Agnostic, God Probably Doesn't Exist: When not to receive the Eucharist? When not to recite the Creed?

[ethereality]

I am tempted to respond to your critique of suicide in the face of atheism (namely, it is a rational conclusion), but lacking the time (and I think webphone would be better than PM, anyway), a more positive response:

To think your life is useful and with value and “worth going on for” no matter what…that I would call real “faith”.

C.S. Lewis agrees in The Screwtape Letters; to quote (one demon giving another ‘novice’ demon advice on how to tempt a man):

Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

That’s about the point where I’m at, and reading this passage again brings tears to my eyes.

 

[frangiuliano115]

FOR ETHEREALITY

Originally Posted by DaddyGirl View Post
To think your life is useful and with value and “worth going on for” no matter what…that I would call real “faith”.

TO WHICH YOU REPLY:

C.S. Lewis agrees in The Screwtape Letters; to quote (one demon giving another ‘novice’ demon advice on how to tempt a man):

Quote:
Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

That’s about the point where I’m at, and reading this passage again brings tears to my eyes.

“”"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The above passage should make you happy!

Uncle Demon is telling Nephew Demon that their whole cause is in DANGER because the patient still obeys God - which Uncle Demon knows that the reason is because the patient still has a small amount of faith left, and that’s all it takes! In fact, he’s saying it’s easy to obey when you have a lot of faith, but to obey when you have little faith means you’re really hanging on to God!

Please read John 6:66-68.

Fran

 

[ProVobis]

Telling someone their life is worthy and of value and to not to give up and to have faith no matter what…is a not-nice thing to say?

Depends on how you tell it.

 

[Vico]

Steve Ray has a talk on YouTube arguing that, according to the Bible, belief means obedience, rather than intellectual agreement or understanding. Is it okay to receive the Eucharist if you’re not cognizant of any mortal sin and are obedient to Church teaching, even if you think God probably doesn’t exist? According to Steve Ray, the answer appears to be, ‘Yes’, because one does believe if one is obedient, that obedience demonstrates belief.

After extensive reading and noting all the problems with the apologetics of Trent Horn and others, I have come to the conclusion that I have no good reason to believe in God, i.e. to believe the Catholic Church. I am now a Christian in spite of the evidence, not because of it. I continue practicing the Christian faith perhaps from psychological weakness, that I want God to exist, but at the same time I have reached a fatalistic fatigue: I’m tired of knocking at the door. I’m ready to regard God as a “Sunday only” kind of thing, because I’m tired of praying to silence and reading the same Bible over and over again.

Reciting the Nicene Creed bothers me: What does it mean to believe it? Do I or do I not? If someone were to put a gun to me and say, “Do you believe everything in the Nicene Creed?” I would have to say, “I don’t know if it’s true, but I hope it’s true.” Does that constitute belief? Am I lying when I recite it at Mass?

It seems my efforts to learn more are at an end, as well. I cannot afford to purchase any more books, nor would I have the time to read them except a little on weekends, and Catholic Answers seems to have no more to give me: I tried calling Trent Horn recently, and was bitterly disappointed. I was not allowed to ask my original question (asking Trent to defend his frequently assumed ‘principle of sufficient reason’), and I was not allowed to remain on the air for more than a brief moment. It seemed they did not want to interact with me. It seems to me that I have exhausted “Catholic Answers Live” as a resource: They don’t want to engage in a lengthy, serious debate on the air; they only want Intro to Philosophy questions for Trent Horn to easily answer. There is content in the Catholic Encyclopedia, but much of it I have already read, and it only takes me part of the way (and of course it cannot answer the questions it raises). I’ve already read Trent Horn’s book, and many others. I know the Christian faith better than many others, thanks in part to Catholic Answers, and to some extent that only makes my despair worse, because I am forced to ask, “Is this really all there is? Are these really the best arguments in defense of Christianity?”

I suppose I’m posting this here just to double-check that it’s okay for me to continue receiving the Eucharist on Sundays, and with some small hope that someone will have some resource for me, or open some door. Perhaps I need counseling for depression (medical treatment), but that is another problem in itself (lack of healthcare access).

The assent we give to the creed is a matter of faith, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. You do not have to understand it, rather it is an act of will to assent.

 

[johnnyc176]

Jesus said…If you love me you will obey my commandments. Love requires obedience.

 

[ethereality]

That’s about the point where I’m at, and reading this passage again brings tears to my eyes.

