God is imaginary article

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Im a 22 year old college student who has been in the faith since I was about 16 or 17. I pray everyday and talk to God quite often. However there are things that bring doubt to my mind sometimes and I do my best to stay in faith. I came across this article on line: godisimaginary.com/ Some of the points they were making were quite strong. Now before we go on I would like like to clarify that I didnt say anything about this site being correct or that i support it in ANYWAY… just simply they have some strong points. The reason im even here in the first place is to strengthen my faith so i decided to go here to look if anyone could help me understand this a bit better and get answers to some of these questions this article brought to my attention.(Especially 1, 4, 20 ,42 ,31, 49)Thank you
 
Griffy said:
Im a 22 year old college student who has been in the faith since I was about 16 or 17. I pray everyday and talk to God quite often. However there are things that bring doubt to my mind sometimes and I do my best to stay in faith. I came across this article on line: godisimaginary.com/ Some of the points they were making were quite strong. Now before we go on I would like like to clarify that I didnt say anything about this site being correct or that i support it in ANYWAY… just simply they have some strong points. The reason im even here in the first place is to strengthen my faith so i decided to go here to look if anyone could help me understand this a bit better and get answers to some of these questions this article brought to my attention.(Especially 1, 4, 20 ,42 ,31, 49)Thank you
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Just my thoughts

I took a look at the site and scanned a few of the points that they try to make. I really had to sort of laugh. In each case the author has set limits on what he thinks is God or is not God. He has set finite and human understanding or terms of engagement to something way out of their comprehension. Take the first link, “Try Praying”, it is as follows:

*What would happen if we get down on our knees and pray to God in this way:

Dear God, almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. We pray in faith, knowing you will bless us as you describe in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19 and James 5:15-16. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

We pray sincerely, knowing that when God answers this completely heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways.

Will anything happen? No. Of course not. *

See the constraints and limits applied here in human terms and expectations? And of cours they are going to be very clever and have done the research to create a dialog that supports their rational to prey on weak souls. This is where Satan is at work full bore.

This was just one example, Iam not going to go over them all.
 
Griffy said:
I came across this article on line
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OK, first of all, this article is not really directed at Catholicism, but more at protestantism, which is full of errors. Some of the errors the article points out are legitimate.
(Especially 1, 4, 20 ,42 ,31, 49)Thank you
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#1 - Reasoning is based on faulty protestant-style Biblical exegesis (aka the “Health and Wealth Gospel”) that God is Santa Claus and that “healing” is always physical. I won’t try to defend against this premise because the premise is not part of Catholic theology.

#4 - Reasoning is based on the presumption that the “purpose” of religion is to explain natural phenomena, which we can now explain through natural sciences. It is certainly true that natural phenomena have been attributed to supernatural causes (and this continues), but the Catholic Church does not teach the type of causality criticized in this article. Catholic priests discovered the science of genetics and the idea of the Big Bang, upon which all evolution and cosmology are based.

#20 - Reasoning is based on what is seen as a disparity between an idea of non-materialism (again, another protestant-leaning (mostly Calvinist) bit of Biblical exegesis) and “lavish” church buildings. This would be a weak charge to level against Catholic parishes, at least in the New World (I have never seen a ramshackle Catholic parish in America, but I have never seen a “lavish” one either). A number of arguments could be made here, but I won’t bother because the premise (that a parish building should be penurious) is flawed.

#31 - In philosophy, this is called “the problem of pain.” It has been discussed here many times. The most obvious flaw with this particular article is that it considers only acts of evil (imagine you had an instant news-feed of all the evil in the world) without considering even a single good act.

#49 - Nutjobs preach in God’s name. Well, yeah. None of us Catholics would disagree that Jimmy Swaggart and Pat Robinson (or any of the others named) are nutty. But that would be like saying that quantum physics was wrong because Processors Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons (the otherwise respected but ultimately discredited cold-fusion guys; Fleischmann is a flippin’ Fellow of the Royal Society) turned out to be total kooks.
 
Most of his “proofs” prove nothing. For example, “ask Jesus to appear.” So Jesus doesn’t appear to us in person today… So what? How does that prove that God is imaginary?

The rest of the proofs that I read are equally ridiculous.
 
Please don’t be offended, but I would guess that you haven’t spent too much time on this site or reading Catholic Apologetics. These arguments have all been addressed very adequately many, many times on Catholic Answers and a hundred other places.

Spend some time listening to Catholic Answers. Do what I tell my CCD students–if you hear an objection that makes you pause, remember that there are extremely educated and well-meaning Catholics who surely have quite an answer. Do not be troubled, but seek out that answer. If you can’t find it, ask on here.

If you spent an hour sitting and talking with the likes of Jimmy Aiken or Dr. Peter Kreeft, you would have feel assured that such men have not devoted much of their lives to defending the faith if it failed under the weight of such flimsy objections.

This appeal to authority, of course, should not carry you permanently, but trust it until you have learned enough to know the best response to objections like these, and then you can evaluate the matter for yourself. When you do, I’m confident that your faith will not be shaken.

Cheers!
 
captainrick said:
Most of his “proofs” prove nothing. For example, “ask Jesus to appear.” So Jesus doesn’t appear to us in person today… So what? How does that prove that God is imaginary?

The rest of the proofs that I read are equally ridiculous.
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Did you read the text or just the title? Does he have an airtight logical proof in any of these? Of course not- but what he does is seek to show how silly the belief system is. Broadly speaking, it seems that Jesus was once a lot more cavalier about making public appearances way back when- both in person and in terms of granting magic powers.

But now that we have video cameras, audio recorders, photography, and better record keeping, it seems like Jesus has become a bit of a recluse. It’s certainly been awhile since we had st. Joseph of Cupertino buzzing around. So, one has to ask- why did miracles seem to slow to a trickle right as we got better at spotting scams and delusions?
 
AnimalSpirits said:
Did you read the text or just the title? Does he have an airtight logical proof in any of these? Of course not- but what he does is seek to show how silly the belief system is. Broadly speaking, it seems that Jesus was once a lot more cavalier about making public appearances way back when- both in person and in terms of granting magic powers.

But now that we have video cameras, audio recorders, photography, and better record keeping, it seems like Jesus has become a bit of a recluse. It’s certainly been awhile since we had st. Joseph of Cupertino buzzing around. So, one has to ask- why did miracles seem to slow to a trickle right as we got better at spotting scams and delusions?
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Maybe we are not looking in the right places 😃
 
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