As a former believer, in some ways I miss believing

[mymamamary]

I miss feeling comfortable with the way things were going. “Everything happens for a reason” is a mantra that can’t really be reconciled with a world view without some sort of God. It was calming believing that something bigger was always looking out for me. It was nice praying at night as a way to unwind and relay my thoughts to an all loving being.

But believing in God is not something you can just choose to do. I** have come to the conclusion that it is very unlikely that there is a God and unless some world changing thing happened, I doubt that will change. **

People say “you just have to open up your heart and God will open up to you” or things like that. In my eyes this is just a way of saying “you just have to be open to believing in God and your brain will do the rest.”

But it was nice when everything happened for a reason. Life was a little less stressful.

Our LORD specifically condemned this. We should quit looking for signs, that’s why its called your Act of Faith. Now Our Act of Faith doesn’t have to contradict reason, in fact Our Faith makes reason seem a lot more reasonable. However, moral of this story : quit looking for signs and believe. Faith isn’t a feeling. its an act.

 

[Michelle9]

As the Great Late Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said to a woman who told him she didn’t believe in hell " You will believe when you get there". Now I don’t know where you get the idea that Our LORD would punish you for ignorance? for something to be a mortal sin, you have to know that its a mortal sin, the first condition if you dont through NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN, you cannot be culpable. As for genetics, I see where your going, the “born this way” argument.

Now if I wanted to argue that I could kill somebody and say I was born this way, born with a killer temper. What would I be told, Prison time and some serious counseling. Now, Im not saying that homosexuals should be thrown into prison, but they do need counseling, especially the transvestites/cross dressers. It goes against natural law.

As for experiences in life what do you mean, sex outside of marriage, pornography??

If that’s the case, the law is the same for me as well as you. There is no exception because Our LORD intended sex to be used as its natural power inside Marriage. Not inside a one night stand. So all in all, you do have control over your life, and want the easy way out by molding your own morality that fits your own taste and needs, thus slowly putting yourself in hell. Its a common fact, that those who reject the Faith isn’t because of the Logicality of the Faith (although they use that weak minded argument as an excuse for the real reason), no the real reason is that to be a Catholic, you gotta (pardon the non inclusive word), “MAN UP”, pick up your Cross and follow the LORD. Its not easy, its very rough, but you gotta do what you gotta do. However the sinful life is the “easy life” and I don’t have to sacrifice or tough anything out. Lame excuse for leaving the Beautiful Faith we have.

Pardon me but I think you’re assuming too much from what this poster said. He or she is not mentioning either sex or pornography and there you go giving a moral lecture. Not a way to bring back anyone who is having serious doubts, IMO.

 

[St_Francis]

You sort of say everything I feel. I want that comfort of feeling everything happens for a reason, and it is nice to think that you can pray and make a difference, but** I just don’t KNOW that.** That is the main fact that worries me now. I personally do believe in God, and I hope to reconcile myself to a “full” belief like many people here seem to have. Thank you for your post…it makes me look at myself.
I hope that you are happy, and that your life is exactly as you want it.

Could it be that because our society’s idea of knowledge is so concentrated on the physical, the scientific, that it becomes difficult to “know” in any other way?

And the odd thing is that we often do not know of our own senses! Think of all the misconceptions children have of the world: when I was very young, I thought there was a whole orchestra playing what I heard on the radio, that it was all “live.” My father, an electrical engineer, explained electricity to me, but I take it on faith that transistors do what they do.

In the same way, I believe what the Church teaches: that God came to us in the form of a Man, that He was crucified for our sins… in the same way that I believe scientists who tell me that electricity does what it does because I have experienced the results, altho not seen the molecules flowing through the wires and being transformed by something or other into sound, I believe the Church Which tells me that the holiest people got that way because of God, that my own transformations, which I knew from experience were beyond my own power to effect, are from God.

 

[interestedman]

Making up your own “GOD” is creating an idol. you created a a cozy little niche for yourself with “your” morals, but what happens when you will step outside that little “sphere” of yours?. Also, I cannot come to the conclusion on how you came to the conclusion that ethics and morals don’t go together with Our LORD. Proper ethics and morals comes from HIM.

I just disagreed with the views of the church on certain issues (gay marriage, birth control, etc.) so instead of concluding that I was wrong or that God was wrong, I just concluded that the church’s view on God and what God believed was wrong.

