Cradle or Converted???

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Cradle Catholic here. I didn’t practice as I was growing up. I became a man with a violent temper. After nearly dieing of cancer in 2003, I was left with feelings of guilt towards the people I loved and had taking care of me while I was sick. In 2005, I spiraled into despair and was going to commit suicide the night before Easter. I told my family I was sorry for the way I treated them and waited for a good time to shoot myself. When the time came I had a supernatural experience, an intervention. At 35, I was confirmed and had my marriage blessed by the Church. My wife and I had been together since high school. She said she stayed with me because she said she knew what was really in my heart. She grew up a Byzantine Catholic and has great faith. She had prayed this whole time that I would change. The suffering I went through with cancer was just. I deserved to die, but the Lord had great mercy on me because of all the prayers He had received. I hope to stay eternally grateful to the Lord and raise my children as His. Tim
 
jmcrae said:
Have you ever done any holy reading? That is, praying through the writings of the Saints, or through the Scriptures?

I find that whenever I feel like my life is too boring, if I do some holy reading, I come out of it feeling much more energized and “on fire” with my faith. 🙂
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I try and read the Bible a couple times a week. It leaves me with a peaceful feeling each time I read a chapter or a few verses here and there. 🙂
 
TOP said:
Cradle Catholic here. I didn’t practice as I was growing up. I became a man with a violent temper. After nearly dieing of cancer in 2003, I was left with feelings of guilt towards the people I loved and had taking care of me while I was sick. In 2005, I spiraled into despair and was going to commit suicide the night before Easter. I told my family I was sorry for the way I treated them and waited for a good time to shoot myself. When the time came I had a supernatural experience, an intervention. At 35, I was confirmed and had my marriage blessed by the Church. My wife and I had been together since high school. She said she stayed with me because she said she knew what was really in my heart. She grew up a Byzantine Catholic and has great faith. She had prayed this whole time that I would change. The suffering I went through with cancer was just. I deserved to die, but the Lord had great mercy on me because of all the prayers He had received. I hope to stay eternally grateful to the Lord and raise my children as His. Tim
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How great and loving is our God?? Aren’t so blessed to be in His Church??

What an incredible story and witness for Christ.

Pax Vobiscum
 
jmcrae said:
Hey, there, Guru Nanak - 😉

I’m sorry to tell you that someone already beat you to it - this religion is called New Age Philosophy, and comes in a variety of flavours, including Unitarianism, Sikhism, and Ba’hai.

One thing I don’t understand about you, or about Bahoula, or Guru Nanak, or any of the others - if we can’t trust Jesus, the Son of God, to create a good enough religion for us, then how can we trust ourselves to do so?

How is it that someone can consider himself or herself to be smarter or better informed than Jesus?
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Hmm wouldnt call it New Age… more-so a a different variation of Platonism…and I thought Sikhism was older…

To answer your question firstly, who is to say Muhammed isnt correct? Then id be ignoring the prophet of God and God’s own words (as the qur’an says its written by him). What if Hindu is correct? Or taoism? Or shinto? or etc…

You see the problem? 😛 Everyone likes to think they are correct. I figure best bet is to see what I agree with and why and run with it. If I go to Hell, so be it, at least I had a happy life which I enjoyed 🙂 Besides…Alot of what jesus teaches is already in Platoism and Gnostiscm. No offence, but nothing about jesus was original :S

To each his own!
 
Loginus said:
Hmm wouldnt call it New Age… more-so a a different variation of Platonism…and I thought Sikhism was older…
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Sikhism was an attempt to reconcile Hinduism and Buddhism, taking the “best” teachings of each, to create a “better” religion. Guru Nanak was doing the same thing as you, though - taking the religions that he knew something about, picking and choosing from the “menu” of each, and creating a brand new religion out of them.
To answer your question firstly, who is to say Muhammed isnt correct? Then id be ignoring the prophet of God and God’s own words (as the qur’an says its written by him). What if Hindu is correct? Or taoism? Or shinto? or etc…
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These things are testable. Do they really work? Does history bear it out? What is the “fruit” of the religion? Are the societies that base themselves upon this religion healthy, or unhealthy? Is justice served, or not? Do the assumptions made conform with observable realities?

