New member, looking for discussion

[wasmit]

Dear Wasmit,
I think you need to ask yourself a single question, and ponder the answer. and that is “are you seeking?”

this is a question I don’t want you to answer to us. answer to yourself. that is- ask yourself, am I seeking? and then try to answer it within yourself -

ponder the question internally- don’t dismiss it lightly.

if you think you are seeking, - and I emphasize the word ‘think’, (because it is impossible at this stage to really know for sure) then the next step is to dive in and find what you are looking for.

you don’t need to drown yourself in facts, or have lots of religious jargon shoved down your throat, all you need right now is to ask that basic question- and ponder inside yourself the answer to it.

indeed, there is really only one thing that matters - its actually two things, but really one - that is that we love God, and love one another. if this is what you are seeking, then know that this is the means and the result of everything we do and say.

this is impossible without faith. and faith always begins at an uncomfortable point, where you aren’t sure about things - and have questions. it begins as a very small thought, a seeking if you will.

without faith, you will not find an answer here. but I think there is some faith if your answer to the question is ‘yes’ because if something has drawn you here and it that something cannot be explained by mere mortals. none of us can explain it, except to say the journey of faith always begins there.

when you have answered it, then your next step is how to furfill it- and along those lines you need to take care of yourself by determining whom should you trust? who has the authority to lead you?

but this is not about proofs, or rationalizing. that belongs in science, not here. indeed, to be convinced the effort is worth taking you need to trust in something blindly - because you are in a burning building and someone is holding out a net- you cannot measure it - you have to leap in and trust that it will hold you. and its not a someone- not a human being.

the trust we have is in the Church because we trust that its authority comes directly from God. this requires faith- faith that if you fall, Jesus alone will catch you through an entire mystical organization founded by Himself when He came to visit us 2000 years ago. He came, and died in your place to save you. He allowed Himself to be tortured by mere humans to take on every doubt you and I have- and there is a our trust - in His cross, and because of His cross, we see His Church reliving it everyday- they are indeed one in the same - as re-live His visit and His death in our place at every mass for a good reason - because it is a constant renewal and strengthening, and deepening of the profound trust we have that His Church will lead us home to Him - where we belong.

We do not reside forever in this life - we are only passing through on a jouney to an eternity with God - all He wants return is our Love- this requires trust in Him, which indeed is what faith is - blind trust - like a baby who trust His parents - like someone falling from a burning building into a net - He knows the net will catch Him and hold Him so he does not fear the fall - so he Dives down to escape the flames that would engulf Him. Seek, and then trust and you will then want and in fact will crave the additional information others have offered you here.

i have no idea what you are talking about.

you sound crazy and delusional.

thanks for the reply, though.

 

[wasmit]

Why don’t you research miracles?

Especially the ones science can’t prove.

Some starting miracles could be the Eucharistic miracles. There are quite a few, most of which are very hard or impossible for science to explain.

Also, try to read the book “The Case for Christ”. I forget the author. I do know he was an atheist, then delved into researching Christianity. Though not Catholic (I’m pretty sure he’s not), reseaching for this book made him Christian.

Give it a try and see what happens!

i looked at the what was said to be the most amazing, the luciano eucharist miracle. It’s just some pieces of dead body. copied frmo another site (emphasis mine):

Being open-minded, I accept that it is possible that a piece of bread miraculously transformed to the flesh and blood of a human heart in the shape of a circle or even a triangle. It is possible in the sense that it can be conceived without contradiction. It’s imaginable.

However, I have no reason to believe that the story is true. Just because something is possible does not mean it has any degree of probability of actually occurring. And just because a story has been told for 1200 years doesn’t mean it’s true, especially one involving miraculous claims. I was raised Catholic and heard my fair share of miracle stories growing up, but this one escaped me. We were taught the doctrine of transubstantiation. We were taught that a miracle occurred during the consecration of the Eucharistic service and that there was no scientific proof for our belief, which was to be based on pure faith. We were, in fact, eating god every time we swallowed the consecrated host. This was not symbolic for us. It may have looked like bread but it was the substance of the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ to us.

