How to answer friend who is agnostic

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sydney28

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A friend asked me a question yesterday that I could not answer. He wanted to know how we know that Christianity is true. There are so many religions that all claim to be true, so why are we so sure that WE are correct? We are not talking about Catholicism…but just Christianity in general.

How do you convince someone who was not brought up in any faith that they should give their life to Jesus and become a Christian? He wants proof. I’m not sure how to offer that…

Any thoughts?
 
I take a highly complex view of faith. A dear friend of mine considers me as holding an agnostic position, and I do not object to such a description though a lot more could be said.

I make the above statement as a preamble to answering your question: “Any thoughts?”.

Suggest to your friend that they read the Bible.
 
**See this message: ** forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4811147&postcount=36

There are many logical, scientific, and historical proofs of Catholicism. Many listed in the abovelinked thread.

In A.D. 700 “at the monastery of St. Loginus in Lanciano, Italy, a priest from the Order of St. Basil was celebrating Mass. Having doubted the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the priest saw, during the consecration, the bread miraculously transfored into a circle of flesh and the wine appear as bright as fresh blood. Eventually, the liquefied blood turned into five pellets of various sizes and shapes. When the local archbishop later weighed the pellets, it was discovered that one nugget weighed the same as all five together, two as much as any three, and the smallest as much as the largest. In February of 1574, another test was done on the miraculous blood pellets. Again, any one of the pellets weighed along equaled the weight of all five pellets together. In 1970, further tests were made on the body and blood of Jesus. Analysis has proved that the bread and wine contain characteristics of real human flesh and blood. Both belonged to the same blood type, AB. Eventually the Franciscans rebuilt the church that houses the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano. It is now called the Church of St. Francis (Michael Freze, S.F.O. Voices, Visions, and Apparitions) (concernedcatholics.org - This website is for sale! - obedience chastity virginity confession Eucharist Holy Communion last rites sacrament marriage Jesus Resources and Information.)”

This miracle was first studied scientifically in 1970-1971 by Dr. Edoardo Linoli, professor of anatomy, pathological histology, chemistry and clinical microsocpy, and the former head of the Laboratory of Pathological Anatomy at the Hospital of Arezzo, published in pub med: Quad Sclavo Digan. 1971. Sep; 7(3): 661-74. Histological, immunological and biochemiccal studies on the flesh and blood of the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano (8th century) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4950729?ordinalpos=28&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
(Pubmed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health that includes over 18 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources)

Findings:
"* The Flesh is real Flesh. The Blood is real Blood.
  • The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.
  • The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart.
  • In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium.
  • The Flesh is a “HEART” complete in its essential structure.
  • The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB(Blood-type identical to that which Prof. Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin)
  • In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteric make-up of the fresh normal blood.
  • In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.
  • The preservation of the Flesh and of the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheri and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.
therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html
 
If you’re looking for a magic bullet to suddenly convert your friend from agnosticism to faith with one shot, there isn’t one.

The best you can do is to share YOUR faith and say why YOU believe. As one priest said, faith is not believing in something you can prove, but it’s not believing without a reason.

In my case, I’d have to say that I believe because I just do. Why do we breathe? Or love?

Trying to “prove” faith by the scientific method is as useless as trying to thus “prove” a Beethoven symphony or great work of art–or love, for that matter.

That’s because love, music, and faith speak not to our minds, but to our hearts and souls.
 
Only Jesus, as far as we know, died on the Cross and resurrected three days later…

Buddha didn’t.
Neither Mohammed
 
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