 

[minion]

Nah, not really. Even when I believed in God I didn’t really believe in hell. It wasn’t really rational that you could be eternally punished for making bad choices in your life due to ignorance, genetics, and experiences in your life that you have little or no control over.

The Catholic Church doesn’t make that assumption either. You can’t be held accountable if you are blameless.

I’m not angry and bitter at all. In fact I am just as good a person now as I was before I stopped believing. I don’t think my belief or disbelief has changed the way I interact with others. Then again I was never a nice person because I feared hell, wanted to go to heaven, or thought God was watching over me. Also, I never fully adhered to any one religion and kind of made up my own God based on my rational views on ethics and morals. So it wasn’t so hard to drop the God part because I didn’t have to reexamine how I viewed the world.

It may not be immediately obvious, but what you believe or disbelieve will change you eventually. The consequences are not always instantaneous. Think about it, even outside of religion - is any person truly the same person they were a week ago? We’re always changing in some degree.

 

[Lochias]

I just disagreed with the views of the church on certain issues (gay marriage, birth control, etc.) so instead of concluding that I was wrong or that God was wrong, I just concluded that the church’s view on God and what God believed was wrong.

And yet, the logical and historical fact is that Jesus put the Church in place to guide the faithful. I would say that your conclusion is false, and that it is a faith that you have likely not supported through prayer and sacrifice that has fallen out from under you, due to your lack of upkeep. Just like a person has to exercise their muscles to remain strong or to study their material to keep it in their heads, a healthy faith requires action.

 

[interestedman]

What made you stop believing there is a God? No matter what has happened in my life, I still believe there is a God. IMO there is no other explanation for our existence and the Universe. I prefer to think that the things I don’t receive are just part of His will for me. I find great comfort in the Sacred Heart of Jesus novena. Surrender your Will to God’s and you will find peace. I am also reading various autobiographies. I really like that of St. Terese of Lisieux, the Little Flower. If you read some of these you will see how they matured by allowing God’s Will to be theirs.

While I was a believer I was very familiar with prominent atheist figures and their stances. But I watched the “atheist tapes” on netflix and something resonated with me. At some point while watching them I decided that the logical view point was that a God likely did not exist. I reexamined why I believed in God and how I came to my beliefs.

I was born into a family with two staunch Catholics. I was taught from a young age that Catholicism was fact. I believe through recreational drug use I started seeing connections between events in my life that I attributed to God. All sorts of things were God showing me a sign or something like that. I started to develop paranoia over certain things and realized the correlation between my belief in God and my irrational paranoia. Then I really started thinking about the origins of Christianity and how the beliefs of my parents (and myself) came to be.

 

[John_Martin]

I miss feeling comfortable with the way things were going. “Everything happens for a reason” is a mantra that can’t really be reconciled with a world view without some sort of God. It was calming believing that something bigger was always looking out for me. It was nice praying at night as a way to unwind and relay my thoughts to an all loving being.

But believing in God is not something you can just choose to do. I have come to the conclusion that it is very unlikely that there is a God and unless some world changing thing happened, I doubt that will change.

People say “you just have to open up your heart and God will open up to you” or things like that. In my eyes this is just a way of saying “you just have to be open to believing in God and your brain will do the rest.”

But it was nice when everything happened for a reason. Life was a little less stressful.

Don’t feel bad; the God of the Catholics cannot be known by reasoning to a knowledge of Him. He is only known to those to whom he is revealed.

Your later posts show that you were defining a god yourself, and then doubting in that god. Your private definitions did not show a serious study using reason, but seemed more based on emotional needs or attachments of the moment, and also, then, your despair of that god defined was subsequently based on emotional reaction to the failure of your self-defined god rather than on a reasoned examination of reality.

In a way, your writings sound like this is a somewhat passing interest, and tomorrow you will find something else that fascinates you and will take your attention elsewhere because you have found no satisfaction in this pursuit.

John Martin

 

[interestedman]

Pardon me but I think you’re assuming too much from what this poster said. He or she is not mentioning either sex or pornography and there you go giving a moral lecture. Not a way to bring back anyone who is having serious doubts, IMO.

