Catch - 22?

Question

I am looking for multiple definitions of what a Catch 22 is, and yes i am aware i am asking the question in the religion and spirituality section, this is being done in hopes of getting more depth to the answers

Answer 1

Crazy if you do, crazy if you don't - damned if you do, damned if you don't. Is a loose rendition, but it really is not correct. The real meaning is contained in the book of the same name.

One of the ways to get out of active service in the Vietnam war - you had to produce a valid medical certificate to say that you were certifiably insane.

If not, and you went to war, by the time you returned home you would be certifiably insane.

But, and here's the catch, you must be crazy to miss such a golden opportunity - go to war and set yourself up as an arm's dealer, sell weapons to the enemy, sell K rations to the Kong, sell anything, and everything you could, use a tank and rob a bank in Ho Chi Minh city, use an army helicopter to escape, use your imagination.

Most popular definitions really fall short of the true meaning because an awful lot of people have NOT READ THE BOOK

Answer 2

I plan on reading that book someday. Anyway, I'm an atheist and I will answer you by saying that atheists do not believe in any god created by humans because they cannot possibly know if there really is a god. Most atheists are almost 100% sure that there is no god of any sort. That last question doesn't make much sense, but atheists do try to talk rationality into people. I don't think an atheist would ever make up a god either, otherwise they become what they set out to destroy.

Answer 3

A provision in army regulations; it stipulates that a soldier's request to be relieved from active duty can be accepted only if he is mentally unfit to fight. Any soldier, however, who has the sense to ask to be spared the horrors of war is obviously mentally sound, and therefore must stay to fight. Figuratively, a catch-22 is any absurd arrangement that puts a person in a double bind: for example, a person can't get a job without experience, but can't get experience without a job.

Answer 4

I believe it is when somebody can not do something one way or the other for bad or for worse. Maybe they feel they are stuck if they answer or decide to do something, someone may get hurt either way, Im sorry i don't get how I can get any deeper with this other then do I believe in god! Im in catch 22.... I believe my parents were taken from me when i was young... if there were a god he would not have left a child without parents yet I dont want to believe there is nothing as I dont want it to be the end when we die... I have no answer! Either I hurt myself or I am afraid! Catch 22!

Answer 5

Traditionally (as in the book) only being grounded if your insane, but sane enough to fly if you ask to be grounded.

Then of course:

Statement 1: Statment 2 is false
Statement 2: Statement 1 is true

Thats basically a matematical defintion of a Catch 22

Answer 6

It's named after a book of the same name. It's set in the Korean war and is a comedy concerning fighter pilots. Basically they're subjected to a mental evaluation because you can't have crazy person flying in combat, but if you're sane enough to realize that flying in a combat situation is crazy then you're ok to fly in combat. It's little confusing.
Don't want to fly in combat: sane and have to fly
Want to fly in combat: crazy and not allowed to fly.
Modern vernacular uses a Catch-22 to represent a situation where you have two goals to complete, but both goals are dependent on the other being complete first.

Answer 7

Sorry I can't offer you any religious inspiration, but the term comes from a movie by that name starring Alan Arkin. He's a WW II pilot and he wants to get out of the service on an insanity discharge. The military's argument is, only an insane person would want to be in a war, so his wanting to get out makes him sane. The only way to get out is if he liked being in the war and didn't ask for a discharge. Then he'd be insane and he could have his discharge. That's the Catch-22.

Answer 8

It's like knowing you have to do something that will separate you from someone you love if you make one choice.Then if you make the other can you live with that decision? The fist choice is going to make the person walk away from you. The second choice is going you walk away from yourself. What do you have left to give anybody if you don't have all of you.
I hope this is what you were talking about.

Answer 9

since you bring up the point of religion, a catch-22 would be given natural instincts, yet being forced to live by a set of rules that contradict those instincts

Answer 10

It's a self-contradictory situation. In the Catch-22 story Yossarian wants to be taken off of flying combat missions. He asks the doc to sign him off as unfit to fly. The doc says, "I can only do that if you're crazy. Do you wanna stop flying?" Yossarian says yes. The doc says, "Then you're not crazy, so I can't sign you off."