Sorry, I ought to have been more clear. I did not mean tears of grief, but tears from something else: From glimpsing the truth of a statement describing the profundity of life’s drama, and otherwise selfish tears after noting what you said and then realizing that God is “so close yet so far”, something like “You should be here, and yet, it’s like You’re not here.” This together with the world’s problems and my problems sometimes make me wonder if I’m actually in hell.

The assent we give to the creed is a matter of faith, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. You do not have to understand it, rather it is an act of will to assent.

You have subtly misrepresented or misunderstood my position here. I am not saying simply, “I don’t understand the Creed.” I’m saying, “I see evidence the Creed is false.” What’s worse, is that I do understand most of the Creed. The problem, then, is how to believe something that seems not to be true. The answer seems to be obedience: It is through action that we show belief in something we think is not true, e.g. stepping onto a rope bridge we think looks ready to collapse.

 

[frangiuliano115]

HELLO ETHEREALITY

Me again.

I hope you get some of your questions settled here. It’s not easy on these threads.

Previously you stated:

Steve Ray has a talk on YouTube arguing that, according to the Bible, belief means obedience, rather than intellectual agreement or understanding.

I think it was you! Anyway, I’ve taught this so many times it makes my head spin. But here it is in short form.

The word believe has different meanings. I could Believe the sun exists. And I could Believe IN the sun. See the difference? In the Greek language believe means more than Believe Intellectually. I could believe that Jesus existed, I could even believe in what he says. But believe in the way the bible means it goes BEYOND this type of belief. It has to move from the head to the heart. I like to say that it’s the longest foot to traverl!

So believe means to accept, to follow, to make it your own, to adhere to, to make it a part of your life.

So the speaker was right but I do wish he had expounded on it a bit. It’s a very important concept in christianity.

Re the Credo. You don’t say which parts you don’t agree with; it might be an important part and it might not. What a priest would tell you is the same thing he’d say to someone who doesn’t believe one of the dogma. Study it, pray about it. You may come to believe and you may not. it doesn’t mean your soul is lost. I know we’re supposed to believe ALL, but the reality is that some people have problems - it’s no reason to give up; not for this reason, at least.

Fran

 

[Vico]

Sorry, I ought to have been more clear. I did not mean tears of grief, but tears from something else: From glimpsing the truth of a statement describing the profundity of life’s drama, and otherwise selfish tears after noting what you said and then realizing that God is “so close yet so far”, something like “You should be here, and yet, it’s like You’re not here.” This together with the world’s problems and my problems sometimes make me wonder if I’m actually in hell.

You have subtly misrepresented or misunderstood my position here. I am not saying simply, “I don’t understand the Creed.” I’m saying, “I see evidence the Creed is false.” What’s worse, is that I do understand most of the Creed. The problem, then, is how to believe something that seems not to be true. The answer seems to be obedience: It is through action that we show belief in something we think is not true, e.g. stepping onto a rope bridge we think looks ready to collapse.

I mean understand in the following sense. The Church teaches infallibly that the creed is true, therefore if one considers something in it to be false (by any explanation, including evidence that it is false) then it is a misunderstanding.

Yes assent of the will is meritorious, even more so if the situation you describe.

 

[exnihilo]

After extensive reading and noting all the problems with the apologetics of Trent Horn and others, I have come to the conclusion that I have no good reason to believe in God, i.e. to believe the Catholic Church. I am now a Christian in spite of the evidence, not because of it. I continue practicing the Christian faith perhaps from psychological weakness, that I want God to exist, but at the same time I have reached a fatalistic fatigue: I’m tired of knocking at the door. I’m ready to regard God as a “Sunday only” kind of thing, because I’m tired of praying to silence and reading the same Bible over and over again…

It seems my efforts to learn more are at an end, as well. I cannot afford to purchase any more books, nor would I have the time to read them except a little on weekends…

I suppose I’m posting this here just to double-check that it’s okay for me to continue receiving the Eucharist on Sundays, and with some small hope that someone will have some resource for me, or open some door. Perhaps I need counseling for depression (medical treatment), but that is another problem in itself (lack of healthcare access).

I personally can’t see how you come to the conclusion you have no reason to believe in God. If you studied the arguments, and it seems you have, and you understand them, then you should have many reasons to believe in God. The same applies to the Catholic Faith. Now there might be arguments against these reasons but I’ve generally found the answers to those to be good.

