If you can be a good person without God then why need Him?

[Bradski]

I just happened to come across a quote by an atheist, BC Johnson: “Such a God, if not dead, is the next thing to it. And a person who believes in such a ghost of a god is practically an atheist. To call such a thing a god would be to strain the meaning of the word.”
books.google.com/books?id=GMPsAwAAQBAJ

This quote applies quite nicely to the “God owes us an apology” assertion.

To call such a thing a god would be to strain the meaning of the word.

As I said earlier, God is all things to all men. My God wouldn’t be one to fear. My God would be one with whom I could discuss things and one with whom I could have a debate.

I think it might have bene you that said in another post that in heaven there would be no free will (apologies if it wasn’t). I couldn’t think of anything more horrifying as an eternity like that. If you are right about certain aspects of God, then I think that He is wrong. I’d want to be able to access that free will and tell Him that.

Look on my version of God as the Dean of the Philosophical Department. He’s a lot smarter than me. He knows a lot more than me. He’s quite probably right about all matters where we differ in opinion. But he’s the guy that’s been teaching me all along to think for myself. To question everything. Never to assume anything. Never to take anything at face value and be eternally sceptical, even about things that I think I personally believe. To treat doubt as an ally and certainty with suspicion.

Do you think that in discussion with him he would like me to blandly accept his views on everything or would he want me to use what intellect I had and argue every point. Fight every opinion. Defend every one of my positions with passion.

Everything I know about God leads me to believe that He doesn’t exist. Everything I have been told about God leads me to believe that if He does exist, then He is not the sort who would be prepared to sit and listen to me debate Life, the Universe and Everything. But if He does exist, then He knows that that’s what I’ll be doing.

Unless He takes away my free will, of course and then I’m just another version of Randle McMurphy and He’s Nurse Ratched.

 

[PRmerger]

As I said earlier, God is all things to all men.

Well, I think the thing that must be stated is the obvious: if God exists, we must apprehend Him as He really is.

Not how we want him to be.

My God wouldn’t be one to fear. My God would be one with whom I could discuss things and one with whom I could have a debate.

Ok. That’s the Christian God, but it’s actually irrelevant to this discussion.

Your God would be the one that actually exists. And if He’s a God who is to be feared, then that’s what He is.

I think it might have bene you that said in another post that in heaven there would be no free will (apologies if it wasn’t). I couldn’t think of anything more horrifying as an eternity like that. If you are right about certain aspects of God, then I think that He is wrong. I’d want to be able to access that free will and tell Him that.

Yes, it was me. Our wills we be fixed, presumably. Or, it could be that when we are in the presence of the Numinous, there is no entertaining any other thoughts other than…Him.

Look on my version of God as the Dean of the Philosophical Department. He’s a lot smarter than me. He knows a lot more than me. He’s quite probably right about all matters where we differ in opinion. But he’s the guy that’s been teaching me all along to think for myself. To question everything. Never to assume anything. Never to take anything at face value and be eternally sceptical, even about things that I think I personally believe. To treat doubt as an ally and certainty with suspicion.

Well, it’s a start.

But if that’s not who God is, and only a projection of how you want God to be, then you might as well remain an atheist.

Do you think that in discussion with him he would like me to blandly accept his views on everything or would he want me to use what intellect I had and argue every point. Fight every opinion. Defend every one of my positions with passion.

Oh, the Catholic way is definitely argue your way to apprehending Truth. Blind acceptance is a heresy in the Church.

Everything I know about God leads me to believe that He doesn’t exist. Everything I have been told about God leads me to believe that if He does exist, then He is not the sort who would be prepared to sit and listen to me debate Life, the Universe and Everything. But if He does exist, then He knows that that’s what I’ll be doing.

I can’t imagine what you know about God that would lead you to believe He doesn’t exist?

I get that the Problem of Evil can be a big obstacle. But that’s an emotional rejection of God, not a rational one. For there is absolutely no logical reason that God couldn’t exist while suffering exists in the world. None at all.

What do you know that leads you to believe He doesn’t exist?

Unless He takes away my free will, of course and then I’m just another version of Randle McMurphy and He’s Nurse Ratched.

Taking away your free will and your free will being fixed, for eternity, are two different things.

At any rate, since free will is a gift from God, just as life is, then He can giveth and He can taketh, right?

 

[Bradski]

Well, I think the thing that must be stated is the obvious: if God exists, we must apprehend Him as He really is. Not how we want him to be.

