Can anyone give an atheist a good starting point?

  • Thread starter Thread starter TaylorCat
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
A lot of people on here have posted much better tips than I can hope to give, so I just want to say hello and welcome to Catholicism. Take a look around. You’re always welcome.

I guess my tip would really be to continue reading these boards and continue reading through all of the good information on Catholic.com. I learn so much here and I’ve been Catholic my whole life!
 
TaylorCat said:
Regarding the existence, as silly as it sounds, this is the big stumbling block. I just feel I can’t logically justify believing in the existence of a god. I sincerely mean no offence when I say that too, so I apologise in advance if I have done.
Click to expand...
What is your idea of God? (What is it that you are finding it difficult to believe in?)

If you don’t believe in an invisible friend, most educated Catholics would agree with you. That’s not what God is.

And if you have noticed that no one has ever seen Heaven through a telescope, we have also noticed that, and it doesn’t matter, because Heaven isn’t really a place - it’s the state of being perfect - going to Heaven is much more like “going to sleep” (changing states of being) than like “going to the Moon.” 🙂
 
Hi TaylorCat.

What a fantastic and refreshing post from you. 🙂

Sometimes it’s easy to think that atheists are all angry anti-religious types who are out to destroy religious thinking and behaviour and seek replace it with lowest common denominator, relativist secular thinking.

I was never an atheist, but was unhappily agnostic for many years and needed to know either way. Just be open to meeting God - if He exists at all 🙂 - halfway.

Would recommend Catholicism for Dummies.
Watching ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ with an open heart may strike a chord, as will ‘The Passion of the Christ’, but it’s not for the faint hearted.

Have a fantastic journey.
 
TaylorCat said:
Thank you so much for this post, it was an interesting read. I will definitely find those books and give them a read when I get some free time. I currently am at university studying part-time, working full-time, so I don’t often get much time free presently.

Regarding the existence, as silly as it sounds, this is the big stumbling block. I just feel I can’t logically justify believing in the existence of a god. I sincerely mean no offence when I say that too, so I apologise in advance if I have done.
Click to expand...
You are welcome Taylor. I too was a part time student for many years while working full time. I managed to graduate with my 4 year degree the semester before our oldest daughter. Yeh, we had a couple of classes together. Now her daughter is a junior in college. Tempest Fugit, eh?

Fr Barron’s Book on St Thomas Aquinas is less than 200 pages and very readable. Here are the titles of the 5 arguments TA made to prove the existence of God:

**St. Thomas Aquinas: **The Existence of God can be proved in five ways.
  1. Argument from Motion
  2. Argument from Efficient Causes
  3. Argument from Possibility and Necessity (Reductio argument)
  4. Argument from Gradation of Being
  5. Argument from Design
Some people seem to be afraid of how their life will change if they admit they now believe that God exists. Be not afraid. Once we accept that God exists, we see more clearly our proper purpose in life and come to understand the proper way to order our life. There is a true Freedom in knowing why we are alive and why it is good we make efforts to properly love others as best we can.

To start, just allow in your thinking that God does exists. Ask Him to help you discover the Truth. You have much, much to gain than you have to loose. It is worth the effort to continue to inquire from the sources given on this thread.
 
Welcome to the forum. I guess for me the reason why I believe that there is a God is because it is just not logical to me that something as big and as complex like the whole entire universe just came into existence from nothing and for no reason. The big bang theory is a good theory on how the universe came to existence, which by they way was thought up by a catholic priest who was good friends with Albert Einstein 🙂 But who created the big bang? Someone must have created it. Think of a watch. A watch is a very complex and detailed machine just like the universe is so complex and full with detail. Where did the watch come from? Who created it? Watches just don’t create themselves, it must have a creator like how our universe must have a creator. I hope my post helped you a little and I highly suggest being a frequent guest on this site as it helped me lot understanding my faith and other social issues 🙂
 
From an amateur physicists perspective:

Matter can be altered.

Matter can not be created from nothing nor destroyed.

Concluded where did it come from and matter came from somewhere because he law of entropy demands it. Decay.

My solution God.

Philosophical perspective:

From the time of gaining a conscience man has looked into the heavens for answers. Some claim man’s desires to fill in the unknown gaps of the unexplained with God. A chemical reaction created to fill a need to understand.

If God wanted us to find and no him, then we would have to be designed to seek him.

Societal perspective:

All cultures have there laws and mores designed around consequences of actions based on connection to religion. History tells us that people respond to better to laws when belief of higher power or force is the laws guiding principle. The five great relationships. The caste system. The Ten Commandments. Modern laws draw from these spiritual tenets,

Spiritual perspective:

If you practice prayer over time you will know God. The point of knowing is different from but at some point you will see God’s guiding hands,

Catholic Perspective:

After reading the above and you can agree on some of the principles the you can start doing as the other suggested and start reading the texts.

The history channel “the bible” show did a great job on depicting the gospels.

Be patient. It is is lifelong journey.
 