It’s possible that the many priests and nuns who were forever trying to convince me of miracles had heard of Lanciano but didn’t pass it on because it has about zero plausibility. At least with the transubstantiation thing we didn’t have to believe that we would taste flesh and blood. The magic was that the accidents or attributes of bread would remain the same while the underlying substance or essence would change. I’m sure I had no idea what that meant when I made my first communion. Anyway, the Lanciano story sounds like the kind of story someone would make up, but I have to admit that it is a pretty stupid story because it seems to have no point or, if has a point, it seems to be a bad one. Why would God work a miracle for a nameless, doubting priest? Is this another doubting Thomas story? The priest has doubts. Would the miracle remove his doubts? Is the lesson that doubt will be rewarded with a slam-dunk miracle to convince you to believe? What kind of lesson is that? You don’t need faith because if you doubt hard enough God will reward you with proof beyond the capacity of any logical argument? It doesn’t sound right. I know, none of this sounds right, but what can you do? As a kid you get this stuff served to you right and left, until it seems natural and normal. As an adult, you’re afraid to challenge the stories even if you recognize that they have zero plausibility. Your family and friends will disown you. Your boss may fire you. And so it goes. Or maybe you are the timid type and are afraid that these stories, as absurd as they seem, might be true and if you reject them you might go to hell. Think about it. Do you really want to spend eternity with these people who say they’re going to heaven? Does an endless existence worshipping anyone sound exciting to you? About the only thing you can say for going to heaven is that it would be better than going to hell. I think I prefer not going anywhere.

This story seems to suffer from the so-called Chinese whispering problem. Otherwise, I am completely baffled at the involvement of the WHO. Anyway, of course no science can explain how bread could become a piece of a heart because such a transformation is not possible according to the currently understood laws of nature. The only mystery is why anyone would take such a story seriously.

My mind would never have inquired into the issue of medical dissection, vivisection, or any other kind of section while thinking about his story if the writer had not brought it up. Nor would the issue of when the forgery occurred have given me much trouble. There is no way to find that out. But I would ask how the unnamed investigator who examined a lump of heart in the 1970s could verify that the lump before him was 1200 years old and that it used to be a piece of bread? And what could it possibly mean to say that “the circular cut that was made was done in such a way as to come to an exact point inside the heart”?

continued…

 

[wasmit]

In any case, I called upon Google, the all-knowing One, to help me with my investigation. My prayers were answered. There is a website devoted to just such miracles. The story told on this website differs a bit from the one above. There is a church in Italy, the Church of St. Legontian, that has preserved some human flesh and blood for twelve centuries. The story is that “a Basilian monk” had doubts about Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist and that during a Mass the host was turned into human flesh and the wine into human blood “as a divine response.” So, as stupid as this story seems to me, it appears to make perfect sense to others. Apparently, there are religious people who believe that God responds to doubts by working miracles as proofs. If so, I should have witnessed millions of miracles by now, but never mind.

A description of the five globules of blood and the flesh are given on the aforementioned website. Some sort of investigation took place in 1574 but no mention is made of why they waited so long to investigate or what they discovered or even who “they” were. A pair of Italian professors examined the relics in 1981 and declared that they were human flesh from a heart and human blood of type AB. So, if we trust the professors (and I don’t have any reason not to), we can say that science has established that the church has a chunk of a human heart and some human blood. Whether it dates from 700, 1574, 1981 or some other date wasn’t established. But, even if the relics are 1200 years old, there is still no way to establish that they were once a piece of bread and a glass of wine.

People who believe such stories of miracles believe them because they want to believe them, not because there is any evidence for the miracle. By the way, there are very few churches in Italy, as I understand it, that don’t have some type of miraculous relic lying about. If you are looking for a way to frame these kinds of stories, I think the most plausible way is to see them in the context of superstitious beliefs that have been found in every culture in every epoch. They are very common, these stories of miracles, but it takes absolute faith to believe the stories are historically accurate.

 

[Callin]

I am looking for clear, rational, arguments for the existence of a god, or the christian god, or to show that something in the bible is true. I have an open mind, and if you show something to be true, or almost certainly true, I must believe it.

Unfortunately, I’m only just starting to read books on religion, and I haven’t yet come across anything that’s specifically on these issues. I’ll try to pull something together.

But the two things that convinced me that there’s a supernatural aspect to everything are: fulfilled prophecy, and the fine-tuned universe.