Not as we want Him to be. As we feel He is. But then He’s unknowable, so that’s the best we can do.

Your God would be the one that actually exists. And if He’s a God who is to be feared, then that’s what He is.

I meant that if I were a Christian, then I think that I wouldn’t see Him as someone to be feared. I don’t think that I’d fear Him at all.

But if that’s not who God is, and only a projection of how you want God to be, then you might as well remain an atheist.

But aren’t we in the same boat here? Being unknowable means that you could be wrong in your impression of God and I, if I were Christian, could be right? To repeat, if I were Christian then I don’t think the impression I have given of God is what I’d like, I think it would be what I believed. But then again, we see God as we’d like to see Him in any case, so the point is moot. In any case, how could that statement be wrong? Is it possible to believe in a God that we don’t like?

Oh, the Catholic way is definitely argue your way to apprehending Truth. Blind acceptance is a heresy in the Church.

That’s an argument I’d be using with God.

I can’t imagine what you know about God that would lead you to believe He doesn’t exist? What do you know that leads you to believe He doesn’t exist?

It’s not a positive thing - I know this and this and therefore He doesn’t exist (evil in the world etc). It’s more that I simply don’t believe any of it. I can’t put it any simpler. The best way to explain is that tried and tested method of asking you why you don’t believe in other gods.

Let me ask you: if you knew nothing about Christianity whatsoever, would you be an atheist or would you feel drawn to one or other of the religions? If you say you’d be an atheist, then your attitude to religion would be just like mine and you’d know what I feel. I just have one more religion on my list.

Taking away your free will and your free will being fixed, for eternity, are two different things. At any rate, since free will is a gift from God, just as life is, then He can giveth and He can taketh, right?

I guess so. But either way it sounds awful. In any case, I’m having difficulty coming to terms with the meaning of a fixed free will. Surely a contradiction in terms.

 

[Bradski]

As an addendum to my lack of belief…

When I was a young lad I read Papillion by Henri Charrier. You probably know the story perhaps by the film with Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen.

I had great difficulty with a lot of the book because chunks of it were written in the first person. I said this and then he said that. And it was all written as quotes. Originally taken as a novel, at some point Carrier began to insist that it was an autobiography. And an accurate one at that. Even to the point of insisting that the detailed conversations were verbatim. Hold on, I thought. I can’t remember who I was talking to last week, let alone exactly what was said.

And years later, when working overseas, having a company diary on my desk at the time, I got into the habit of jotting down what my wife and I had been getting up to during the week. That continued for a few years. I still have those diaries and if I open one up to any given day it does tend to jog one’s memory about what we were doing. But even with a reasonably accurate account of something that happened to us I can no more tell you exactly what went on that night or that weekend than I could tell you what you were doing then.

You can probably see where I’m going with this…

When I was constantly told that the bible says this and this person in the bible said that, even in my young teens, I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt whatsoever - and I can’t emphasise that strongly enough, that it couldn’t have possibly happened exactly the way it was being explained. And anyone who treated the book as anything other than religious myth mixed in with historical stories mixed in with analogies and metaphors for life and ways and means of How To Be A Good Christian, was either being less than honest with me (and probably themselves) or being extremely naive.

Yes, it’s not all meant to be taken as verbatim (those talking trees!), but I guess it started there. The whole edifice was built on foundations that could not be trusted. I had no choice in the matter. I simply didn’t believe any of it, therefore I was an atheist.

And one thing added to that, to get back to the OP. My parents were very good people. And I realized that they were very good people and Christian. That is, they would have been very good people even if they weren’t. Them being good was not dependent on their faith. And my grandfather was a great man who had no faith to start with. So it was apparent that, not only did the whole shebang come across as unbelievable in the first instance, it wasn’t a requirement in the second.

 

[PRmerger]

Can’t chat much now. Will respond quickly to this and then to one other comment you made…and then will try to come back to address the rest. Sooo much to say!

I guess so. But either way it sounds awful. In any case, I’m having difficulty coming to terms with the meaning of a fixed free will. Surely a contradiction in terms.

Weren’t you the someone here (and I’m pretty sure you were) who says you entertain the notion that we may not even have free will in this life?

Now, isn’t that also an awful concept for you?

 

[PRmerger]

And one thing added to that, to get back to the OP. My parents were very good people. And I realized that they were very good people and Christian. That is, they would have been very good people even if they weren’t. Them being good was not dependent on their faith. And my grandfather was a great man who had no faith to start with. So it was apparent that, not only did the whole shebang come across as unbelievable in the first instance, it wasn’t a requirement in the second.

