indoctrination, which is very real (Old Testament prof who was into liberation theology literally organized a struggle session in class) there is such a thing as an academic bias. Prior to Fordham's reconstitution as a private university with a Jesuit community attached, it was a property of the Jesuits, and the curriculum was substantially a Jesuit formation. At the time I attended Gronkowski was the only faculty member old enough to remember how it used to be. In various seminars on pedagogy there's an explicit admission that we no longer take this approach to sacred doctrine seriously. There isn't a nuanced critique however. It is a pure bias. Take this limitation of perspective into account when deciding whether it's for you.

>>25497986
dan mccellan called james a fake phd from a diploma mill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tWjp93N5iI

>consultant
>challenging
Maybe if you’re a retard

>>25498004
thank you

>>25497961
>2. A degree isn't something you get to wave around to show you're right about shit, that's an appeal to authority logical fallacy. You still need things like well reasoned arguments and empirical evidence to demonstrate you're correct.

There's also the fact that even with a degree you remain a filthy layman without the sacrament of Holy Orders. You have no real authority, you're just a smart guy "for a normie." Every real church has a priest that has just as much knowledge as you and the lived experience that gives them three kinds of authority: academic, apostolic, and experiential.

>>25497994
Glad to hear from you anon, how are you doing in life rn? I'm transitioning to grad school, definitely not for theology. I loved it when I started but yeah I need a career that pays bills and I'm not cut out for a PhD.

And yeah the liberation theology is the wooorst. There's actual courses on it, which is ridiculous. It's dressed up Marxism that was BTFO by Ratzinger back in the 1980s but people still preach it because it's fashionable. Who cares if it muddies the waters of salvation with earthly communism.

>>25498007
>Ratzinger


OP here, I just wanted you all to know that Ratzinger is one of my if not the most favorite person in entire history

love him so much

>>25498012
I should start reading his books

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>>25497988
>his wife was right
Many such cases. Some of my theology professors are vibecoding now, in their 50s-60s. It's a crazy world out there and only going to get worse once the oil production cartel replaces the petrodollar with the petroyuan.

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>>25498012
well I should say Pope Benedict but he published that essay against liberation theology when he was still just Fr. Ratzinger. and yeah he's awesome, his hermeneutic of continuity regarding the traditional liturgy (which was later slated for extinction by Francis) is sorely missed

>>25498016
are you belittling me and or wishing bad things for me? I cant tell. fucking shit

>>25498021
I watch a lot of old interviews that are being uploaded to youtube, love that man so much (100% no homo)

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>>25498022
I am not belittling you. Your wife was right. And I'm not wishing for bad things I'm just letting you know they could very well happen and soon. I hope you've saved up some of that american currency in the form of real assets. The dollar has been doing some very sussy things in commodity markets since the moneyprinters were overclocked in COVID.

>>25498028
>Your wife was right.
I have zero dollars, only 100k liquid euro and 700k euro in real estate, no debt

I hope for the best but I don't know, things don't look very good. Good still have 1 or 2 years ahead before it all goes bust, that's my gut feeling

>>25496689
Studying middle east Fantasy books for 10 years to sound smart at family dinners seems retarded

>>25498044
Well maybe, but that's what theology is all about though

>>25497690
>how did you manage to enroll full time at the age of 29?
I rarely use up all my vacation days so for the first semester I was just burning through my full-time PTO. After that I would've had to go part time or agree with my boss to work evenings and weekends, as my job wasn't time-sensitive. I had no gf and saw my friends only occassionally for sleepovers so it could have worked.
From what I discussed with the professor, some people work two jobs during summer to save money and then live off of it for the rest of the schoolyear, but that sounded too risky for me.

>The trinity
>pagan neoplatonic
I would revisit this. Neoplatonism isn't inherently pagan or inherently wrong in its basic orientation. Just incomplete. Revelation of the Triune God completes it.

>>25497705
After theology didn't work out, I've considered philosophy part-time because I feel like the rift between a modern man and God has less to do with theology and more to do with the box we've thunk ourselves into and I wanted to navigate it competently and perhaps even publish a contribution. But after becoming more comfortable with uncertainty as such, and after finding some good literature to address the individual issues, I'm no longer tempted to gain any credentials whatsoever. The next steps are clear and the further ones will become clear as I grow.

>>25496741
>don't care what other people think
Dude, you're looking to blow nearly all your free time over the next decade, along with something like eight grand in tuition and fuck knows how much more on books, just so your relatives will finally admit that you're Right™. And when people here find this plan a trad questionable you get all huffy about it. You obviously care very, very deeply about what others think. Not that it's hard to see how you nevertheless manage to miss this, since the closest you ever seem to get to any kind of self-awareness is " I dunno lol. Fucking shit".