Many of the Dead Sea Scrolls date back to before the time of Jesus, which you specifically mentioned you were convinced of. Some are of Old Testament books, which contain prophecies about Jesus’ coming, and have been proven to be written before that time. One particular prophecy in Daniel (“the seventy weeks prophecy”) calculates the time that the Messiah will reveal himself, and people have calculated it to be right during the time of Jesus’ ministry.

Books of fulfilled prophecies that are proven to been made before the events they prophesy are a powerful indicator of God, in my opinion.

And then the fine-tuned universe. Forget the odds of a place being suitable for life. The odds that the universe would even allow for molecules to bind and solid matter to form are indescribably small. This page lists numerous constants that, if changed even a little, would render life and stars impossible. For example, the fact that electrons and protons have perfectly opposite charges that allow for atoms of neutral charge. The rate of expansion of the universe (it’s not so small that gravity makes it collapse back on itself, etc).

It all seems like too much of a coincidence to me. That there had to be a God guiding it all. To think otherwise takes an even greater amount of faith, IMO.

So yeah, sorry, I can’t list too many resources, but the internet’s got plenty of articles on these things.

I have recently read Aquinas’ 5 proofs, but counter-arguments have dismissed them.

I’m honestly not a fan of them, either, despite being Catholic. I don’t feel they prove God. They merely prove that any explanation for the universe not having a beginning would be far more complicated and hard to explain than an explanation that it does have a beginning, because basically infinity would play a big role.

 

[wasmit]

Lack of a thing can be every bit as evidentiary as presence of a thing. My point is that there was a very strong incentive for both the Romans and the Jews to find the body and publicly display it, to disprove the claims of the upstart Christian sect. But that never happened. When people have a strong reason to do something, but the thing doesn’t get done, there must be even a stronger reason that prevents it. What was that reason?

I don’t know, and we can not know.

 

[wasmit]

You can pick any religion. Many people actually try many.

The Creed is said on (most) Sundays - not weekdays - and you don’t have to say it - just listen. Perhaps you could investigate why the Nicene Creed is said, what other creeds were used in history and why it’s placed where it is.

The weekday Masses are generally shorter. Don’t expect Mass to be entertainment. It is not there for you. Catholics go to Mass to worship God and not themselves - it is the antithesis to selfish self centered-ness. Getting over selfishness is the path to joy.

The experiment only lasts for one month. If you have an hour a day and your up to the challenge an you can perform the experiment.

I don’t see any point in going to a particular building so that I can lie to myself for an hour each day.

If I was uncertain or doubtful, it might help me find what makes sense to me.

At the moment though, I would just be contradicting myself, and betraying my own integrity and dignity.

As an analogy, it would be like sitting down and rocking back and forth, mumbling the mantra “2 + 2 = 5” for an hour a day. No matter how often I say it, it’s not true.

 

[wasmit]

Unfortunately, I’m only just starting to read books on religion, and I haven’t yet come across anything that’s specifically on these issues. I’ll try to pull something together.

But the two things that convinced me that there’s a supernatural aspect to everything are: fulfilled prophecy, and the fine-tuned universe.

Many of the Dead Sea Scrolls date back to before the time of Jesus, which you specifically mentioned you were convinced of. Some are of Old Testament books, which contain prophecies about Jesus’ coming, and have been proven to be written before that time. One particular prophecy in Daniel (“the seventy weeks prophecy”) calculates the time that the Messiah will reveal himself, and people have calculated it to be right during the time of Jesus’ ministry.

Books of fulfilled prophecies that are proven to been made before the events they prophesy are a powerful indicator of God, in my opinion.

which scroll? can you be more specific?

a quick search of The Creator And Fountain Of All Knowledge leads me to believe that the discovery of the scrolls has had little impact on today’s religions because most of the information held by the scrolls is non-biblical.

And then the fine-tuned universe. Forget the odds of a place being suitable for life. The odds that the universe would even allow for molecules to bind and solid matter to form are indescribably small. This page lists numerous constants that, if changed even a little, would render life and stars impossible. For example, the fact that electrons and protons have perfectly opposite charges that allow for atoms of neutral charge. The rate of expansion of the universe (it’s not so small that gravity makes it collapse back on itself, etc).

