The Virgin Mary?

[planehopr]

planehopr-

Why do you suppose that these people were willing to die for their beliefs?

I think there are many instances in history where people are willing to die for their beliefs. They may be causes, religious beliefs, political battles, wars. Throughout history, I think, people have shown a willingness to die for things they support and believe in–even if those ideologies turn out to be false or misguided.

When people claim to have supernatural experiences. I believe them, or rather, I believe they believe. Their experiences may seem to be very real to them. I remain skeptical about the truth of their encounter, but I don’t deny people can have profound experiences that cause them to believe things with all their heart. Same with Christians–I believe they believe. I’m cool with that. But that does not make me believe what they believe.

Now I’m certainly not going to pretend I’m God and actually claim to know if Christianity is misguided somehow or down right false–I don’t know, but I want to know. I actually want to believe. It would make things a lot better for me if I did. My conscience just has trouble believing in big things that may have other explanations–even if we have no way of explaining them right now.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

planehopr:

Now I’m certainly not going to pretend I’m God and actually claim to know if Christianity is misguided somehow or down right false–I don’t know, but I want to know. I actually want to believe. It would make things a lot better for me if I did. My conscience just has trouble believing in big things that may have other explanations–even if we have no way of explaining them right now.
Reply With Quote

Try a top down approach. You do believe in God.

You see in our world that it is ambiguous. We don’t have proof one way or the other.

Therefore you must search for the reason for this ambiguity. IOW, has God revealed anything to help us understand why His presence is ambiguous and not absolutely definite for all to see and understand.

You can scan through all of the world’s religions, and see if they can explain to your satisfaction the existence of God, and why he is hidden in our world. Also they should describe God and his nature to your satisfaction, with your own conscience as a guide.

If you discern that the Christian religion has God’s revelations to man, then you will have to accept those revelations as coming from God, and not be demanding proof of each and every fact you encounter. You must also discern whether all of the Christian sects are equal or not, or if only one has Truth you are seeking. Again your conscience will lead you infallibly to the Truth.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I think there are many instances in history where people are willing to die for their beliefs. They may be causes, religious beliefs, political battles, wars. Throughout history, I think, people have shown a willingness to die for things they support and believe in–even if those ideologies turn out to be false or misguided.

When people claim to have supernatural experiences. I believe them, or rather, I believe they believe. Their experiences may seem to be very real to them. I remain skeptical about the truth of their encounter, but I don’t deny people can have profound experiences that cause them to believe things with all their heart. Same with Christians–I believe they believe. I’m cool with that. But that does not make me believe what they believe.

Now I’m certainly not going to pretend I’m God and actually claim to know if Christianity is misguided somehow or down right false–I don’t know, but I want to know. I actually want to believe. It would make things a lot better for me if I did. My conscience just has trouble believing in big things that may have other explanations–even if we have no way of explaining them right now.

Fair enough.

Why not find a good book that makes the case for Christianity based upon the evidence that we have available to us? You can judge for yourself whether it is compelling or not.

 

[thequeen]

I live in a Catholic Household, but I have so many questions about my family’s beliefs that they cannot answer? With no intention of being disrespectful, I would like to start with a couple of them here.

I am fairly certain that with the highly educated people of today’s time and with the tools available to us, there is no way we would take anyone’s word on the claims that have been made for 2000 years.

If a girl today said she was a virgin and yet she was pregnant, I think even the Catholic church would send for their own tests using modern science to validate that. Yet we had no real way of proving or disproving those claims 2000 years ago.

My question: If you found out that a human man actually had procreated with Mary and made the baby named Jesus, would it change the way you believe in the Catholic faith?

Other questions I have follow a similar logic–In today’s times would you take anyone’s word for it on any number of the miracles performed by Jesus claimed to have happen? Why don’t we hold the claims of the bible to the same standards as we would hold such claims today?

