They are interesting thoughts from Geraldine Doogue but they obviously are the product of keeping beliefs limited to a fortunate personal experience of life. Yes, no doubt there has been pain as we all experience it to more or lesser degrees, but still, such a way of thinking allows the thinker to accept a ‘plan’ of life with other people having a different ‘plan’ bestowed upon them.

In the billions, for the all animals including people, the other ‘plans’ are dismal beyond any kind of proper ethical considerations, especially if devised by an all loving, all knowing and all powerful god. Recognising these contradictory attributes is the first step in working out that maybe more than ‘truth’ is at play here.

The simple fact may be that we have a genetic-propensity to accept supernatural soothers as a way of handling consciousness and the knowledge of our own eventual deaths. The second step, and this is most important, is that supernatural soothers take on a myriad of different forms depending on geographic location. Some of these have a consistent theme but are certainly at variance in many tenets and traditions. Aztecs, Indians, Middle Eastern, Romans, Greeks, Polynesian Islands, Norse cultures demonstrate the inconsistencies.

To deny that cultural childhood indoctrination is a hugely strong component to the beliefs retained in adulthood is most definitely not seeing the dinosaur in the phone box.

A third step is to realise that as a generalisation, the more scientifically literate is a person, the less likelihood that they are convinced by supernatural soothers as being anything but a product of the mind. Singular examples opposite to this are not proof of anything but the compartmentalising power of our genetic-propensities and effectiveness of childhood induction.

Conclusion: Religion in most case is not an informed decision.

David

It is somtimes said that rottenness and decay start from the head down, and thus spreads to the rest of the body. I do not know if this is true but it certainly provides a suitably apt metaphor for the state of the "catholic" church in 2012. Which is to say that in 2012 the head of the "catholic" church as represented and dramatized by the vatican is thoroughly rotten.

And of course what makes the catholic church especially rotten is that all of what was done and justified by the bogus claim that the church is the "body of christ" and that it is/was doing things as the "work of christ" and/or for the "glory of god".

This rottenness now infects the institutional church all-the-way-down. Such was/is an evitable process. It is well known in the business and political world that if the leadership is corrupt and venal then that venality WILL INEVITABLY affect everyone who works for it. Or in the case of politics lives withinthe collective body politic.

What is more the rotten apples, in the form of opus dei and similar "traditionalist" outfits now control every aspect of the "official" church's cultural and political agendas.

But then again it was always thus so. Check out The Criminal History of the Papacy by Tony Bushby.

Papal "catholic" rotteneness 101:

http://www.popeaccountability.org
http://popecrimes.blogspot.com.au

Plus the Enlightened Catholicism website/blog.
And of course once again The Popes War Against the Church by Matthew Fox.

Daffy Duck asked

"But does anyone seriously practice such "spirituality" or even live the highly disciplined life which IS necessary for such practice to have any real transformative affect".

I doubt there would be many.

I can't help remembering going to church when young and seeing many a local Reservoir lout there. I suppose it helped them get over their many sins.

Sure religion give many hope and direction, but i remain agnostic but respective of Chritianity's principles.

As the recent Four Corners show indicated, however, institutions that dont deal with their many wrongs are a joke.

Geraldine's article shows clearly she is frantically wriggling on a hook, one that was inserted into her mouth when she was an innocent child, one totally unaware of the vested interest of cunning, manipulative clerics.

Religion is an insult to intelligence and no more than a crude crutch for the weak.

I'm probably not a very good Catholic.
I'm convinced that organised religion has
become in many cases as calcified as other
institutions that form the structure of our
modern world. Our religious institutions
have far too often become handmaidens of the
status quo, while the genuine religious
experience is anything but that. I've come to
see that true religion is internal, not external.
The spirit within us can't be blamed for the
blasphemies carried out in its name. What some
have done in the name of religion, projecting
their neuroses, even perpetrating evil on the
world, does not (in my humble opinion) make
religion as a mystical phenomenon invalid.

I have read the book by Paul Collins, "Believers:
Does Australian Catholicism Have a Future?" to
which Geraldine Doogue wrote the forward. And I
also am optimisitc as Collins tells us that -
"Catholicism in Australia will survive, certainly
with lesser numbers, but with more commitment and
ministerial energy." However as Collins also states,
"But to achieve that Catholics will require genuine
local leadership and a willingness to confront both
the difficulties and opportunities that the church
faces."

I can only hope that in Australia as Collins tells us -
"we are uniquely placed to be able to do precisely that."
Only time will tell.

I am a retired nurse/midwife. Whenever I see or hear of Gerladine Doogue I have a vivid recollection of listening to an interview she did on ABC Radio's Life Matters. The interview was about late term abortions. It could have been about an exciting new cake recipe, she was so upbeat about it. No one would have thought it was about killing unborn children. There was no gravitas, sobriety or sadness expressed. I opened the car door and physically dry retched. I would have expected a Catholic..one espousing the Ignatian philosophy as she does to explain why she is still a Catholic,to have dissociated herself from the barbarity under discussion. For decades now Geraldine Doogue has maintained a powerful and immensely influential position in the media. But in doing so she has toed the demonstrably pro abortion media line. Which conjures up to me the interchange during an eventide garden walk between St.Ignatius to whom she refers and the young Francis Xavier. " What doth it profit a man Francis, to gain the whole world but suffer the loss of one's soul?" I am not suggesting for one moment that Geraldine Doogue is in danger of losing HER soul but that St Ignatius did seem to emphasise the transitory nature of worldly position compared to the more transcendental.