It all seems like too much of a coincidence to me. That there had to be a God guiding it all. To think otherwise takes an even greater amount of faith, IMO.

So yeah, sorry, I can’t list too many resources, but the internet’s got plenty of articles on these things.

Say the the odds of there being intelligent life on a planet are one billion to one. There are a billion billion planets in the universe, so there must be an abundancy of life.

how do you know that this is the only universe? there may be millions, or even infinitely many others.

Or perhaps the universe is in its millionth iteration of bang/crunch/bang/crunch.

Furthermore, if the universe had different cosmological constants, there may be intelligent gas blobs floating in the ether saying “wow, everything has worked out so nicely for our existence, it must be a god”, just as you are saying now.

 

[Maranatha]

I don’t see any point in going to a particular building so that I can lie to myself for an hour each day.

If I was uncertain or doubtful, it might help me find what makes sense to me.

At the moment though, I would just be contradicting myself, and betraying my own integrity and dignity.

As an analogy, it would be like sitting down and rocking back and forth, mumbling the mantra “2 + 2 = 5” for an hour a day. No matter how often I say it, it’s not true.

You asked for proof. I outlined an experiment you can perform that will give you the answer you are looking for. My outline is incidental, based on the best knowledge that I have and comes from a Catholic perspective which should not be surprising since I’'m a Catholic.

The Kreeft essay on Joy indicates that to attain joy you need to surrender to the will of God or, if you don’t like the use of the word God, the elimination of selfishness removes the barrier to joy.

You can try your own experiment outline if you wish. BTW, just so you know that this concept is not exclusively Catholic, the elimination of selfishness if one of the principals of Buddism

 

[wasmit]

Here’s a link to a thread JUST like this:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=297874

The first posts are always the best, but take a look through the rest of the thread. It might help you.

Good luck!

I read this thread, and Mr. Shredderbeam is quite persuasive.

It is a shame that the thread had some personal attacks and rudeness near the end.

 

[theLogos]

In any case, I called upon Google, the all-knowing One, to help me with my investigation. My prayers were answered. There is a website devoted to just such miracles. The story told on this website differs a bit from the one above. There is a church in Italy, the Church of St. Legontian, that has preserved some human flesh and blood for twelve centuries. The story is that “a Basilian monk” had doubts about Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist and that during a Mass the host was turned into human flesh and the wine into human blood “as a divine response.” So, as stupid as this story seems to me, it appears to make perfect sense to others. Apparently, there are religious people who believe that God responds to doubts by working miracles as proofs. If so, I should have witnessed millions of miracles by now, but never mind.

A description of the five globules of blood and the flesh are given on the aforementioned website. Some sort of investigation took place in 1574 but no mention is made of why they waited so long to investigate or what they discovered or even who “they” were. A pair of Italian professors examined the relics in 1981 and declared that they were human flesh from a heart and human blood of type AB. So, if we trust the professors (and I don’t have any reason not to), we can say that science has established that the church has a chunk of a human heart and some human blood. Whether it dates from 700, 1574, 1981 or some other date wasn’t established. But, even if the relics are 1200 years old, there is still no way to establish that they were once a piece of bread and a glass of wine.

People who believe such stories of miracles believe them because they want to believe them, not because there is any evidence for the miracle. By the way, there are very few churches in Italy, as I understand it, that don’t have some type of miraculous relic lying about. If you are looking for a way to frame these kinds of stories, I think the most plausible way is to see them in the context of superstitious beliefs that have been found in every culture in every epoch. They are very common, these stories of miracles, but it takes absolute faith to believe the stories are historically accurate.

I wish most people excercised the skepticism you did wasmit. You will find many old wives tales as you investigate lots of religions. Many even abandoning common sense. You may be surprised to learn that the Bible, and the God of the Bible in fact ENCOURAGES good healthy skepticism. I too have been in your shoes being a former agnostic (which you actually are, being 99% atheist). You’ve already ordered the best book by a hard core skeptic you’ll read which was my first which is Josh McDowell’s book who btw is not Roman Catholic. This book will be your best start in this investigation.

 

[wilbur006]

WASMIT.

I’ve studied and taught religion and apologetics since the early 1950’s. I believe I understand (or at least think I do) of what you are seeking. The type of proofs for true apologetics, and for issues of proving the existence of God, His Nature, the Natural Law, all of the attributes of God, etc., can be arrived at by natural reasoning; but only from text books designed for that.

