Returning to the Church out of fear?

[kapp19]

You are in a difficult position…

I think you should make a courageous act to open your mind and heart to the possibility that you can in fact know what God says about Himself and how to reach Him, then study the Faith (this website has many good articles to read)… and ask God for help to clarify the difficulties for you.

I think you are closer than you might assume… you are worried about the validity of your confession… implying you actually think that that’s a real thing. Which it is.

I will pray for you, feel free to pm me.

-K

 

[Frankenfurter]

The only reason I fear death and hell so much is because of what I was taught as a Catholic- that if I ever left or doubted or sinned I’d go to hell.

Good for you for thinking for yourself and seeing your way out of that abusive kind of cultist mind game stuff. Whoever taught you that was wrong.

I assure you that there are plenty of people in the Catholic church that have left, have doubted, or sinned. We are all sinners.

People have their sins forgiven and for all we know are not in hell. The problem with sin is not that it is one event that lands you in hell. It is the fact that it separates you from God, and over time makes you forget about God, not want to have a relationship with him. Sin takes you to a place where you become self reliant and unable to have the humility to need to reach out for God.

Anyone who makes an absolute statement like that, that if you EVER sinned you go to hell, is expressing a very fundamentalist, overly-simple kind of understanding of the real relationship between God our Father and his children.

The Catholic faith is not fundamentalist like that. And if you run into people who express it that way, your instincts to run from them are good!

Just stay humble when it comes to God. Keep thinking for yourself. Question your faith. Explore the richness of the faith. Much of this has to be done alone. Other people in your life are on their own journey.

Going back to church only out of a sense of fear based on erroneous fundamentalist views does not sound like a healthy basis for a relationship.

We seek God for what he can do for us. Try to focus on the positive things that God can do for you, not the negative stuff. God can give you peace so that you don’t have to live in fear.

May the peace of Christ be with you.

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

Catholicism made me feel like I was loved and special and that it was okay if life didn’t work out.

Why would you ever depart from this feeling? Come back home! God is calling you back!

 

[littlered123]

Because it’s a feeling. Feelings don’t prove anything is true. They also don’t last. It would be stupid to rely on feelings. I am sure many religions and churches would be welcoming and offer nice feelings as well. So why choose Catholicism?

 

[littlered123]

I think you are closer than you might assume… you are worried about the validity of your confession… implying you actually think that that’s a real thing. Which it is.

I was just wondering how Catholics would view it since I knew certain conditions are present to make it valid or invalid

 

[kapp19]

You cannot expect God to accept the following: “I am afraid You might be real so I will just pretend You are real and do outward actions that are implied by Your possible reality but without actually believing in You.”

What specifically is giving you the hesitation you are having?

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

Because its true. It’s what the apostles and church fathers taught us to do. Use this to verify: https://www.churchfathers.org/

 

[littlered123]

And why are the Church fathers and apostles right? Why isn’t Muhammad right or Joe Smith?

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

Because if you believe in Jesus, you believe that what He said is true. He is God. Muhammad denies he was God, Joe Smith denies He was telling the truth when He said: “and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it (His Church)”

Jesus’s claim is so great, so unprecedented, that you either believe He is who He says He is, He is lying, or He is crazy (and telling lies). There is no grey area. Hence why at the end of time, there will only be two camps: those who chose Christ and those who did not.

 

[littlered123]

Or he did not truly say or mean what he said. It is very possible that the gospels are not accurate. For example, one perspective is that he was actually just a good Jew who thought the end of the world was near(not uncommon) and he was trying to let others know and prepare for the apocalypse. Over time due to the culture and religions of the time(which included characters who were half human and half gods and proclaimed emperors as gods) may have led early Christians(Jews and Gentiles) to distort the character and message of Jesus and proclaim him as God. And yes he probably was a bit crazy in the head if this theory is true

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

The Gospels are extremely reliable…far more reliable than many other historical documents created hundreds of years after they were written, despite what many biased sources proclaim to be “historically unreliable”. All I will say on this is you should look into the issue from both sides and you will find that usually those saying that the gospels are inaccurate are usually people trying to fight Christianity. Common sense tells us that if the gospels were inaccurate don’t you think people would’ve have stopped following Christianity by now? Its been 2000 years…this argument is just foolish.

Think about what you just said…“he did not say or mean what he said” (IE: lying)

so you think that He was not meaning what He said (lying) and not all there in the head (crazy). So you do not believe in Him.

one perspective

Do you believe in an inherent truth, an actual knowledge or “perspective” that is for lack of a better term “the single right answer” ?

