Difficult questions first time poster

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Doubtingthomas

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Hard questions

I see many Christians and Catholics argue the following statements and it fills me with despair:

When we start out seeking God and looking for him through signs and miracles I get the following answers:

Some biblical passage which states wicked is the generation that seeks signs and wonders.

Then I get some quote from Aquinas which says that to those who belief no proof is necessary and to those who need proof no proof will be enough or something like it.

I then get the answer that since God is non physical he will never be proven through science.

I get a multitude of philosophical proofs and I understand logically why they make sense but that’s human reasoning and everyone admits human reasoning can be fallible. Likewise why can we only in essence prove God through logical reasoning. How is that reliable when thousands of years ago we theorized things like the sun being pulled by a guy in a chariot or that the weather was a God itself. How do we know that it’s not just our limited understanding of the universe that we are providing a being to explain that which we cannot yet explain?

I know it’s a situation that’s impossible and everyone else seems to be able to accept the Bible or word of mouth but I struggle because you can’t use the Iliad or some mythological book and be like oh my God exists it says so here.

How do we know that in this giant game of telephone across 2000 years that people didn’t get it wrong or there weren’t issues with translation?

It seems to me like the only way people believe is at its basis in the explanation that God is only found through deduction and that’s ok because he’s a non physical being.

Is there any hope for me to be able to love past this and believe. I’m terrified of death and what happens when you die and I just don’t want to not exist likewise I can’t just wishfully think there is a God to alleviate my concerns.

Help!

It also seems a difficult argument because people say you can have faith and reason but when someone digs heavy into reason they say you just have to have faith. How do you have faith in something that exists only as a thought process?
 
Welcome to Catholic Answers Forums!

You have a lot of good questions and points. I don’t have a lot of answers for you, but I’ll keep you company and ramble for a little while. Faith is certainly a curious thing. Some of the Scripture readings we have heard recently at Mass are about signs. At times, Jesus performed signs to build faith in his followers. Other times he healed people by the faith they already had; “Your faith has saved you,” he would say. Other times, unbelievers asked for signs and Jesus did not perform for those who asked.

Around here we often say that faith is a gift from God. Like so many of his gifts, we don’t always recognize it. We think we just found it, or worked for it. We think stuff just happens for no reason. Look at your life and see if there are subtle signs of God’s presence. For me, the love I experience and the beauty I see all around convince me that there must be a wise and loving creator.

There’s more, but I have to get back to work. See you later.
 
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I appreciate it as someone who is an atheist I honestly don’t see how anything in my life can be attributed to God. I have worked hard for my food and my home. I worked hard to study and learn. I have never been handed anything and my life is actually quite difficult.
 
I also understand that no one may care to answer and that’s ok! I know you probably deal with a thousand similar questions a day so that’s alright!
 
I may take a shot here.

To me from a non-religious point of view, many many things in this universe worked out “for some reason” that could have gone billions of other ways.

Which led me to ask. Has anything ever happened to you that you thought " thank …" (someone/something)? To me many times.
 
Thank you for responding! I mean yes I guess? But couldn’t it just be coincidence?
 
Many years back in school I was researching this kind of topic for my friend who was doubting. I can try and find this article again. This article was examining the big bang theory and the conclusion was that there was a 0.08% chance that the temperature and pressure (I am a Chemical Engineer so maybe I take this extra seriously) was exactly right to have created the universe as we know it. Many Christians reject the big bang theory but to me this just confirms a Higher Power. I mean I don’t believe God waved a wand and it all was there. But it surely happened in some way.

I am not sure how you are inclined. Scientifically or otherwise. But I would ask you to research more from different points if you are wondering.
 
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This may be too simplistic, and please know that I am not being flippant when I ask the following questions…
Would you rather believe in God and live your life as a faithful catholic, then die and realize there is no afterlife, OR
Would you rather spend your life not believing God, only to die and realize that he is real, but you can never be with him in heaven, because you turned away from him while living on earth?

As a cradle catholic, I’ve never really had to struggle with my faith. Faith is a wonderful gift from God and while I have questioned at times, I have always believed in His existence, His love and His mercy.

In your original post, you mention the “giant game of telephone across 2000 years” and wonder how people didn’t get it wrong. The Catholic Church teaches us that church doctrine is established by the Pope and the Magisterium under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so it is impossible to have gotten it “wrong”. There are historical documents going back to the early Church that we all have access to that can answer most of the questions that any of us may have. You might want to look into the Didache, the writings of Jerome, and the early church leaders. I find church history to be fascinating, but then I was a history major in college so it only makes sense that I would find it fascinating.

Good luck in your faith journey!
 
Doubtingthomas said:
How do we know that in this giant game of telephone across 2000 years that people didn’t get it wrong or there weren’t issues with translation?
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This is actually the EXACT question I wonder about. But this question needs the be asked after you accept a “Higher Creating Power”. There are numerous sources regarding the question of the “original translation”.

Personally I do not feel this is a question you should be asking now.
 

A very interesting debate I would ask you to watch.
 
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Doubtingthomas said:
I have never been handed anything and my life is actually quite difficult.
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Well, you have been handed a body and a mind. Isn’t that amazing? Do you live in Africa, India, or China? If so, I agree that life is difficult. If you live in Europe, America, or a lot of other places, you have been handed a huge lot, like an education, good roads, clean water, fertile farmland, medical facilities, the rule of law, … Need I go on? You are so incredibly lucky.

I know atheists say that life just happened and then it evolved and here we are, and you know what? I agree. But did you know that none of that could have happened except that the laws of nature are fine-tuned? There are something like 26 physical parameters of the uniiverse, and if any one of them was the slightest bit off, none of this would be possible. Yeah, yeah, I know, Stephen Hawking, multiverse, yada-yada. Well, that only pushes the design of the universe up one level, and then where did that awesome framework come from?