If I say that my ancestor is a dog, you can look at my family tree and say “Which one?”
You see the problem? 😛 Everyone likes to think they are correct. I figure best bet is to see what I agree with and why and run with it.
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Thus making yourself God.
If I go to Hell, so be it, at least I had a happy life which I enjoyed 🙂
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I hope that’s true, for your sake.
Besides…Alot of what jesus teaches is already in Platoism and Gnostiscm. No offence, but nothing about jesus was original :S
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If he had been “original” then he wouldn’t have been honest or truthful. Truth, after all, is almost never creative or original - it’s just that same boring stuff that we’ve been looking at for all our lives. It’s not surprising that observant philosophers also noticed the same things that Jesus pointed out to us - it’s just that Jesus was better able to express it, and better able to show us how to live it out meaningfully.
 
jmcrae said:
Sikhism was an attempt to reconcile Hinduism and Buddhism, taking the “best” teachings of each, to create a “better” religion. Guru Nanak was doing the same thing as you, though - taking the religions that he knew something about, picking and choosing from the “menu” of each, and creating a brand new religion out of them.

Hmm I thought Sikhism was a combo of Hindu and Islam

These things are testable. Do they really work? Does history bear it out? What is the “fruit” of the religion? Are the societies that base themselves upon this religion healthy, or unhealthy? Is justice served, or not? Do the assumptions made conform with observable realities?

Well then this would make Jews, Hindus and Buddhists correct. Now if only the other two would stop trying to destroy the world…

If I say that my ancestor is a dog, you can look at my family tree and say “Which one?”

Thus making yourself God.

Not exactly, I observe the theories presented and how well they apply to the world in my perspective and then i have them tested. I think faith is great but it should come once all other options are exhasted. That way, I dont run into the “how do you know there is Pink Invisible Unicorn controlling everything?” arguement because everything has been deducded.

I hope that’s true, for your sake.
I figure a good person should go to heaven regardless of faith. if that isnt so then ok, I wouldnt want to spend enternity kissing the cosmic *** of a jealous God 😉

If he had been “original” then he wouldn’t have been honest or truthful. Truth, after all, is almost never creative or original - it’s just that same boring stuff that we’ve been looking at for all our lives. It’s not surprising that observant philosophers also noticed the same things that Jesus pointed out to us - it’s just that Jesus was better able to express it, and better able to show us how to live it out meaningfully.
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Umm not so…there have been other ‘messiahs’ and sons of God who gave pretty much the same msg, same miracles and even died in similar ways. Jesus just became the most popular 🙂

As I said before, If you feel truely happy with your religion and your not just doing it for a reward or punishment, then it is the correct one for you 🙂

PS. ther responses to your other comments are in the about quote
 
Yes, back to the original question. Converted. Came into full communion last Easter Vigil. WOW.

Never even thought much about the Catholic Church. But met a man who, though he certainly was no saint, still thanked God every day for the blessings in his life, even in the midst of some pain and hard times. So I started reading about what his religion taught.

It wasn’t so much I was intellectually swayed. Although I have to say, Catholicism makes a lot more sense than other churches I had attended (a long list). It was the conviction I received while reading John 6 one day. I just saw how communion in other churches was just a shadow of what Jesus was saying and though I didn’t get receive the Eucharist for another year and a half, I never received communion in the Protestant church again. And I started going to Mass the next week. I was in my heart a Catholic long before full communion. At the same time of this conviction a habitual sin was lifted from my life.

I love it here and now I know why Eucharist means thanksgiving.
 
Loginus said:
I was born catholic.

I switched to atheism for the longest time until I met my current gf. Thnx to her i got interested in researching religions. After awhile I came to a few conclusions about myself, us (me and her), God, my place in the world and the meaning of life.

Ive decided that certain aspects of a few different religions/philosophies are correct and decided to culminate them into a new personal religion. Now I just need a name for something thats a mesh of Gnostic, agnostic, Platonian, nihilistic and enlightented Hindu theology.

Suggestions? 😃
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How about Gapneht?
 
aboverubies said:
Fruit Salad? 😛

Convert here, thanks be to God! 🙂
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oh well.

