Somewhat Catholic but not sure if I believe in an afterlife?

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Tis_Bearself said:
Earth is a construct of God. He isn’t bound by it. Neither are we because God created us to live forever beyond the time when both our bodies and this physical Earth are long gone.

We’re just visiting here in the “meat suit” God gave us to function here.
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You seem to neglect the fact that we humans are created as body and soul, together, forever. We are not souls with ‘meat suits.’ Christ did not incarnate into a human meat suit. Mary did not ascend to heaven with her earthly meat suit. While our bodies will pass away - temporarily - our souls will be reunited with our bodies at the time of resurrection and we will live eternally as body-and-soul entities. Our entire created beings, body and soul, are holy. God created us as such and said that we were good. To denigrate part of us is to denigrate the whole.
 
As a side note to the OP’s situation, I find it interesting that some Christians, including Catholics, have such difficulty reconciling science and religion and others, even highly educated ones, don’t.

A few months ago at one of my in-laws’ funerals, this Baptist relative by marriage said to my husband, “I have a question for you. You seem to be really into science.” (This was true - my husband had one engineering degree, he never finished grad school, but he had 30 years of on the job experience in his field, was pretty knowledgeable and was also the kind of guy who liked to sit around watching science shows on TV and reading sci fi. ) “Does science ever interfere with your beliefs? Do you ever have a conflict between science and your Christian faith?” Or something like that (husband was relating this convo to me later, I wasn’t there).

Husband replied, “Nope!” That was the end of the conversation.
I know he answered honestly, too, because if my husband ever had a deep thought about science vs. faith or any “conflict” about this, it died of loneliness. In fact his biggest problem from my viewpoint was that he trusted in God so much to take care of everything that he didn’t feel he needed to do much on his end except believe in Jesus as Savior, live a responsible life, and try to be reasonably kind to people.

I know other people who spend hours every day trying to reconcile God and “science” and really racking their brains over it and getting into it. I accept that their brains work this way but I can’t say I understand it since my husband didn’t think that way and I (who have 2 engineering degrees, although I’m not as much “into” science as husband was) never thought that way either. I just figured whatever neat scientific phenomena we were discovering this week was ultimately created by God and part of His plan.
 
You need to focus on Jesus and your faith and push the science nonsense to the side … science is not the answer … God is.
 
Rozellelily said:
I’m the sort of person that things have to make sense to.
You probably have more faith than I do,I’m too “concrete”.
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Then you are in the right church! The Catholic Church, for two thousand years, has had some of the greatest minds in Western civilisation working through every conceivable question one might have, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. There is very little you can think of that the Church has not resolved. You might start with a commentary on Aquinas’ Summa.
 
If you don’t have faith, pray for it. Jesus very notably only worked miracles where there was faith. Faith is necessary to start seeing the miracles of God that are all around us constantly.
I’m a humanities major, but if I could go back to school it would be in Biology or Environmental Science. I’d love to learn more about the wonders of God’s creation, especially human and animal life.
 
I think you might be searching in the wrong places. Science can’t disprove the existence of heaven, hell or the afterlife. It can’t disprove or prove the existence of a soul (it has tried to do so!).
You may find it more helpful to look at the history of the gospels. How a carpenter from Nazareth and some fishermen from Galelei founded a movement that’s still going 2000 years later.
 
Brilliant answer. Thank you for not complicating it. Peace be with you and all
 
Praise the Lord for questioning Catholics!. We don’t all need to fit the cookie cutter Catholic mould.
 
Rozellelily said:
From my understanding,all brain function ceases at death including memory,thoughts and perception.
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The soul separates from the body at death. The soul does not cease to exist.

I recommend Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed.
 
I am a scientist, and I well understand that looking at death as a purely physical process is pretty hopeless. What keeps me hopeful is my faith, first of all that God exists, and second, that he loves us with the greatest love, and third, that he has the power to raise us above a purely physical existence. If he exists and loves us and can do anything he desires, wouldn’t he make it happen for us?
 
I was on another Christian forum and there was this woman who was a really smart academic. Math I think was her forte. But she struggled with faith, especially believing Jesus was the Son of God. I suggested to her that her earthly talent may actually be a hindrance or barrier to gaining faith.
Faith is easier for me I think because I’m not a scientific/logical thinker. No artist either but definitely more lateral than linear. You need to relax those scientific muscles I believe. Aquinas wrote about Faith and Reason, not sure he covered this actual topic though.
 
Aquinas explains it well. While alive, the intellect can only operate through the brain, but once it is separated it begins to understand without the mediation of the brain.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1089.htm

The human intellect must be immaterial since it is capable of understanding universals, which are immaterial.
 
Hope for eternal life is the beginning and end of our faith. Without it, life would be meaningless.
 
I agree with you that the people who have had these experiences can be profoundly affected and also that they have motivated some people to change their lives.
Whether it’s due to a spiritual cause or not though,it would be imprudent for me to say.
Some could be,but at the same time the human condition/psych is very complex and people could also be affected by things they have attributed to a spiritual cause but have no actual spiritual cause in reality.
Then to complicate matters even further,there’s also the possibility that some could even be from a deceptive spiritual source (satan).🙀
 
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This makes sense but what is a soul though?
Can it feel or experience etc?
Where does the mind end and the soul begin…
To many deep questions,I know🙂
 
Rozellelily said:
This makes sense but what is a soul though?
Can it feel or experience etc?
Where does the mind end and the soul begin…
To many deep questions,I know🙂
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The soul is comprised of intellect and will, of knowing and loving. This is how we are made in the image and likeness of God.

I really encourage you to get the book I recommended
 
The real proof comes after death. For both scientists and theologians, all that suffices now, is faith. Indeed. All else is speculation. Yet, One walked among us and spoke His truth. Whoever, before, spoke as He spoke?
 
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The thing is though…those people’s NDE’s are their own experience. Not yours or mine.
So what we think of it, or what a researcher thinks of it, is of no consequence. The experience is primarily of consequence to the people who had it. It’s their own personal private revelation.
Our belief or unbelief shouldn’t be based on a private revelation that another person may have experienced.

I think they’re interesting to hear about and read about, and I tend to believe the stories and not think they are just hallucinations of a dying brain. A dying brain can’t fly out the window and see things physically impossible for a live person on an operating table to see.
But I don’t base my faith on what somebody else said happened to them, with the possible exception where the person is a saint like Don Bosco or Padre Pio, and even then it’s my choice if I want to believe in their private revelations as the Church does not require this, it only requires me to accept that those people are now saints in heaven as the Vatican has decreed.
 
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