Were you ever a nonbeliever and changed your mind ? Why?

[Linusthe2nd]

I was an unbeliever. I am the product of a broken marriage and a stepfather who could barely stand the sight of me. You grow up angry under those conditions, and by extension God as Father get to take the ultimate rap.

But life goes on. In later years I began to see that my anger was irrational, and so was my atheism. From the atheist’s own point of view, there can be no more conclusive argument that God does not exist than there can be that God does exist. When you look around you, observe the lives of atheists and those of Christians, you see a certain proof in the pudding.

Christianity teaches us to be loving and forgiving. Atheism teaches nothing of the sort. Christianity teaches us God is on our side. Atheism tells us we are on our own.

Atheism became for me unbearably painful, and so I abandoned it for Christ.

Ah yes and wouldn’t it be nice if there were more good examples. But I think there are still enough.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I was an atheist for no other reason than ignorance and the freedom (though it was limited) that the practicalities of unbelief gave me. Eventually I became Catholic because of despair and psychological trauma. I guess was looking for an identity. What I really wanted was a relationship with my father who was Catholic. However, although I was eventually baptised Catholic, I haven’t been to church for years and have basically drifted into a non-religious theism. So what is it that repels me from Catholicism? Well, it is political in some respect. But basically a lack of a spiritual experience and a fear of being hoodwinked into a false belief is what keeps me from the Catholic faith. And yes, there are probably lifestyle choices that I would have to change if I began to take the Catholic faith seriously again. I am not yet ready to deal with those changes yet to be quite honest with you; at least not until I gain more confidence in Catholic revelation and have the ability to defend it with the confidence that what I am saying is the truth.

As for why I am still a theist? Well, I simply came to the realisation that any attempt to remove God as the underlying principle of reality results in irrecoverable absurdity. I would have to abandon rationality in-order to be an atheist. Also experiences like guilt, and other emotions that tend to rationally coincide with human actions and contributes to the idea that we have an inherent moral value, does not seem to me like the kinds of things that I would expect to find in an objectively meaningless and purposeless universe.

I hope that gives you a better idea of where I am coming from.

Happy Christmas, and new year.

Well, we won’t give up on you yet. Have you read the Catechism, how about the lives of some of the Saints. They can often give us the inspiration and courage we need ? Some of the things we have to give up can make it hard but it can be done.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I was an atheist for most of my life. I was Baptized in the Catholic Church when I was 5 as a kind of extended family obligation, but I was never raised as a believer in my immediate family. I not only didn’t believe in God, I actively sought to get others to stop believing in God.

What changed for me, apart from Grace of course, was the realization that the universe is a changing, unstable thing, and therefore couldn’t explain its own existence. I already believed in the Big Bang, but I didn’t think much about it and assumed that the universe perhaps fluctuated in bangs and crunches, though my growing understanding of science eliminated that possibility. I thought about how the Big Bang could have happened at all, especially since there wouldn’t have been any “time” before it, and I was flummoxed. How could a finite, dying universe exist, and start existing at a discernible point in the past, without something that transcended existence as we know it undergirding being itself? Obviously the universe, which not only lacks permanent being in the now (as it changes constantly), but also did in the past and will in the future, doesn’t account for existence. I was essentially falling into the various cosmological arguments without having been introduced to them properly.

The more I pondered this philosophical issue the more I came to realize that there must be an “is that is”, though I didn’t think it was God or personal just yet. Then I learned about the “name of God” according to Moses, “I Am that Am”, and I thought it sounded an awful lot like the kind of name my “necessary being” would have. What tripped me up, however, was that the ancient Israelites weren’t philosophers by an stretch, and none of their writings or history indicated the kind of people who would spend their time reasoning to some lofty and abstract philosophical “I Am that Am” and then write a grand, mythic story about it. Rather, they seemed like the sort who would record their own actual history in a grand, mythic fashion, but then where did they get such a notion like “I Am that Am”?

Finally I came to the conclusion that since an “I Am that Am”, in an abstract sense, must exist, and the Israelites weren’t the type to spend time pondering their navels about such things, the most likely scenario was that this very real “I Am that Am” was indeed personal, and actually addressed them. Wanting to know more about this mysterious necessary being I began to study Orthodox Judaism, which eventually led me to concepts about the Messiah, which led me to Christianity.

For me, God isn’t simply an idea or a hope, He’s a bare and clear fact of existence. I’m less certain about the existence of my own waking reality than I am about the existence of an “I Am that Am” which is the foundation of all reality. Through Grace I’ve come to know Him personally, and accept Apostolic Christianity as being His true Faith in the world, descended in an unbroken line from His revelations to Abraham and Moses.

