How would you regard a person like this?

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NowHereThis

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Someone who believes in God who created and is continually present in creation, that important things about God were disclosed in Jesus, that Jesus offers a way of life that is worthy of being followed…but is agnostic on the issue of miracles and believes that the disciples experienced postmortem visions of Jesus, not encounters that could have been recorded with cameras, if cameras had been present.

What advice would you have for someone like this?
 
NowHereThis said:
Someone who believes in God who created and is continually present in creation, that important things about God were disclosed in Jesus, that Jesus offers a way of life that is worthy of being followed…but is agnostic on the issue of miracles and believes that the disciples experienced postmortem visions of Jesus, not encounters that could have been recorded with cameras, if cameras had been present.

What advice would you have for someone like this?
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Witness a live birth of a child being born into the world.

Read the lives and memoirs of the Catholic Saints and Martyrs, and the miracles and signs from heaven which followed them.
 
NowHereThis said:
Someone who believes in God who created and is continually present in creation, that important things about God were disclosed in Jesus, that Jesus offers a way of life that is worthy of being followed…but is agnostic on the issue of miracles and believes that the disciples experienced postmortem visions of Jesus, not encounters that could have been recorded with cameras, if cameras had been present.
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I would regard this person as one much like myself at various times in my life. A person who holds certain views intellectually - but who maybe hasn’t really committed themselves to these things - particularly to the teachings of Christ.
What advice would you have for someone like this?
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Are they asking for advice??
If so what sort of thing troubles them.

Peace
James
 
Are they asking for advice??
If so what sort of thing troubles them.
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Yes, and I think they are troubled because they feel caught in between two large groups: one saying “religion isn’t necessary, let it go” and the other saying “it’s the most necessary thing, but you have to adopt certain things as true to feel included and for it to work right.”

So they do feel it’s necessary for them, but they feel very conflicted about the things I mentioned in the first post. Maybe they just aren’t enough of an individualist (yet?) to feel comfortable just having a relatively uncommon set of beliefs.
 
NowHereThis said:
How would you regard a person like this: Someone who believes in God who created and is continually present in creation, that important things about God were disclosed in Jesus, that Jesus offers a way of life that is worthy of being followed…
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I would regard them with the same respect, charity and love that I regard anyone else with.
NowHereThis said:
.but is agnostic on the issue of miracles and believes that the disciples experienced postmortem visions of Jesus, not encounters that could have been recorded with cameras, if cameras had been present.

What advice would you have for someone like this?
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I’m not much for advice giving, but I would be curious to know how they came up with some of their ideas. If the person believes in God, who created and is present, then why is it so difficult to believe that God still plays an active role in the world? Or that Christ would present miracles in order to identify Himself as God?

And why would they think that the disciples (who are central figures in Christ’s ministry) only knew Christ through postmortem visions? One would have to discount the entire New Testament if that were true. Doesn’t make much sense to me.

I would suggest that the person in question take some more time, study the scriptures, and pray. If they are getting hung up on the miracles, I’d suggest they do some research and find all of the miracles happening in the present day. I’m amazed at how many people discount the miracles of the Bible, and yet when you show them a statue that cries tears of blood or a Holy Eucharist that became flesh and blood they shrug it off and pretend it doesn’t exist. None so blind as those who will not see.

There are plenty of miracles even today that one they can see with their own eyes.

If that doesn’t jar something loose, I don’t know what would.
 
NowHereThis said:
Yes, and I think they are troubled because they feel caught in between two large groups: one saying “religion isn’t necessary, let it go” and the other saying “it’s the most necessary thing, but you have to adopt certain things as true to feel included and for it to work right.”

So they do feel it’s necessary for them, but they feel very conflicted about the things I mentioned in the first post. Maybe they just aren’t enough of an individualist (yet?) to feel comfortable just having a relatively uncommon set of beliefs.
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Well - Here is how I would advise them.

Start with the teachings of Jesus. Start with Mt 22:36-40 and recognize that everything else in Scripture and in faith stems from this and leads back to it. This should help them to start to sort what is important from what is not.

Peace
James
 
seagal said:
the link doesn’t work 😦
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Well it works on the Philosophy Forum, I just tried it. Go the the Philosophy Forum and then to the thread " Can you watch this and not believe? " It is the first post on the thread. Why it won’t work on this Forum is a mystery.

Linus2nd
 
1Cor. 15:12-19 -this section makes the literal truth of the resurrection and belief in the same absolutely clear and necessary. If Christ is dead in the tomb, we are all still dead in our sins.
 
Linusthe2nd said:
Well it works on the Philosophy Forum, I just tried it. Go the the Philosophy Forum and then to the thread " Can you watch this and not believe? " It is the first post on the thread. Why it won’t work on this Forum is a mystery.

Linus2nd
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It doesn’t work here because you copied the text for the link from the post and not directly from the link. Both links look the same but on this thread it tries to link to
whispersintheloggia.blogspot…storm-and.html (note the elipsis)

whereas on the other thread it links to

whispersintheloggia.blogspot.ca/2015/01/live-from-tacloban-another-storm-and.html

It should have the http:// in front but when I included that the whole thing was automatically shortened with the elipsis.
 
NowHereThis said:
Someone who believes in God who created and is continually present in creation, that important things about God were disclosed in Jesus, that Jesus offers a way of life that is worthy of being followed…but is agnostic on the issue of miracles and believes that the disciples experienced postmortem visions of Jesus, not encounters that could have been recorded with cameras, if cameras had been present.

What advice would you have for someone like this?
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If I am reading you correctly it seems this person does not believe Jesus is God? I would suggest watching the first three episodes of Father Robert Barron’s Catholicism dvd series. Also a book called Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed.
 
NowHereThis said:
Someone who believes in God who created and is continually present in creation, that important things about God were disclosed in Jesus, that Jesus offers a way of life that is worthy of being followed…but is agnostic on the issue of miracles and believes that the disciples experienced postmortem visions of Jesus, not encounters that could have been recorded with cameras, if cameras had been present.

What advice would you have for someone like this?
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That individual is in error theologically. I’m not sure what you mean by “regard”, my opinion of them as a person wouldn’t be affected.
 
NowHereThis said:
Someone who believes in God who created and is continually present in creation, that important things about God were disclosed in Jesus, that Jesus offers a way of life that is worthy of being followed…but is agnostic on the issue of miracles and believes that the disciples experienced postmortem visions of Jesus, not encounters that could have been recorded with cameras, if cameras had been present.

What advice would you have for someone like this?
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Is this person straddling 2 boats? He would like to believe in God. He thinks there is more than just matter in the universe. or that the scientific evidence points to the existence of a Creator/Designer. But his intellectual self tells him that miracles don’t exist, can not exist. He is not able to reconcile the 2 together.

If his mind can comprehend the idea of a Creator God, then by logic, he should be able to extrapolate that to miracles. That God can demonstrate that he can do the impossible and not magic tricks. And this is not one off. Throughout the ages, miracles have been performed by Saints and reported by the average person. He should spend some time understanding and investigating the miracles that have been reported and consider in the absence of fraud why miracles could possibly exist (and not the how). Not knowing how it was done does not negate the existence of miracles. It only demonstrate lack of knowledge and not existence. If the starting point is biased towards non-possibility of miracles, then there is not much of an intellectual mind is there? And further discussion is generally a wasteful pursuit.
 
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