I find it interesting that you have studied God existence issue from St. Thomas Aquinas’s five proofs, but dismissed them as defective. This, to me, is an astounding conclusion, and can only mean that you either did not fully understand this multiple discussions on each of the proofs, or you believed his conclusion were false. I assure you that once his discussions on each is understood, it is impossible to rationally conclude his proofs are false.

I of course could not expect you to obtain Aquinas’ full multiple volumes of his Summa Theologica; but what is quite adequate is a 700 page volume that I used in my Jesuit training “way back in time”. This of course is very condensed, but it answers very adequately (using Aquinas’ method of proofs) subjects such as God, Creation, Man (his powers and knowledge), the end of man, Human acts, Natural Law, Grace, etc.

The title of this book is Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, Edited with an Introduction by Anton C. Pegis, President, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. It was copyrighted in 1948 by Random House.

It might be possible to find this book through the Web. While there are probably many short versions of Aquinas’s work, I am skeptical on how good they might be in terms of fully covering his proofs on any specific subject. I say that since I have reviewed to introduction text books from Stanford and another University, and they were no where as complete in setting forth the proofs as in Aquinas’ larger works.

I was a person (and still am) that demands logical proofs for many things; and I have found that this is possible in religion as well as sciences. For example, I have personally prepared a 45 page document proving from scripture, and from a multiple source of historical writings that Jesus did establish a Church which is substantially different that understood by Evangelical, Congregational, Fundamentalist, and other denominations; as well as proving many of the dogmas of the Catholic Faith in a manner that one proves any historical event.

Wish you Gods’ speed, and really praise God for letting you begin to want to find the truth. You may contact me directly if ever in need of info, at wilbur006@dishmail.net

 

[John1]

why do you believe in an afterlife?

how do you know the given answers are right?

thanks for your reply

Hi again Wasmit,

You asked why I believe in an afterlife and I guess the only answer to that is because I choose to. I guess that’s maybe a key to the whole thing. I choose to believe in an afterlife because, for me, the alternative is horribly depressing. Believing in God gives me the opportunity to believe that there’s more to reality than what we can see or touch. Believing in God means to me that there is some order to all the chaos that there’s someone in control even when I feel so out of control. Believing in God means for me that there is an abolute truth and that truth is not relative. Believing in God means that there is someone that has made the rules to live by and that I don’t make the rules, in other words a life without rules, where anything goes, would be anarchy. In a sense reality is relative, it’s a choice, and I happened to choose Jesus Christ as my reality.

Here’s a joke I’ve heard, you may have heard of it already. Once there was an atheist running from a bear. As the bear drew close the atheist tripped and fell. Just befor the bear pounced on him the atheist cried out to God for help. At once time stood still and there was a voice from heaven. God asked the atheist, you have denied that I exsisted all your life and now at the moment of your death, you call on me, doesn’t that seem a little hypocritical. The atheist, being an honest an logical man, said yes God, I suppose it’s tooo late for me to be a Christian, but could you make the bear a Christian. God heard his prayer and immediately the bear placed his paws together and said, “thank you father for the food that I am about to receive…”

I know that was pretty lame, anyway, I hope you choose to believe in God because I know it means everything to me. Ultimately it’s your choice.

 

[PhilVaz]

<< You’ve already ordered the best book by a hard core skeptic you’ll read which was my first which is Josh McDowell’s book who btw is not Roman Catholic. This book will be your best start in this investigation. >>

I don’t understand why people (especially Catholics) keep recommending Josh McDowell when

(A) there is a fairly convincing takedown (i.e. refutation) of his book at the Internet Infidels ("The Jury Is In" edited by J.J. Lowder) that’s been online for about a decade

(B) J.P. Holding gave the so-called “updated” version of McDowell a terrible review (I have to agree with this prominent Internet apologist), as did J.J. Lowder of course ( "Evidence That Demands a Refund") and McDowell refuses to respond to Lowder which is sad

(C) The original 2 volumes of “Evidence” (if I remember right) are mainly QUOTATIONS of other evangelical Christian scholars, I.E. there is very little original thought in those books (it’s been a while since I’ve read them).