One doesn’t need belief in God to be good.

The main reason to believe in God…is because it’s true.

Isn’t that really the primary reason to believe anything?

I mean, really, if belief in Santa Claus makes us good, then shouldn’t we be promoting that everyone believe in the fat guy who lives in the North Pole?

Why don’t we?

Because…it’s not…true.

Truth trumps everything.

If there is a God, we ought to believe in Him.

 

[unioman]

We need God in more ways than we think. We need him for life - he is the one who created us, who sustains us, and who ultimately judges us. We were made for him.

A worldview focused only on this earthly, material life does not see God and so there is the thought that one can get by without God. That is like saying to a computer programmer that he can get by without the one who created the computer or the one who supplies the electricity for it to run.

If the thought is about why do we need God to get into heaven, it’s because heaven is all about God. It is about his family - he created us to be his children, but that involves God lifting us up through his Holy Spirit to share in his Divine Nature - and that involves loving him/embracing his will with all of our being. How can we be united to him or like him if we are turning away from him to do our own thing.

Yes, there are plenty of “good” people who try not to hurt their fellow man, but do they love God? Do they live to glorify God? Do they even know God? They have the potential to receive grace like anyone else, but if they choose to live a life apart from him, why would they even want to go to heaven?

 

[unioman]

As I said earlier, God is all things to all men. My God wouldn’t be one to fear. My God would be one with whom I could discuss things and one with whom I could have a debate.

God is both to be feared and loved. If you consider one to be God, you consider him to be the one who created you, who allows you to take each breath, who knows all the good and evil that you have done and and ever will do, and who will judge you accordingly. So there is reason to fear someone who is God. However, you can also consider that God created you and that even though you don’t believe in him, he still allows you to exist because he loves you. Therefore, he is also a God to be loved.

I think it might have bene you that said in another post that in heaven there would be no free will (apologies if it wasn’t). I couldn’t think of anything more horrifying as an eternity like that.

Heaven is a state of perfect union with God. Love is the exercise of one’s free will for the good of the beloved. Heaven therefore is a state where one exercises his free will but not for himself, because his affection is for God and all who dwell in heaven. One has no desire to live for himself in heaven, for there is no selfishness in heaven, there are no needs, all is provided by the goodness of God.

Everything I know about God leads me to believe that He doesn’t exist. Everything I have been told about God leads me to believe that if He does exist, then He is not the sort who would be prepared to sit and listen to me debate Life, the Universe and Everything. But if He does exist, then He knows that that’s what I’ll be doing.

I suggest you pray to God. You talk about knowing “about” God - you miss knowing God personally. We can know about God because he has intervened in our world in various ways. We can know about God personally because he wants to fill us with his Holy Spirit. God reveals himself to us as we pray, he speaks to our hearts, he helps us to know who he is and who we were meant to be in relation to him. I was at a healing conference where the blind were healed, the lame could walk, people with various kinds of infirmities were healed. God gave the leaders words of knowledge about people they never knew, speaking about a situation that hurt their back or some other area - and then commanded them to be healed in the name of Jesus, and they were. Add that to what you know about God.

 

[Bradski]

Weren’t you the someone here (and I’m pretty sure you were) who says you entertain the notion that we may not even have free will in this life? Now, isn’t that also an awful concept for you?

It was me. And I do think that we have it. There are just some people out there who says we may not. I’m investigating…

Life certainly gives us the impression that we do. Could there be anything that makes more sense than being able to make our own minds up? But even if it doesn’t exist, then we feel as if decisions we make are ours. That we could make others. I can choose to do something or not. But I don’t think that’s what you were describing by having no free will. Or having it fixed. You believe that we do have it, so taking it away or fixing it in some way (that still makes no sense to me) implies a change in how we perceive things now to how we would perceive things.

On one hand you suggest it could be horrifying to me to have it taken away, but it appears horrifying to you not to have it in the first instance. I hope that we do have it and I do not want it taken away. But you know that we do have it but don’t seem concerned by having to lose it.

One doesn’t need belief in God to be good. The main reason to believe in God…is because it’s true.

God doesn’t come in isolation. There’s a lot of things that you need to believe that constitutes Christianity. Otherwise you’re just a deist. So when you say ‘it’s true’ you are not referring to one single thing. You are referring to many dependent and interlocking beliefs that are all required to become a Christian.