>>25497570
> the quest for the knowledge of God, or not?
More like trying to sort out your daddy issues. And no, a degree in theology ain't gonna help there.

>>25498007
>Glad to hear from you anon, how are you doing in life rn?
I am out of academia, destitute, a gigging musician for now. Completed my baccalaureate almost literally on the eve of lockdowns, so did not even attend my graduation ceremony. The same persuaded me to give up on graduate study. I would have gone for medieval metaphysics.

My problem with Ratzinger, and despite being a traditionalist I will leave the Ottaviani-like perspective aside, is the approach to mystery. Basically la nouvelle theologie wants you to believe that "Christic mysteries" or "Christian esoterism" refers to the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses of scripture. This is false. It is clearly false because you find the true referent in the Hesychasts, the Rhineland mystics, the Desert Fathers, the Corpus Dionysiacum, etc. Pierre Hadot manages to come a lot closer with the emphasis on philosophy as spiritual exercise. There is an actual technique involving memory, imagination, and intellectual intuition that provides the fourfold hermeneutic in the first place but which is excluded from ressourcement. Obviously there are serious dogmatic issues associated with ceding the literal to historical criticism, and this is precisely the territory of the "hermeneutic of continuity," but I think it's more germane to this discussion to focus on the lost technology. When I bring up "academic bias" this is fundamentally what I mean. Not only do you not need a degree to approach the technique (and thus access to wisdom), but the curriculum can become an active hindrance, insofar as direct illumination, while we study it as medievalists, isn't an acceptable source of exegesis regardless of orthodoxy. Anyway that's my rant.

>>25497661
I missed this post before. It's 100% right. And accurately deconstructs the activity of defending the faith, or seeking to be That Guy at all. If you are serious about the Christian endeavor and philosophical inquiry, and you take your source material seriously, you will already know your goal should be holiness not sounding smart. And I've tried to be ecumenical but the evangelical habit of arguing with prooftexts is the opposite of scholarly. A prooftext is held up as a piece of evidence for a claim that is made while specifically denying any deeper contexts. It works on normies, but don't do that. That's S-tier (sophist) misleading.

>>25498076
yeah ok that's fair

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>>25498082
based Ottaviani respecter. seen too many friendos become rudderless regressives, lukewarm, or even sedevacantist because of Iota Unum or the rhine flows into the tiber. but what was a midcentury modernist priest supposed to do, especially after vatican ii? the new liturgical order was to sing kumbaya, speak gibberish in tongues like the protestants, and adopt granola pseudo-buddhist shit like eckhart tolle. the path to success in every context inside and outside the Church was one that led away from tradition. homilies when i was a kid were an overweight alcoholic priest telling his congregation about the pitfalls of keeping a marriage before inviting native americans to come stomp-dance in their liberace costumes. it's very sad that we want to expect informed askesis from this poor soil, but i guess that's exactly what scripture said would happen. tldr it's hard to find spiritual direction when the monsignors are all careerists worried about income and scandal and politics.

have not read Hadot, did enjoy the desert fathers, pseudo-dionysius, and augustine. love me antiquity, simple as. strongly agreed w your point about a bias toward the academic; these people are TOO literate -- if they were dirt poor illiterate athletes of God in the third century they'd be living the scriptures instead of chasing their own tails about it. modernity sucks i hate it. very much enjoyed its critics though, like voegelin or patocka. nice rant.

>>25496710
Just because something is difficult does not mean it is worthwhile. Sometimes things are both challenging and pointless. Like making your usual errand to the grocery store, but carrying a backpack full of lead bricks and shoes with depleted uranium soles. You could simply not burden yourself unnecessarily, but apparently, to you, taking on unasked for burdens makes something inherently worth doing.

>>25498178
I can tell by my wife that it's a bad idea. she says she's not against it but it's clear that she thinks it's a stupid idea. she's pretty good at identifying stupid ideas although she made a lot of stupid moves as well in her life shes not perfect nor am I whipped

you're right, no need to give myself more worries than I already have with this fucking economy

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>>25498082
>I would have gone for medieval metaphysics.
[ jeff goldblum: ] oh my dear boy, oh, my boy

this was my dream for a while but yeah it's useless. tfw i will never be indiana jones.

and to be clear I had only one piece from Ratzinger in mind, from his book The Ratzinger Report. a condemnation and refutation of liberation theology that left no room for gustavo gutierrez' credibility: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html

paolo friere types absolutely btfo.