Hey again everyone,

Thank you for all of the replies, I certainly have plenty of reading to be getting on with.

I have been thinking about this a lot on my daily drive to and from work. I’m hoping this helps.
 
From what I can tell from what OP has said, there seems to be a logical block in believing in God, rather than believing in a particular religion. Since this is the case I’d recommend the book “The Last Superstition” by Edward Feser (which is around 300 pages). This is now THE book I recommend to unbelievers coming from an atheist/secularist background.

Just listen to his argument
Edward Feser:
The burden of the following chapters, then, will be to show that: 1. the so-called “war between science and religion” is in fact a war between rival philosophical or metaphysical systems, namely the classical worldview of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas on the one hand, and modern naturalism on the other; 2. the naturalistic worldview, on which secularism rests, makes reason and morality impossible, though they are perfectly intelligible on (indeed only intelligible on) the classical view; and 3. secularism therefore cannot fail to manifest the irrationalism and immorality it falsely attributes to religion, while the religious vision enshrined in classical philosophical theism cannot fail to commend itself to every rational and morally decent human being who correctly understands it, free of the falsehoods and caricatures of it peddled by secularist critics.
Click to expand...
Some posters have mentioned Aquinas’ five ways, however, as Feser demonstrates in his book, these arguments are based upon Aristotelian metaphysical principals that those of us growing up in a milieu of an entirely different philosophy (namely naturalism, or what Feser terms the “mechanistic” worldview) are apt to misunderstand and read erroneous things into.

Moreover, those five ways are usually just ripped right out of the Summa Theologica without any context and without noting that the ST is a manual for beginning students in theology and is thus an outline.

So Feser as a professional philosopher gives us the necessary context to truly understand what three of the five ways are actually saying. It’s also a bit polemical, but that just makes for interesting and hilarious reading.

Many other books suggested would be good for those open to believing in God and Christ, but if that’s a stumbling block I’d recommend Feser’s book before others.
 
Here is one: Scott Hahn’s Reasons to Believe. Start from the beginning, where it discusses why we Christians believe in God in the first place. Being a book skimmer myself, I don’t usually read from cover to cover, but in this case, it would be important.

Another book I like is Dinesh D’Souza’s Life After Death, which gives scientific and philosophical (not religious, at least not until the very end) reasons why belief in the afterlife is reasonable.
 
TaylorCat, I cannot offer much in the debate of the existence of God. I was blessed with a catholic Mom, who taught me my bedtime prayers. From there I grew to witness God acting all around me. His existence was so obvious to me I never hesitated to reflect upon the manisfestation of His holy sovereignty among atheists and sinners.
Here’s something easy to do. Among these effective suggestions at CAF, I would say to you, to start, get a pair of wireless headphones and an iPod and listen to some of the many Fr. Hardon talks from:
therealpresence.org/archives/MP3/MP3.htm
Listen to one after another, every day, every night.
He has been a Godsend for my catechesis and on going conversion.
Don’t get distracted with other things. Keep listening to his talks. Father will lead you straight to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Alleluia.
 
Hi TaylorCat,

I can’t give you great book recommendations that haven’t already been mentioned. I am not a scholar or a theologian. Instead, I’m a mom, wife, daughter, friend, member of a church. I spend nearly all my time with my children and other children.

I had a conversation with a friend once who admitted that she was thinking of coming around to God after years of disbelief. Her father is a Protestant minister, she grew up in a church, but just pushed away. I said to her, look in your daughter’s eyes. (In fact, her daughter’s name is Taylor 😉 ) look at her, and see the miracle there. She isn’t an accident of nature. She is a gift from God, directly from God. Go from that miracle and look around you at all the other creatures and life that God created.

It’s a small piece of the puzzle, but for those of us who aren’t scholars looking for esoteric answers, who are simply bowled over with the wonder of our children’s existence, the prof God exists is right there in front of us.

I wish you well!
 
Thank you for all of the advice.

I suppose this is something that will take considerable time to understand. I actually want to believe in the existence of a god, but I really struggle to make sense of it.

I suppose I would liken it to jumping over hurdles, and I am constantly falling over the first one.

I appreciate everyone’s carefully considerate answers.
 
You fall on your face repeated even after you finally believe. That don’t stop until we are in Heaven. And that’s where you want to be, my bro & sis’s.
  • I know you and I know for sure you love the Son of God, Jesus. O, Immuculata please, my Lady, don’t stop what you are doing. Amen. Alleluia.
 
Hi TaylorCat 🙂

It seems like you are trying to find God, but from what you said it looks like you fall short on your journey.

What I would do is to try to learn who God is and who God isn’t.

For example God isn’t some Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Sometimes it seems like we make God into the most complex person to find.
However (at least in my case) God is easier to find than you think. You see (this is just my view of the topic). God is LOVE.

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Proverbs 8:17

“I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me.”

Another thing I would do is keep an open mind. You are on the right track already, because once the mind opens, you are letting God open the door. A true open mind listens like a student should to a teacher, then asks questions that he/she finds puzzling. then you make the effort to actually do it like you would with homework.

