Baptism and many other questions

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Kaily

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Hi,

I need help, references, where I can find some things.
My brother’s fiance, who grew up Baptist and is not nothing, really, doesn’t know if she believes in God, is basically very ignorant in everything. Now she has questions.
  1. How can water in baptism wash away sin?
  2. If God is good why is there a hell(I can answer this one but others thoughts are always welcome also)
  3. Explain original sin and the fall and Satan.
  4. If God is good why would He do that to His Son? (Crucified on the Cross) I can explain this also, but your welcome to give (name removed by moderator)ut
  5. She thinks God is out to get her because she has herpes
  6. If God is Good why did He allow her to be molested as a child by her babysitter
Ok,
thanks a lot
In Christ,
kaily
 
Kaily,
A wonderful way to guide her would be to invite her here to the Catholic Answer forum. You can show her around, how to navigate, the wonderful references on the Catholic Answer website, and the (hopefully) Christian guidance others can give. The Catholic Answer home page has truly wonderful references, rather than try to explain them yourself, let her read them, then ask her to discuss them with all of us. What a wonderful thing to help your sister.
May the peace and love of our Lord, Jesus the Christ, be with you always
Tom
 
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Kaily:
Hi,

I need help, references, where I can find some things.
My brother’s fiance, who grew up Baptist and is not nothing, really, doesn’t know if she believes in God, is basically very ignorant in everything. Now she has questions.
  1. How can water in baptism wash away sin?
  2. If God is good why is there a hell(I can answer this one but others thoughts are always welcome also)
  3. Explain original sin and the fall and Satan.
  4. If God is good why would He do that to His Son? (Crucified on the Cross) I can explain this also, but your welcome to give (name removed by moderator)ut
  5. She thinks God is out to get her because she has herpes
  6. If God is Good why did He allow her to be molested as a child by her babysitter
Ok,
thanks a lot
In Christ,
kaily
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Kaily - I may not be the best person to attempt answers to some of your future sister-in-law’s questions, but I will give numbers 1, 5, and 6 my best shot. In answer to # 1, I believe the answer is in the Gospel(s), though I can’t cite chapter and verse. Jesus once said “Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, one cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” In other words, it is not just that water washes away sin, but belief in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The answers to numbers 5 and 6 are the same. God allows evil in the world in its many forms because He gave us a free will. Adam and Eve, the first humans, used that free will to choose against God. Since then, humanity has been on its own to choose good or evil. He is not a God of vengeance (as #5 implies) nor does He wish evil upon His children (#6). Rather, just as He allowed His Son to be crucified, He allows us to suffer to varying degrees in our daily lives. Suffering today is evidence of man’s inhumanity to man. Our challenge is to rise to the call of Christ to return the evil done to us with good, as He did on the Cross by forgiving his torturers and welcoming Dismas to the Kingdom.

This is not much, but I hope it helps a little - God bless your efforts!

Chuck
 
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Kaily:
Hi,

I need help, references, where I can find some things.
My brother’s fiance, who grew up Baptist and is not nothing, really, doesn’t know if she believes in God, is basically very ignorant in everything. Now she has questions.
Click to expand...
I’ll take a shot a some of these:
  1. How can water in baptism wash away sin?
Click to expand...
Water in and of itself does not wash away sin (otherwise you’d be cleansed of sin everytime you take a shower), but water baptism is the normative vehicle for imparting God’s saving Grace. It works because Jesus said that is how it works.
  1. If God is good why is there a hell(I can answer this one but others thoughts are always welcome also)
Click to expand...
Because God in His infinite goodness allows those who want to be separated from Him eternally to be so.
  1. If God is good why would He do that to His Son? (Crucified on the Cross) I can explain this also, but your welcome to give (name removed by moderator)ut
Click to expand...
God the Son chose to become human in order to take on the sins of the world so that we might have the opportunity to dwell with Him in all eternity. It was not as if God the Father chose someone at random to pay for all our sins-- He chose HIMSELF.
  1. She thinks God is out to get her because she has herpes
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I was going to say something flippant here, but in light of the next question, I won’t. I will suffice it to say God did not give her herpes. If she willingly had sex with someone, she contributed to her acquiring the disease. If it was due to her molestation, she acquired it because there is indeed evil in this world.
  1. If God is Good why did He allow her to be molested as a child by her babysitter
Click to expand...
Because, as I said above, there is evil in this world. People have free will and are fully capable of making evil choices, and those choices will often cause the victimization of innocents. God does not take away our freedom to choose simply because the choice He knows we are going to make is evil. Unfortunately, and very sadly, your friend was on the receiving end of someone else’s evil choice. It was not God that did that to her, and the blame does not belong to Him. It belongs to the creep of a babysitter who would choose to do such a thing to a child.