But, you say, if you believe in God, then the rest will follow. Through faith. But that’s a top down approach and that doesn’t work. Or at least I don’t work like that. It all needs to work from the ground up or the whole thing becomes smoke and mirrors. You can’t start with the answer and then go looking for supporting evidence. Because I guarantee you will always think that you’ve found it.

Don’t you know that that’s the way the vast majority of people become religious? Everybody suffers from confirmation bias.

 

[PRmerger]

Not as we want Him to be. As we feel He is. But then He’s unknowable, so that’s the best we can do.

That is not the Catholic position. God is certainly knowable.

Now, can we ever fully apprehend the Infinite? No.

But that’s quite different from saying that God is unknowable.

I meant that if I were a Christian, then I think that I wouldn’t see Him as someone to be feared. I don’t think that I’d fear Him at all.

Right.

But aren’t we in the same boat here? Being unknowable means that you could be wrong in your impression of God and I, if I were Christian, could be right? To repeat, if I were Christian then I don’t think the impression I have given of God is what I’d like, I think it would be what I believed. But then again, we see God as we’d like to see Him in any case, so the point is moot. In any case, how could that statement be wrong?

Nope. I don’t see God as I would like to see Him.

I would like to have a God who presents Himself to me every day, who comes at my beck and call.

Alas, that is not God.

As the kids in the Narnia Chronicles say, regarding Aslan, “He is not a tame lion.”

Is it possible to believe in a God that we don’t like?

I think that the Calvinist version of God is one that even most Calvinists don’t really like. Someone who predestines folks to hell.

And I daresay that the Muslim belief in God is one where they don’t really like Allah–they worship Allah because Allah is the Creator, but as for “liking” Allah? I don’t think so.

Caveat: don’t take my word for what Calvinists and Muslims believe. Just like you wouldn’t go to a dentist to have your ovarian cyst diagnosed.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s not a positive thing - I know this and this and therefore He doesn’t exist (evil in the world etc). It’s more that I simply don’t believe any of it. I can’t put it any simpler. The best way to explain is that tried and tested method of asking you why you don’t believe in other gods.

Because there is no evidence for the other gods.

There is, however, great evidence for the existence of the God of the Philosophers.

The greatest evidence is the existence of the universe. Nothing explains its existence, esp. its existence borne from nothing,(the Big Bang) except an Immaterial, Eternal and Omnipotent Being.

Let me ask you: if you knew nothing about Christianity whatsoever, would you be an atheist or would you feel drawn to one or other of the religions? If you say you’d be an atheist, then your attitude to religion would be just like mine and you’d know what I feel. I just have one more religion on my list.

I would be Jewish if I weren’t a Christian.

 

[PRmerger]

When I was constantly told that the bible says this and this person in the bible said that, even in my young teens, I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt whatsoever - and I can’t emphasise that strongly enough, that it couldn’t have possibly happened exactly the way it was being explained.

This is the Catholic position as well.

Perhaps if you were on a Fundamentalist Bible Christian forum you could discuss that aspect of the Bible with those folks…but here, we don’t disagree with you.

And anyone who treated the book as anything other than religious myth mixed in with historical stories mixed in with analogies and metaphors for life and ways and means of How To Be A Good Christian, was either being less than honest with me (and probably themselves) or being extremely naive.

Well, now here you’re being circular: “I don’t believe in the Bible because it contains myths, such as a resurrection” and “I wouldn’t believe in a resurrection because it comes from a book of myths, the Bible.”

 

[PRmerger]

It was me. And I do think that we have it. There are just some people out there who says we may not. I’m investigating…

Investigation is always a good thing.

Curious, though: you entertain the idea that we may not have free will because “there are just some people out there who say we may not” have it…

Would that you would entertain the idea (rather than simply reject it) that God exists because “there are some people (a whole lot of people, actually) who say that He does exist.”

Life certainly gives us the impression that we do. Could there be anything that makes more sense than being able to make our own minds up?

Exactly. It does indeed make a whole lot o’ sense.

It’s actually a bit, well, ludicrous, astonishing, puzzling, to think that there are folks who don’t believe it exists.

On one hand you suggest it could be horrifying to me to have it taken away, but it appears horrifying to you not to have it in the first instance.