That is a good point because when I said “experience in life” in no way did I mean sex or pornography. What I meant was someone’s upbringing. If you have horrible parents that teach you bad morals you are far more likely to be a bad person than if you have good parents.

 

[antunesaa]

I miss feeling comfortable with the way things were going. “Everything happens for a reason” is a mantra that can’t really be reconciled with a world view without some sort of God. It was calming believing that something bigger was always looking out for me. It was nice praying at night as a way to unwind and relay my thoughts to an all loving being.

But believing in God is not something you can just choose to do. I have come to the conclusion that it is very unlikely that there is a God and unless some world changing thing happened, I doubt that will change.

People say “you just have to open up your heart and God will open up to you” or things like that. In my eyes this is just a way of saying “you just have to be open to believing in God and your brain will do the rest.”

But it was nice when everything happened for a reason. Life was a little less stressful.

In the brief period I was a practical atheist, in my early twenties, it wasn’t what you described that I missed the most. What I missed the most was to have someone with whom to share something that I had accomplished on my own. There just was no one to share with, or to be grateful to, except myself. And oneself is a very poor god indeed! That feeling was the starting point of my resolute abandonment of atheism.

The “everything has a reason” mantra doesn’t resonate that much with me.

 

[mymamamary]

That is a good point because when I said “experience in life” in no way did I mean sex or pornography. What I meant was someone’s upbringing. If you have horrible parents that teach you bad morals you are far more likely to be a bad person than if you have good parents.

Yes of course, IF you have bad parents. What I’m saying is that since you are a Catholic and you knew the TRUTH and now reject looks very bad on your soul. The different thing is that you knew the Faith and willingly rejected it, by setting up second best deities of worship, whatever they are to you. You went morally relative on the Church. Im sorry if this sounds vindictive but its what Im observing. I will pray that you come back to our Beautiful Faith, the Church misses you!!

Please come back. Its the only sure way you are going to save your soul an existence that you deny. There is a death permeating the contemporary culture today. That death is to deny the existence of the loving CREATOR WHO put them here and to deny the existence of their souls to live life as they please. This is like drinking the drugged poison, killing themselves even faster, yet they try to change the morals and thus say “there is no pain”, but in reality they drugged their Soul before they inject the poison. satan desires to do drag you to hell. Dont follow him.

 

[ReachingFaith]

Here’s the thing, at least in my case, and maybe in the OP’s…in order for me to be truly and firmly Catholic, I need concrete proof. Maybe that makes me bad, maybe as I get older I’ll come to understand it for myself…but as I am now, I go to a Catholic Church, I have been brought up strictly Catholic, I have seen the bad sides of many so-called Catholics, and I have asked many questions. If God wants me to know, my heart is open. I want to know! It’s horrible to get up every day and wonder about life, and life after this, and all of it. I am not at all convinced on any necessary points, and this is an issue for me. I do not foresee myself ever doubting God’s existence, but as for what He does, and as for the Church…cloudy.
I guess it would take a miracle. No, really. I just can’t put my trust in something I don’t see, don’t know, and can’t know.
I have been raised Catholic, but I can’t just sit there and say, “Oh, I was brought up this way. It must be all real.” Would you?

 

[snarflemike]

Here’s the thing, at least in my case, and maybe in the OP’s…in order for me to be truly and firmly Catholic, I need concrete proof.

Ahh, but do you have concrete proof that the universe either has existed forever, or came into existence through purely naturalistic means?

Why is it that only one of the competing alternatives ever needs concrete proof?

 

[John_Martin]

Here’s the thing, at least in my case, and maybe in the OP’s…in order for me to be truly and firmly Catholic, I need concrete proof. Maybe that makes me bad, maybe as I get older I’ll come to understand it for myself…but as I am now, I go to a Catholic Church, I have been brought up strictly Catholic, I have seen the bad sides of many so-called Catholics, and I have asked many questions. If God wants me to know, my heart is open. I want to know! It’s horrible to get up every day and wonder about life, and life after this, and all of it. I am not at all convinced on any necessary points, and this is an issue for me. I do not foresee myself ever doubting God’s existence, but as for what He does, and as for the Church…cloudy.
I guess it would take a miracle. No, really. I just can’t put my trust in something I don’t see, don’t know, and can’t know.
I have been raised Catholic, but I can’t just sit there and say, “Oh, I was brought up this way. It must be all real.” Would you?

