For Converts Only: Well-Informed Convert vs Gullible Convert?

[gookykookypig]

How do you describe your conversion? For me, I am an informed convert. I went out from non-catholicism with a carte of the books and history and the contemplations, realizations. I do not belong to the “Aahh…” crowd. How about you?

Are you sure you had checked all the corners, overhead and under the bed before you were converted? Thanks guys

 

[latingirl]

I’d say I’m somewhere in the middle. I did alot of reading, and Scripture study and asked alot of questions before I converted but also, there was a wholly spiritual side to it where I prayed and felt God urging me to the Catholic Church. I had many enotional moments and well as informative ones. Now, I do alot of reading to make sure I can defend my decision against a slew of anti-Catholics. Becuase I really didn’t know what anti-Catholicism was, I wish I had prepared myself for the attacks I’d get from fellow “Christians”.

 

[Flowerchild]

I would say that I was well informed. It took me three years to join the church, after God starting encouraging me. I was so shocked when he started moving me toward the Church, I had to know all I could. I read, I asked tons of questions, and I argued some. One of the hardest parts was letting go of what I thought my family was going to think and trusting that God would take care of that for me. I justed needed to be very prepared for any question, argument that could come up.

 

[survive]

I did the essential research before my conversion to Christianity and then to learn that I need to be in a church and then that I needed to be baptized and then to learn that I need to be Catholic. It’s been a long, strange trip and I’m not even a Deadhead – that’s how I describe it. I used intuition, prayer, signs, dreams, church history, syllogistic resoning, Scripture, its plain meaning and reading arguments about interpretations, and everything else I could bring to the search for truth; I know I know the truth now.

 

[DavidFilmer]

I was a “high church Anglican” who considered myself “catholic” (little-c). I recognized that the RCC was also “catholic,” but I thought the RCC had added to the Deposit of Faith with Her teachings about the Pope. I set out to disprove this erroneous teaching, and I could not. It is often said that studying the Early Church Fathers is the death of protestantism, and this was true for me. By the time I converted, I had read the ECF’s, Aquinas, the proceedings of many Councils, and Ott. So I was surely “well-informed.”

I was hardly a “gullible convert.” A convert requires a sponsor (who must be a Catholic in good standing). I did not personally know one single Catholic in good standing to sponsor me. The priest sought out a volunteer from the parish to act in this role. So there was nobody to “talk me into” the Faith - I did not even know any Catholics when I converted.

 

[rpp]

I cannot say that I was at all well-informed when I converted. Heck, I had no idea that “reconciliation” and “confession” were the same thing. I had no clue what the Catholic Church really taught. Nor can I say I was gullible. Nope, not gullible.

You see, I was an atheist and had been one for more than 20 years. But not merely an atheist, but an active enemy of Christianity.

My conversion was sudden, supernatural and miraculous. It involved a voice and a rather difficult to explain experience that happened in less time it took to draw a breath, yet two weeks and these two happened simultaneously

All I can say is that when I inhaled, I was as dedicated of an atheist as I had been during my entire adult life and when when I exhaled, I knew there was a God and the Catholic Church taught His truth.

So I became a Catholic before I even knew that Catholic churches had holy water fonts by the entrance, what the Rosary was or how to pray the Hail Mary.

 

[survive]

All I can say is that when I inhaled, I was as dedicated of an atheist as I had been during my entire adult life and when when I exhaled, I knew there was a God and the Catholic Church taught His truth.

So I became a Catholic before I even knew that Catholic churches had holy water fonts by the entrance, what the Rosary was or how to pray the Hail Mary.

Wow! We’re at the extremes of conversion stories. I walked and stopped in every shop on the street; you just teleported. But we got here.

 

[ChrissiM]

I think I’m also a well informed convert. I wouldn’t consider myself an absolute expert, but what I know is enough. On the other hand I didn’t make my descision after a long time of study. I had read the bible one time and then said to myself: “Well, this sounds very catholic, so if I want to become a Christian, I have to become a Catholic.” The actual crucial point for me was the question: Does God exist? Because I came from atheism. But it was clear for me very quickly, that if I could bring myself to believe in God, then I would join Catholicism. That was after I had read the bible. After I had already make my descision, I also learned more about theology and Church history, and what I learned has supported my descision to become Catholic.

Chrissi

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Are you asking whether the conversion was made for rational or emotional reasons?

 

[ChrissiM]

I converted for rational reasons. But Catholicism also appeals from an emotional point of view to me.

 

[EDKidd]

I converted from the CofE due to feeling drawn to it via, I believe, the Holy Spirit.

I didn’t really weant to become a Catholic at the time & resisted quite vigorously but following a ‘falling away’ from faith, on my return, I gave God the promise that whatever He called me to do I would obey without question.

I read as much as I could take in concerning Catholicism and (thankfully) found myself persuaded that what I had been led to believe about Catholics & Catholicism by Christians ranging from Anglicans to Fundementalists had been untrue.