I may be wrong but I think I understand where you may be coming from. God often seems remote. I fully believe the Faith but most of the time don’t have a strong mental feeling of the presence of God. I’ve never witnessed anything definitely miraculous. One time in my life I did experience a profound and instant answer to a prayer. I’ve had other prayers answered but not as profoundly. Despite what I truly believe were answers to prayers at times I want a more direct manifestation of God. But it simply doesn’t happen. If you are knowledgeable of the Faith you know this, a lack of manifestation, is nothing unusual.

Since you mention depression it might be that you’ve spent too much time in books. I know I do that myself. With computers and tablets I spend way more time than I should reading things I think is for my benefit. But then I neglect things like playing music which really bring a great happiness to me. I neglect just experiencing God’s wonderful creation. I neglect serving others. God created us with bodies for a reason. Maybe it would be good to give the intellectual stuff a rest for a while and focus on doing things that make you happy and serving others.

 

[ethereality]

I personally can’t see how you come to the conclusion you have no reason to believe in God. If you studied the arguments, and it seems you have, and you understand them, then you should have many reasons to believe in God. The same applies to the Catholic Faith. Now there might be arguments against these reasons but I’ve generally found the answers to those to be good.

I have found rebuttals of every argument that no one has been able to answer for me. Trent Horn may have come closest by telling me to buy some $90 philosophy book, which I cannot afford and which I have no inclination to read: I’m tired of searching for a hiding deity in man’s books.

I will briefly outline a few arguments. I’ve looked at over 25, and they all have problems (the arguments are either false or not certain to be true). After years of listening to “Catholic Answers Live” and trying to call in on occasion, it seems I should give up hope of their answering them. As Patrick Coffin says, “Welcome to the limits of live radio” – Trent Horn only wants easy softball questions, as Coffin even made me change my question last time I called. I am thinking of making YouTube videos presenting the challenge to the general public. Two topics for example, A. the origin of the universe and B. the historicity of the Gospels.

A1. The fine-tuning argument is false because the apparent fine-tuning is a consequence of our overlapping descriptions of our observations. In other words, the assumption that our descriptions are “laws” that the universe must obey is false, and the fine-tuning is generated the more we overlap our observations because our observations are finite and we are trying to make a complex system agree with all our finite observations.

A2. The kalam argument has the uncertain premise that a sequence of events (described as causal) cannot be infinite. The problem here is that I have never seen a formulation of this argument that doesn’t invalidly prove this premise by contradicting its own definitions: Every time the apologist tries to start counting from “the beginning” of an infinite past, i.e. declaring that there must be a first moment of an infinite past. The contradiction is assumed at this step. If you do not contradict yourself, misunderstanding the definition of infinity by presuming to be able to “traverse its entirety”, there is no clear contradiction, something St. Thomas Aquinas understood. (An infinite past can exist with a cyclical series or an infinite series of “locally-finite” chains.)

A3. The Big Bang theory does not prove the universe had a beginning (contrary to Tim Staples’ DVD talk now on YouTube, which he refused to recant when I emailed him about it), nor does the BGV theorem, contrary to Catholic Answers’ insistence. (Even worse, now EWTN is endorsing Fr. Robert Spitzer’s nonsense giving him his own show to repeat his bad book.) In brief (I cannot explain adequately in brief, but I have no patience at the moment to say more), the former is a theory leading to a point before which we know nothing, not an observation of the beginning of the universe, and the latter is likewise a theory with assumptions our universe might not meet.

A4. The Second Law of Thermodynamics does hold back to the Big Bang, if we assume that it does, yet in addition to this assumption, we don’t have any theories about what happened within and prior to the Big Bang’s singularity. So it’s speculation to declare that there was nothing prior to the Big Bang, and that the Second Law (entropy always increasing) is in fact a law at all.

Obviously, there’s so much that can be said; entire books have been written.

B. We don’t even know what is happening in the Middle East today, or what happened in the Iraq War. How much less certain is the history of the Middle East two thousand years ago. In short, I don’t have confidence in our knowledge of history millennia ago, hence we must have miracles today to verify the Church’s authority and truthfulness. Unfortunately, investigating these miracles, e.g. the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, Portugal in 1917, there is not enough evidence to declare it happened with the same certainty that, say, Woodrow Wilson was president. People say “It was even photographed and printed in the newspaper!” Yeah? Where is this proof? All I have found is an illegible scrap on Wikipedia (not clear what is being photographed other than a mass of people looking up) and a book from the 1950s alleging to be interviews of eye-witnesses – eyewitnesses who have a vested interest in tourism to their village. In summary, no miracle I have seen has ever been anything more than hearsay. (Trent Horn has recently been arguing “But there have been so many claims! Isn’t it likely at least one of them is true?” This is an inexcusable argument from ignorance.) Medical miracles are rare, evidence that they are not from a god who loves everyone, and they can have mechanisms that we simply don’t understand yet (the same way lightning and rain used to be attributed to gods, rather than physical mechanisms).

