If somebody says something to me, let’s say as a joke, like: One day you’ll be a muslim/jew/hundu/whatever, and then I am worried that they might have lied if I don’t (Stupid thought already right?), and then I have the idea I could shortly become e.g. muslim and then again Christian, and I say to myself: “Ok now I am muslim. And now I am Christian again.” Can that have any effect???
Suddenly I worried that once I thought the thought to myself that I am no longer Christian, I ahve to get baptized again in order to be Christian again… that is not so is it???
Kathrin
To become a Muslim, you would need to recite the Shahadah (profession of the Islamic faith) in front of two witnesses. To become Jewish or Hindu would take much longer.
Only if you actually took a decision (are you aware of the conditions of mortal sin: grave matter, full knowledge, consent of the will) and acted upon it in some way (i.e. by renouncing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, by offering worship to another god, by telling someone in all seriousness that you are a Muslim, Jew, etc, by stopping attending Mass on Sundays and going to another religion’s place of worship) would you be committing the sin of apostacy.
Even asking the question, ‘is there more truth in the Muslim faith than the Christian one?’ wouldn’t necessarily be a sin, as we are called to live in the Truth (Jesus Christ is the Truth), but if you genuinely felt you needed more evidence of Christian Truth to shore up your faith, and wanted to get a ‘second opinion’ from someone who believed in another faith, that wouldn’t necessarily be a mortal sin, because the full knowledge wouldn’t be there, you wouldn’t have knowledge that you were sinning unless you already knew that the Catholic faith is the true one, and if you knew that you wouldn’t be asking - that’s a tautology. All the same, I suggest you make an ‘act of faith’, i.e. pray to Our Lord, placing your trust in Him to lead you into all Truth, rather than trying to explore it on your own. Trust that the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth - trust, but also learn it for yourself, by studying and knowing the Catholic faith better, and come to know it by living it.
If you are worried about your thoughts, you can always go to confession and explain it to the priest, he will help you understand whether what you experience is a temptation or a sin.