Now, I look at Life, the Universe, and Everything and say this is evidence of a wise and loving creator. And if he is so wise and loving, maybe, just maybe, he has a plan for getting us out of here and into something better when we die.

Jesus talked about that. He talked about eternal life, among other things. Hundreds of witnesses said that he really died, and then he really came back, only he was different. He was a new class of person, something beyond ordinary humanity. And the people who believed in him were different in a way too. Other people noticed them, and saw their faith, their hope, and most of all their love, and a lot of those other people wanted to be part of that.

You might look at all this and say “It’s not really like that,” and I understand. But keep searching for truth, and keep looking for love – not Hollywood love, but the love that binds families and best friends and old married couples, the love of a firefighter or a neighbor who rushes into a burning house, and the love that makes forgiveness possible.

I wish you all the best, and if you don’t mind, I’ll pray too. May God help you to increase in faith, hope, and love.
 
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Doubtingthomas said:
When we start out seeking God and looking for him through signs and miracles I get the following answers:
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You definitely have got hard questions. I’m not sure whether my answers will satisfy you, but it does satisfy me.

If if start out by looking for signs and miracles of God I usually start with creation itself and life itself.
I just cannot imagine how this could logically possibly work. And I don’t mean proof, just a logical explanation of how it all came to being.

So let me tell you what I mean.

I can understand the Big Bang and I don’t logically have a problem with that. And then atoms and elements and molecules form. I can cope with that. And then stars forms and planets. So far no problem. All logically can happen. And then earth forms with water and mountains etc all ok. But how does one get from inorganic matter to organic matter? I can never find a logical satisfactory explanation. First problem. Then we have simple cell life like bacteria. Then evolving into complex life. Second issue now. The way complex is organised is so complex that things interrelate with each other. Eg vitamin b12 metabolism. It couldn’t have been a stepwise genetic mutation evolution. I think scientists also agree with this. They say evolution happens when there is periodic bursts of large scale mutations. Looking at the number of these bursts required compared with the pace of evolution, I really think there is just not enough time for all these to happen so quickly by chance alone. Therefore for me it takes more faith to believe in no God then in a God. I choose the more probable version and believe in a God.

Anyway I’m not here to convince you but just sharing my belief.

All the best in your journey! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
 
Memorization isn’t my issue. I commend these people for doing this. (Although I played this game is school and it never worked out)

In these amount of years a little “extra” can be added. Every time it is passed on. Not to diminish the message the person actually heard, they also voiced that along. But this small extra is added. Over a few hundred years it becomes a “big” extra.

So what do we have that will definitely not have these “extras” (whether they are there or not). The scriptures!
 
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True and I have done this more than I would like to admit. Fact is, for every Church Father saying one thing, you will find another saying something different. The Catholic conclusion, " well that Church Father was wrong there". Uhm okay.

Search maybe more why the Reformed likes Augustine so much (actually way before Calvin when Predestination was thought of). The Catholic answer, well he wasn’t infallible but we claim him where he agrees with us.
 
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You remind me very much of a certain other poster! I’d almost think you’re the same person if I didn’t know better.
Ok, to what looks like the first question, I would have to say the answer is that you are conflating terms. When people say human reason is bad, they mean a person can make mistakes in logic or get caught up in irrational emotion. That does not apply to proper reason, a logical argument. A logical argument is more reliable than scientific observations! This is because science is always changing and depends on observations. What may look like a certain thing may be another thing at play. Now, you say people thought x about the sun, but you must be careful in separating known myth or fable from what people actually believed was physically happening.
If reason is to be doubted, then you might as well believe whatever the heck you want, because you can’t make sense of it and if you tried, you’d probably be wrong anyway. However, no one behaves or actually believes this as shown by their behavior (or at least very few do). You step away from a hot beverage and as long as the surrounding air is cooler, it will cool. It won’t just disappear or anything!

Second question (I think), ancient oral traditions are not to be likened to a game of telephone. It was an entirely different society and people literally remembered this stuff sort of like an occupation (have you ever heard of the “storyteller”?). Many methods were employed to ensure memorization. This is why some things may seem weird, due to wordplay not existent in our language, or that ancient texts seem to be repetitive. Jesus saying a “log in your eye” may sound ridiculous, but the point is to evoke ridiculous, catching imagery. Memory was highly valued back then, and on the whole had to be exercised much more often as the population in general couldn’t read or write.

God does not only exist as a thought process. But, do you know the meaning of Logos, the phrase “right reason” in Catholic texts throughout history? Of course you should think and reason, abstract thought processes are an ability granted by God onto us as humans. A dog may think, but won’t think about his thinking.

Ultimately, the very fact of existence, let alone an ordered existence, is personally enough for me to contemplate. But, prayer, thoughtful contemplation, etc. can bring one to trust more in God.

Don’t fear death. I suggest to get rid of that fear! If you go to heaven or into oblivion it shall be an end of pain and suffering. But, I can tell you, if you follow Christ truly, it will not only be an end, but a great beginning.
 
In all sincerity you did not give any good answer why to look to Church Fathers considering your previous posts. I believe I made clear from a Catholic view what it means. But that was still not addressed.

What you are saying there assumes many things. Regarding infallibility of dogma and so on. That has not been agreed at all so it cannot be used as fact. I see this many times on here. For example:

Mary assumed to heaven because she was without original sin (immaculate conception). That doesn’t work as it has not been established. That is an assumption so far as the conversation is going.

Hope you understand.

Regards
 
Funnily enough I created this account because of following another user! Well users. It gave me a few ideas to challenge what I believed but I’ve pulled arguments from them that I don’t know if there was an answer to or that I personally wanted clarification on.
 
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