The reason I believe it is because Isaiah wrote about itand predicted it thousands of years before and you just have to take it by faith and the reason Jesus had to be born of avirgin is because if he’d had anatural earthly father like all of us he would have inherited the sinful nature from adam that we have all inherited her had to be sinless so he could be the perfect sacrifice that would pay for our sins and then rise again so that we could live with him in heaven forever

 

[Moro_Rock]

Now I’m certainly not going to pretend I’m God and actually claim to know if Christianity is misguided somehow or down right false–I don’t know, but I want to know. I actually want to believe. It would make things a lot better for me if I did. My conscience just has trouble believing in big things that may have other explanations–even if we have no way of explaining them right now.

Hi Planehopr There are two goldfish swimming round in a tank . Goldfish A says to Goldfish B " I’m just not convinced there’s anything out there, this is all there is "
You say you want to know and that you want to believe. Why not ask God to clarify what is the truth ? Christians know that God really does answer prayer !

 

[planehopr]

Fair enough.

Why not find a good book that makes the case for Christianity based upon the evidence that we have available to us? You can judge for yourself whether it is compelling or not.

I think I’m going to do just that. I really find the subject fascinating. I always ask my family what they learned in Mass today. I always ask what the homily was about. I even enjoy going to church for the homily…I’m always curious what the priest is going to say. Regardless of what the Truth is, I think there are some fantastic ideas and messages conveyed by the catholic church…and some of the people I love and respect the most are catholics.

I apologize to all of you that I’m not so good of a responder. I have enjoyed reading all of your comments and feedback. Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I have taken your ideas and had some nice discussions with members of my household. They have appreciated hearing answers from you all that they, themselves, could not give me–and the many great talks that have come out of it.

 

[Della]

I think I’m going to do just that. I really find the subject fascinating. I always ask my family what they learned in Mass today. I always ask what the homily was about. I even enjoy going to church for the homily…I’m always curious what the priest is going to say. Regardless of what the Truth is, I think there are some fantastic ideas and messages conveyed by the catholic church…and some of the people I love and respect the most are catholics.

This is good. Just attending Mass and asking questions/discussing with good people is the best way to find your answers. You may consider making an appointment with your priest. His “job” is to help you. It’s hard for us here who can’t see you or know your age, etc. to make reading recommendations that would be most helpful to you, even though we’d love to do all we can to be helpful.

I apologize to all of you that I’m not so good of a responder. I have enjoyed reading all of your comments and feedback. Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I have taken your ideas and had some nice discussions with members of my household. They have appreciated hearing answers from you all that they, themselves, could not give me–and the many great talks that have come out of it.

Well, there’s only one of you and many of us, so it can be overwhelming trying to respond to everyone. Don’t worry about that. Your questions are too deep and varied to answer in this format. I don’t know how much you love to read, but if you are a good reader, I’d recommend G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. It was written in the early 20th century, but it’s a classic defense of Christ’s authenticity and of Christianity. Chesterton wrote it to show how Christ is the central person in history and why faith in him is good, right and sensible. I hope you’ll give it a try and that you’ll enjoy it.

 

[abucs]

Hi Planehopr,

i think part of our thinking on these subjects revolves around what we think is possible. If we think that the world is made up of matter following laws and nothing else then we cannot accept the idea of miracles.

The question is, do we think that the world is made up of matter following laws and nothings else? And if we do - why? And is that credible?

If we think the world has an intelligent beginning and is sustained by an intelligence and that intelligence came into this world at the time of which you are referring then we can accept the idea of miracles.

As for proving absolutely things that happened in the past, i can’t prove to you what i had for lunch last Friday. Taking a reductionist view of comparing like happenings or claims today is not always a good guide. We have to consider the whole package which is not easy to do, and properly requires much experience and background knowledge.

Sometimes we might give up on that because of the difficulty and believe the ‘matter and laws only’ view as the default, but that view also has to be investigated before we should accept it - it is not the default by any means.

I say that as one who did accept that default view at a young age without proper investigation.