Now I’m in a bad mood, frustrated all over again that God has abandoned me in such a labyrinth, in addition to my suffering.

 

[Wesrock]

Are you familiar with Thomas Aquinas’ cosmological argument? I don’t see it mentioned above. Aquinas does not assume or even need for the universe to have had a beginning (Aquinas believe it did, but that did not factor into his proof because he didn’t think he could prove a beginning).

 

[ethereality]

Are you familiar with Thomas Aquinas’ cosmological argument? I don’t see it mentioned above. Aquinas does not assume or even need for the universe to have had a beginning (Aquinas believe it did, but that did not factor into his proof because he didn’t think he could prove a beginning).

I’ve seriously thought about it at least twice. What comes to mind trying to recall it off the top of my head is that I agree that the peculiarity of apparent cause and effect is staggering (what he means by ‘design’, that things move with apparent purpose and with a causality – Ed Feser explains on an episode of “Catholic Answers Live” that fire always follows a lit match, never something else like a burst of water), but my question is: Why must this be explained by God, rather than an inexplicable brute fact?

I have yet to see anyone adequately defend the assumption of the principle of sufficient reason in this case. Yes, we say there must be an explanation when it is on the order of things that we interact with where it would be unreasonable for there not to be an explanation, like “why is there a bicycle lying on my bed?” But the farther back we trace something, the less reasonable expectation there is for a necessary explanation. For example, “Who created God?” “No one created God; He just is.” “What do you mean? How has God existed eternally outside of the temporal universe?” “He just does.” Christian apologists are apparently perfectly happy to replace the principle of sufficient reason with “God” (i.e. deny it once they’ve postulated themselves to His front door), because that is where they wanted to end up in the first place. But in this case – “Why does the universe exhibit the principle of cause and effect?” – there is no clear reason why the explanation can’t stop here as a brute fact.* Positing God is an assumption (and that is my entire point with this long-winded response), and ultimately doesn’t explain it because it just refocuses the question (the inexplicable brute fact) on God’s self-containment rather than the universe’s causality.

That’s what I’d say off the top of my head, anyway.

• And then I come back to edit my posts … Bertrand Russell has a curious essay denying cause and effect, from this assertion that apparent cause and effect is a brute fact, and he ends up declaring that absolutely all of reality is an absurd sequence of brute facts, a series of snapshots causally unconnected from each other. I think his basis for this conclusion is his initial observation that a cause can never be coincident with its effect: The effect always follows after the cause has ceased, and thus the alleged cause could not have been responsible for it, since it no longer exists when the effect begins to exist. Ironically, I think one can easily declare that this is a very proof for the existence of God as That Which Connects a given cause to a given effect (which indeed seems to be identical to Aquinas’ proof here), which Frank Sheed would describe as “holding the universe in being”, but in this case it still seems an assumption to say that the causes and effects really are causes and effects. An assumption either way, to believe in or to reject cause and effect, just like it seems to me belief in God is ultimately also a radically free choice, that one is able to build consistent worldviews either as an atheist or a theist.

 

[frangiuliano115]

Hi ethereality,

I’m sorry you never answered my post no. 18.

Must sound silly to an intellectual such as yourself. But you know what, it’s the only thing that really works.

We cannot come to God on a wholly intellectual level. God is spirit, you have to understand Him in a spiritual context. You’re trying to prove He exists. You could only prove His existance if He’s spoken to you, you’ve listened, and it’s made sense.

I ran thru your items list quickly because that kind of stuff makes my eyes glaze over. I do like Spitzer, BTW, he seems smart to us normal folk. It makes my eyes glaze over because I think it’s rather silly to try and UNDERSTAND GOD. What makes you ever think you’ll understand Him one day or be able to accept Him because some science thing or how the universe works makes any sense. What is GOD anyway? Any scientist will tell you that it’s impossible for something to be made out of nothing. I don’t have to be a philosopher to know that. So what made everything? Whatever it was, THAT’S GOD. And then this creature thing that created everything decided to let us in on some secrets so it sent Jesus to explain a few things - but not all because our little brains can’t take it all in.

