However, I'm not sure what I should read in order to get in touch with this depth you speak of. I mean, wow, who do you hold as deep? Aquinas? St. John of the Cross? C.S. Lewis? Pascal? Francis Schaeffer? Kierkegaard? Ignatius?
Those are the ones I've read, there are others, of those I think Pascal, Ignatious and Aquinas are the best, I probably like Aquinas best to be honest, he's a thinker, although I like Erasmus the best out of any thinker or RC scholar at the moment, I know that he's out of favour though. I also think St. Theresa (The Interior Castle?) is a good read. It depends what you're looking for. There's a good book on Christian Spirituality, not perfect but it is one of the overviews that I know of http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christian-Spirituality-Vol-Developments-Renaissance/dp/1440086427/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I7KQU0FWEOOUO&colid=8RFS8ZOFCDZN
Yes. I was watch a program on Mexico, and they have such devotion to the virgin of Guadalupe (sp?). They interviewed a female cliff diver, and she explained that she prayed so "Nothing bad would happen." So then she dove, and she was injured, flailing around in the water. After she was treated by her coach, she could move her arm, and they took this as sign of faith that she'd been spared worse harm. Well why not spare her altogether?
Why not kill her altogether? I dont test God or make demands, I dont think prayer is meant to be like that.
I'm not sure what you mean by me having a shallow appreciation of Christian tradition, as if I dipped just my toe into the Baptismal or never read a single book on European history. You shall have to prove that point. Why do you think they survive? Of course, we know it is only because of God's love, and not because Muslims or Christians ever touched anyone with the sword.
If their survival was guaranteed by violence alone then Communism, Fascism and Capitalism would have eclipsed those creeds long ago and they'd be a distant memory like the Delphic oracles.
I say you have a shallow appreciation because while you seem to have been a bit of a spiritual "shopper" you're more enamoured with contemporary culture, including its views on sciences too.
So what your say is that this is just a phase, whereupon we will be more Christian again...like in the dark ages when the church was in charge?
Sounds lovely. Let's hold science back for another 1000 years. Indeed, let's go back to surgery without anesthesia and bubonic plague.
Was the Church in charge during the so called dark ages?
The history books which I have read suggest anything but the Church being in control, the monastaries perserved the books and learning and scholastic traditions behind fortifications while the world went through a series of upheavels created by power struggles between tribes, monarchs, mercenaries and war lords.
Or perhaps you're not refering to the historical time period but a culturally defined epoch typified by superstition? It is the tendency among most of the supposedly enlightened critics of religion, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, what is often refered to as the worst superstition and most costly in lives lost as torture didnt occur at that time at all but came later at the end of the rennaisance and beginning of the so called enlightenment.
Why would the Church hold back science? The Church only opposes science when it engages in unconscienable acts, like the Nazi experiments upon "subhumans" or Kavorkian's death machines and suicide on tap or the like.
If you happen to ever get any of the old top trumphs decks of game cards which are halloween or horror packs they have the "mad preachers" or religious zealot characters but equally they have the "mad scientist" and this sort of common place or common sensical reaction against either has disappeared to be frank. Science can do no ill and religion is too often in the dock.