 

[littlered123]

The Gospels are extremely reliable…far more reliable than many other historical documents created hundreds of years after they were written, despite what many biased sources proclaim to be “historically unreliable”. All I will say on this is you should look into the issue from both sides and you will find that usually those saying that the gospels are inaccurate are usually people trying to fight Christianity. Common sense tells us that if the gospels were inaccurate don’t you think people would’ve have stopped following Christianity by now? Its been 2000 years…this argument is just foolish.

I have even heard priest historians state that the Gospels are not meant to be historically accurate. The Gospels were written to evangelize. Which would be why facts differ in each of the Gospels and not all the wording is the same. The Gospels however are one of the few sources of those times that speaks of Jesus. Over time more people have stopped following Christianity, probably because more people are educated and are able to think critically for themselves. Many other religions have survived hundreds and thousands of years so that argument doesn’t work too well

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

There are plenty of sources to understand the credibility of the gospels (including this website). This post is not about that, sorry for kinda getting off topic.

I don’t really understand where you’re coming from, you say your wondering if returning to the faith out of fear is worthwhile, but at the same time you are arguing against it. It seems like your are trying to explain to yourself that your decision to leave was right all along. If you aren’t willing to pursue Truth with a capitol T (what is actually true and what is not) then what’s the point of asking?

Catholics believe what they believe because they think that Jesus was telling the truth. The early church fathers (the guys taught by the Apostles who actually knew and talked with Jesus himself) clarify and verify what he was saying was true. So if you are willing to look into what I gave you earlier you will find a gem of historically verifiable excerpts from their writings verifying that the Catholic Church is the One True Church. It’s been around since the Apostles, and it’s still around today. SO what Jesus was saying is still true to this very day…and that’s proof in and of itself to his testimony that his established church would be here to stay.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

littlered123:

I don’t want to jeopardize my relationship to follow something that might not even be true.

I found this to be the saddest sentence in your entire post.

Yeah, no man is worth giving up God over. I personally can’t imagine being with a man who wasn’t supportive of my faith and religion, even if he himself didn’t believe or didn’t want to practice it.

Why would you want a man who wouldn’t let you do what you feel you need to do? Are you going to plan your whole life so as to not upset him for fear of losing the relationship? That sounds like a sad way to live.

Or he did not truly say or mean what he said. It is very possible that the gospels are not accurate. For example, one perspective is that he was actually just a good Jew who thought the end of the world was near(not uncommon) and he was trying to let others know and prepare for the apocalypse…

Yeah, you can argue this back and forth all day. I’m just going to repeat here the conversation that a Catholic pastor I know said he had with an atheist. The pastor said to the atheist, okay, let’s assume we both live our lives and then die. If the atheist is right and there’s nothing after death, the pastor has lost nothing. He still had a good life on earth being a pastor and doing good works, etc. It’s not like the pastor was going to be sad that he didn’t run around committing all kinds of sins and bad acts in the world, because if there’s just nothing, the pastor won’t be having any kinds of thoughts or emotions after death.
But if the pastor is right and there’s judgment and God and so forth, then the atheist could very well lose everything and be miserable for eternity. Simple logic.

 

[littlered123]

I’m just going to repeat here the conversation that a Catholic pastor I know said he had with an atheist. The pastor said to the atheist, okay, let’s assume we both live our lives and then die. If the atheist is right and there’s nothing after death, the pastor has lost nothing. He still had a good life on earth being a pastor and doing good works, etc. It’s not like the pastor was going to be sad that he didn’t run around committing all kinds of sins and bad acts in the world, because if there’s just nothing, the pastor won’t be having any kinds of thoughts or emotions after death.
But if the pastor is right and there’s judgment and God and so forth, then the atheist could very well lose everything and be miserable for eternity. Simple logic.

The Catholic may have lost opportunities and joys of life. The problem is, what does it mean to live as God exists? Because people’s ideas of what it means will differ widely and many Christians and even Catholics don’t live much better if at all, lives than atheists or agnostics. I know regardless of my religion, I want to seek to improve myself and work hard and I want to have a positive influence on others. I don’t need belief in God for that. And why would God punish an atheist or agnostic for not believing something when it wasn’t obvious to them and it made more sense not to believe? Would he punish the Catholic if it turned out that Catholicism wasn’t the true religion? Why would the Catholic not be punished but the atheist punished? I hate not knowing what’s true and sometimes worry I’ll go to hell for not choosing the right religion. But I don’t think it’s possible to research in depth all religions let alone figure out which is true

 

[littlered123]

Yeah, no man is worth giving up God over. I personally can’t imagine being with a man who wasn’t supportive of my faith and religion, even if he himself didn’t believe or didn’t want to practice it.

