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Author Topic: How To Act Towards Sinners/Nonbelivers  (Read 1496 times)

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Offline poche

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Re: How To Act Towards Sinners/Nonbelivers
« Reply #15 on: May 12, 2018, 04:39:59 AM »
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  • I'm not sure which "Father of the Desert" you're talking about, but I believe the doctrine is to judge justly, not refrain from judging at all.
    We can discuss the goodness and evil of objective behavior but only God sees into the inner dispositions of the heart.   


    Offline TheJovialInquisitor

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    Re: How To Act Towards Sinners/Nonbelivers
    « Reply #16 on: May 12, 2018, 08:38:26 AM »
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  • We can discuss the goodness and evil of objective behavior but only God sees into the inner dispositions of the heart.  
    You don't need to see into the inner dispositions of the heart to judge their outward actions as sinful.


    Offline klasG4e

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    Re: How To Act Towards Sinners/Nonbelivers
    « Reply #17 on: May 12, 2018, 03:17:58 PM »
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  • The "not judge" commandment is terribly misunderstood and abused nowadays.

    Most people rather take sides with the one in the left here, instead of Jesus Christ:


    Thanks!  That's a great image.

    Offline Neil Obstat

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    Re: How To Act Towards Sinners/Nonbelivers
    « Reply #18 on: May 12, 2018, 05:58:07 PM »
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  • I'm currently having trouble with this.  I live in America, and naturally, every workplace I have a job at is chock-full of people who are not only nonbelievers, but actively revel in promiscuity, drugs (mostly weed), petty theft, ect.  I know I'm supposed to behave cordially with them, but I feel like if I get too "chummy" with them it will not only further legitimize their life-styles in their eyes, but will also be an affront to justice to treat an unrepentant sinner as you would treat a penitent.  How are you to act, typically, in everyday interactions with these people?
    .
    This is a great question!
    .
    Most workplaces in America, it seems, have this problem.
    Some are full of evangelical Protestants, others with Mormons or 7th Day Adventists or whatever.
    Some are full of atheists, some are full of satanists, and I kid you not.
    But in most cases, you have a whole lot of simply WORLDLY people, in your case, they smoke dope, drink alcohol, watch sports.
    The petty theft part is another story, but I don't know what to say about that.
    .
    There is a recent article in the latest Fatima Crusader (not yet online) that applies here:
    It's by Monsignor Perez, and it's titled: Be A Duck
    I think you would really appreciate it. I highly recommend it.
    If I can find my copy, I'll post some excerpts. It's something like 15 pages long.
    It ends with 15 meditations for the Rosary centered on the theme of the article, which is don't be afraid to show your Catholicity.
    .
    I have personal experience with this problem from years ago when my workplace was getting me down, when every day I woke up in the morning dreading the day when I would have to face non-stop occasions of sin at work. All the men cajoled with each other in prurient jokes, salacious news stories, and personal anecdotes of sɛҳuąƖ impropriety. It was really depressing. I had utterly nothing to say to them, nor did I laugh at their filthy jokes, so they started to EXPLAIN the jokes to me presuming that if I didn't laugh at them it MUST be because I didn't GET it. Even the superintendent of that particular project was caught up in the dirty joke habit.
    .
    So I embarked on a program to collect and tell clean jokes.
    This took a lot of effort. I had to search far and wide for clean jokes.
    But I got some together, and tried to tell them in similar situations.
    If someone at work was carrying on with a dirty joke about someone in a bar, I would tell a clean joke about someone in a bar.
    How do you find a clean joke about someone in a bar, you ask?
    One goes like this.
    .
    A panda walks into a bar and orders some food. The bartender brings the food from the kitchen, and the panda eats it.
    When he's finished eating, he gets up and shoots his Colt .45 into the ceiling.
    The bartender comes over and yells at him, "Hey, you can't do that!"
    Another customer sitting at the bar says, "Who do you think you are?"
    The panda replies, "I'm a panda. Look it up." Then the panda walks out the door.
    So the customer asks the bartender, "Do you have a dictionary?" 
    The bartender reaches under the bar and gets one out.
    They look up "panda" and find the following definition:
    .
                                panda n. a bear native to China; eats, shoots and leaves.
    .
    If the joke needs any explanation you can say that this is what can happen with a misplaced comma in the dictionary.
    (You say, "eats, comma, shoots and leaves.")
    .
    Long story short, after a few weeks of this, the other men started to laugh at my clean jokes.
    I had to keep upbeat and cheerful the whole time. I had to make myself scarce whenever dirty jokes were told, and I had to enter a scene prepared to tell my clean joke quickly, and like the panda, make a hasty retreat. I had to be pleasant, yet persistent, and not leave any room for ridicule -- if they wanted to complain about me, they'd have to do it behind my back, and that tends to get old.
    .
    One day a particular man was trying to be disrespectful toward me and I consistently made light of it. As I was leaving the room he asked me, "Hey Neil, where did you get your sense of humor?" I replied to his face as I walked by him out the door, "Why, do you want to get one too?" He had absolutely no come-back to that, it caught him 100% off guard.
    .
    Like I said it took a few weeks, but one day, quite to my surprise, when I had arrived early in the morning, the superintendent was there and no one else. He told me, "You know, Neil, I'd like to thank you because you've shown me that a joke doesn't have to be dirty in order to be funny."
    .
    I was amazed to realize that a grown man would have to be given this lesson, or else he wouldn't have otherwise known it to be true.
    .
    .--. .-.-.- ... .-.-.- ..-. --- .-. - .... . -.- .. -. --. -.. --- -- --..-- - .... . .--. --- .-- . .-. .- -. -.. -....- -....- .--- ..- ... - -.- .. -.. -.. .. -. --. .-.-.