Here are some comments on you post:

1. I repeat my post no. 18. Forget about Trent Horn and his $99. philosophy book. That’s going to make the editor richer and you’ll still be at this point.
2. God is not hiding in a book ethereality. He’s hiding in your heart. Try looking for Him there. Tip: He’s not really hiding.
3. I love CAF or I wouldn’t be here. But I got my faith and my beliefs down BEFORE I got here. Do you think you could learn about a religion from a forum? Try going to a good bible study instead. Leave science out of the mix for a while and just LISTEN to GOD.
4. I understand from you O.P. that you’ve already done this, but read again 1 Corinthians 1:18 and just keep going to about the middle of chapter 3. Absorb what it means.

You know, you can’t FORCE yourself to be christian by intellectually understanding this concept or that concept. Know why? Concepts were made up by men to TRY to explain God. Guess what? He can’t be explained. People on these threads refer to Aquinas and Augustine and Teresa and Francis and Anselm and Ignatius and so on. Know what? Who cares what they thought. Get your own relationship with God worked out and THEN go and read what they have to say and gleen from them what edifies you and not what confuses you. Augustine changes his views on a couple of things before dying. What more can I say?

You sound like a guy, so: If you meet a girl you like, what do you do? Read up on her. Get her biography. Check out the internet. Ask people about her. NO. You ask her out on a date and talk to her and get to know her personally. It’s the same thing ethereality!

I’ve spent a lot of time on this - I don’t usually do this. I think it’s so important to understand what I’m trying to say. I know I speak in simple terms and don’t have the intellectual capacity you do but I’m here only because I understand what you’re going through because I’ve been there and am happy I made it through. I mean, what’s it all about ethereality?

Regards
Fran

 

[Vico]

… “What do you mean? How has God existed eternally outside of the temporal universe?” "He just does…

Take a look at B-Theory of time which fits with the classic teaching of the Church fathers on causality. In the B-Theory all moments of time are equally real. Temporal becoming is an illusion of human consciousness (time is tenseless and the flow of time is an illusion).

 

[Peter_Plato]

Thank you Ethereality for your brief sketches of the rebuttals to the arguments for God that you claim to find convincing. After reading them, it would appear to me that the reason you think you have been “abandoned” by God could distill down to an abandonment of seeking the truth.

These rebuttals – at least as far as presenting the actual arguments on behalf of theism – appear to be lifted from atheistic apologist websites and do not properly address any well-formed versions of the arguments.

Let’s start with this one…

A1. The fine-tuning argument is false because the apparent fine-tuning is a consequence of our overlapping descriptions of our observations. In other words, the assumption that our descriptions are “laws” that the universe must obey is false, and the fine-tuning is generated the more we overlap our observations because our observations are finite and we are trying to make a complex system agree with all our finite observations.

There is nothing in the fine-tuning argument that assumes the cosmological laws MUST be obeyed in the universe. There is a simple factual observation from varying areas of science - cosmology, physics, astrophysics, chemistry, etc., - that the cosmological constants do, in fact, apply across the entire universe. There is no MUST about it. In fact, that the constants need not be what they are set to is an aspect of the argument itself.

Take, for instance, the correlation between the force of gravity and the amount of matter in the universe. A very minuscule difference in the initial setting of either of these would have resulted in a collapse of the universe back on itself or a increased expansion that would have failed to produce stars, galaxies and planets. These are very clear and determinable consequences in terms of how matter and gravity relate to each other.

Astrophysicist Luke Barnes discusses the question near the beginning of this talk…

ia902708.us.archive.org/4/items/ConversationsFromThePaleBlueDot040-LukeBarnes/040-LukeBarnes.mp3

There is nothing in the fine tuning argument that says either gravity or the amount of mass MUST have been the way they are. The argument, in fact, supposes they could have been different and provides a detailed analysis of the alternate scenarios had they been different. The question is why are the constants so finely and inexplicably tuned to each other from the very beginning when they could have been so very different. In fact, that so many cosmological constants are so finely tuned to each other to permit the formation of galaxies, stars, planets, the range of elements, solar systems, life forms, etc., is what needs to be explained since this happening purely by “chance” occurrence is vanishingly small.