There is something you can see: a wafer of bread and a cup of wine. And there is a man saying, “This is my body, take it, eat it; this is the cup of my blood of my covenant with you, take it and drink”. Who is Jesus? Who do you say that he is? Your answer will tell you how seriously you take his words in relation to those two things you can see (the bread and the wine).

John Martin

 

[ReachingFaith]

Ahh, but do you have concrete proof that the universe either has existed forever, or came into existence through purely naturalistic means?

Why is it that only one of the competing alternatives ever needs concrete proof?

I hope I read your question right, and my answer is, simply, no. No, I do not have proof. That is why I am a “questioner”, which makes people angry. Amend: some people. As for why I believe in God, I don’t know. Isn’t that stupid? I really don’t know. I guess I see Him around me, or feel Him at those terrible times, but I couldn’t tell you why I do.
Does that make me bad?

 

[ReachingFaith]

There is something you can see: a wafer of bread and a cup of wine. And there is a man saying, “This is my body, take it, eat it; this is the cup of my blood of my covenant with you, take it and drink”. Who is Jesus? Who do you say that he is? Your answer will tell you how seriously you take his words in relation to those two things you can see (the bread and the wine).

John Martin

Jesus is the Son of God, but also part of Him, which is another thing I really don’t understand. And how can God have existed from all time…did He make himself? Does that make any sense?
Maybe I’ll start another thread on that one…

 

[Michelle9]

While I was a believer I was very familiar with prominent atheist figures and their stances. But I watched the “atheist tapes” on netflix and something resonated with me. At some point while watching them I decided that the logical view point was that a God likely did not exist. I reexamined why I believed in God and how I came to my beliefs.

What do atheists have to offer to explain the world and our existence? Even evolution must have been started by a supernatural being.

 

[wanstronian]

As the Great Late Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said to a woman who told him she didn’t believe in hell " You will believe when you get there". Now I don’t know where you get the idea that Our LORD would punish you for ignorance? for something to be a mortal sin, you have to know that its a mortal sin, the first condition if you dont through NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN, you cannot be culpable. As for genetics, I see where your going, the “born this way” argument.

Now if I wanted to argue that I could kill somebody and say I was born this way, born with a killer temper. What would I be told, Prison time and some serious counseling. Now, Im not saying that homosexuals should be thrown into prison, but they do need counseling, especially the transvestites/cross dressers. It goes against natural law.

As for experiences in life what do you mean, sex outside of marriage, pornography??

If that’s the case, the law is the same for me as well as you. There is no exception because Our LORD intended sex to be used as its natural power inside Marriage. Not inside a one night stand. So all in all, you do have control over your life, and want the easy way out by molding your own morality that fits your own taste and needs, thus slowly putting yourself in hell. Its a common fact, that those who reject the Faith isn’t because of the Logicality of the Faith (although they use that weak minded argument as an excuse for the real reason), no the real reason is that to be a Catholic, you gotta (pardon the non inclusive word), “MAN UP”, pick up your Cross and follow the LORD. Its not easy, its very rough, but you gotta do what you gotta do. However the sinful life is the “easy life” and I don’t have to sacrifice or tough anything out. Lame excuse for leaving the Beautiful Faith we have.

Wow - that was just one mahoosive ad hominem.

 

[wanstronian]

Ahh, but do you have concrete proof that the universe either has existed forever, or came into existence through purely naturalistic means?

Why is it that only one of the competing alternatives ever needs concrete proof?

I think you’re missing the point here. The existence of God is a truth claim that requires extraordinary evidence, because it’s an extraordinary claim.

If science can’t prove that the Universe got started by known natural processes, that doesn’t mean that God exists, it just means we can’t be sure how the universe got started.

The two are not exclusive options, and for that matter, the likelihood of each option is not 50%. Science has provided many robust models of natural processes that provide plausible evidence for the way our universe is. Religion, on the other hand, has never vouchsafed us a single objective truth about our world (to paraphrase Jerry Coyne.)

You’re comparing apples and pears.

 

[wanstronian]

What do atheists have to offer to explain the world and our existence?

Atheism isn’t about explaining the world and our existence. It’s simply a denial of an unevidenced supernatural explanation.

Even evolution must have been started by a supernatural being.

Must it? Why? Scientific experiments seem to suggest otherwise.