What convinced you?

[HabemusFrancis]

What was it exactly, that convinced you all of it is true?

By that I mean all of what the Church teaches. About God, Jesus, Mary, the Eucharist, Heaven and Hell and everything else.

I mean, if you take a step back and just “take it all in” it seems somewhat incredible.

I myself have flirted with non-belief/indifference and even atheism over the years. Partly because I didn’t like some of what the Church taught, and partly because I didn’t understand why God allowed such severe pain and suffeiring in the world.

I am 26 years old and just graduated from law school. It was only in this past year that I truly “bought in” to the Church and all she teaches. The main impetus for my growth in piety was a simple one. Law school is challenging and is somewhat competitive and cliqueish and I was somewhat lonesome and discouraged by it all . I thought that having a better prayer life would lead to some sort of consolation.

Sure enough I was correct! It was a great consolation really going to daily mass at the law school chapel (when I was able to), discovering the different angels and saints, and quite simply growing in a relationship with Jesus. As tangible evidence of my new found faith, I now maintain a folder of my desktop of various images of religious art (saints,mary, Jesus, devotionals etc) which I sometime puruse if I am blue or in need of inspiration.

I just felt much better about life and myself after becoming more faithful, and was able to get a better perspective on various people and things I held to be important. It was definitely a change for the better all the way around!

So what convinced me? In my experience God, is really the ultimate good. Everything else that is good in our lives (family,friendship, kind words,nature, music art etc.) is really just a small shimmer of God and could not exist without Him. By extension the opposite of “the good” one sees in life, sort of gives one the faintest glimpse of what hell is really like, how bad it truly is if God isn’t present or you aren’t part of Him. I suppose the malice and pain and suffering in the world isn’t hard evidence of Satan’s existence, but does sort of beg the question of it. All of this isn’t exactly hard evidence or reasoning, but I just felt really strongly that God was very likely real and it would no longer do any good to have the attitude of “maybe so, but who cares?” as to the question of God’s existence.

Hope that wasn’t too long. What convinced all of you, if any of you ever have doubted?

 

[pianistclare]

I never felt the need to be “convinced”. Sorry. I just believe. With all my being
Peace.

 

[AKDee]

Belief in God was never an issue for me. I’ve always known God existed. I was born into a protestant/pagan home (Dad protestant, mom into Wicca, astrology, etc) but prayed and read the Bible as a kid. Hitched rides to various churches with neighbors. Walked to the local church for Vacation Bible School. Coming to Catholicism was more of a process, but in the end I just knew it was true. RCIA just confirmed it for me, it didn’t convert me. I was converted before I started RCIA.

 

[RPRPsych]

What was it exactly, that convinced you all of it is true?

By that I mean all of what the Church teaches. About God, Jesus, Mary, the Eucharist, Heaven and Hell and everything else.

I mean, if you take a step back and just “take it all in” it seems somewhat incredible.

That is why we need the grace of God.

“No one can come to Me, unless the Father draw him.”

That said, I went through a period of doubt and even “indifferentism”, but my path back from there was so laden with coincidences that even then, I have no doubt it was His doing.

 

[Trident_H]

Realizing there was no way to get out of the mess I’d made of things without Him.

 

[Viki63]

Several things. In desperation I was praying, having stayed away from church for several years, and heard a voice say “Read the Bible.” I started the New Testament, and came to recognize Jesus was speaking the truth – he was the Truth.

That was the beginning for me. Later I realized all those disciples died for the faith, so they could not have made it up. Nobody dies for a scam. Then there are all the miracles – hard not to believe, you have to close your eyes to a lot of reality.

.

 

[RPRPsych]

Realizing there was no way to get out of the mess I’d made of things without Him.

Okay, that too.

 

[Petaro]

I have always been a very cynical lawyer. An idealist who loves others, but cannot stand being near most of them. I look at the evil, the sadism, the despair and the poverty and illness besetting most of the world’s population, and have often worried about a very silent, seemingly impotent God. After many years of yelling at Him to stop it, I have come to the realisation that without Him there is no hope. Things are crook, but they would be without any purpose without a God. We must have some purpose. It cannot be a horrific accident. Therefore, if He exists, which is only reasonable given creation, He must have a plan I cannot see. So humility hits like a hammer on a proud intellect.

Intellectually, I have always been challenged by practically every doctrine of the Church, from a Triune God, to the Hypostatic Union, the Eucharist, the Virgin Birth, the many miracles of the Bible which are rare on the ground today.But I realise that if there is a God, my puny intellect cannot limit Him to what I consider reasonable.

