Believe and do not doubt, for he who doubts is like the waves of the sea tossed to and fro and should not expect anything from God. That hurts because I vacillate between belief and doubt often. I have to think God understands and forgives me. Half of my prayers are just those two words - forgive me.
Thanks. I feel that I should have known about this author, having studied in Austria. It's available online in both the original German and translation. I'll start this evening.
I really didn’t know where to put this video but this thread seems to be the closest I can come without going off topic. The good doctor raises some important questions whilst waxing philosophically about 10 very basic lies that are abundant in today’s culture. There are a couple of things I might only slightly disagree with but I found it interesting enough to listen to it twice just so I could soak the whole speech in. Do note that the commencement speech was given at the Franciscan University of Steubenville so yes, there are a lot of Christian / Catholic values but you do not have to be a Christian to appreciate what Dr. Peter Kreeft has to say.
Some of the link message is right, some is wrong, it is mixed. Observations stated as such seem fairly right-on. From the link/url page in the op > "The demonic may be at its most obvious in the school shooter, but it’s everywhere now. This is why so many observe that things just keep getting worse; today’s Left never seems to be satisfied with its victories but insists on pushing its logic to the nth degree. We are caught in a demonic vortex. COVID hysterics have succumbed to this logic, with people in many places still hiding their faces behind masks long ago shown to be ineffective at their stated purpose. Wearing a mask absolves one of the burdens of social recognition, agency, and responsibility. The social order is instead supplanted with its parody, that of a non-thinking collective in which one is at once an atomized and a fully integrated node in the very act of wearing the mask, like a node in a network. The entire COVID narrative was about surrendering one’s own free will to the new priestly class of “experts,” shaming anyone daring enough to think otherwise (“what, you’re going to do your own research?”), anyone daring enough to create meaning. We weren’t supposed to create meaning; we were only supposed to parrot the experts’ message of the day, however much it contradicted yesterday’s. In doing so, we affirmed our lack of agency and our compliance. And we accrued virtue in the renunciation of subjectivity, the premise being that were we all to do so we would achieve a perfect harmonious Good. The road to Hell was paved with good intentions—and, more importantly, via collectivist compliance. Predictably, children suffered most."
My mental illness is called adult - onset oppositional defiance disorder. I have diagnosed myself. There is no cure nor treatment. (ODD) is a type of behavior disorder. Children with ODD are uncooperative, defiant, and hostile toward peers, parents, teachers, and other authority figures. Developmental problems may cause ODD. Or the behaviors may be learned. ... or the behaviors might be a conscious reaction to invalid or corrupt authority and based on simple morality.
Conscious or subconscious (God-given conscience) con·science noun an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior. "he had a guilty conscience about his desires"