I did not answer the Original sin question because it would take me too long to do it, but I am sure there is an answer her on the www.catholic.com tracts page.
 
Hi Kaily, 🙂

I am no expert; In fact, I am not yet Catholic, however, I shall endeavour to answer your questions to the best of my understanding.
  1. How can water in baptism wash away sin?
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**Please allow me to use a non-canonical reference to answer this question. It elaborates on the fall of Adam and Eve, and it shows one of the many parallels with Jesus’ salvic actions and those of Adam. From ‘The Book of Adam and Eve II’ , in summary, essentially, to show repentance for their sins, Adam commanded Eve to stand on a rock up to her neck in the Tigris ****River until she could stand there ****no more, and Adam himself walked into the River Jordan and was to stand there for 40 days. **
There is much more, here piney.com/ApocAEVita.html
**but from this, we see that the River Jordan was used by Adam as a place to remit his ‘original’ sin; it is therefore, **
no accident that Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan…baptism being for the remission of original sin; the washing away of impurities.
  1. If God is good why is there a hell(I can answer this one but others thoughts are always welcome also)
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**God is good, true, but we are imperfect. God wants nothing more than to see us turn from sin and go to Him, but as we have free will, we can ‘choo****se’ by our actions, to **reject Him. We are given all our lives to repent, and if we do, He will welcome us into Paradise; however, if we reject Him, we have no-one to blame but ourselves. Hell is for those who refuse to repent of their misdeeds; afterall, you can’t blame God for wanting to keep evil out of Heaven…look what happened last time it resided there…
  1. Explain original sin and the fall and Satan.
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Hmm…essentially, Satan was jealous of God. He wanted the same glory, and so tempted Eve, who in turn, tempted Adam…this was the ‘original’ sin; because of his betrayal of God, Satan was thrown down from heaven; and Adam and Eve renounced their immortality, and that of all human kind. It is only because of Jesus, that we have a chance to become immortal beings once more, but if we choose satan (by our actions) over God, then we will reside with satan, not God. In which case, non-existance would be preferable to eternal damnation.
  1. If God is good why would He do that to His Son? (Crucified on the Cross) I can explain this also, but your welcome to give (name removed by moderator)ut
Click to expand...
Once again, we see the parallel between Adam and Jesus in this act. As Jesus existed as part of the Triune God in heaven prior to the fall of man, he willingly took on the ‘job’ of his Salvic sacrifice. It was a tree which took the ‘life’ (immortality) from humans (Ok, we could argue it was Satan, but it was the Tree of Knowledge they were told not to eat from); and therefore a tree (the cross) w****hich would restore immortalality to humans (if we choose the right path.)
  1. She thinks God is out to get her because she has herpes
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Not knowing the particular circumstances pertaining to this issue, I can only offer a blanket statement; whereby I
believe that God is not ‘out to get her’, or anyone, for that matter. If she acted immorally, then she brought this upon herself, however she may be an innocent recipient, in which case, God will give her the grace required to cope.
  1. If God is Good why did He allow her to be molested as a child by her babysitter
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**I am so sorry to hear this.😦 **
God allows us free will, and therefore, we are responsible for our own actions. The person who did this dreadful thing, may or may not have paid the earth****ly penalty, but they will have to answer to God on the day of Judgement.
Kaily, you and your loved ones are in my prayers. I hope your future Sister-In-Law can find peace of mind, and return to the loving arms of God very soon.

**Peace be with you all; and praise the Holy Spirit for guiding the Cardinals ****to elect our new Pope, Benedict XVI 🙂 **
 
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