A clam, like the simpler replicating programs, has a mind and body that are one.
The Loving Programmer’s more complex programs, like dogs that fear punishment after having made a mess, have a sense of mind and body having done something right or wrong. That sense, if unchained in humans, leads Catholic men and women into Holy Orders.
Most of us are too crippled spiritually to get there. We cover our sense of right, wrong, and shortcoming with a somewhat opaque blanket of conventional thought. For most of us, the idol of “getting along” ends up being right and wrong for us.
Even non-Catholics understand there is more. Many Protestants believe that we have both spirits and souls. Our spirit is what says “Ouch!” when we are hurt. The soul is that which knows we have said “Ouch!” and reflects on whether or now we deserve the “Ouch!” we have received.
Why is this important? In Protestants, the body, spirit, and soul are separate. “I feel as close to God on a golf course/football game/water-skiing as I do in church.” That remarkable thought sums up the Protestant position that merely “feeling close to God” is the same as “being close to God”.
Protestants never consider such self-serving thoughts to be illusions or delusions.
The poor Protestant probably has a pastor too afraid of losing donations to say, “Listen, you lowly human nit, you have to strive to attend church every week or you will go die and go to hell.” Protestant pastors know from unhappy experience that such conversations tend to drive donors into “more accepting” denominations, groups, or even into the arms of the non-judgmental “mega-churches”. There, the various “Pastors Bob” make it clear that all donors are more or less assured of salvation.
In The Church Jesus Founded, we are taught that our body must join our spirit, and soul. All of us must go to Church.
The Catholic priest is not paralyzed by conventional reality. He will tell this profound truth: “The Teaching of The Church is clear. You must choose to come to Church on a regular basis. And, you must choose to live your life in such a way that you may receive the actual Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Catholic re-presentation of The Last Supper when you do so. If you too-often choose not to do what is necessary to worthily receive His Body and Blood, your soul will not be admitted into Heaven.”
If the Body of Jesus is going to be at Mass, our body should be there, as well. That simple clarity is found only in The Church Jesus Founded. The Garden is self-weeding.
