[ SECRET POST #2597 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2597 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 047 secrets from Secret Submission Post #371.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - titc ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: in defense of dumbledore

[(Anonymous)]

Apologies, let me clarify: the old-school Catholic doctrine supposed that people are not meant to be happy in this life, and anything that exists purely for pleasure or to make Earthly life easier is inherently suspect. Most contemporary Catholics have outgrown that idea, it's true, though I'm not sure what Rome's current official stance is (as opposed to the current Pope's interpretation, which seems very encouraging.)

Re: in defense of dumbledore

[(Anonymous)]

It's not. In fact, that idea comes very close to things that would be considered heresy.

Of course it's always a balance and we're talking about a couple millenia of history of a broad movement, so there are times and places where people did believe something like that, especially in the excesses of self-flagellation and asceticism and obsession with mortality in a time like the Middle Ages. But as a general tendency, and as a characterization of what you could call the theological mainstream, the doctrine was really not what you describe. While on the one hand true happiness was to be found only in the presence of God, on the other hand all of creation is the visible and apparent work of God. To deny the goodness that can come from it was in in a real sense to deny the goodness of God. Of course you still have to live within that world in a Christian way, and things of the spirit are higher and more important than things of the flesh. But that's not the same thing at all as saying that happiness is bad or pleasure is bad; it simply has to be pursued in a moral way. God is good and therefore creation is good. It's a tricky balance admittedly. But the extreme of talking about the world as though it is inherently bad and people are not meant to be happy - that treads very close to dualism, to the Gnostic, to the Manichean, to the Bogomils and the Cathars. Who, obviously, were not especially in accordance with the mainstream Catholic views.