Hello

[Annabea]

Hi Annabea!

You might find it interesting to know that Catholics don’t believe that God just handed us a Bible and said, “That’s it!”

We believe God created a Church, and led that Church to determine which books belonged in the Bible.

You might also want to think about Pascal’s wager.

God bless you.

Love is Patient

Right um okay. God created a church? Where was this church? Is there any scripture or evidence of its first teachings? Was there a preist, and so on as in modern day churchs? Or was it simply a temple?
Do you know how many religions are out there?!?! Give me a break, pascals wager? Probability isn’t working in you hand.

 

[Eucharisted]

Right um okay. God created a church? Where was this church? Is there any scripture or evidence of its first teachings? Was there a preist, and so on as in modern day churchs? Or was it simply a temple?
Do you know how many religions are out there?!?! Give me a break, pascals wager? Probability isn’t working in you hand.

You’ll find many answers here: catholic.com/library/faith_tracts.asp

 

[Annabea]

Annabea,
These are very important questions. I would say from my experience that it will be a feeling inside that is comfortable and joyful and peaceful. But if you also ask for other answers such as “Dear God, if you exist, will you help me to know what you want me to do in my life right now?”, then I think you will find that you are guided in specific ways as you study or as others are inspired to come to you, because God does love you and cares about you individually. He just is waiting for you to ask these kinds of questions. Please remember that He thinks about you specifically, and will answer you specifically in a way you understand. Again, thanks for asking such good questions.

I have said Dear God many a time…never had anything out of them.

 

[Annabea]

Okay Annabea I will bite. The reason I have faith is because I know as a human being I cannot do it alone. No matter how much or little you have in this world you cannot obtain complete happiness. Why is that. Simple, You will not and cannot obtain complete happiness in this world. We will never experience it until the day you come into the actual presense and live with our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the real world and that is where there will be no death, no pain, complete happiness forever and ever. The reason we are put on this earth is to do Gods work. Why do I have faith, because without it my soul would be dead. There would be no eternal life to strive for. The reason I have faith is the same reason you work for a pay check. Faith in God is my paycheck, When I am depressed, sad, anxiety of this world takes over I pray to my God. Suddenly the anxiety, depression, sadness leaves. A peacefull bright happiness takes over my soul. Thats faith, that my True Dear Lord Jesus Christ.

What about faith in yourself? And I’m sorry you think you will never feel true happiness. Its those rare moments in your life though. And when you die and supposedly join Jesus will you pity all your non-believing friends and other people whom you have met burning down in hell? Will that give you peace?

 

[Annabea]

Hey Annabea, I’m from the same forums as you. ;p
Here’s a few sources:
harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1131
In 2006, 18% of Americans described themselves as agnostic or atheist.

freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Percentage_of_atheists
In 1997, 0,201% of American inmates were atheists.

The last arguement of a guy who just lost a religious discussion to a 12 year old. I’m 18 - debate me instead?

Where is this evidence? I sure don’t hope you mean “eye witness accounts” written 200 years after the actual happening.

Yay!

 

[mauricio0]

Okay Annabea I will bite. The reason I have faith is because I know as a human being I cannot do it alone. No matter how much or little you have in this world you cannot obtain complete happiness. Why is that. Simple, You will not and cannot obtain complete happiness in this world. We will never experience it until the day you come into the actual presense and live with our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the real world and that is where there will be no death, no pain, complete happiness forever and ever. The reason we are put on this earth is to do Gods work. Why do I have faith, because without it my soul would be dead. There would be no eternal life to strive for. The reason I have faith is the same reason you work for a pay check. Faith in God is my paycheck, When I am depressed, sad, anxiety of this world takes over I pray to my God. Suddenly the anxiety, depression, sadness leaves. A peacefull bright happiness takes over my soul. Thats faith, that my True Dear Lord Jesus Christ.