This is not merely an issue with one or two constants that apply universe wide, it is an issue with at least 30 according to another astrophysicist Hugh Ross.
reasons.org/articles/design-evidences-in-the-cosmos-1998

Some further reading is available here…

reasons.org/explore/topic/astronomy

So the major question posed by the fine tuning argument isn’t “Why must the universe have the laws that it does?”

Rather, it is "Why are the 30 or more constants - that actually do fine-tune the universe to be the way it is - set to be the way they are? Just chance isn’t a very compelling reason. And NO physical or chemical antecedents can be the cause of the fine tuning proper since the constants came to be at the moment all space, time, energy and matter came to be.

This is why atheists have punted to a multiverse model to try to overcome the problem that chance could not possibly explain a one-off universe. Yet the multiverse is totally speculative and is, in principle, not testable.

I will look at your other rebuttals as I have time, but they aren’t much better than this one, as far as I can tell.

 

[lax16]

I have found rebuttals of every argument that no one has been able to answer for me. Trent Horn may have come closest by telling me to buy some $90 philosophy book, which I cannot afford and which I have no inclination to read: I’m tired of searching for a hiding deity in man’s books.

I will briefly outline a few arguments. I’ve looked at over 25, and they all have problems (the arguments are either false or not certain to be true). After years of listening to “Catholic Answers Live” and trying to call in on occasion, it seems I should give up hope of their answering them. As Patrick Coffin says, “Welcome to the limits of live radio” – Trent Horn only wants easy softball questions, as Coffin even made me change my question last time I called. I am thinking of making YouTube videos presenting the challenge to the general public. Two topics for example, A. the origin of the universe and B. the historicity of the Gospels.

A1. The fine-tuning argument is false because the apparent fine-tuning is a consequence of our overlapping descriptions of our observations. In other words, the assumption that our descriptions are “laws” that the universe must obey is false, and the fine-tuning is generated the more we overlap our observations because our observations are finite and we are trying to make a complex system agree with all our finite observations.

A2. The kalam argument has the uncertain premise that a sequence of events (described as causal) cannot be infinite. The problem here is that I have never seen a formulation of this argument that doesn’t invalidly prove this premise by contradicting its own definitions: Every time the apologist tries to start counting from “the beginning” of an infinite past, i.e. declaring that there must be a first moment of an infinite past. The contradiction is assumed at this step. If you do not contradict yourself, misunderstanding the definition of infinity by presuming to be able to “traverse its entirety”, there is no clear contradiction, something St. Thomas Aquinas understood. (An infinite past can exist with a cyclical series or an infinite series of “locally-finite” chains.)

A3. The Big Bang theory does not prove the universe had a beginning (contrary to Tim Staples’ DVD talk now on YouTube, which he refused to recant when I emailed him about it), nor does the BGV theorem, contrary to Catholic Answers’ insistence. (Even worse, now EWTN is endorsing Fr. Robert Spitzer’s nonsense giving him his own show to repeat his bad book.) In brief (I cannot explain adequately in brief, but I have no patience at the moment to say more), the former is a theory leading to a point before which we know nothing, not an observation of the beginning of the universe, and the latter is likewise a theory with assumptions our universe might not meet.

A4. The Second Law of Thermodynamics does hold back to the Big Bang, if we assume that it does, yet in addition to this assumption, we don’t have any theories about what happened within and prior to the Big Bang’s singularity. So it’s speculation to declare that there was nothing prior to the Big Bang, and that the Second Law (entropy always increasing) is in fact a law at all.

Obviously, there’s so much that can be said; entire books have been written.

B. We don’t even know what is happening in the Middle East today, or what happened in the Iraq War. How much less certain is the history of the Middle East two thousand years ago. In short, I don’t have confidence in our knowledge of history millennia ago, hence we must have miracles today to verify the Church’s authority and truthfulness. Unfortunately, investigating these miracles, e.g. the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, Portugal in 1917, there is not enough evidence to declare it happened with the same certainty that, say, Woodrow Wilson was president. People say “It was even photographed and printed in the newspaper!” Yeah? Where is this proof? All I have found is an illegible scrap on Wikipedia (not clear what is being photographed other than a mass of people looking up) and a book from the 1950s alleging to be interviews of eye-witnesses – eyewitnesses who have a vested interest in tourism to their village. In summary, no miracle I have seen has ever been anything more than hearsay. (Trent Horn has recently been arguing “But there have been so many claims! Isn’t it likely at least one of them is true?” This is an inexcusable argument from ignorance.) Medical miracles are rare, evidence that they are not from a god who loves everyone, and they can have mechanisms that we simply don’t understand yet (the same way lightning and rain used to be attributed to gods, rather than physical mechanisms).