I am also supported in my belief in the fact that all I hold dear as values; loyalty,honesty, charity, compassion, honour, manliness, family, acts of real charity; all are found in the backbone of Catholic teaching and I know I am home.

I also look at the prayer life of the Church. The Mass is the center and life of our spirit. Two thousands years of good deeds for the poor is the history of the Church.The history of our schools, and hospitals are founded in the history of the Church. Its spirit of God is reflected in the Architecture; Art, Music and Literature of the West and it is good.
Good does not come from evil. My sad aestheticism wedged between the reality of the prosaic law career is enriched by this cultural gift entwined with the rich and sublime prayer life of a Church whose moral teachings have been the very basis of its charity and its jurisprudence.
I believe because where else are we to go, as He has the words of Eternal Life.

 

[Trident_H]

I have always been a very cynical lawyer. An idealist who loves others, but cannot stand being near most of them. I look at the evil, the sadism, the despair and the poverty and illness besetting most of the world’s population, and have often worried about a very silent, seemingly impotent God. After many years of yelling at Him to stop it, I have come to the realisation that without Him there is no hope. Things are crook, but they would be without any purpose without a God. We must have some purpose. It cannot be a horrific accident. Therefore, if He exists, which is only reasonable given creation, He must have a plan I cannot see. So humility hits like a hammer on a proud intellect.

Intellectually, I have always been challenged by practically every doctrine of the Church, from a Triune God, to the Hypostatic Union, the Eucharist, the Virgin Birth, the many miracles of the Bible which are rare on the ground today.But I realise that if there is a God, my puny intellect cannot limit Him to what I consider reasonable.

I am also supported in my belief in the fact that all I hold dear as values; loyalty,honesty, charity, compassion, honour, manliness, family, acts of real charity; all are found in the backbone of Catholic teaching and I know I am home.

I also look at the prayer life of the Church. The Mass is the center and life of our spirit. Two thousands years of good deeds for the poor is the history of the Church.The history of our schools, and hospitals are founded in the history of the Church. Its spirit of God is reflected in the Architecture; Art, Music and Literature of the West and it is good.
Good does not come from evil. My sad aestheticism wedged between the reality of the prosaic law career is enriched by this cultural gift entwined with the rich and sublime prayer life of a Church whose moral teachings have been the very basis of its charity and its jurisprudence.
I believe because where else are we to go, as He has the words of Eternal Life.

Nicely said man. Really.

 

[dividus]

My mother. She was the wisest and most virtuous person I ever knew.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I suppose God convinced me. I had a sense of God when I was young, but lost it due to family problems, not feeling accepted in the church at first, a lot of rejection, being taught in a secular school system.

But at the end of the most disastrous four years in my life, I got this persistent sense to go back to the very same church where I’d had Sunday School years before. The old place would just keep cropping up in my mind. So around October 1982 I went back there.

This time I felt accepted. But about a year later, Christmas 1983, I was feeling very negative again - going through a divorce, had been chewed out by the boss, felt very uncomfortable as a “leader” at an SU beach mission (I’d only been a Christian for about a year or so), and had personal problems dating back to the rejection I’d suffered years earlier. I was wondering how I knew all this Christian stuff was true, and not just a psychological prop.

That was when I had my first “double whammy” - like a breath going through you in waves from head to foot, very pronounced, out of the blue, obviously imposed by an external source, and used to highlight a phrase - in this case, “… a man after my own heart…” referring to King David, but used to encourage me on this occasion. I mentioned this to the pastor when I got back, and his response was “I think the Lord just wanted to encourage you. He knew you’d been through a difficult time.”

From that time on, I’ve never had any doubt God exists, although I don’t always like Him much. I had two more “double whammies” over the next few months or a year, and haven’t had one since, although there have been plenty of other spiritual fun and games, including some demonic irritation.

I was a Protestant then, and became Catholic later. I’m afraid there is at least one issue where I don’t believe what the Church teaches, but I accept most of it.

The shift from Protestant to Catholic involved more spiritual shenanigans, although I’ve done quite a lot of reading since. It wasn’t the conviction of Catholic truth that made me cross the Tiber, but God shoving me across on a spiritual rubber dinghy, along with the rejoinder, “Don’t bother trying to come back this way - I’ll just keep shoving you off again until you get the message.”

 

[xNoOnex]

Nothing.

In fact, I frequently question many of the ideas of the Church. Sometimes, even the existence of God. My belief in religion isn’t very strong.

