What's preventing YOU from being a Catholic?

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It doesn’t have to begin. It’s existed in perpetuity. Even with God. Why does he exist? You claim he’s existed always and forever, why can’t the causal chain be that which has existed always and forever with no need for a beginning?
 
What was there before the universe? We both know that something can’t come from nothing. There is scientific evidence that the universe has a beginning. God exists because he is outside of existence. He is an all-powerful and uncaused being. Science studies that which is natural. God is supernatural, therefore he does not need a cause because he is the cause.
A chain of events must begin at some point because otherwise it would not exist at all. Newton’s first law of motion: an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Therefore, it is the first cause (the beginning of the chain) which exists forever. We call that first cause God.
 
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Not nothing. Gravity. Physical laws. They predate the universe
 
Part 1

One of the guys was a former gang leader. He felt God speak to him. Wasn’t interested, didn’t want to know God. God kept pushing him, so he tried bargaining. “Alright. I knew this kid way back when who claimed he was a christian. Get him to talk to me and we’ll see what we can do.”
a week later, having told no-one about that conversation with God in his head, he got a knock on the door from the same guy, saying he heard he wanted to be a christian.

Went to church and became a Christian that evening.

That’s the backstory. I do not buy it was coincidence. I do not buy it was wishful thinking. I don’t think the guy talking to me was lying. what other options are there? “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” - Sherlock Holmes
 
Part 2

William Lane Craig’s book ‘Reasonable Faith’ gives three facts the vast majority of historians agree with:
1- Jesus was a Jewish rabbi in the 1st century and killed by the Romans
2- Something happened to (St) Paul of Tarsus to change his mind about Christianity, from persecutor to persecuted (remember the guy was beheaded for believing in Jesus)
3- Jesus’ tomb was empty.

Shimon Gibson wrote about the Archeology from around that time in his book ‘the Final Days of Jesus’. quoting “… (T)here is no historical explanation for the empty tomb, other than if we adopt a theological one, i.e., the resurrection. I leave it up to the reader to make up his own mind.”

After my conversion, I got another book explaining how the multi-verse couldn’t be infinitely old (they used arguments based on entropy). I’ll try and dig it out for you.
 
Coincidence or it was staged. There’s 7 billion people on Earth, someone was bound to have an amazing coincidence like that at some point in time.

In any case, that’s one case where “God listened”, what about all the cases where he doesn’t? Like parents of 4 year old kids they lost to Leukemia or famine or disease or war? What about people being born with Severe depression or missing a limb? Where was God there?
 
Gravity is not a material thing, but the planets are material. What materials existed before the universe? The rock and metal that makes up the earth did not just appear. It was created by an uncreated creator. The creator we call God.
 
That proves nothing. Who knows if Jesus wasn’t incinerated after death with his body stolen and his resurrection staged?

We don’t know for sure what happened to Paul, there’s nothing that confirms his fate.
 
Gravity only manifests in objects with mass. If there was gravity before the Big Bang, there was mass
 
Where did gravity come from? And where did that mass before the Big Bang come from? We’re just going in a circle here, Curious. There’s always something before something else. It has to begin somewhere.
 
I see you only joined CAF recently. Now you may have been on here before (I do not know) but your way of adressing a concern (like this specific thread) leads me to think you do not have that much experience on questions like this.

Maybe it is my mistake but post 26 was written thinking the readers would have that experience. (I am not stating anything new, it has all been discussed and said before)

There is this obsession with stating things (sometimes in a very flowery language) like “we have the truth; fullness of the truth” and all its variants. That is okay we all have seen that before. But what is missed is that that still doesn’t say much. First of all there are normally so many assumptions from the one side that is assumed to be accepted. That is almost nevet the case and a “discussion” falls flat from the get go where the posters are talking past each other “and get so frustrated that the other side is not seeing their point”.

Also the most used and irrelevant question asked on here “how do you know”. It seems unfathomable for Catholics that this can also be asked from 'the other side". It can go on to infinity from either side and just becomes a huge circle and so much more frustration because “that poster just does not listen”… well then should it be that big a revelation for that poster that the other poster thinks the exact same thing??
 
Curious11 said:
I’m not calling you stupid, i’m Saying this world, for me, is logically incompatible with an all-powerful and all-good God.
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What if the result of God permitting certain “evils” allowed for a greater good to come about?
 