No, not horrifying. That’s not the word I would use. I consider it peculiar. Odd. Not consonant with reality to have someone posit that we don’t have free wil;

God doesn’t come in isolation. There’s a lot of things that you need to believe that constitutes Christianity. Otherwise you’re just a deist. So when you say ‘it’s true’ you are not referring to one single thing. You are referring to many dependent and interlocking beliefs that are all required to become a Christian.

Yes, sir.

But, you say, if you believe in God, then the rest will follow. Through faith.

I don’t think I’ve ever said that.

Not in the way that I’m reading it here, anyway.

Believing in the God of the Philosphers is the first step, yes. But the rest “following” requires a whole lot more than faith.

I am simply saying: let’s get to the very sensible idea that the God of the Philosophers exists.

Then we can cross the next hurdle leter…

You can’t start with the answer and then go looking for supporting evidence. Because I guarantee you will always think that you’ve found it.

That’s the Catholic approach as well. Seek the truth. Not create a truth that conforms to your own ideals.

Don’t you know that that’s the way the vast majority of people become religious? Everybody suffers from confirmation bias.

I wouldn’t know if that’s how the vast majority of people become religious. And I’m surprised that you could know this.

I do know that the need for God is written in our hearts, and that our hearts are restless until they rest in Him…so most people who are searching for something, are searching for Him.

And I also know, with great certainty, that anyone who seeks Him will find Him.

 

[Bradski]

Because there is no evidence for the other gods.

There isn’t? How about the fact of the universe itself? Almost all people of religion believe that their god created it. As you said…

The greatest evidence is the existence of the universe. Nothing explains its existence, esp. its existence borne from nothing,(the Big Bang) except an Immaterial, Eternal and Omnipotent Being.

As I said above, almost every religion would agree with you.

I would be Jewish if I weren’t a Christian.

Maybe I should have taken God out of the list of available options. That’s what I meant – if you had no knowledge of God, then would you be drawn to another deity…

Well, now here you’re being circular: “I don’t believe in the Bible because it contains myths, such as a resurrection” and “I wouldn’t believe in a resurrection because it comes from a book of myths, the Bible.”

Whoa, no. It is most definitely not circular.

The bible is a mixture of metaphors and myths, parables and facts. I don’t think anyone except a fundamentalist who treats it as inerrant would disagree. My point is that it is impossible to take any part of it and say with certainty that ‘this is meant to be taken exactly as it is written!’

As I said earlier (or was it in another forum), when I got to the point where I was going to be confirmed so that I could take communion I suddenly realised that all the stories I had been told were being taken seriously by everyone.

But baby Jesus in a manger? Adam and Eve and talking snakes? Burning bushes and animals two by two? David and Goliath and parting seas? Manna from heaven and loaves and fishes…? I just knew with absolute certainty that these things hadn’t happened as I had been told. I could no more treat them as actual events than I could stories about the Lady of the Lake or the Golden Fleece.

I wanted to tell everyone - hang on, you shouldn’t be treating all this as fact. They are just stories. And (whisper this bit to myself, don’t want to get into trouble, no-one will know) I don’t actually believe any of it at all.

Yet this was The Book. This was The Word of God. But I knew then that it wasn’t.

 

[tonyrey]

There isn’t? How about the fact of the universe itself? Almost all people of religion believe that their god created it. As you said…

As I said above, almost every religion would agree with you.

Maybe I should have taken God out of the list of available options. That’s what I meant – if you had no knowledge of God, then would you be drawn to another deity…

Whoa, no. It is most definitely not circular.

The bible is a mixture of metaphors and myths, parables and facts. I don’t think anyone except a fundamentalist who treats it as inerrant would disagree. My point is that it is impossible to take any part of it and say with certainty that ‘this is meant to be taken exactly as it is written!’

As I said earlier (or was it in another forum), when I got to the point where I was going to be confirmed so that I could take communion I suddenly realised that all the stories I had been told were being taken seriously by everyone.

But baby Jesus in a manger? Adam and Eve and talking snakes? Burning bushes and animals two by two? David and Goliath and parting seas? Manna from heaven and loaves and fishes…? I just knew with absolute certainty that these things hadn’t happened as I had been told. I could no more treat them as actual events than I could stories about the Lady of the Lake or the Golden Fleece.

I wanted to tell everyone - hang on, you shouldn’t be treating all this as fact. They are just stories. And (whisper this bit to myself, don’t want to get into trouble, no-one will know) I don’t actually believe any of it at all.

Yet this was The Book. This was The Word of God. But I knew then that it wasn’t.