Now what I mean by actually doing it, I mean praying, reading the Bible, even attending Mass or Eucharistic Adoration is a great way of putting your mind and focus on finding God.

“One does not know God until someone introduces us.” -Piscine Molitor Patel

We can help you with questions and answers, but it is up to you to find God. This journey is one you take alone. It seems that you have been planted a seed by being open to ours and others faiths. The question is will you let that seed grow into a tree? Like a tree it takes nurturing and watering (prayer etc.).

Good luck and I pray that you will find God and that God will embrace you with open arms 👍
 
Thank you once again for your replies and kind words.

As I have said before, I suppose the questions I have are mostly fundamental questions regarding the existence of god. I will make sure to read the information you all have sent me.

If there is anyone I can PM regarding this, I would be most grateful.
 
Have you looked at Catholic blogs that are about conversion?

There is Leah Libresco at Patheos and a very interesting *Conversion Diary * conversiondiary.com/ The author nowadays blogs about other things (she converted a few years ago), but the early stuff is all about her seeking. She was raised atheist and was one of those hard-core, mock the Christians types and it was only in her 30s that she started thinking there could be something more out there in the universe. It was an interesting journey, solely guided by her reason. I very much recommend it.
 
Hey everyone, i hope you don’t mind me resurrecting this old thread, but it is a continuation 🙂

I have been reading the resources on this site at length for a long time now, as well as listening to the radio show podcast. I find it very informative.

I feel content with my atheism, but at the same time, i sometimes feel “lost”…it is difficult for me to explain.

Does anyone know how to approach this?

Thank you for your time, in advance
 
Well, being in my mid-20’s myself, I suppose there’s time I’ve felt “lost”, but I’ve never doubted in God, so we might have different understandings of what we mean here by being lost. Is it that you’re still trying to determine that a God could exist, or have you come to the conclusion that it is indeed possible for a God to exist, and now you want to know who he is?

Maybe I would suggest looking into Mother Teresa, she went through a period of time where she felt lost, and she wrote a bit about that time where she had doubts. I really wish i could be more help for you here, but just know you’re in my thoughts and prayers as you delve into this journey. Maybe you could tell us what else you’ve specifically read and what conclusions you’ve drawn from them? That might give us a bit more help to make some suggestions for you. 👍
 
TaylorCat said:
Hey everyone, i hope you don’t mind me resurrecting this old thread, but it is a continuation 🙂

I have been reading the resources on this site at length for a long time now, as well as listening to the radio show podcast. I find it very informative.

I feel content with my atheism, but at the same time, i sometimes feel “lost”…it is difficult for me to explain.

Does anyone know how to approach this?

Thank you for your time, in advance
Click to expand...
If atheism happens to be true, then any meaning we make of existence is not grounded in reality itself but in the projection of our subjectivity on the external world. The external world (aka the universe) is merely a brute fact that has no meaning for us because it has no significance - it just is.

That may account for your feeling of “lostness.”

Walker Percy wrote a book called Lost in the Cosmos that attempts to highlight the futility of naturalism in an indirect way. He subtitled the book “The Last Self-Help Book” to show that self-help books are useless in a world where we are fundamentally helpless. Or as you say, “lost” because there is no “home” or true state to which we can ever be restored if atheistic materialism is true.
 
TaylorCat said:
Hi Everyone,

I apologise if this is posted in the wrong place.

Just for some background, I am an atheist, 25 years old living in England. I have described myself as atheist since I was 19. Prior to that I would have described myself as Christian, although it was not a big part of my life. I attended a school that had some focus on the Church of England, but many from England will know that it doesn’t entail much in the way of religious teaching in most instances.

In recent months I have been thinking regularly about the Catholic church, mostly due to reading these forums and the radio show. At this moment I still describe myself as atheist but I am open to learning about other religions.

Can anyone offer any advice about where to start with learning about the Catholic faith? I am not suggesting that I want to convert, but I am definitely interested in learning more about the faith and would enjoy a resource that explains things in a relatively basic manner to begin with.

I also don’t know how to reconcile some things regarding the church, but I wont mention those for now as it probably won’t be appropriate to start with that.

Everyone on these forums always seems to give well thought out answers, so thanks in advance if anyone takes the time to do that.

Kind Regards

TaylorCat
Click to expand...
Okay think of it this way first. The Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit is for sure who is sparking up your interest.

So I understand you are not exactly a big fan of the Holy Spirit or even admit the Holy Spirit exists. But you yourself can see it COULD be the reason.

Then just simply look up and say if you do indeed exist, lead me. NOW!!! You are on your way.

Next get a bible, and begin to ask questions.

Don’t try to read the bible from start to finish. Start in the New Testament, with John, Matt, Luke etc.

Just stay there for while. Probally at least a year.

Start with one and ask what the Church teaches this or this means. Get the true understanding of what the Church teaches first.

So start with Maybe John, read a little at a time, think about what you read, and what it means to you. Or what you feel its telling you.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top