At least he’s searching for something. Can’t fault him for that. I think a lot of us started off like him. Even though I’m a convert from Lutheranism, I can still remember the confusion when seriously looking into religion for the first time.

It’s not pretty. And it really is a miracle that I’m Catholic today when I look at how confused I was when I started searching so many years ago.

Actually, I still have a lot to learn. That’s why I come here. 🙂
 
Loginus said:
Umm not so…there have been other ‘messiahs’ and sons of God who gave pretty much the same msg, same miracles and even died in similar ways. Jesus just became the most popular 🙂
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Really? Other sons of God? With the same miracles? And died in similar ways? Name a couple and give full details. And then tell us if any of them rose from he dead.
 
LilyM said:
Really? Other sons of God? With the same miracles? And died in similar ways? Name a couple and give full details. And then tell us if any of them rose from he dead.
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Here’s a list en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Messiah_claimants I can go into further detail into two famous ones if you want. As for raising from the dead, thats subjective as to weather or not you believe Jesus to be the son of God so dunno if you can sue that as proof 😛
 
Revert here… Somehow a “fruit salad” too… hehe! Cradle then came to a pagan school then became an agnostic then left the Church then became atheist then confused cafeteria Catholic (mainly due to anti-Catholic evangelizations and tried conversions of the Baptist, LDS, and “Born Again” churches) then agnostic again then pseudo-gnostic (due to blind logic and some "intellectual readings) then found spritual adviser and EWTN and Scott Hahn books then found fullness in grace in the Eucharist on the way back to Catholicism. Now trying my best to be devout Catholic… Stable ever since… 😃
 
Loginus said:
Here’s a list en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Messiah_claimants I can go into further detail into two famous ones if you want. As for raising from the dead, thats subjective as to weather or not you believe Jesus to be the son of God so dunno if you can sue that as proof 😛
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I see no miracles claimed for any of them, nor sonship of God (or actual divinity) claimed for any of them, nor any claims that any of them were killed and then were resurrected (although I accept that it is claimed that Schneerson never died)
 
I am a cradle Catholic and still love the Church and Christ. I took time apart fromt he Church but am coming back… I married a JW it has been hard to stay focused on my religion, but now I’m back and at full throttle…👍
 
Cradle Catholic here who has always loved the Church! 🙂 :cool: 👍

Grew up surrounded by wonderful parents and grandparents who were / are loyal to the Pope, who taught by being living examples, and who as well as frequenting Mass and the Sacraments encouraged such devotions as visiting Our Lord for Eucharistic Adoration, saying the Rosary, assisting me make a pilgrimage to Fatima in Portugal, being pro-life matter no what the cost, learning from the lives of saints long past and from more recent examples of heroic charity as shown by the likes of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the power of prayer … both your own prayer and calling up the nearest order of Contemplative Nuns such as Franciscan Poor Clares or Dominicans if you have extra important prayer requests … and then there’s Father Charles, a distant relative missionary priest who worked in Ghana for 50 years and is now retired, who still encourages you to read the Bible …

~~ the phoenix
 
New convert here! Actually used to be Assembly of God but as a child I was baptised and confirmed Luthern. I went to my first mass last Easter and I fell in love with the Catholic church so I decided to study it and it actually makes sense. I enjoyed my Assembly of God church but I always felt like something was missing and I never really believed all the beliefs they had I was mainly there for the music as bad as that sounds! I love to sing and was in the church chior as a child growing up Luthern and as a teen I started going to the Assembly of God church because the had a lot of youth programs and a live band etc… I was always upset though when they had their communion once a month and it was crackers and juice and it was strange to me because I grew up in a Luthern church which was conservative and we had communion every week and we all went to the front and knelt down with a communion rail…etc. We were taught that communion was the Body of Christ in that Luthern church. I have felt lost all these years but kept going to the Assembly of God church because I had made many friends there and was shy about trying anything new. I wrote a letter to the pastors wife there to let her know I’m Catholic now because she kept sending me church papers even though I stopped going and she wrote back a one sentence letter that said I’m glad your happy and I haven’t heard anything since! I feel at peace with my decision and am learning every day. My RCIA class is great and I can’t wait till next Easter for my Confirmation. 👍
 
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