Atheism-Please Help

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lynchdm

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Hello,

I was baptised and raised Catholic from birth until I was 13, when my family switched to Episcopalian. I was a devout Episcopal for the next six years-I went to church regularly in college, sang in the choir, and gave money when I could. Now, through my own findings, I have rejected religion and am an atheist. Frankly, I would really like to come back to the Catholic faith but at this point I just can’t believe. Honestly, I would like to be proven wrong.

I would hate to be looked at as someone who is looking to stir up arguments, so please note that I am sincere. However, I will respond if there is something I don’t agree with. I will be respectful of you and your beliefs, so do not feel like you may be attacked. Is anyone willing to talk?

Thanks,
Derek
 
P.S. Since I’m still new to this site, I don’t know if this is the best forum to post this on. If there’s a better place, let me know.

Thank you!
 
I, too, was once an atheist. Now I’m a Catholic Christian. I converted because I met the Lord.

Some people have trouble with the teachings of the Catholic Church - for example, homosexual acts being sins, contraceptives being evil - but it’s all a matter of self-love. And if the Catholic Church is the Church which Jesus founded, than its teachings must be true, and we must all adhere to what is true.
 
I feel for you trust me I really do.

Well here it goes, some may think I may be a crack pot for posting this. I am a very devout Catholic and love the Lord with my whole heart and soul, but my challenge to you is have faith. I think that is where you could be stumbling.

I would say, look at God outside of “religion”

I look outside right now, the sun is shinning and there is snow on the ground. Wow, water in a solid state. Hummm, how did that happen? 32 degrees F? How far is the sun from the earth? Very very far eh? How is it that the earth has the EXACT tempature to sustain life? Why is it that there is only one tempature that can turn water from solid to liquid? Why is that it only happens on this planet?

What can first the baby or the man? (We know God created man first) With that what chromosome came first? The X or the Y? When did the X and Y come together? How did the XX chromosome come to be? (We who believe in God know)

The big bang theroy? Hummm, I think science is getting close, it was a big bang eh? I would say so, to create the earth and populate it in 6 days? Good greif, could man create a skyscraper in New York in 6 days? I doubt it.

Next time it is freezing cold outside and the sun is shining through the window, hold your hand up and see if you can feel the heat of the sun. What, how could you feel the heat, it is freezing cold outside? How the heck would that happen?

When spring comes, goto that maple tree in the woods and look at the leaves, pay close attention to the veins in that leaf. Then hold your hand up and look at your veins. Anything noticable?

These are a few things for you to think about, search deep inside your soul and believe, have faith.
 
Derek, I’m sure you will receive much more profound ideas than this, but if you do “want” to believe, pray. If you don’t know how to do that, let me pass along something that was given to me. Put two chairs in a room. Sit in one of them. As long as you sit in one of them, God is in the other (or Jesus, if you would prefer). Now, simply talk to him. You can get happy, sad, angry, whatever you want. The key is to begin the discussion.

You might also spend some time reading the Gospel. Just read a few chapters of one of the first four New Testament books at a time. Pray for guidance before you do. Don’t wear yourself out by reading for hours. Try to not say, "Well, yeah, but maybe that was cause by . . . ", or something else. Just read it.

Maybe for a third suggestion, if you can, watch EWTN. “Sunday Night Live” is an excellent show, but so are most of the others.

And maybe a fourth, go to mass.

God bless you, Derek. I’ll be praying for you. You should try praying for you, too!
 
Book suggestion - “Answering the New Athiesm” by Scott Hahn.
 
Hey guys, thanks for replying. Here are my thoughts:

Eucharisted, while some acts such as murder and rape are obviously detrimental to society, things like homosexuality and contraception are not considered evil outside of religion, and so to grasp this I must first accept the Church’s word as true. Since I have not done this, I’m not sure it’s the best place to start. Saying that I must adhere to the truth is a good concept, but I do not know that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. I do not know that Jesus is God. I can’t start at a point and say “this is what I believe; it’s true.” If I start here then obviously I will end up where I start, believing that Jesus was God’s son. However, I look for reasons to believe, and in doing this it becomes much harder to get to the point of faith and belief.