That being said, I believe in love. I believe in mercy. I believe in compassion. I believe that we live in a fallen world, full of suffering and wickedness, and that we need to change that. The Catholic Church is the only religion that focuses on that, one soul at a time.

So while I have my doubts, and sometimes lack faith, it feels the most right on an instinctual level.

 

[Ned_Hill]

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
CHAPTER ONE
MAN’S CAPACITY FOR GOD

I. THE DESIRE FOR GOD

27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:

I first found within myself, and through others, what kind of man I wanted to be. I worked hard to be that man, but I continuously fell short.

Then, I discovered that the Catholic Church was the best tool I could use to become that man. I realized that although the Church used different language than I did, we had both come to essentially the same conclusion about the well lived life.

Finally, I realized that faith was not a conclusion, but rather a free choice. If any salvific faith is to have any legitimacy, it must be accessible not only to the greatest minds of humanity, but it must also be accessible to those with the lowest levels of intelligence. Therefore, at its most basic level, faith cannot be a conclusion based on gathered and evaluated evidence. If it is valid, then faith must be, at its core, more a choice than any kind of conclusion. It can be the latter, but it must be the former.

I made the choice, and dealt with my doubts from within the Church.

“Lord, I do believe! Help me in my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone. Kind of hard to distill a many year journey into one internet post.

[Oh, and I must add: I still continuously fall short, of course.]

 

[sudy]

The catechism quote from the previous poster speaks volumes to me. I do believe it’s written in my heart as I’ve always believed in God… even as a child, and even when I wasn’t at all interested in God or going to Church.

Whenever I’ve questioned my belief, I’ve always found any alternative to be impossible. Just looking at the details of life, like the engineering in an ear, or an eye, for example. What’s fascinating to me is how simple and yet how complex they are. Positioning is everything.

I am convinced. Even to the point where my interest in earthly things (for want of a better expression) have diminished. I’ve also had my prayers answered on a number of occasions, so I guess these things have convinced me too.

 

[the_universal]

Good thread. I enjoyed reading the posts – interesting to see that everyone’s faith is unique.

I came to religion later in life, and had always assumed the majority of Christianity to be made up. Over the course of a few years of my own reading and research, what I came to realize (over a very gradual process) was that there is an overwhelming amount of historical material supporting Christianity. And when I started understanding the linkages between the Old and New Testaments, and the significance of the Incarnation and the Resurrection, and why this was the way it was, I came to the conclusion that the story of Christianity was so elaborate that the probability of it being reverse engineered (i.e., that the narrative was constructed later to fit and/or explain what we experience as humans, was so remote that I could simply be agnostic no more, and I gave in to the fact that Jesus was God.

 

[fisherman_carl]

What was it exactly, that convinced you all of it is true?

By that I mean all of what the Church teaches. About God, Jesus, Mary, the Eucharist, Heaven and Hell and everything else.

I mean, if you take a step back and just “take it all in” it seems somewhat incredible.

I myself have flirted with non-belief/indifference and even atheism over the years. Partly because I didn’t like some of what the Church taught, and partly because I didn’t understand why God allowed such severe pain and suffeiring in the world.

I am 26 years old and just graduated from law school. It was only in this past year that I truly “bought in” to the Church and all she teaches. The main impetus for my growth in piety was a simple one. Law school is challenging and is somewhat competitive and cliqueish and I was somewhat lonesome and discouraged by it all . I thought that having a better prayer life would lead to some sort of consolation.

Sure enough I was correct! It was a great consolation really going to daily mass at the law school chapel (when I was able to), discovering the different angels and saints, and quite simply growing in a relationship with Jesus. As tangible evidence of my new found faith, I now maintain a folder of my desktop of various images of religious art (saints,mary, Jesus, devotionals etc) which I sometime puruse if I am blue or in need of inspiration.

I just felt much better about life and myself after becoming more faithful, and was able to get a better perspective on various people and things I held to be important. It was definitely a change for the better all the way around!

So what convinced me? In my experience God, is really the ultimate good. Everything else that is good in our lives (family,friendship, kind words,nature, music art etc.) is really just a small shimmer of God and could not exist without Him. By extension the opposite of “the good” one sees in life, sort of gives one the faintest glimpse of what hell is really like, how bad it truly is if God isn’t present or you aren’t part of Him. I suppose the malice and pain and suffering in the world isn’t hard evidence of Satan’s existence, but does sort of beg the question of it. All of this isn’t exactly hard evidence or reasoning, but I just felt really strongly that God was very likely real and it would no longer do any good to have the attitude of “maybe so, but who cares?” as to the question of God’s existence.