(D) There are much better (i.e. sophisticated) books out there for the skeptic: Handbook of Christian Apologetics (1994) by Kreeft/Tacelli being #1, and Reasonable Faith (3rd edition, 2008) by Craig being #2. Yes I am big fans of these books.

However, I WOULD recommend both of Strobel’s books: The Case for Christ (the classic 1998 book, on the NT/Gospels and Jesus) and The Case for the Real Jesus (his newer book rebutting false claims about the historical Jesus). Strobel did not become a Christian as a result of these books, he’s been an evangelical Christian since 1981 (see his story in the DVD version of “The Case For Christ”). He does write as a skeptical “reporter” in the book interviewing prominent evangelical Christian scholars.

You can throw out his Case For A Creator in my opinion (except for the chapter by Craig) because of its poor anti-science arguments and opposition to evolution. That is not necessary and a bad tactic. Get Finding Darwin’s God (and its follow up Only A Theory) by Ken Miller or The Language of God by Francis Collins instead.

Phil P

 

[neophyte]

…the bible is a book that has been translated and edited a great many times; such that its original meaning has been heavily skewed. Even if it was written by divine inspiration(seems exceedingly unlikely), the original meaning has changed…

That’s absolutely untrue. The ancient manuscript evidence that we have for the texts of the bible is easily comparible to what we have for any other ancient texts, and in almost all cases is better.

 

[VociMike]

which god? many religions demand exclusivity, and to choose one is to invoke the displeasure of the others.

That’s a separate question, requiring a separate investigation.

 

[VociMike]

I don’t know, and we can not know.

But the question is not whether we can know (why nobody ever claimed to have Christ’s body, or know where it is now buried). The question is, does the fact that no such body or knowledge was ever claimed, support the possibility of Christ’s resurrection, or refute it, or is neutral about it. And a reasonable person must conclude that the fact supports the resurrection.

 

[Callin]

Say the the odds of there being intelligent life on a planet are one billion to one. There are a billion billion planets in the universe, so there must be an abundancy of life.

No, I’m not arguing that. I’m saying the odds that the universe would even allow for molecular bonds to form is very rare. For there to be planets that can support life, there first have to be planets. I’m saying even the odds of even that happening are 1 in a billion.

how do you know that this is the only universe? there may be millions, or even infinitely many others.

Maybe, but there’s no evidence for any of that yet. It would require quite a bit of faith to believe something for which there is no evidence.

To even prove that, there would have to be a means of traveling from one universe to another - of transferring matter between them. And if there are other universes, and traveling between them is possible, then why hasn’t some chaotic universe gone and destroyed ours yet?

Furthermore, if the universe had different cosmological constants, there may be intelligent gas blobs floating in the ether saying “wow, everything has worked out so nicely for our existence, it must be a god”, just as you are saying now.

I’m not saying that ours are the only ones capable of producing life. But even you must confess that for gas molecules to somehow connect each other and become intelligent would require favorable conditions.

 

[YourAverageJoe]

Say the the odds of there being intelligent life on a planet are one billion to one. There are a billion billion planets in the universe, so there must be an abundancy of life.

how do you know that this is the only universe? there may be millions, or even infinitely many others.

Or perhaps the universe is in its millionth iteration of bang/crunch/bang/crunch.

all your statements above are based faith, your faith, however you continue to hold on to them with Zero evidence, tell us how can this be different from a beliver?

 

[wasmit]

That’s absolutely untrue. The ancient manuscript evidence that we have for the texts of the bible is easily comparible to what we have for any other ancient texts, and in almost all cases is better.

can you give information to support this?

 

[wasmit]

But the question is not whether we can know (why nobody ever claimed to have Christ’s body, or know where it is now buried). The question is, does the fact that no such body or knowledge was ever claimed, support the possibility of Christ’s resurrection, or refute it, or is neutral about it. And a reasonable person must conclude that the fact supports the resurrection.

(subject: jesus’ body)

I disagree, there are many other more likely explainations, e.g. it was lost, hidden, destroyed, is still buried, etc…

Given information that something cannot be found, the most reasonable explaination is not “it magically disappeared”.

(why isn’t there an automatic quote-in-quote on this website? It’s annoying, as the context of a discussion can easily be obscured)