Now I’m in a bad mood, frustrated all over again that God has abandoned me in such a labyrinth, in addition to my suffering.

What would make a person love their enemy, give up all they have to care for those less fortunate, refuse to denounce Jesus Christ while facing imminent death or give a rat’s behind about anyone but himself?

(You won’t find the answer in any if the books or theories you have presented).

 

[exnihilo]

I have found rebuttals of every argument that no one has been able to answer for me. Trent Horn may have come closest by telling me to buy some $90 philosophy book, which I cannot afford and which I have no inclination to read: I’m tired of searching for a hiding deity in man’s books.

There are of course rebuttals of these rebuttals. I reiterate my thought that it may be best to abandon the search for answers at least how you’ve been approaching it. I’d liken it to looking for something you’ve lost. I lost my car keys once. I have a keychain that detaches. I kept the valet key on one part and the master key on the second along with my other keys. One day I realized the valet key had come loose and was gone. I couldn’t remember when I last saw it attached. I looked everywhere for them. I looked all through my car, my house and my clothes. I even went back to where I last parked when I thought I had the keys and searched there. I didn’t find them. I gave up the search. Then several months later I happened to find them. I can’t recall where but I remember it was in a place that didn’t surprise me.

Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes no matter how heard we search we don’t find something. And then one day we do. Sometimes in the search we become blind to something important or have unwittingly narrowed the search too much. There is no guarantee we will find what we are looking for. But often taking time off of the search can help bring a new perspective.

 

[ethereality]

Hi ethereality,

I’m sorry you never answered my post no. 18.

Fran,

I do appreciate your posts; they have been among the best. Generally, when I am silent on a post, it is because I agree with it. I tend to post disagreements to try to flesh out and resolve a problem or answer an underlying question.

My problem is that I don’t know how to put your advice into practice. For example, “looking within”, I find only my own thoughts. Trying to “listen for God to speak to me,” I get only silence or I fall asleep. Reading the Bible, it is just another document for me to study (God has not directly answered my questions or solved my problems through it), even when I pray before hand asking the Holy Spirit to make His will known to me and to give me the grace to obey, as Fr. Larry Richards has instructed us on one of his Reason for Our Hope Foundation speeches on EWTN Radio.

So on one hand, your posts comfort me, but on the other hand, I don’t know what to do with them. Of course I pray (in thanksgiving and for others, not only petitions for myself), but I don’t know how much that’s helping.

read again 1 Corinthians 1:18 and just keep going to about the middle of chapter 3. Absorb what it means.

I’m trying, but I encounter roadblocks, like 2:4-5:

my preaching, my message depended on no persuasive language, devised by human wisdom, but rather on the proof I gave you of spiritual power; 5 God’s power, not man’s wisdom, was to be the foundation of your faith.

I have not been given this proof that St. Paul gave them: I have not seen any of his miracles, and what we find about him in the Bible carries that same 2,000-year historical uncertainty.

I also have a problem with this “taking joy in paradox”: How is it fair for God to expect us to value what we must not value if we are to survive as a species? (Likewise, how is it fair for God to expect us to disregard our senses and declare by faith alone that the Eucharist is Jesus?)
1 Corinthians 2:6b:

it is not the wisdom of this world, or of this world’s rulers, whose power is to be abrogated.

That’s fine poetry, but the problem is God is the designer and invoker of this world’s wisdom, by holding natural disasters in being, designing evolution, etc.: God is the one who requires us to value the strong and avoid suffering whenever possible, lest our children die of hunger or climate. So St. Paul apparently doesn’t see how he’s declaring that God is contradicting Himself here – but perhaps I’m misunderstanding the text, which just goes back to my earlier point about the apparent futility of me trying to read the Bible as a means of listening to God. Perhaps St. Paul:
1 Corinthians 2:14:

Mere man with his natural gifts cannot take in the thoughts of God’s Spirit; they seem mere folly to him, and he cannot grasp them, because they demand a scrutiny which is spiritual.

So it seems all I can do is pray for God’s grace. Yet St. Paul contradicts this idea at the end of verse 16,

Christ’s mind is ours.

After all, I have been both Baptized and Confirmed, and, having Confessed just two days ago, I am conscious of no mortal sin.