OK, I’ll bite. One of the issues I have with Catholicism, which I have mentioned before, is the idea that a person will most likely go to hell if they commit a mortal sin and do not repent. My question is what if they commit a mortal sin (according to all the criteria) at the very end of their life but the vast portion of their life before that included many works of faith and goodness? Why would a benevolent G-d punish an individual so severely for doing something once and not take into consideration all the good things the person did accompanied by faith for the major portion of their life? And what if the mortal sin is not something really “horrendous” such as murder but something such as masturbation? Does Catholicism believe a person will go to hell based on that single unrepentant behavior and never mind the rest of their life?

On the flip side, if I am not mistaken, Catholicism believes a person who has committed nothing but evil for most of their life, having no faith, but repents at the very close (deathbed confession), will most likely go to purgatory instead of hell. This I have somewhat less problems with since I too believe that repentance can wipe away our sins. But what if those sins were really horrendous, Hitler-like, if you will? G-d is all-merciful, I know, but still there seems to me something wrong with forgiving THIS person, whose whole life was evil, and NOT forgiving the other person who slipped up at the very end of their life.
 
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meltzerboy2 said:
OK, I’ll bite. One of the issues I have with Catholicism, which I have mentioned before, is the idea that a person will most likely go to hell if they commit a mortal sin and do not repent. My question is what if they commit a mortal sin (according to all the criteria) at the very end of their life but the vast portion of their life before that included many works of faith and goodness?
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And according to many, simply missing Mass on Sunday because one doesn’t feel like going that day, is such a sin.
 
Well, one thing is the predominant theory of redemption, Satisfaction as articulated by Anselm. Moral influence makes more sense.
 
Curious11 said:
Want honesty? Logic.

I’m not calling you stupid, i’m Saying this world, for me, is logically incompatible with an all-powerful and all-good God.

To me it’s like dragons. No one can say they can prove 100% they don’t exist, but you just don’t think about them and don’t take them seriously, it’s just such a childish concept you waste no time on them, we only exploit them to make good works of fiction. For me, it’s the same with God
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Thank you for replying:smiley:

There CERTAINLY is a place for logic {missed by millions BTW} in finding and then embracing God’s singular truths; still. the practice of religions is termed “Faith” for the very reason that God is not limited to think as we Hid Creations are. Many issues require Faith in order to direct us to God, who alone has the answers.

Are YOU aware that every-time YOU into a mirror you see an image of the GOD that Created you? Space is VERY limited here so I’ll keep this brief.

The book of Genesis Chpt 1: 26-27 teaches that WE {alone in all of the universe} are made in God’s image. We are mortal and physical; while GOD is a “Spirit” & immortal. John 4: 23-24

Q: What animates all life forms? A: “a soul”
In ALL of the Universe only the HUMANS-Soul is Immortal and Rational. WHY is this? Because there really is a REASON for OUR-Existence both NOW & in eternity.

If YOU chose what you wore today; then God exist and because of THAT reality, so do YOU.

Wish We had more space,
May God guide our life paths,
Patrick the OP
 
Some parts of Catholic theology (mainly involving some aspects of Mary and some of the catechism) and indecision/procrastination; If I were to cross over, I’d probably stop by Kiev (in a Ukrainian GC church close by) or go to the tiny Ukrainian Orthodox Church that’s really close to my place
 
Shakuhachi said:
OK, I’ll bite. One of the issues I have with Catholicism, which I have mentioned before, is the idea that a person will most likely go to hell if they commit a mortal sin and do not repent. My question is what if they commit a mortal sin (according to all the criteria) at the very end of their life but the vast portion of their life before that included many works of faith and goodness? End Quote
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In all of the created UNIVERSE with it BILLIONS of things; only ONE, only THING humanity is rational The odds of that being accidental; coincidental ARE beyond calculation; there MUST be a reason

The reason for this is that WE are Created in order to Know, Love, Serve, Obey & Worship God our creator.
Isaiah 43: 7 * 21

WHY? Because humanity alone is ABLE to know God {through the created universe; personal honesty; and logic which humanity alone possess on earth}.

Because we alone CAN choose good or evil; GOD in an absolute sense MUST have a reward and punishment for which ever WE freely choose; hence heaven and hell REALLY do; even MUST exist.

GREAT Q! ANYONE who dies with an unconfessed/ unremitted Mortal sin AND knows of God and His One True Church OR WAS ABLE TO KNOW GOD AND HIS ONE TRUE CHURCH but choose not to at least honestly investigate it; is self condemned to hell**. WHY** Because God offers to everyone SUFFICIENT Grace NOT to sin IF we really do not wish too. So it is OUR-choice, not God’s

Poster #2 and missing Mass intentionally:

GOD"S third commandment is “KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH DAY”
& the 1st Commandment is to WORSHIP God.; so kindly blame God, NOT God’s One true Church

Thank you both for your contributions to this THREAD,

Patrick the OP
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