>out of academia, destitute, a gigging musician for now
ngl becoming a bartender is kinda tempting

>>25498169
Thanks anon. Your point is echoed by a certain traditionalist priest who once remarked that what surprised him and even seemed miraculous was that even one prelate at the Council, i.e. Lefebvre, refused to go along with the changes. There's no reason not to suppose that what actually did happen naturally would. The problem for him, of course, is that the justification for an organization like the SSPX is an interruption of normalcy that however, by all human means of judging, is very much permanent. It thus becomes an issue of personal conscience, which in this context implies a condition of general anomie: with the hierarchy telling simple priests essentially to do whatever they want, whether one implements Vatican II or resists it, the ultimate appeal is to an individual judgment or interpretation. Unsurprisingly, the logic that takes over in practice is more social than theological; listen to the war stories of old priests and seminary dropouts. I think that this loss of *effective* authority is the real crisis. Woe to earnest parishioners simply trying their best to keep the faith!

However, the price of relevance being permanence, the athletes of God will win out in the end. Rather than smile at simple devotions, it's best to take these more seriously than anything else, and they are the most interesting of all studies anyway. Something truly amazing happens when you do, that is, you gain clarity in the intellectual life, along with a deep and abiding peace of mind. And you may even glimpse the real value of losing a debate.

>>25498196
>tfw i will never be indiana jones.
Look up Louis Charbonneau-Lassay. The Last Crusade is a documentary
>ngl becoming a bartender is kinda tempting
It's an unpleasant scene, but for bartenders, the money is pretty good. You meet extremely interesting people when you least expect it. But there is a lot of gross stuff. It takes a toll. You either grow tired or detached.

>thread still up
dead board
>>>/adv/

>>25496689
How would you describe your beliefs? Who is God to you, what role does religion play in your life and where did you get this knowledge and conviction from?

>>25498196
This thread delivers. Great stuff anon

>>25498264
I'm trying to discover irrefutable proof of God through reading theology books because I want to be immortal.

>in before pious hypocrites call me self serving etc

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>>25498326
>irrefutable proof
>I want to be immortal
Someone has proved a refutation of the promises of Jesus Christ recorded in scripture? News to me.

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based gnostic anon who will discover the secret knowledge that leads to immortal life you can do it my man fuck the archons let's get this liberation

https://youtu.be/g9v5_9DCPXc

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I'm on neetbux and have all the free time in the world so I'm starting a theology degree this september

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>>25497945
bigbluebobsled@yahoo.com write me an e-mail please, I have some questions

That sounds way too long, can't you cram over the weekends and turn in papers/exams faster.

>>25498381
You can ask them here.

>>25498364
Mirin

>>25498359
>based gnostic anon who will discover the secret knowledge that leads to immortal life you can do it my man fuck the archons let's get this liberation


Yeah man. I'm currently reading a short book on the kingdom of God. The Amazon reviews said it changed their lives. The author put it for free on his website in PDF which I printed this afternoon. It's very exciting so far, I expect to find the keys to immortality over the next few pages.
https://www.focusonthekingdom.org/Kingdombook.pdf

>>25498531
I was being sarcastic. There is no secret knowledge a Christian requires for eternal life. Gnostic heresies have been btfo repeatedly. If you are actually a Christian you'd know salvation is not something you earn or deserve or achieve yourself. Some lesbian feminist black power theologians write books advocating that kind of thought regardless. This is basic Christian catechism; go consult a Denzinger and read some early creeds. Protestantism allows all kinds of bad takes tho.

>>25498547
>There is no secret knowledge a Christian requires for eternal life

I found it starting on page 105
https://www.focusonthekingdom.org/Kingdombook.pdf

>>25498183
Ngl your wife cares for you anon. Ten years is a long time, and things can shift in the family easily. She may take a job/change jobs, either have or have more kids, and one of you may come down with a health condition. This is also not withstanding external family issues that may crop up during that time. Degrees like this are often pursued when one is in one's late teens/early twenties. After that, unless you're already in academia or have a good stipend, you can't really start it in life even if you want to.

You mention having a job. You may be making a good salary. However, to finish this degree you will have to sacrifice some aspects of either work or family life, or even both. It's really not a game you want to play in today's economy, and in parallel to a full time job and family it'll be a nightmare.

Listen to your wife anon, it might be demoralizing, but it's for the best. "Leveling up" isn't worth it if it ends with a divorce, broken family life, and on the job hunt. You've already gone too far ahead on one spec tree, if that makes any sense.

