Unequal Sinners

[Please note that in this entry there are many questions that are overly long, awkwardly constructed and nearly incomprehensible.  So why not re-draft them for ease of reading and clarity?  The answer is simply that this blogger does not know how, especially when he wants to position his counterpoint immediately after making his point.  When he concluded his last post with the promise that he would continue to reveal his mind's deficiencies in this blog, he had not anticipated that he would fulfill his promise this dramatically. This blogger welcomes any suggestion that would help him improve his prose.]

Not many in the world wake up and think of themselves as sinners, and even less think that they sin, and why would they?  The majority of people make do with the abilities that they have, trying to live their lives they know best how to.  Is that not enough for salvation, by not  shaking their fists at their Creator, asking why some people have been given so many special gifts that they can use to distinguish themselves whereas they, as a group, seem to be bound permanently to mass mediocrity, despite being inconceivable that they should think that they together are somehow left behind and forgotten, for without them, the world would come to a halt, just as without the earth's sands there would be no pyramids in Giza [1], no brick and no cement for roads and walls and no glass [2]?  Can people be blamed for not thinking of themselves as sinners when they are working so hard to make a living so that they can spend what they earn on what they like to do and own, and for not wanting to worship God with so little time and so much self-perceived unfairness in life (even though not too many people go to bed wishing that they would die in their sleep and not wake up because God has been so unfair to them)?

Can the atheists in China who in less than a generation have gone from rags to riches [3], [4] without knowing God their entire lives be blamed for the absence of monotheism in their country, even though without God they would not have existed, even though in this day and age with a mountain of online information they can somehow still be clueless about God?  Can those behind the secular media around the world be blamed for asking questions only as they pertain to the mental and physical aspects of existence but not its spiritual dimension?  Are humans merely two-dimensional creatures and as such they are unlike their Trinitarian God composing of intellect and love that is God, flesh and blood that is Christ and energy and momentum that is the Paraclete?

Can God be blamed for giving many atheists in China wealth but leaving the many Christians (most of them Catholics) in the Philippines [5] to suffer economic poverty [6] (first, as if Christ is not present in the midst of suffering and has no concept of it having gone through His Passion in the flesh; second, as if wealth is desirable, i.e., not burdensome, real, i.e., not debt, not just paper, not a concept and a belief system consisting of numbers that are not in truth accountable, and pure, i.e., wholesomely accreted and tangible, such as improvements in the quality and quantity of natural, non-genetically modified foods for all to consume, in contrast to the unproductive and invisible shares of companies and many other investment vehicles that are merely legal contructs that are traded and stored in the memory banks of super computers and in contrast to the products of the economic theory of demand and supply that are valued based on collective expectations of futures that are unknowable (for example, natural disasters) and artificial (for example, interest rates); and third, as if the wealth that is so desired and envied is necessarily a gift from God and not from Satan)?

Would it be reasonable to conclude that both atheists and Christians around the world who suffer economic poverty and accept their supposed lack of talents and abilities, who are not shaking their fists at God, making do with what they have without bitterness are already saintly and on their way to salvation?  Without more, the answer is no, according to the Catholic church.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church ("CCC ") 846 states that "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is [H]is Body: ...[People] could not be saved, who knowing that the Catholic church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse to enter it or remain in it." [7]  However, CCC 847 states that "[t]his affirmation is not aimed at those, who through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or [H]is Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do [H]is will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience--those too may achieve eternal salvation." [8]  How the Catholic church expects those who do not know Christ and His Church to know how to seek God when Christ specifically said, "No one comes to the Father except through me" [9] is a mystery. And what about those who know and worship God but reject Christ as the Messiah? [10]  Can they be saved?  This the political pope would not dare to answer.

Again, per the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Church is Christ's Body, which it ought to be and is; but, is not the Catholic church today, a corrupt an institution as any that runs on power and money, systematically mutilating Christ's Body (metaphorically speaking)?  If it is, do the words in CCC 846 and 847 written by the church still have credibility?  Even if they do not, and may not represent God's Truth, those words nonetheless deserve points for giving sinners equality that God supposedly failed to give, that they desire so much and clamor for so loudly, by sending them all [11] to Hell.


[1] http://www.seeker.com/how-the-ancient-egyptians-really-built-the-pyramids-1768525652.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand#Uses
[3] https://www.ft.com/content/9ddb3ffc-5734-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2  Note: this blogger is not certain if the individuals identified in the article cited are atheists or not.
[4] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-01/25/content_23241391.htm Note: this blogger is not certain if the individual identified in the article cited is an atheist or not.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_Philippines
[6] https://psa.gov.ph/content/poverty-incidence-among-filipinos-registered-263-first-semester-2015-psa
[7] http://ccc.usccb.org/flipbooks/catechism/index.html#242/z
[8] Ibid.
[9] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14:6
[10] http://www.aish.com/jw/s/48892792.html
[11] All means all, including those standing at the door of the Catholic church not wanting to enter and become an accessory, aiding and abetting those in the clergy (by contributing time and/or money) who have committed, and perhaps still committing, acts that are not only illegal but also sacrilegious and/or immoral, as well as the clergy people and the lay Catholics who may look like they have chosen to "remain in [the Catholic church]" but in reality have left "Christ's Body" (quoting CCC 846) by sinning.