Hope that wasn’t too long. What convinced all of you, if any of you ever have doubted?

Thanks for sharing. I identify with the praying part. I need to pray every day. Often peace comes with it and the Lord’s presence. Ultimately, isn’t that what we are all seeking? Taste and see that the Lord is good.

 

[ynotzap]

God’s providence led me to where I am in Faith Born to poor girl who like so many today wanted love, made mistakes, broke of with her husband or lover, only God knows. Her faith had me baptized a Catholic, orphaned completely at age of five with two sisters. Indoctrinated in Catholic schools, lived a hard life with guardians. Committed myself to a Catholic Boy’s institution to finish school. Met some holy nuns who showed real love and care. Desired the priesthood, found out through a lot of pain that I couldn’t succeed because of a very sad and stressful life. Led to a life of loneliness, but sustained by my faith. Actually was converted from the sins of youth at l5 where my Catholic indoctrination was beginning to have a real affect on my life. With 3 years of religious life in a Seminary, I experienced a deepening of my Faith, it stayed with me when I had to leave. I prayed a lot for meaning to my life. I was really tried in my Faith. I was told that I could have become bitter, but it never happened. God’s providence. I married, adopted 4 children and did my best to live a Christian life. Although I didn’t feel like I was advancing in my Faith, because I met so many rejections in my life, life have proved otherwise. I have been very blessed in experiencing in a supernatural way, what I believed about my Faith. What I believed, has been confirmed for me. I am not allowed to witness on this forum some of my supernatural experiences. I can understand some of the reasons why, but I don’t completely agree as I know Padre Pio advises differently about sharing the King’s treasures. We live in pagan times in a very secular world, it has even crept into the Church, but I know Jesus is with her and will sustain her. Meanwhile her saints suffer in union with Christ for the salvation of souls. if we are truly Baptized in Christ, we are saints, to some degree. The fact that my mother, that young girl did this for me will remain an eternal credit to her, thank God, it bore fruit.

 

[PRmerger]

What was it exactly, that convinced you all of it is true?

By that I mean all of what the Church teaches. About God, Jesus, Mary, the Eucharist, Heaven and Hell and everything else.

I mean, if you take a step back and just “take it all in” it seems somewhat incredible.

I myself have flirted with non-belief/indifference and even atheism over the years. Partly because I didn’t like some of what the Church taught, and partly because I didn’t understand why God allowed such severe pain and suffeiring in the world.

I am 26 years old and just graduated from law school. It was only in this past year that I truly “bought in” to the Church and all she teaches. The main impetus for my growth in piety was a simple one. Law school is challenging and is somewhat competitive and cliqueish and I was somewhat lonesome and discouraged by it all . I thought that having a better prayer life would lead to some sort of consolation.

Sure enough I was correct! It was a great consolation really going to daily mass at the law school chapel (when I was able to), discovering the different angels and saints, and quite simply growing in a relationship with Jesus. As tangible evidence of my new found faith, I now maintain a folder of my desktop of various images of religious art (saints,mary, Jesus, devotionals etc) which I sometime puruse if I am blue or in need of inspiration.

I just felt much better about life and myself after becoming more faithful, and was able to get a better perspective on various people and things I held to be important. It was definitely a change for the better all the way around!

So what convinced me? In my experience God, is really the ultimate good. Everything else that is good in our lives (family,friendship, kind words,nature, music art etc.) is really just a small shimmer of God and could not exist without Him. By extension the opposite of “the good” one sees in life, sort of gives one the faintest glimpse of what hell is really like, how bad it truly is if God isn’t present or you aren’t part of Him. I suppose the malice and pain and suffering in the world isn’t hard evidence of Satan’s existence, but does sort of beg the question of it. All of this isn’t exactly hard evidence or reasoning, but I just felt really strongly that God was very likely real and it would no longer do any good to have the attitude of “maybe so, but who cares?” as to the question of God’s existence.

Hope that wasn’t too long. What convinced all of you, if any of you ever have doubted?

Logic convinced me.

God exists. (Pure logic tells us this.)

Jesus was God. (History tells us this).
Jesus started a Church. (History tells us this).

The Church Jesus started is the Catholic Church (and the Orthodox, arguably).

More here:

lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/seven-reasons-to-be-catholic

Dr. Kreeft is oh-so-logical, witty and intellectual.

 

[kdbueno]

Convincingly, eternal now is a reasonable knowledge of divine truth.