I understand what you’re going through because I’ve been there and am happy I made it through. I mean, what’s it all about ethereality?

Regards
Fran

Thanks, and I’m glad you made it through. I’m not sure I understand your question here, though.

Take a look at B-Theory of time which fits with the classic teaching of the Church fathers on causality. In the B-Theory all moments of time are equally real. Temporal becoming is an illusion of human consciousness (time is tenseless and the flow of time is an illusion).

Do you have a free reading recommendation? To be honest, it sounds absurd at face value: If all moments are equally real, i.e. if that means they don’t cease to exist as the present becomes the past (as St. Augustine asserted in his Confessions), then it implies there are an enormous number of Me’s (so to speak). It then seems to imply that, at the end of time, they will all still exist, and God will perhaps throw some of them into hell (during those times I was committing a grave sin), and others of me going into heaven, and yet that would be solely a function of when Jesus decided to return, which would then be arbitrary with respect to the collection of Me’s. So by this proof by contradiction (reduction to absurdity) B-theory of time is certainly false, if God is not capricious, unless I’ve misunderstood what you mean, hence my request for a reading recommendation (and a free one, since I cannot afford to buy anything).

Looking at what you wrote again, I see now another interpretation would be to think of myself the same way I think of God, i.e. timeless (“time is tenseless and time-flow an illusion”): But if the flow of time is an illusion, then our incompetency is absurd, and God absurd for his crown of creation (man) being thus so, and God is placed in the same ridiculous category – of Deceiver – as the Creationists’ claim that the earth is 6,000 years old and God allowed Satan to put down dinosaur bones “to trick us into thinking otherwise”.

 

[ethereality]

[The] rebuttal [sketches you posted] appear to be lifted from atheistic apologist websites and do not properly address any well-formed versions of the arguments.

Let’s start with this one…

I do not have the time to give you a full response at the moment, and I think a different thread would be a better place for it (in Apologetics’ Philosophy). If you’d agree, I could post one there later and continue this back-and-forth.

In short,

1. 
   *]I meant “found” as in from my own studies reading through them, i.e. “along this path to God, I’ve found these roadblocks”: I thought them up only reading Christian apologetics; I didn’t see them on any website.
   *]You seem unaware of the problems with your arguments, e.g. you seem unaware of when you are making assumptions rather than stating facts. I might elucidate this point in that new thread, if you are interested.
   

   What would make a person love their enemy, give up all they have to care for those less fortunate, refuse to denounce Jesus Christ while facing imminent death or give a rat’s behind about anyone but himself?
   
   (You won’t find the answer in any if the books or theories you have presented).

   The primary question here is what the eyewitnesses to Jesus did, i.e. the Apostles, and their martyrdom apparently has only the reliability of 2,000-year-old oral tradition: We must either believe it “because people today say so” or reject it on the same grounds. Hence the claim that the Apostles were all martyred except John is not a reason to believe, but rather an additional claim that must be believed.
   

   Sometimes no matter how heard we search we don’t find something. And then one day we do. Sometimes in the search we become blind to something important or have unwittingly narrowed the search too much. There is no guarantee we will find what we are looking for. But often taking time off of the search can help bring a new perspective.

   I must agree with you. It also reminds me of Jimmy Akin’s advice, that we can sometimes torture ourselves seeking to understand, and that it’s okay not to understand. As they say, “Just let God be God.” … My problem here is that if I stop such seeking, then I also stop caring: Letting God be God also means letting God deal with the fetuses being murdered every day, for example, rather than me spending time praying for them. Something similar to “out of sight, out of mind”, because the Japanese require me to spend all day working. I mean, if I stop searching for God, then it means I stop praying to God. This is in part because everyone, perhaps fran included, suggests that prayer is a two-way thing, and the silence of God is deafening. I don’t see how it can be other than all or nothing. God Himself rebukes the lukewarm in Revelation, and that’s what it seems you’re suggesting by telling me to live as a Christian and not be concerned about the inconsistencies and God’s apparent absence.

 

[lax16]

The primary question here is what the eyewitnesses to Jesus did, i.e. the Apostles, and their martyrdom apparently has only the reliability of 2,000-year-old oral tradition: We must either believe it “because people today say so” or reject it on the same grounds. Hence the claim that the Apostles were all martyred except John is not a reason to believe, but rather an additional claim that must be believed.

Actually, I was speaking of modern-day missionaries and ordinary people.