ljprevo, it seems to me that this is how the concept of God began. Ancient man looked up at the sky, watched the seasons change, and did not understand how it happened. Their best guess was that a supreme being did it. After thousands of years of studies, tests, measurements, and research, man has gone from alchemy to chemistry, from a geocentric universe to a heliocentric one. To me, saying things like you are saying show a misunderstanding of basic science. At this point in time, scientists have a very full understanding of the questions you ask. We also know that the universe is a lot bigger than we ever thought. Even if there is only a one-in-a-million chance of a planet being suitable for liquid water, that leaves room for about a billion planets with liquid water. The Big Bang Theory directly contradicts the idea of a six-day creation. Based on measurements through triangulation of the stars, we know how many hundreds of thousands of lightyears away the stars are. We also have observed that the universe is expanding-all the stars and galaxies are travelling from the same direction. This supports the Big Bang. Based on measurements that have conluded the age of the universe to be 13.7 billion years old, it does not support the six-day creation. The heat that can be felt on a window on a cold day is from the sun, and the heat is being captured by the window in a process we call the greenhouse effect. The “veins” you talk about in a leaf are not an accurate comparison to human veins. Humans have veins to transport liquid blood; trees do not have liquid blood. It’s like looking at a cloud which resembles a car, then looking at a car and drawing the conclusion that the same person made them. Humans naturally look for patterns in things. It’s the reason that a photo became famous of a “face” in the smoke of the burning Twin Towers. It may also explain why you see this similarity. We must remember that correlation does not imply causation.

Thoughts?
 
Ramalama,

This is precisely what it’s hard for me to do. I could also sit in a chair and pretend Thor or Apollo is in the other chair. I could talk just as vividly and emotionally, and would probably get something out of it too. I have read most of the Bible in my lifetime, and have found things I agreed with and disagreed with, just as when I have read other books on morality. I also go to Mass regularly with my girlfriend.

As far as reading the Gospels and just believing, I do not understand this. When a friend tells you an outrageous story that seems physically impossible, do you believe him? I’m guessing you don’t. Why should the Bible be exempt from the same scrutiny that we give everything else?
 
Derek, I understand that you see the presence of Earth as a life-sustaining entity as perfectly explicable through scientific means, but it does not answer the existence of the universe itself. I cannot see how the universe itself could simply be on its own.
 
Welcome to the forums! It seems to me that you are thinking of religion primarily in terms of creation, the order of the universe, etc. You find religious answers in this area far less compelling than scientific one.

I think you are right that ancient people did look to religion as part of their explanation for the natural world, and today we have far better tools to understand and explain natural phenomena. But this isn’t what I think religion is fundamentally about. I think religion is more about the purpose of our life, the “why” questions, not the “what” and “how” (which are more in the area of science).
 
There are some things that science cannot explain. It cannot explain why one poem is beautiful and another is not. It cannot explain why one piece of music always makes you cry and other always cheers you up. There are some things science cannot prove. It cannot prove for certain that a mother loves her baby. It might demonstrate that she does such and such actions which can proceed from love but it cannot prove that they do not proceed from other motives. Science cannot prove how much pain you experience when you have toothache.

There is no reason why science should explain or prove any of these things. They belong among the category of things that science need not concern itself with. Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God as first cause of everything, nor can it prove or disprove His revelation of Himself in human history. Nor does it especially fall within its remit to do so. Faith is not a special form of science that requires no proofs. Faith is a relationship of love, trust, friendship and thankfulness. If you want that relationship then you don’t need to start from a position of accepting the full Catholic belief system. Thats a destination not a starting point. Begin by accepting that you are weak and small, not as smart and witty as you like to think you are and desperately in need of an encounter with perfect love. All you need to believe is that if you ask your heavenly Father for bread He will not give you a stone. Ask Him for bread. Then wait in hope and with trust.

And God Bless you.
 
Having said which see guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/jan/08/religion-atheism-longley-advertising on the subject of science and God
The August '97 issue of “Science” featured an article entitled “Science and God: A Warming Trend?” in which it stated:
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The fact that the universe exhibits many features that foster organic life - such as precisely those physical constants that result in planets and long- lived stars - also has led some scientists to speculate that some divine influence may be present.
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You know what, I have a very good grasp of basic science and trust me, a lot of what science says is in FACT still a lot of theories.

Yeah they shout off all these technical terms and say this and that is this and that far in the universe, however for a definite FACT they do not know. Have they pulled the tape measure out and checked? Nope.

Now yes science has come a long way, but there is A LOT of things that scientist can not rationalize.

I am not going to continue to convince you that God is real, you obviously are very, very lost individual or you would not be here. Can you explain what in your soul is striving you to find the TRUE truth and why you have this longing to be in the Catholic church? Can you give a scientific explaination of that longing?

I think possibly deep down in your core soul you know the truth, your outer soul is rejecting it.

I will be adding you to me prayer list.
 
