Is the question of God's existence the most important question of your life?

  • Thread starter Thread starter snarflemike
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Charlemagne_II said:
If we die not believing in the existence of God, we are doomed. So yes, it is the most important question in life.
Click to expand...
Wrong.

You have no evidence for this and the Catholic Church does not teach this.

You should make it clear such statements are your own personal opinion and nothing more.

Sarah x šŸ™‚
 
atheistgirl said:
the Catholic Church does not teach this.

You should make it clear such statements are your own personal opinion and nothing more.
Click to expand...
Schooled by an atheist. šŸ™‚

This thread has become something very different than it once was.
 
meltzerboy said:
Wasnā€™t King Lear insane?
Click to expand...
He could see very clearly how evil his older daughters and - unlike the present government in the UK - how he had neglected the poor:
Poor naked wretches, wheresoā€™er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loopā€™d and windowā€™d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have taā€™en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
Click to expand...
 
atheistgirl said:
Wrong.

You have no evidence for this and the Catholic Church does not teach this.

You should make it clear such statements are your own personal opinion and nothing more.

Sarah x šŸ™‚
Click to expand...
Heā€™s not wrong; heā€™s right. See John, Chapter 3.
 
Blinky said:
Heā€™s not wrong; heā€™s right. See John, Chapter 3.
Click to expand...
He is wrong.

His pronouncement of doom on those that do not believe in the existence of God is way above his pay grade.

Thatā€™s Godā€™s decision, and Godā€™s alone.

What does the Church teach?
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
847This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338
Click to expand...
It does not teach those who do not believe in God are doomed.

Sarah x šŸ™‚
 
atheistgirl

You have no evidence for this and the Catholic Church does not teach this.

Let me tell you for a fact what the Catholic Church does teach.

We are all sinners. Almost all of us have sinned mortally.

If we do not admit our sins and ask Godā€™s forgiveness and do penance, we are doomed.

So where does the atheist fit into this scenario?

He wants nothing to do with God.

Like the rest of us he sins mortally.

He does not admit his sins and seek forgiveness from God.

He dies in this condition.

And you think he then goes to heaven?

You should not fool yourself that you as an atheist are getting a free pass into heaven because you are an honest atheist. There is no such thing. All atheists lie to themselves when they say there is no God. And thatā€™s just another mortal sin to be paid for dearly by the will of the atheist to never see God up close and personal.

That is why so many atheists do convert on their deathbed. They know instinctively, and they follow their instinct. They learn at last to fear the hell they have chosen more than the God they have dismissed as a figment of imagination.

ā€œThe fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.ā€ Psalms 14:1
 
Charlemagne_II said:
So where does the atheist fit into this scenario?

He wants nothing to do with God.

Like the rest of us he sins mortally.

He does not admit his sins and seek forgiveness from God.

He dies in this condition.

And you think he then goes to heaven?

You should not fool yourself that you as an atheist are getting a free pass into heaven because you are an honest atheist. There is no such thing. All atheists lie to themselves when they say there is no God. And thatā€™s just another mortal sin to be paid for dearly by the will of the atheist to never see God up close and personal.

That is why so many atheists do convert on their deathbed. They know instinctively, and they follow their instinct. They learn at last to fear the hell they have chosen more than the God they have dismissed as a figment of imagination.
Click to expand...
If God exists, Iā€™ll take it up with Him at the appropriate time.

Meanwhile, you do not know anything about anyone who dies and where they end up, heaven or hell, other than those declared Saints by the Church.

As such, your personal opinion is worthless in this case.

You are not God, nor can you presume to know who He shows mercy to and who He doesnā€™t.

Rather than judging peopleā€™s final destination, something you simply can not do, I recommend you pray for them instead.

Sarah x šŸ™‚
 
Thinking

You beat me to it. I myself was going to comment on how far this thread has strayed from itā€™s original path.