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>>25498071
>I've considered philosophy part-time because I feel like the rift between a modern man and God has less to do with theology and more to do with the box we've thunk ourselves into
This is exactly where I'm at right now. Phenomenology and psych (and therefore stem sciences I'm not informed about) lead me to understand what you describe -- symptoms of modernity -- are caused by a disordered physiology. My steak is too juicy, my porn is too good, my cheetos too tasty, my alcohol unlimited. Our brain chemistry isn't made for this environment. We stop being persons and become primarily pleasure-seeking robots whose entire existence comes to revolve around earning money to pay to be comfortable (ie, to be excused from authentic human experience). It's a devilish trap that capitalism is about to crush under its own gravity.

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>>25497690
>fucking John 1:1, I bulldozed my dad's "beliefs" (as an atheist) in the holy trinity. It's only since the KJV that English translations started to capitalize the "word" and referring to it as "him" rather than "it". This factoid blew his mind.
we got amazing atheist over here. check ur factoids man. the manuscripts we have do correctly refer to the logos as a masculine noun (as we'll discover later thats why it is used in referring to the male person Jesus the Christ). those ουτος/αυτο_ pronouns you see *can be* used as masculine or neuter. but there's no confusion on the page like you assert because the pronouns agree with the objects they are referring to: logos, a masculine noun.

>>25498730
I told her this morning that I decided I'm not doing it, my life is hard enough as it is. She said yes just study whenever you feel like it on your own.

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>>25499230
You did nothing to disprove the fact I stated.

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>>25498452
>>25497945
When you talk about the indoctrination on social justice topics; did you encounter that indoctrination when studying theology or when studying philosophy?
I'm considering becoming a Lutheran pastor, but if I'm being honest, my main problem is that Lutheran churches - even conservative confessional ones - seem to be a bit woke. Even the LCMS, for example, feels compelled to put out documents distancing themselves from "racism" and "antisemitism"...have the brothers even bothered to read the most infamous work by their founder?

>>25499665
>>25499665
Both fields are captured by woke ideology. I had exactly one professor who was reasonable, humble, and held non-transgressive values. Check the political demographics of university professors; like 90% of them are leftist or far left. Kimberle Crenshaw's critical race theory is still very big in academic circles, and doctoral students still make their PhDs on racialist issues. Some of my philosophy professors had me reading the founding document of queer theory, or black philosophy written in jive talk. Or black lesbian feminist woman theologians who asserted that salvation was something black women owed to themselves, cited authors who said abortion is a good thing, and 'black girl magic' is ignored in the wider world because of bigotry. A predictable demographic of professors made it their mission to recognize and disavow antisemitism in scripture (forgetting that Pharisees have not existed for two millennia and yes indeed the rabbinical movement did come from them), or examining the anti-gay prejudice in Paul. Pretty much every professor's pet ideology was well known, and it typically served their racial or sexual identity. Low self-interest.

This is all still better than subscribing to Protestantism. Whether someone is woke or not can be rejected because the priority is learning; the vast majority of my fellow students were unaffected by the wokeness. They're actually pretty right wing in a very good and wholesome way. The more consequential piece of your degree plan is choosing a category of churches that have no apostolic authority. Orthodox and Catholics agree on some things for certain: sola scriptura is bad method, and a tradition founded on rejecting its own tradition is reactive. Too affected by its own internal politics to recognize they are prejudiced against history and reason. It's why so few of them are interested in the early church a thousand years before Luther, and why those who are eventually convert. Good luck anon.

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>>25499572
John 1:3 (retarded TYN): "and with out it"

John 1:3 (original source texts): "και χωρὶς αὐτοῦ" = and without HIM

As before I'll grant you that some ambiguity is POSSIBLE, given that John 1 is reframing the moment of creation in Genesis 1 -- God *speaking* the cosmos into existence -- as including that Word (λογος in the photographed text) as present in the moment. And not only present, but also him -- himself. You could insist you're right and say "well acktually it IS an it" but then the following chapters don't make any sense because a man is not an it.

>>25499929
>so few of them are interested in the early church a thousand years before Luther
That is to say:

Luther revered the Blessed Virgin Mary
Luther believed in the Real Presence in the Eucharist
Luther intended to reform The Church, not to create new ones. Read his Letter to Antwerp, he regretted the fracturing he caused and called the new denominations that sprang up as works of the devil. The more centuries that passed, the further away Protestants got from Luther's own positions -- and mostly out of anti-Catholic prejudice. The revolution fueled by ignorance is over, it failed and ran out of credibility. One has only to use the internet to go back and look.