Peace and God bless!

I always like to philosophy winning a battle. And I see you are still interested. Very inspirational.

 

[belorg]

I
Finally I came to the conclusion that since an “I Am that Am”, in an abstract sense, must exist, and the Israelites weren’t the type to spend time pondering their navels about such things, the most likely scenario was that this very real “I Am that Am” was indeed personal, and actually addressed them. Wanting to know more about this mysterious necessary being I began to study Orthodox Judaism, which eventually led me to concepts about the Messiah, which led me to Christianity.

What excatly makes you think the Israelites weren’t the type to spend pondering their navels about such things?
When you read some parts of the Bible, I think it is obvious that at least the Isrealites who wrote those parts were pondering their navels about such things.

 

[Ghosty]

What excatly makes you think the Israelites weren’t the type to spend pondering their navels about such things?
When you read some parts of the Bible, I think it is obvious that at least the Isrealites who wrote those parts were pondering their navels about such things.

I’m not sure which parts you are referring to, so I can’t speak to it specifically. The historical fact is that Israel was not an academic culture like the Greeks, and did not formulate a broad and deep philosophical foundation. Warriors and shepards that spent more time in conflict than in academic pursuits and sciences. In later times there was a Hellenic influence, but the points about God’s nature predate those times and writings. God was written about as “I Am that Am” while still being regarded and treated as a tribal deity, not as the foundation of all being.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

belong

**When you read some parts of the Bible, I think it is obvious that at least the Isrealites who wrote those parts were pondering their navels about such things. **

As are those who say there is no God.

 

[belorg]

I’m not sure which parts you are referring to, so I can’t speak to it specifically. The historical fact is that Israel was not an academic culture like the Greeks, and did not formulate a broad and deep philosophical foundation. Warriors and shepards that spent more time in conflict than in academic pursuits and sciences. In later times there was a Hellenic influence, but the points about God’s nature predate those times and writings. God was written about as “I Am that Am” while still being regarded and treated as a tribal deity, not as the foundation of all being.

Peace and God bless!

The points about God’s nature were written by educated Isrealites. That most of them were warriors and shepards does not mean that the more eductaed among them did not have any sort of philosophical understanding. In fact, the Bible clearlu shows at least some of them did have a philosophical foundation.
Moreover, the translation of YHWH as ‘I am what I am’ is not uncontroversial. Other possible meaning are ‘I am the creator’ or even ‘Stormbringer’’

 

[Ghosty]

The points about God’s nature were written by educated Isrealites. That most of them were warriors and shepards does not mean that the more eductaed among them did not have any sort of philosophical understanding. In fact, the Bible clearlu shows at least some of them did have a philosophical foundation.
Moreover, the translation of YHWH as ‘I am what I am’ is not uncontroversial. Other possible meaning are ‘I am the creator’ or even ‘Stormbringer’’

There is no evident philosophy of necessary being found in Scripture. On the contrary, the Creation accounts depict a different set of circumstances entirely, with God shaping pre-existing matter. There is nothing within Scripture, nor outside it, that points to the ancient Israelites having the philosophical underpinnings of such concepts as necessary being; the name “I am that Am” does not fit the approach they did hold towards deity.

As for other possible translations, we are not working in darkness when it comes to interpreting. We have a living and very conservative tradition in Judaism that tells us precisely what the term has been understood to mean, and it’s not “Stormbringer”.

I also want to reiterate that the Jewish Faith didn’t convince me of the existence of God, it merely gave me His address.

Peace and God bless!

 

[belorg]

There is no evident philosophy of necessary being found in Scripture. On the contrary, the Creation accounts depict a different set of circumstances entirely, with God shaping pre-existing matter. There is nothing within Scripture, nor outside it, that points to the ancient Israelites having the philosophical underpinnings of such concepts as necessary being; the name “I am that Am” does not fit the approach they did hold towards deity.

Scripture was written by a variety of people living at different times and having a variety of philosophical understandings. There is, indeed, no mentioning of Creatio ex nihilo in the creation accounts, which is strange if those accounts were truly based on some sort of revelation by a necessary being.

As for other possible translations, we are not working in darkness when it comes to interpreting. We have a living and very conservative tradition in Judaism that tells us precisely what the term has been understood to mean, and it’s not “Stormbringer”.

That is because the conservative tradition in Judaism holds to that possible translation that best fits their concept of God… The true meaning of the tetragrammon is unknown and is probably impossible to know with any sort of precision.

I also want to reiterate that the Jewish Faith didn’t convince me of the existence of God, it merely gave me His address.

Peace and God bless!

