My honest and very belated introduction

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Warning, contains religious and controversial political themes, viewer discretion is advised.

I really need to get into the habit of making introductions when I join new forum sites, it helps with a lot of things.

So I've been on here for awhile, I joined back when I was a Deist and apostate Catholic. Last February, after reverting to the Catholic Faith in August of 2016, I got active on this forum site again for a brief while, I won't detail on it though, because I imagine my introduction is about to get very long. So without further to do, I'll introduce myself and show some of the issues I'm dealing with as a result of my past.

So my father is from Chile, while he was growing up there, Salvador Allende became President and he started allowing foquistas to set up base in the country, (and occasionally do his extra-judicial dirty work) oppressing small businesses, and doing other things to undermine Chilean democracy. When Allende started forcing the Catholic colleges and universities to teach liberation theology and other bad stuff, my grandparents decided to move to Canada to preserve the Faith of my father and aunt. Unfortunately things didn't go as my grandparents had hoped, while my father did have me baptized as an infant, told me things about God and His Son Jesus, and even tried to bring me to mass a few times, I ultimately grew up knowing very little about the Faith. The reason I bring all this up, is because after I reverted to the Faith, I started feeling robbed of not growing up in the Faith, and having to learn everything by myself. I didn't even know I was called a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and eventually, what very little I did knew about God soon got set aside in my mind, as I was forced to deal with other issues in my childhood.

I was sent to a Secular school, where all the issues of being an Apsie raised their ugly head and I was bullied by the students and constantly at odds with my teachers. Back home, I had a very poor relationship with my mother and that caused whole host of psychological problems, some of which I won't get into because they're too sensitive. When I went to high school things subsided in regards to relationships with peers, and I started getting more interested in the Faith and started looking into it. However, I had an abysmal understanding of philosophy and theology, and the Secular atmosphere just seemed too overwhelming for me, so I ultimately slid into Deism. It wasn't until my young adult years that I started looking into the Catholic Faith again.

I'm leaving out a sensitive area in regards to my reversion story, but basically I stumbled across a Conservative Catholic website one day, and while I was unimpressed with the American Conservative tone of it, I noticed that some the things they were saying were quite rationally and philosophically sound. Several years later, I came across Traditional Catholic materials which did impress me. However despite being very impressed with Traditional Catholics, and following their online material regularly, I still didn't feel the pull to revert, I still needed something more to give me that last push.

As mentioned above, I had a very poor relationship with my mother, and as I was checking the various Traditional Catholic material on Mary, I often thought, "if I ever do revert to the Catholic Faith, I should definitely develop a deep devotion to her to help me heal from this bad relationship I have with my own mother." In August of 2016, I came across some Youtube videos on Fatima, I had heard about Our Lady of Fatima long before, in fact I first heard about the apparitions way back when I was a teenager and Deist, but this time was deferent. I'll spare everyone the details of what transpired but, it happened and I ended reverting to the Faith and having a huge devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So that's my reversion story as well a brief history of some the issues I'm dealing with in my life. Due to being bullied and having a bad relationship with my mother, I struggle a lot with anger, (I know, an Aspie with anger issues, shocking!) as well as cynicism, scrupulosity and other issues. I won't be engaging in debates about my Faith and philosophy until I deal with these issues first, as well as study my philosophical and theological tradition more. Instead of getting into controversial topics, I'll to keep things more casual on here, although I may have the need to ask a question of the sort every now and then.

Sorry I had to make a long post like this, I just figure it would be best for me to get it all out there.

Please to meet you all.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Thank you sir.

I should have left some, or all of this part out, as it's not necessarily relevant to my introduction. I need to work on not making things more brief.

Welcome to Wrong Planet

Welcome to WP.

I can't say I identify with a religious sect. But as it was stated last night in the TV show A Million Little Things, "there are no atheists in the fox hole." I used to be an atheist. I now roll with the bible as is, denomination free, baptized and saved.

Best to you in zeal for your faith and always trust truth over mere tradition for tradition's sake. I have certainly had a long and bumpy ride in this theological sea and yours is parallel. Stay strong in this quest.

Thank you, I would always embrace truth over tradition, provided that it actually is truth and not my subjective perceptions of what appears to true. As an Aspie, one can be very vulnerable to rationalization, that's why I struggle with scrupulosity, I tend to over think things. I really need to get into the habit of stepping back, and look at things as a whole, I belief the Catholic Faith is true, because it's both reasonable and supernatural, it conforms perfectly, or at the very least almost perfectly to reason. (Just look up St. Thomas Aquinas) Yet at the same time there things that go behind human understanding, like the Holy Trinity. (Not that the Theology of the Trinity is devoid of reason.)

I too have struggled immensely, for many years, with religious doubts and a need for moral perfection, of which I always fall somewhat short. The best I can do, I think, is agnosticism, or a fideistic theology which is incompatible with the rationalism of my beloved Catholic church.

The thing about the Catholic church, for me, is its cultural importance; even at the height of my atheism - and as an Englishman - the Catholic church remained, as a lover of the western cultural tradition, very close to my heart. Hilaire Belloc said "The Church is Europe and Europe is the Church".

Yeah, I had the same thoughts and sympathies when I was Deist, the Catholic Church was and is, the heart and source of western culture. Have you read The Marian Option by Carrie Gress? It talks a lot about the influence of Marian Devotion on western culture, and may greatly interest you. Of course, you might already read other material that discusses this that I'm not aware of yet, like something on Our Lady of Walsingham.