"Two and a half minutes."

[breakinglight11]

Yesterday was a very excellent day. Got to see flyingstalins, a man I like and admire immensely, went to Ash Wednesday mass and got reminded that I am dust and to dust I shall return, had a lovely rehearsal where not one but two people did the whole, "Come here, you got something on your forehead" joke, and helped Sheena send out his Last Stop character hints.

Upon hearing about flyingstalins' decision to be chrismated in the Antiochan Orthodox church, it made me think of how my mom converted. I asked my mother, who went to Catholicism from the Russian Orthodoxy, how long the process of conversion was. I knew it was very short, I figured it was something like a week. Her answer? "Two and a half minutes." The doctrine is so similar between the two that all she had to swear an oath to the Pope, and boom! Catholic. :-) Needless to say, the process is different depending where you're coming from. 

Hopefully tonight Jared and I will be able to cast Alice. I'm so excited; the hints are all ready to be sent out as soon as we have the parts chosen, to be shortly followed by character sheets. :-) This is going to be great. *bounces*

Comments

[natbudin.livejournal.com]

One's spirituality should be a personal, intimate thing. If one can become a member of a new organized religion as easily as "I swear allegiance to the Pope as the supreme and universal Vicar of Christ," that implies that neither the convert nor the organization are taking the process seriously. Alternatively, if the doctrines really are that similar, that points out the absurdity of their separation.

Hmm. I think it's important not to conflate personal belief systems with organization membership. Out of all the Catholics I know, very few of them agree on a lot of fairly important religious points. One could say the same thing, if not more so, of all the Jews I know.

To me, joining a religious organization (such as the Catholic Church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or even the Universal Life Church) is more like joining a political party. I'm a registered Democrat, but I sure as hell don't agree with the Democratic Party platform on all points. But that's okay; the Democratic Party is a big tent and I don't have to agree with everything to be welcome there.

Similarly, I think that in this day and age, nobody in the Catholic Church organization would honestly expect every Catholic to agree with every piece of dogma. Yes, they do officially expect it, but I think if you talk to a priest, they'd probably agree that even within their congregation, not everybody shares the same beliefs.

Now, Orthodox Judaism may be somewhat different in that it's less a centralized organization and more a disconnected confederacy of synagogues. And, yeah, Orthodox tradition is somewhat more strict than most other religions, but I don't think that immediately sets it apart. It may be better to compare "Catholicism" as a whole to "Judaism" as a whole: hardcore groups like Opus Dei might be more analogous to Chasidism, and so forth.

Anyway, yeah. Just some ramblings from a religiously unaffiliated, fatalistic, moralistic materialist.

[bleemoo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was helpful. I really wasn't making much sense. See my reply to dragonwolf below.