Why would you want a man who wouldn’t let you do what you feel you need to do? Are you going to plan your whole life so as to not upset him for fear of losing the relationship? That sounds like a sad way to live.

He is just very scientific in the way he thinks and in his eyes, since there is no way to know if God exists or if a religion is true, it seems a bit irrational for me to decide to follow a religion. He would not mind it as long as I didn’t allow it to interfere much with our relationship

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The Catholic may have lost opportunities and joys of life.

The Catholic who is dead and according to the hypothetical, enters nothingness, is not going to regret any such loss, because existence stops at death so there won’t be any afterlife in which to regret, or consciousness to regret with.

The problem is, what does it mean to live as God exists? Because people’s ideas of what it means will differ widely

Not really. The major differences these days seem to involve a) sexual behavior and b) whether one prays or goes to church.
Virtually everything else, such as not stealing, not killing, not lying, etc are nowadays accepted as general standards of moral behavior.

Regarding sexual behavior, in my mind, sexual pleasure isn’t worth risking eternity over. And I don’t admire people who are so driven by sexual desire that they would go against a moral principle or engage in all kinds of moral rationalizations in order to have sex, or have a sexual relationship. In the past when I committed sins of that nature I didn’t admire myself either. I thought I was acting pretty pathetic and I’m extremely happy that phase of my life came to an end.

 

[otjm]

I find it interesting that China, with a long-standing policy of one child, adopted nfp because of its extremely high reliability. Mother Theresa taught nfp to completely illiterate Hindus and it had the same reliability. And that reliability is in the 97 to 99% range when used as taught.

The Church does not say you have to have a huge family; nor does it say you have to have children immediately - although interestingly studies by psychologists have found that families which have children “early” - in the first several years of marriage, tend to have happier marriages overall to thoise who put off child bearing for a number of years. Funny how that happens.

One can wait the rest of their life for “financial factors”. You need to make your own decisions, but you also need to determine how self-centered they are, as opposed to being other-centered. Which interestingly is a definition of love, the act, as opposed to love - the emotion.

The mind does very interesting things when confronted with dichotomy. You obviously have been raised with some background in Catholicism. You are also living with your boyfirend, which you most likely know is considered a serious and on-going sin.

Rationalization is the normal reaction when caught up in a dichotomy of one’s own making. I have read your rationalizations about faith and about God and about the Bible, and they are just that - rationalizations. Another way of saying it is they are excuses, which is what we all use when we don’t want to deal with reasons.

My dad was born in 1912, as the second youngest of 8 children, and by the age of 14 his mother was dead for a couple of years and the family was scratching to put food on the table for the next meal - literally. He quit high school at 14 and joined his brothers working in the woods; he was a choker setter - scrambling over downed trees to wrap a cable around it so it could be high-lined up to the log landing. The point is that if you think you have money issues, you are blithely unaware of what serious money problem are.

It is easy to spin yourself into a black hole of “doubt” about God, morality, children, family, money, and a whole host of issues, to avoid the choices you are making which you have been taught are immoral.

I am not trying to beat you up; I am just not interested in mincing words. I am 74 and have made my share - and perhaps more than my share - of wrong decisions and sins. It is said that hind sight is 20-20; I think it may even be sharper than that. Self honesty is difficult; it is even more difficult when we are in a situation of our own choosing, and there is that nagging little voice in the background that we don’t want to listen to - after all, wemade the choice.

I don’t suggest you return to the Church out of fear. I suggest you return to the Church out of self honesty with where you are at now, and how you got there. But if it takes fear to get you back on the correct track, that is better than simply staying on the wrong track.

It is your choice.

 

[catholiclala]

Chastity is needed more now than ever. I can’t think of one person I know who has reaped any positive benefits from pre-marital sex aside from fleeting pleasure. I am no prude and enjoyed sex superficially before I became chaste. The sensual pleasure was never worth the chaos of trying to navigate relationships and bodily respect in the wild west of post sexual revolution society.

 

[fide]

I mean I think he’d still accept me, but we both have deal breakers we have talked about and at least one of his is connected to morality ie he is against solely relying on nfp for contraception

“deal breakers”??? I hope you don’t really mean what that means. Any relationship which is based on a “deal” - i.e. “I’ll do this and not do that, if and only if you’ll do this other thing and not do that other thing.” - any relationship like that works for a car dealer and a car buyer, but not for real and lasting love.