I remember those days. Can’t say that I ever found anything that could successfully bring about belief that Yahweh was an actual entity.
What I find consistent about so many such statements is that they are almost inevitably made regarding one’s own inculcated impressions about God, and therefore are not about Deity itself. In other words a very similar situarion might come as a mental state to anyone of any faith or, conversely, lack of it. More than anything it simply signals a readiness and receptivity for further and deeper inquiry. That is pretty much how mystics go: they develop a thirst to know and be, Or the whole idea is dropped and put on a back burner until one is again forced by internal inconsitencies either to suffer or inquire. Inquiry is always the shortest, and ultimately, easiest path, even if paradigms die in th eprocess. Rather to be real than to believe, rgiht?
There are many things which have contributed to my faith in a God, but one thing which stood out the most was how all things that exist have an assigned purpose for their existence; basically there is a reason for their existence; a reason which these things did not assigned to themselves. Nothing that exists chose to be created, so how could I choose my own purpose if I wasn’t the cause or source of my own creation? This made me wonder what my assigned purpose was and where the source of this purpose was to be found. So, I set off to find it.I was raised Catholic, but now at age 20 I am in the process of abandoning my faith because I took a critical eye to it and found that it just doesn’t hold up. So I am wondering what keeps you believing in God? How do you “know” he is there? Especially any older people on here (old is relative, I know, but old compared to me)
Faith may be a gift, but then we must ask, “faith in what?” Thsi is necessary, because if we were off Earth, and could see everyone and everything, we might very well observe that people have faith in many diverse things, reasonably or not, from a turn of the dice to the existence of God. Those who believe in God have many faiths, without regard to any argument of whose is the OHTCA church. And the faiths of these people is by any other measure than affiliation, remarkably indistinguishable. And as we know, many would, and have, died for their faith of whatever stripe. So we have a queston about what underlies faith and what is the difference between its universal form as a phenomenon, and its particualr contents in the case of any individual.
Depending on where and when you are, that couls as well be the Popol Vuh, the I Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. the Zend-Avesta, the memory of the local shaman, or whatever.VEry few humans, historically speaking, ever heard of Jesus or the Bible.
This is an excellent point! What is curious about it is that given the phenomenally wide range of possibilities through time and at present, our religious institutions tend to require that we simply believe that the one we are in is not oonly right, but THE right one. That puts a lot of people in a very awkward position from the perspective of any one of those. And it gives any believer the comfort of verification ithout needing to get all booked up. It also explains why any one of any faith tends to think of religious quesitons and even of conversion or consequences in the terms they have already internalized as a “map” of the spiritual structure of themselves and the world. This may not be entirely useful in considering even the saints and sages of one’s own religion, then because there is a built-in slant. So other thatn what has been the universal method from time immemorial, what does one do?
There are many explanations, including a closer examination of the early Church, especially around the third century. A other streams have grown large as well. And even after 2K years, Christians, not Catholics, are only about 1/3 of the world population. And there are som fasciinationg statistics concerning that.
Many differentiate between Jesus and His accomplishment as The Christ in a subtle but meaningful way, one which introduces the dimensions of understanding of the levels of the parables, and which makes His teachings congruent with something far older thatn Judaism or Christianity. But that is a subtle matter of concern and doesn’t even come up in ordinary discussions of Sonship and related concerns. Even few Catholic mystics/contemplatives get anywhere near that question, though some have over the years. And if we have difficulty with St Thomas or Augustine, we won’t even begi to go there!
As do other churches. One member of my historically Catholic family became a Mormon. Look at them go! If it weren’t for he theology, I’d join, as they are a superb and exemplary society. But the Teachings of Jesus, precious few as we have and have vastly extrapolated from, are so fundamental as to be at the core of ethics and similar to many others, if we but take even a cursory survey, even in time.
For sure that is a very useful analysis and stance, even in this matter, and is even greatly functional. On the other hand, there are some whose desire to know God, or Truth, is not fulfilled by the level of involvement or teaching as is commonly available by simple acceptance and attendence.
Certainly nothing. And yet even Hypocratese’ first principle was “do no harm.” But it is not so much Jesus, the Christ, that we are concerned about, as His interpreters and “representatives.” As Gandhi said: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” So that is where that problem lies.
A lot, of course. But the core of it, the Great Commandments, are not new, at least not the reason for them which is hardly ever baldly stated. At least i’ve myself never heard it from a Catholic pulpit these many decades.
There are as many reasons as there are definitions for those words and people who hear them. Mostly, it seems to me, is because the charismatic connection between words and examples as they are commonly used regarding religious teaching is not there in a palatable or inviting way. The bridge of connectivity between “taeaching” and internal state isn’t made. And that is so even within the scope of Christian influence, neever mind the remainder of the wolrd population.
Thanks, I enjoyed yours, too. Neither one of us seems to be given to brevity. And how could that be, given that the “subject” is infinitly ddep?
Simply as a matter of clarity, and not of contention, I very much agree that Jesus, whoever He was, as there are great, if somewhat reconciloable, liberties taken in recording about Him by those who appear to have been right there, did exist and was the one and only Son of God. My questions, about what that meant, arose after an expereince that left me with a radically different than usual perception of what constitues human nature regaridng awareness. I found, as many otheres have found, and one current Catholic contemplative actually dealin detail, that the Church really doesn’t cover the extreme end of the necessary end of what lies beyond mysticism, which is usually regarded as the end of the Earthly possibilites for our spiritual Unfoldment.
Poseidon:
) Thus we have something that has no three-dimensionality and, therfore, no mass!
So do most reasonable people!This might well read: “So do most rationalizing people! Order and design are as anthropomorphic as disorder and chance.”
Order and Design are more fundamental than disorder and chance.
No one can tell you. You have to keep looking for yourself. Trust in God and you will see.
This is off-topic, but must be said: every one of these issues has been convincingly and more than adequately addressed by scholars, save perhaps alone the issue of the conflicting birth time periods. And that issue has had a number of at least plausible, if unfortunately unprovable, harmonizations offered. And in the Matthew crucifixion account he dead don’t rise at Jesus’ death, they rise after his rising. Read it again.
Yes, I am familiar with those and what goes into making them appear to work. And these contradictions, accepted as such or not, are pertinent to the Christian model of reality as they are directrly related to the idea of God the Son, and therefor belief in God. If we were dealing here with belief in Ahura Mazd or somesuch they may not apply. But the majority on here, I would hazard, are spaeaking of the Christian postulated God, and therefore they apply.
Small odds doesn’t mean it was caused by a supernatural force. Just think how small the odds of you ever being born are. Every single person in your entire ancestral line had to behave in exactly a certain way, or you never would have even been conceived. If your great great great great grandmother had not met your great great great great grandfather then you wouldn’t exist. If your father had been out of the house the night you were conceived you would not exist. If the sperm that carried your genetic material had not won the race to the egg inside your mother’s womb (beating odds literally millions to one) you would not exist. And yet you don’t say that God controlled all of these events to produce you. Chance did. The odds of you appearing were so small, but it happened.
What keeps me believing in God? The same thing that keeps me believing in my car in the driveway, or my refrigerator in the kitchen, He’s there. Nothing really “believing” about it. That’s how I see it, He’s there so how can I not believe?I was raised Catholic, but now at age 20 I am in the process of abandoning my faith because I took a critical eye to it and found that it just doesn’t hold up. So I am wondering what keeps you believing in God? How do you “know” he is there? Especially any older people on here (old is relative, I know, but old compared to me