 

[latingirl]

I know how it feels to read the Bible and find that it supports the catholic position- as does early church history. Alot of people tend to ignore these things, denying they need to search for truth, and pretend they know it all already.
You only stop learning when you die.

 

[mardukm]

Are you sure you had checked all the corners, overhead and under the bed before you were converted? Thanks guys

I checked all the corners, overhead and under the bed, under the rugs, behind the curtains, in the cupboards and drawers, and even gave a gloved inspection at the top of the picture frames. I couldn’t find a single dustmote of heterodoxy in the magisterial teachings of the Catholic Church.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Dchsknight]

I converted, because i asked for it…

I was baptist and steadily grew disgusted with the Protestant Church and Asked God to Show me the truth and were it was and to give the Cahones to follow it, No matter what or the cost…

 

[Eucharisted]

I’m a gullible convert.

 

[gookykookypig]

Thanks for sharing your conversion stories.

Conversion is like changing a room or an apartment. Before transferring, you must first check all that your apartment have. If nothing seems to obstruct you from transferring, you may go.

But if you transfer with all your stuff in te old apartment and bunking in the new, that’s stupidity.

 

[rpp]

Thanks for sharing your conversion stories.

Conversion is like changing a room or an apartment. Before transferring, you must first check all that your apartment have. If nothing seems to obstruct you from transferring, you may go.

But if you transfer with all your stuff in te old apartment and bunking in the new, that’s stupidity.

Does that mean that the fact that the fact that before my conversions I was an ACLU supporting liberal, NARAL donor and am now a conservative, pro-life activist that I am not really a Catholic? Is that what you mean?

 

[gookykookypig]

Does that mean that the fact that the fact that before my conversions I was an ACLU supporting liberal, NARAL donor and am now a conservative, pro-life activist that I am not really a Catholic? Is that what you mean?

Nope, I mean you must study those pursuits and harmonize it to your new room.

If your old apartment has leaky water systems, check on it. Learn how’s the leak is going, and see if your new room has the same structure or system and see if it’s better than your own room or is a potential problem again.

The “stuff” there is your own essentials that is favorable to your new room, not everything that you have! You need not to bring with you your mop if all the floor has been covered by fabric flooring. You need not to bring the sponge if you had just purchased a dishwasher. You need not to bring a bucket and dipper if your bathroom has all the snaking tubes in it. .

 

[rpp]

Nope, I mean you must study those pursuits and harmonize it to your new room.

If your old apartment has leaky water systems, check on it. Learn how’s the leak is going, and see if your new room has the same structure or system and see if it’s better than your own room or is a potential problem again.

The “stuff” there is your own essentials that is favorable to your new room, not everything that you have! You need not to bring with you your mop if all the floor has been covered by fabric flooring. You need not to bring the sponge if you had just purchased a dishwasher. You need not to bring a bucket and dipper if your bathroom has all the snaking tubes in it. .

Are you sober? No, really, are you? This post makes as much much sense as saying the sky is the color of the sound of a sigh. This is not a Moody Blues song.

 

[George14]

My conversion was “instantaneous” in one sense: I had no affiliation, convictions, or bias prior to the experience I had when reading scripture and some books - "The Seven Story Mountain’ (Thomas Merton’s personal account of HIS conversion), The Confessions of St. Augustine, “Art and Scholasticism” by Jacques Maritain, and most of all, the four Gospels.

What made it virtually instantaneous was the credibility of the Gospels - simple plain men recounting simple plain personal experience and what they witnessed, and the logic of a couple things: if God says something, you can believe Him (“the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” I am with you until the end of the world," "go and tell the whole world…"and many others), so there is no possibility of any other outcome. At that time there were “256 other denominations” of non-catholic Christians - all founded by someone OTHER than Jesus Christ… so what’s the problem.

I have to admit my personality type is “credulous” and less skeptical than a lot of people, but when something IS, I don’t stand around second guessing myself. AFTER the conversion, I started to deal with (and stomach) the oddities of “Mariology,” confession, and other issues of the church which ran contrary to my “feel goodness” about what I was doing, but I simply didn’t allow those scruples to deter me from what logic and conviction had me do.

And shortly it became clear to me that, like Bishop Sheen I think it was who said, “Gosh, if people REALLY KNEW what it was the Catholic Church really teaches, ‘everyone’ would be Catholic!” It’s because the mis-statement, the exaggerations, the distortions, the caricatures that are passed along that are NOT core truths give it a bad name (nuns beating up the kids in school, go to confession and go out and sin again, the Pope is right all the time, and some popes were sinners…)

Never looked back because I never NEEDED to look back. And truth be told, I continue to work VERY VERY HARD at BELIEVING all that the Church (thankfully) teaches us. With this mind, I find it incomprehensible that there can be such outrageous “dissent” and “independence of mind” among Catholic politicians, Notre Dame’s scandalous honorary degree for the president, and the scandals in the Church, etc… HOW CAN THESE THINGS BE?

Answer: man’s free will allows him to choose evil.

Boy do we need the Chaplet of Mercy! Big time.