I am merely pointing out that one of the things your conversion was based on may not be correct.

 

[Ghosty]

Scripture was written by a variety of people living at different times and having a variety of philosophical understandings. There is, indeed, no mentioning of Creatio ex nihilo in the creation accounts, which is strange if those accounts were truly based on some sort of revelation by a necessary being.

None of the various authors present a philosophical framework that would accomodate YHWH. As for the style of Genesis, it is precisely how it might be narrated to people who lack philosophical sophistication.

That is because the conservative tradition in Judaism holds to that possible translation that best fits their concept of God… The true meaning of the tetragrammon is unknown and is probably impossible to know with any sort of precision.

The Jews didn’t stumble across the mysterious name YHWH written on a roock and decide it had a nice ring to it, their ancestors both wrote it and conveyed its proper meaning. We can’t come along thousands of years later and simply argue for a different intterpretation than the one passed on to the authors’ progeny.

I am merely pointing out that one of the things your conversion was based on may not be correct.

Fair enough.

Peace and God bless!

 

[wcknight]

For some who may want some evidence of the Divine, you may want to read a new book written by a neuro-surgeon who was basically brain dead and recovered to tell about his experience.

His book is “Proof of Heaven” by Dr. Eben Alexander.

Like many scientists, he thought human thinking was only possible with a functioning physical human brain, He found out that consciouness was more than just electrical impulses made possible by a functioning physical presence.

Also, there is another good book about “the boy who met Jesus”. It is about an african teenager (Rwandan) who never had any religious background and he is visited by Jesus, who aswered any and every question that he could ever imagine…

 

[atheistgirl]

Also, there is another good book about “the boy who met Jesus”. It is about an african teenager (Rwandan) who never had any religious background and he is visited by Jesus, who aswered any and every question that he could ever imagine…

This is very interesting.

There are posters here who claim we couldn’t see Jesus in this life or we would die on the spot because of exposure to His heavenly Glory.

Was this boys free will taken away - another claim made often here.

Coming from the other side of this discussion, I’ve made more friends of a religious persuasion and had more conversations of a religious nature, than at any other time in my life.

I find it all very very interesting, but I remain completely unpersuaded by any of the arguments for a Deity.

Sarah x

 

[wcknight]

The doctor who had the NDE also was very skeptical and never considered the possibility of anything after death… unitl he experienced it himself…being an expert in that field made him the perfect candidate for that to happen to.

He has started a web site www.eternea.org that devotes itself to reconciling the science with the para-normal.

The boy who met Jesus had complete control of his free will, and although he saw Jesus, he did not see Him in His full glory. He probably saw Him as he appeared to the apostles, afterall He was also truly human.

Some of these visions he had in public and folks tested him while he was entranced. They pierced him with needles, shown strong lights in his eyes, twisted his hands and fingers to extreme angles, and once someone tried to strangle him, trying to prove he was not faking.

BTW the tone of the two books is entirely different. The doctors book is very upbeat, while the boys story is one of warning and end times messages.

 

[Madaglan]

I’m not sure which parts you are referring to, so I can’t speak to it specifically. The historical fact is that Israel was not an academic culture like the Greeks, and did not formulate a broad and deep philosophical foundation. Warriors and shepards that spent more time in conflict than in academic pursuits and sciences. In later times there was a Hellenic influence, but the points about God’s nature predate those times and writings. God was written about as “I Am that Am” while still being regarded and treated as a tribal deity, not as the foundation of all being.

Peace and God bless!

Not that I disagree with you, but what do you make of the scholarly attempts to root early Israelite religion in the religions of the surrounding Levantine cultures, many of which were sedentary and had developed elaborate mythologies to explain creation and the world? .

The great men of the Torah generally were nomadic, not academics, but had points of contact with civilizations much advanced for the time. Abraham hailed from Ur, and Moses, the traditional author of the Torah, was an Egyptian prince educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22).

I surmise from your posts that you do not see this idea of necessary being in the other mythologies of the Levant, and that this idea is unique in the Hebrew story, not encountered again until the Greeks, who term it and incorporate it into their philosophical models. In your view, did the Greeks come across the idea of God through their own reason, or did they learn this from the Hebrew texts (as I seem to recall some Fathers suggest)?

 

[Madaglan]

In addition, If this idea can be reached by reason, and a little imagination, what would preclude earlier civilizations from pondering it without direct revelation?

 

[Micosil]

Hm, Dr. Eben Alexander’s case is interesting.

Following what he has to say, is it then possible, within the faith/dogma/tradition of the RCC that a soul can leave the human body, go to the afterlife, and then come back?