We have not strayed. We are talking about WHY the question of Godā€™s existence is the most important question in life. Without God, we are all lost, both in this life and in the next.
 
atheistgirl
**
Meanwhile, you do not know anything about anyone who dies and where they end up, heaven or hell, other than those declared Saints by the Church.**

Now you are trying very deftly to change the subject. I am not the judge of who goes to hell and I never said I was. Please behave yourself! Obviously, if an atheist dies repentant of his sins, he has a chance at Godā€™s mercy just like the rest of us. But I would not want to enter eternity thumbing my nose at God. That is about the stupidest thing anybody could do.

God gives us what we strive for. If we strive for heaven, we get it. If we thumb our nose at heaven, we get what we ask for.
 
R_C said:
As far as I understand, God loves of infinite love even the souls in hell. This is a consequence of the fact that God loves unconditionally, for in fact God is love. However, He ā€œhatesā€ their corrupted will in such a way that in hell the separation from the sanctifying power of Divine love is complete - not because God ceases to love the damned soul, but because the damned soul has so rejected and despised God, he finds himself locked into his ego forever, blind to all that is beautiful and good and true, incapable to love or to be loved.

All I was trying to say is that Godā€™s love is not ā€œforcedā€: the souls indeed can chose to not love Him, reject His love, and find themselves self-excluded from Him.
Click to expand...
I donā€™t see how you can even conjecture that hell is love.
 
atheistgirl said:
He is wrong.

His pronouncement of doom on those that do not believe in the existence of God is way above his pay grade.

Thatā€™s Godā€™s decision, and Godā€™s alone.

What does the Church teach?

It does not teach those who do not believe in God are doomed.

Sarah x šŸ™‚
Click to expand...
See the Catechism, pp. 1033-1037.
 
belorg said:
No sane person will reject love, whether divine or not.

Yes.

I donā€™t mean some temporal rejection of Love, I mean fundamental rejection of Love. Most people at times are too proud to accept love, or too greedy etc. But when it comes down to rejecting love altogether in all circumstances, that would amount to insanity because then you would be working against your own best interest. And consistenltly working against your own best interest is what I would call insane.
Click to expand...
We are talking here about a difference between limited instances of insanity, and the final Insanity Against the Holy Ghost.

One problem I can see here, though, which unfortunately for us will likely prove insurmountable (based on previous exchanges) is the question of fault.

Usually, when people think of ā€œinsanityā€ they are thinking of some condition that a person has that is not, specifically, their fault. However, particular acts of pride, anger, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, sloth, would be the fault of the person committing them. And, a final decision to embrace any of those categories as a final rejection of love, would also be the fault of the one doing the rejecting.

I like your philosophy with regard to love, initially! I too, agree, that a person would have to be insane to reject it with finality. But I fear that, unlike you, I am not getting that person off the hook by pretending they have some kind of a disease or something.

To be clear: sin is insanity, sin is ā€œsick,ā€ sin is a disease. But it is not one that is without fault on the part of the sinner.

Sins are simply actions that harm or kill love.
 
belorg said:
Which was not the point of this thread.
Click to expand...
Still, you donā€™t get to use it in an argument unless you have established it.
belorg said:
Of course one should seek to disabuse oneself of error, but one should not presuppose that everything that does not happen to fit oneā€™s preferred belief is an error.
Click to expand...
Indeed that is not what I do.
 
tonyrey said:
Quote:belorg

I am not an inanimate object although I consist of inanimate materials.

Quote:tonyrey

You need to prove you consist solely of inanimate materials.
. . .

No response!
Click to expand...
You were expecting a response from inanimate materials?šŸ¤·
 
jimmy said:
The question of my own existence has been the most important question of my life. The fact that I exist is the most absurd idea that has ever occurred to me. The question of Godā€™s existence is dependent on that question.
Click to expand...
Allow me: you exist. Next question. . .?
 
Blinky said:
See the Catechism, pp. 1033-1037.
Click to expand...
I have.
God predestines no one to go to hell;620 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.
Click to expand...
I have not willfully turned away from God šŸ¤·

I can not willfully turn away from something that I see no evidence for existing šŸ¤·

Once again, the Church does not pronounce anyone doomed, and no poster here has the authority to say, like Charlemagne did, that those who do not believe in God are doomed.

Iā€™ll continue on being a person of honesty and integrity and take my chances at the end šŸ‘

Sarah x šŸ™‚
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top