Awesome. And see, this is how naive I am, I thought the Church had quit selling indulgences hundreds of years ago.

So had I, so I was agog at Dad's story.

Mind you, he almost got expelled from his Catholic high school for running the satirical underground newspaper that mocked the staff. Dad's relationship with the Church was always a rocky one.

One of the participants, who was raised Catholic, but is not at all religious now and basically an atheist, was saying when he's trying to go to sleep, he'll still recite the Our Father and other prayers in his head, because the ritual is still soothing.

I still sing a couple hymns, because they remind me of my mom.

I am still getting grumpier as the day progresses.

I just had a little rage meltdown at the psychiatrist. He handed me a script for Valium without even asking if I wanted a refill. Ha ha funny man, yeah gimme.

Yes but...in my experience people who came up Protestant tend to actually have a much stronger grounding in actual scripture than many who were raised Catholic. There an argument to be made that for a fair chunk of modern Catholicism it can become all about the ritual and little about the underpinnings. And going through the motions of ritual doesn't actually mean anyting about how good a person or their behavior is.

This was my experience. I tell people I was raised Catholic (including CCD every year & 4 Sacraments), but that I didn't hear the actual gospel message and become a Christian until I was exploring on my own in college.

FTR, it was a guy (yes, a cute one) in an English class, who got me trying Xianity again when I was exploring religions. And one of the reasons he was able to draw me in was that when I said the church is full of hypocrites, he agreed with me. Wouldn't have gone next or near the place if he'd denied it.

And, though you're basically right that all a person who's been an a-hole has to do is say he's sorry to be forgiven, I was taught that part of repentance has to include the sincere intention to change, not just lip service (and G-d can see your heart to know whether you're sincere). Of all the "trappings" of Catholicism, that line in the Act of Contrition (...I firmly intend, with the help of Your Son, to make up for my sins and to love as I should." YtranslationMV), is the one I've retained as most valuable. (And, though I'm sure you already know this, many Xians despair at what's done in God's/Jesus' name, just as many Muslims despair at the acts done in Allah's name).

tl:dr?

Jilli, I've never met your dad, but I now love him. So Martin Luther!

And, though you're basically right that all a person who's been an a-hole has to do is say he's sorry to be forgiven, I was taught that part of repentance has to include the sincere intention to change, not just lip service (and G-d can see your heart to know whether you're sincere).

Yeah, that. People talk a lot of shit in the name of Jesus, and it doesn't make them right, or good Christians. As the Easter conversation wound around, at some point I said that half the reason I identify as Christian is to use when promoting my liberal views. "Christians do too believe that! I'm a Christian, and my church blah blah blah." Not that I barely go to church.

I am trying to avoid my default reaction which is "eat something".

Feh. The emergency Cadbury Mini Eggs I ran out for made the meeting I just had much more pleasant!

Beat the UPS guy to my house by 2 minutes! He was early!

So I now have a new computer. We'll see when I have the one to set it up....

Yay new computer!

My new French Press is ready for me out in the warehouse. The one I got like sarameg's is too big for my every day at work use, and my little purple plastic one broke (the filter/plunger part; the plastic carafe is billed as "unbreakable" and has not, in fact, broken) so I'm trying a little glass carafe with stainless steel plunger, see how that goes.

I said that half the reason I identify as Christian is to use when promoting my liberal views.

I feel like this a lot. I think that actively being a non-a-hole while identifying as Christian is me trying to help turn back the tide. Plus, I feel like, given his behavior while he was hanging out here, that Jesus would be/is a much bigger fan of liberalism than conservatism.

The emergency Cadbury Mini Eggs I ran out for made the meeting I just had much more pleasant!

At my last physical I mentioned to my Dr that it's hard to believe that stress eating is all bad when a handful of peanut M&M's actually do make things feel better.

Yay new computer!

Because it is. Many moons ago while backpacking in Europe I wound up explaining to some new German friends Kosher food. Not how it works, but that it exists. They knew absolutely nothing about Jews and Judaism - and there was no reason they would. The certainly felt pain over what their grandparents generation had done, but they knew nothing about who and what had been destroyed.

I hadn't really thought about it before, but it makes sense that with all the Nazi war crimes trials over with, extremely few Jewish people would ever have reason to return to Germany. I don't imagine Historic Jamestowne gets many Native American visitors for similar reasons.

One of the main reasons there are almost no Jews in Poland is because the Poles were so enthusiastic about killing Jews. It didn't make those who survived very nostalgic about their hometowns and the neighbors who had pointed them out to the Nazis.