Extremism is rarely true, Brad. It’s not a question of all or nothing…

 

[tonyrey]

As I said earlier, God is all things to all men. My God wouldn’t be one to fear. My God would be one with whom I could discuss things and one with whom I could have a debate.

I think it might have bene you that said in another post that in heaven there would be no free will (apologies if it wasn’t). I couldn’t think of anything more horrifying as an eternity like that. If you are right about certain aspects of God, then I think that He is wrong. I’d want to be able to access that free will and tell Him that.

Look on my version of God as the Dean of the Philosophical Department. He’s a lot smarter than me. He knows a lot more than me. He’s quite probably right about all matters where we differ in opinion. But he’s the guy that’s been teaching me all along to think for myself. To question everything. Never to assume anything. Never to take anything at face value and be eternally sceptical, even about things that I think I personally believe. To treat doubt as an ally and certainty with suspicion.

Do you think that in discussion with him he would like me to blandly accept his views on everything or would he want me to use what intellect I had and argue every point. Fight every opinion. Defend every one of my positions with passion.

Everything I know about God leads me to believe that He doesn’t exist. Everything I have been told about God leads me to believe that if He does exist, then He is not the sort who would be prepared to sit and listen to me debate Life, the Universe and Everything. But if He does exist, then He knows that that’s what I’ll be doing.

Unless He takes away my free will, of course and then I’m just another version of Randle McMurphy and He’s Nurse Ratched.

Apart from “everything I know” and “everything I’ve been told”! Another false dilemma…

 

[PRmerger]

There isn’t? How about the fact of the universe itself? Almost all people of religion believe that their god created it. As you said…

Ah, so when you say "god’ you mean The Creator.

Then, indeed, I do believe there is great evidence for this god.

Now, if you mean Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then please offer your evidence for these gods. Not sure how the FSM, which is a material being made of gluten (?), could create all the material in the universe. It would have had to have existed prior to the material it created. But then it wouldn’t have been its creator. So where did the gluten come from?

 

[PRmerger]

As I said above, almost every religion would agree with you.

Indeed.

One really needs to be blind to logic and reason to make an assertion as astonishing as, “Well, yes, something can indeed come from nothing!”

That’s why almost every single human person, who has used logic, can reason this way:

Whatever comes to exist must have a cause.
The universe came to exist.

Therefore, it had a cause.

Maybe I should have taken God out of the list of available options. That’s what I meant – if you had no knowledge of God, then would you be drawn to another deity…

If by “deity” you mean: superhero, then no.

If by deity you mean: an immaterial, eternal, infinite, perfect deity, then, of course.

Something has to explain the universe!

Whoa, no. It is most definitely not circular.

The bible is a mixture of metaphors and myths, parables and facts. I don’t think anyone except a fundamentalist who treats it as inerrant would disagree. My point is that it is impossible to take any part of it and say with certainty that ‘this is meant to be taken exactly as it is written!’

It depends on what you mean by “with certainty”. If you mean: with 100% assurance, then I agree.

There’s very few things we can assert 100% assurance.

Although I will say, coincidentally, I did use the phrase, “I am 100% certain” today, in conversation with my DH. We were at a restaurant, and 2 of our daughters walked across the street and down the block, to their ballet studio. As they were leaving the restaurant I told my younger daughter, G, to have her older sister, R, text us when they got to the studio.

A few minutes later I commented that I had not received a text yet assuring me they were safely there. DH said, “Are you sure G told R to text you?” And I replied, “I am 100% certain that G would do that. R just forgot to text me.”

I’m quite sure that this is not what you mean by “certainty”, but I just thought I’d share that story here…

… I am rambling since I have 2 hours to spare, in Starbucks, waiting for their class to finish.

 

[PRmerger]

Yet this was The Book. This was The Word of God. But I knew then that it wasn’t.

Well, perhaps you put too much emphasis on The Book.

Catholicism proclaims that we are not a people of The Book.

NB: this is not to disparage the Sacred Scriptures. It is, indeed, the Word of God.

“For this reason, the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord’s Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God’s Word and Christ’s Body”–CCC 103

But Catholicism does not base its teachings on a Book, no matter how holy.

 

[PRmerger]

Whoa, no. It is most definitely not circular.

Please 'splain to me how it’s not circular:

I don’t believe in the Bible because it contains myths.

AND

The resurrection is a myth. It’s in the Bible, therefore the Bible is a book full of myths.