Wait so you argument we cannot get complete happiness is because we cannot?
How do you know there is an afterlife, how do you Jesus Christ exists, how do you know it will make us completely happy. You believe all this on faith (no proof just believe) so, like this is your REASON to have faith, you need faith to have faith? (you need to believe without proof to believe without proof) It looks like you need faith to believe anything irrational even faith itself which is by definition irrational and opposed to rationality (rationality tries to justify things through logic (ordered and valid thinking) and evidence. So you actually said NOTHING about why you believe, looks like you just believe because of wishful thinking on a happy afterlife. And that does not make what you believe true at all. Like Carl Sagan said:
“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is then to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
What does completely happy actually means? I don’t think such a thing even exists. How can you have fun if you are never bored? How can you enjoy pleasure if it is a default state?? If pleasure is default then it is not pleasure anymore is just default. Heaven got to be a very boring place when nothing happens, looks like. I would like and explanation please.
Then you go on and on saying baseless things you do not provide proof or reason to believe (and you probably cannot and if you can I want to heard and if it’s valid you may win a novel prize, but I doubt it).
And from you last sentence it can be seen really clear that you only believe in god so you can use him as a mental Prozac; and wishfully thinking you will live after dead in eternal happiness (whatever that means).
Thanks for sharing you reason to believe, however I’m not I need of mental Prozac, also I don’t want to suffer sexual dysfunction.

 

[ParkerD]

I have said Dear God many a time…never had anything out of them.

Annabea,
I appreciate your having said that. You would in this case want to ask an open-ended question, not ask a “help me” or “help them” request. I think you can be sincere in asking such a question. Sincerity is all-important in such a prayer, in your own words. Best wishes in that.

 

[TheresaLS]

Annabea,
Over the last several days I have been reading the replies along with your responses. You want proof…well, God is faith. Faith in the believeing without seeing, knowing because He has become the basis of your life and without that basis life is stale…without texture. He is the thread that holds your life together. There have been times in my life where the presence of God was unmistakable. I believe most have had those moments. I try not to share those “believe it or not” experiences because I don’t want to seem prideful…but here goes…

I came from what many refer to as a dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic and my mother found mothering difficult. They were good people and tried their best but life was difficult. I remember one bright, sunny morning my mother was doing the wash. She liked the spring water from our well that was at the bottom of our property for the rinse. She would carry it herself which was quite a chore. As I watched her struggle I felt such pain that she had to work so hard and I asked if I could help. As I recall she was tired and was not in a good mood. She snapped yes, but I probably couldn’t do it fast enough. I yearned for my mother’s love and would do almost anything to please her. As I ran back and forth I really thought I was doing a good job, but not for Mother. She snapped that I was not doing a good job and as I ran to the well, I remember saying, “If I run fast enough my mother will love me.”( I was about nine and was small for my age.) I ran and after about the third pass I was exhausted. My mother never said a word even though she saw I was crying. As I ran back to the well I prayed to God and asked why my mother did not love me. Why when I was trying so hard to please her it was not good enough. I was moving so fast and not thinking where I was going. I fell onto the brick wall my father had built around the well. The bucket fell and I teetered back and forth, my feet not touching the gound. For what felt like a long time I did not know if I would fall into the well or not. I remember thinking as I swayed back and forth, “If I fall in would anyone notice?” Then I said, “Would anyone care?” It was at that moment I heard a voice saying, “I would”, and my feet touched the ground and as I looked around thinking someone had come to my rescue, I found no one there. I firmily believe it was the hand of God and to this day many, many years later I still feel the same love as I did that day.

Well…that’s my story and I am happy to share it with you.God bless!

 

[mauricio0]

Annabea,
I appreciate your having said that. You would in this case want to ask an open-ended question, not ask a “help me” or “help them” request. I think you can be sincere in asking such a question. Sincerity is all-important in such a prayer, in your own words. Best wishes in that.

Right, because the great omnipotent god has limitations when it comes to answer an insignificant and weak human prayer. May be you need to ask and “open-ended”” question so you can, the next day, interpret the piece of bread with and oil stein on it like the almighty answer from GOD!

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

Hey Annabea, I’m from the same forums as you. ;p
Here’s a few sources:
harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1131
In 2006, 18% of Americans described themselves as agnostic or atheist.

freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Percentage_of_atheists
In 1997, 0,201% of American inmates were atheists.

