Good post!  What, then, are we to do when godless people find their way into our lives?  Cast them out?

I imagine that first generation of Christians to be in many predicaments.  You would have slaves in households, merchants, farmers, of course--basically all different kinds of people.  And I imagine them to be surrounded by non-believers.  I can picture them trying to covertly maintain their faith when they could (to avoid detection), but I can also imagine a moment where one house slave's Christian faith is discovered by another pagan house slave--an associate of the first slave for years.

Then, of course, when it came down to it, the Christian would offer testimony and talk about Christ, leading to either persecution or conversion.

This meme about the early Christians being somehow "open to the world" is something I notice in several places now: it almost seems as if certain people with an agenda are comparing notes.

It is incredibly stupid, since the early Christians were hated and persecuted for refusing to participate fully in pagan society.

Deliberately embracing the world is unnecessarily placing the salvation of your children and yourself in danger.  It's a spiritual danger that should never be embraced with a laugh or on a dare or as a lark.  

Let's not forget that these are not ordinary times though.  The novus ordo vatican wants us to embrace the world and be the yeast in its bread.  That's a good way to completely neutralize yourself.  And in today's world, the public schools are spiritually superior to the novus ordo schools.


Ggreg has a lot of good advice but I think I'd rather have my children struggle with finding a job than be cast into the fires of Hell because they embraced the world so completely that they became one with the world.  

Trad Catholics can always grow up to be entrepreneurs - large scale or small.  

Ggreg has a lot of good advice

I swear I think sometimes when you scratch a trad you get someone who is still recovering from years of listening to Rush Limbaugh.

That's the real problem here:

We have in this thread the advice of a saint contrasted to the personal insults from someone who sounds like an infomercial narrator, who is not a serious Catholic.

And Catholics have allowed themselves to be programmed to look up to and accept the insidious values of these sorts of people, who show contempt for religious people.

Indeed.  They must have all been unemployed and living on thistles and briars for their sustenance.

Except for the tax collector, of course.  He somehow gets a pass for working in society.  But no one else!

Stupid indeed.

Yes, you are very stupid if you think St. Matthew kept collecting taxes after he became an apostle.

You are also stupid to think that being rejected and persecuted for your beliefs is what these liberals are talking about.  They're talking about the opposite.

These people, the people at FE who come here to repeatedly attack my reputation have an agenda of anti-Catholicism.  of anti-Traditionalism.

An admitted agenda.  They continually berate and insult traditional Catholics and brush aside the Church's condemnations of their stated beliefs and practices.

These people have an agenda, but the agenda of the dull and petty people here is to get some kicks in on me because I make them feel stupid.

It is funny how the guy who throws the most insults this week is complaining about them.

I bump a thread of a saints commentary here and the response is a long screed about my personal life from someone who just re-confirmed he plans to no longer be Catholic if John Paul II is canonized.

Now, petty people who can't handle being criticized or downrated seem to get satisfaction in the presence of such abusive people.

Yes I do.

They live on land given to them by their parents and the two brothers that use to share the plot have now fallen out and refuse to speak to each other over a property dispute.  One has a job the other is long term unemployed.  The father has disowned and disinherited the brother with the job and it is not the first or even the second such incidence; I have seen.  I have seen this repeated.

The brother without the job has taken the side of the father (a home-alone nutter), for the obvious reason that inheriting $150,000 and seeing his brother cut out of any inheritance ($75k more for him) is a very attractive temptation.  That is his retirement money, without which he would be living on welfare payments until he died.

Two of the sisters lapsed because they father went super zealot in their teens.  They've been disinherited long ago.

But please refrain from playing some victim card, and own up to being an ass.  It happens to most grown men.  Just recover and cool off.

I'm pretty sure the people who slander me here on these forums, who have participated, would run like the filth throwing macaques if they had to confront me in person.

As far as agenda, my only purpose on Catholic forums is to talk about things with Catholic people because I'm Catholic.  But I'm not going to just sit there when I see someone acting like a jerk to someone else.  It bogs down normal conversation, but oh well.

No but, right now you want to but into conversations to sound important.

As far as Greg--I'll state his name since you seem unable--perhaps you should be encouraging him to pursue the faith, instead of this bit of nastiness you are so used to.

I suggest if you want to ggreg to pursue the Faith you criticize his outrageous statements rather than defend them against just criticism.