Thanks for the links, this seems specially relevant wordonfire.org/articleDetail.aspx?ArticleNo=31
The obvious success of the physical sciences—evident in the technology that surrounds us and facilitates our lives in so many ways—has convinced many of our young people …that anything outside of the range of the empirical and measurable is simply a fantasy, the stuff of superstition and primitive belief. That there might be a dimension of reality knowable in a non-scientific but still rational manner never occurs to them. This prejudice, this blindness to literature, philosophy, metaphysics, mysticism, and religion is the scientism that I’m complaining about.
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lynchdm said:
The Big Bang Theory directly contradicts the idea of a six-day creation. Based on measurements through triangulation of the stars, we know how many hundreds of thousands of lightyears away the stars are. We also have observed that the universe is expanding-all the stars and galaxies are travelling from the same direction. This supports the Big Bang. Based on measurements that have conluded the age of the universe to be 13.7 billion years old, it does not support the six-day creation.
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The Catholic Church does not teach that God created the universe in “6 days” as we know them.

One has to understand what the inspired author was trying to say. I heard this analogy once. If I write “it was raining cats and dogs last night” and that note is buried in the ground for a couple of thousand years and later some future culture finds it, they might not understand it the way you and I understand it. I was not suggesting that there were really cats and dogs falling from the sky…merely that it was raining very hard.

The same is true with God creating things in “6 days”.

The creation account in the bible is not meant to be interpreted as a chronological, scientific event. It speaks of other things.

We could spend days discussing just this one passage.

The universe did not always exist. Before the BIG BANG, what was there? Something cannot come from nothing. God created the universe and everything in it. God alone.

Thanks for posting your questions though. I hope this thread continues on for a while. I am watching and learning here too.

Keep seeking the truth though. Trust in God and ask Him to show you the way. Ask Him to lead you to the truth…you will find it in His Church, the Catholic Church.
 
Dear Derek - I’m glad you are making the effort to come back. It is a sad thing when some folks fall away. I feel bad for you and your struggles.

I’ll be blunt - sin has it’s consequences and one of them is the loss of faith experienced as a result of rejecting the truth. When we don’t want to believe something, God doesn’t force Himself on us. He patiently waits and waits and waits…don’t keep Him waiting too much longer. I’d suggest a prayer of an Act of Faith for a while till things start getting better or this simplier one: Lord, I do believe, heal my unbelief, over and over till some of what you lost in straying returns. Studying what you’re supposed to assent to will help. Ask God for healing. You’ve been sickened by your sins and failings. Trust this: He wants you right back where you belong and that is in His Church in Communion with Him, peacefully embraced by His love. It may not be as painless as you’d hoped, but then again the Cross isn’t exactly a Sunday picnic in the park either. If you get a little perplexed about not recieving “signs” of His generosity or “consolations”, etc. as you may see in others, chalk that up to the fact that you lost more than you know or understand when you left. Hope this helps. Know you’re in my prayers.

Peace,

Gail
 
lynchdm said:
Hello,

I was baptised and raised Catholic from birth until I was 13, when my family switched to Episcopalian. I was a devout Episcopal for the next six years-I went to church regularly in college, sang in the choir, and gave money when I could. Now, through my own findings, I have rejected religion and am an atheist. Frankly, I would really like to come back to the Catholic faith but at this point I just can’t believe. Honestly, I would like to be proven wrong.

I would hate to be looked at as someone who is looking to stir up arguments, so please note that I am sincere. However, I will respond if there is something I don’t agree with. I will be respectful of you and your beliefs, so do not feel like you may be attacked. Is anyone willing to talk?

Thanks,
Derek
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Good morning Derek,
If you don’t mind, I have a question for you. Why do you want to come back to the Catholic faith? I ask this because you don’t seem like one who is an atheist. I’d call you agnostic, but that’s just me. What about the Catholic faith is drawing you in? There has to be something inside of you that is making you have these thoughts. Could it be that is God calling you home? I try to look at these situations from outside the realm of religion, b/c if you’re not buying what I’m selling, I’m wasting my time and yours. I think you’re on the right track, and I’d be willing to bet if you sat down and really thought about the questions I’ve asked you, you might start to get some answers for yourself.
I will keep you in prayer for your journey.
Shannon
 
Hi Derek,

I think you would be surprised at how many people here (myself included) lost their faith earlier in life, and later (30 years later in my case) had a rebirth of faith. So your situation is not unknown to us.

I’d like to ask you two questions. First, what is the most compelling single reason you have stopped believing? I think that would be worth focussing on.

Second, what is drawing you back to the Catholic Church?

Looking forward to an engaging conversation.

BTW, as an aside, what do you think of the sentiment expressed in my sig?
 
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