The last arguement of a guy who just lost a religious discussion to a 12 year old. I’m 18 - debate me instead?

Where is this evidence? I sure don’t hope you mean “eye witness accounts” written 200 years after the actual happening.

I do mean the Gospels and they were written between 50 and 90 AD as well as documents for historians for the time period

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

Based…on a book.

exactly were do you find your evidence? how do you know when the American revolution was and what happened then. you were told or read it in a book. its called documentation.

 

[mauricio0]

exactly were do you find your evidence? how do you know when the American revolution was and what happened then. you were told or read it in a book. its called documentation.

I’m not American so I’m not sure what they base their history on, but it is probably based on documents with confirmed authorship. That can be official documents (from governments) and other sources like newspapers and other historians and can be compared with each other to determinate if the history is real, or if some are biased. You should have done that in history classes on high school…
Those kinds of documents are millions of times more reliable than the bible.

 

[BrokenFortress]

You mock faith in something we cannot see. Yet to not have faith in God also requires faith. You believe that there is no God. Yet you yourself cannot prove that there is no God, so you essentially have faith in the absence of a God.

You asked what was the point of my life, since I asked what was the point of life for an atheist.

Well, for me, life is about living for God. I treat others as I would want to be treated. So despite what you say about some “Christians” those who are truly Christians will not be mean to others for various reasons. But obviously everyone has moments where they can be mean, no one on earth is perfect. This is the reason that Jesus died for us. Despite the fact that you try to argue with people that they aren’t happy on earth, I don’t think this is true. Many of us Christians are truly happy with our life on earth. But, it does not compare to the happiness we will have when in Heaven. This is what they are saying. God created the earth to be perfect, but with the Devil and man’s downfall, it didn’t work out that way. Everyone has free will. So, at the end of days Christians will go to Heaven and live what was meant to be. So I look forward to being in Heaven.

Obviously for you atheists, this won’t hold a lot of weight since you choose not to believe. But since you asked what I see as the point of my life, I told you. What is the point of life to an atheist? You die, and then what? Isn’t that a rather depressing thing? How sad not to have faith in anyone other than yourself. As I’m sure you’re well aware, people will let you down. I know that God will not let me down. Sure, things may get hard, but no matter what I will get through it. That’s what faith is.

And really, I don’t see the point in atheism, because why wouldn’t you choose to at least believe in something? Wouldn’t you rather be safe than sorry?

Atheists choose to have faith in themselves. Yet, throughout history, it has been proven how stupid humans are. Sure we have our bright moments in advancing technology or what have you, but humans kill, they make dumb decisions, they lie. I’m not quite sure how people can look around at the earth and think that it all just happened randomly. It is too diverse and impressive to have just happened by chance. And if you want to say we evolved from chimps, well then, why are chimps still on the earth? Why would it split and humans evolve but nothing else from them?

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

I’m not American so I’m not sure what they base their history on, but it is probably based on documents with confirmed authorship. That can be official documents (from governments) and other sources like newspapers and other historians and can be compared with each other to determinate if the history is real, or if some are biased. You should have done that in history classes on high school…
Those kinds of documents are millions of times more reliable than the bible.

So you place your faith in governments. I am afraid you will be left very disappointed.

 

[mauricio0]

You mock faith in something we cannot see. Yet to not have faith in God also requires faith. You believe that there is no God. Yet you yourself cannot prove that there is no God, so you essentially have faith in the absence of a God.

I stopped reading here, because you just assumed I negate the existence of god, I don’t. I do not believe there is a god, because there is no proof and it seems unlikely. Maybe you should read something about atheism before you start talking about it, there are many different forms of atheism. I can tell you that the negative (strong) atheists, the ones who deny god, are very few people. (Have fun en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism).