    Offline poche

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    Re: How To Act Towards Sinners/Nonbelivers
    « Reply #19 on: May 13, 2018, 02:24:21 AM »
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  • .
    This is a great question!
    .
    Most workplaces in America, it seems, have this problem.
    Some are full of evangelical Protestants, others with Mormons or 7th Day Adventists or whatever.
    Some are full of atheists, some are full of satanists, and I kid you not.
    But in most cases, you have a whole lot of simply WORLDLY people, in your case, they smoke dope, drink alcohol, watch sports.
    The petty theft part is another story, but I don't know what to say about that.
    .
    There is a recent article in the latest Fatima Crusader (not yet online) that applies here:
    It's by Monsignor Perez, and it's titled: Be A Duck.
    I think you would really appreciate it. I highly recommend it.
    If I can find my copy, I'll post some excerpts. It's something like 15 pages long.
    It ends with 15 meditations for the Rosary centered on the theme of the article, which is don't be afraid to show your Catholicity.
    .
    I have personal experience with this problem from years ago when my workplace was getting me down, when every day I woke up in the morning dreading the day when I would have to face non-stop occasions of sin at work. All the men cajoled with each other in prurient jokes, salacious news stories, and personal anecdotes of sɛҳuąƖ impropriety. It was really depressing. I had utterly nothing to say to them, nor did I laugh at their filthy jokes, so they started to EXPLAIN the jokes to me presuming that if I didn't laugh at them it MUST be because I didn't GET it. Even the superintendent of that particular project was caught up in the dirty joke habit.
    .
    So I embarked on a program to collect and tell clean jokes.
    This took a lot of effort. I had to search far and wide for clean jokes.
    But I got some together, and tried to tell them in similar situations.
    If someone at work was carrying on with a dirty joke about someone in a bar, I would tell a clean joke about someone in a bar.
    How do you find a clean joke about someone in a bar, you ask?
    One goes like this.
    .
    A panda walks into a bar and orders some food. The bartender brings the food from the kitchen, and the panda eats it.
    When he's finished eating, he gets up and shoots his Colt .45 into the ceiling.
    The bartender comes over and yells at him, "Hey, you can't do that!"
    Another customer sitting at the bar says, "Who do you think you are?"
    The panda replies, "I'm a panda. Look it up." Then the panda walks out the door.
    So the customer asks the bartender, "Do you have a dictionary?"
    The bartender reaches under the bar and gets one out.
    They look up "panda" and find the following definition:
    .
                               panda n. a bear native to China; eats, shoots and leaves.
    .
    If the joke needs any explanation you can say that this is what can happen with a misplaced comma in the dictionary.
    (You say, "eats, comma, shoots and leaves.")
    .
    Long story short, after a few weeks of this, the other men started to laugh at my clean jokes.
    I had to keep upbeat and cheerful the whole time. I had to make myself scarce whenever dirty jokes were told, and I had to enter a scene prepared to tell my clean joke quickly, and like the panda, make a hasty retreat. I had to be pleasant, yet persistent, and not leave any room for ridicule -- if they wanted to complain about me, they'd have to do it behind my back, and that tends to get old.
    .
    One day a particular man was trying to be disrespectful toward me and I consistently made light of it. As I was leaving the room he asked me, "Hey Neil, where did you get your sense of humor?" I replied to his face as I walked by him out the door, "Why, do you want to get one too?" He had absolutely no come-back to that, it caught him 100% off guard.
    .
    Like I said it took a few weeks, but one day, quite to my surprise, when I had arrived early in the morning, the superintendent was there and no one else. He told me, "You know, Neil, I'd like to thank you because you've shown me that a joke doesn't have to be dirty in order to be funny."
    .
    I was amazed to realize that a grown man would have to be given this lesson, or else he wouldn't have otherwise known it to be true.
    .
    Maybe you should focus on being a good example. Who knows, your good works and your prayers could be what brings these people to God.