“Yet you yourself cannot prove that there is no God” this is a huge logical fallacy (Ad Ignorantiam:nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html) and shows you ignorance about the burden of proof. You the one making the claim, god exists, you present the evidence. We cannot prove a negative it is nonsense. If we bother disproving things we would be disproving anything you can imagine(like god), that would be a huge waste of time nonsense,that is why we don’t disprove it. YOU PROVE IT then we poke holes on you evidence and you have to reformulate it.

 

[mauricio0]

So you place your faith in governments. I am afraid you will be left very disappointed.

So you place your faith(you believe with NOT A SINGLE EVIDENCE) on a book of old fables and myths wrote in the bronze age by primitive and savage pastors sheep herders telling the history about a god who ”is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

You will be very disappointed… wait what?

 

[lkddav]

you need to provide some sources for these statistics you are giving here. where did you get this information from?

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious
affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of
inmates per religion category:

Response Number %

---

Catholic 29267 39.164%
Protestant 26162 35.008%
Muslim 5435 7.273%
American Indian 2408 3.222%
Nation 1734 2.320%
Rasta 1485 1.987%
Jewish 1325 1.773%
Church of Christ 1303 1.744%
Pentecostal 1093 1.463%
Moorish 1066 1.426%
Buddhist 882 1.180%
Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
Adventist 621 0.831%
Orthodox 375 0.502%
Mormon 298 0.399%
Scientology 190 0.254%
Atheist 156 0.209%
Hindu 119 0.159%
Santeria 117 0.157%
Sikh 14 0.019%
Bahai 9 0.012%
Krishna 7 0.009%

holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

 

[ServantofChrist]

So you place your faith(you believe with NOT A SINGLE EVIDENCE) on a book of old fables and myths wrote in the bronze age by primitive and savage pastors sheep herders telling the history about a god who ”is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

You will be very disappointed… wait what?

Whether you believe this or not…I say this with love. By your statement, I see that you do not know much about the Bible. If I give you a ton of facts about the Bible, where it came from, who the writers were, how accurate it is (not only historically, but prophetically) you would just continue to debate it. I offer you a challenge, research the Bible…find out the answers for yourself…this way you will believe what information you find.

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

So you place your faith(you believe with NOT A SINGLE EVIDENCE) on a book of old fables and myths wrote in the bronze age by primitive and savage pastors sheep herders telling the history about a god who ”is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

You will be very disappointed… wait what?

No, I put faith In the God of the Bible the creator of all that is seen and unseen. I have know idea who this is you are describing but it is not God.

By the way you may want to read the Bible and study on it before making judgment on God. I would suggest reading the Gospel of ST Mark first. Maybe a chapter an night then when your done read it again. then move one to Matthew, Luke, and John read each twice one chapter at a time. then I would read the Acts of the Apostles. then after that it can be pretty much up to you what to read next but just take it a book at a time and a chapter at a time. I may the go to Genesis and Exodus the book of Ruth

And try to read with an open mind I know that you already know all there is to know about whats wriitten in there, but try

As far as those primitive peoples are concerned were talking about the same time as the pyramids being built and we modern all knowing man do not know how they did it ( we have a few theories) nor could we build them to the exact mathematical precision that they were built.

The Colosseum in Rome has stood for how many centuries and if we get 25 years out of a modern arena we think we done something.

the arrogance of modern man.

primitive man that learn to store food without refrigeration. and we go into a panic it the electric goes out for more than 10 minutes.

 

[mauricio0]

Whether you believe this or not…I say this with love. By your statement, I see that you do not know much about the Bible. If I give you a ton of facts about the Bible, where it came from, who the writers were, how accurate it is (not only historically, but prophetically) you would just continue to debate it. I offer you a challenge, research the Bible…find out the answers for yourself…this way you will believe what information you find.

I already said what the bible is. The only thing that would make it important is if it was written by god(a very unpleasent one). But is hard to write something when you do not exist.

So I don’t care about the bible and hate it how much importance it is given when there are so much better books on ethics and science; which give WAY better answers to our curiosity. Answers which are real answers not just God did it. Answers that are awe inspiring like the evolution and the cyclic universe, matter and energy. We (free thinkers) delight ourselves in the beauty of the universe, and how the science explanations fit perfectly.