Why bother with Catholicism?

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Latetotheparty said:
But this got me thinking about why we bother with Catholicism?
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When a believer is plugged into God, the supernatural occurs.

A believer who is in the state of grace brings down graces upon himself and the world. The darkness of the world is impacted toward the good.

We are in a battle on this earth. The people who are aware of the battle of good and evil going on right now, today, it’s like they are in the Superbowl, playing a hard game, getting knocked down, losing yardage. God is the coach the angels and saints are in the stands cheering their hearts out. People who don’t really get the ‘God thing’ and think they can be good, good enough to get to heaven, are really just on the sidelines looking at their phones and listening to music. Not in the game, not plugged in to what strategy is happening on the field. WE NEED these people to put their phone down and start paying attention! To start learning the positions on the field, to put some effort in! We are losing yardage, taking big hits, some of our best are taking injuries and getting carried off with the medics.

Get in the game. Don’t waste another day. You matter in the direction this world goes.
 
I enjoy being Catholic and I am very grateful for this special grace to be in God’s Church.
 
  1. Read the Book of John.
  2. Read the Book of Romans.
  3. Set up appointment with Priest to discuss.
  4. Report findings.
 
I would offer the idea that the atheist in your story who spends his life helping people but masturbates has learned something that the proceduralist religious person who strictly follows the rules missed. You see, the atheist helped people because that was what was in his heart. He had no hope of reward, but somehow achieved a level of compassion and insight and did his good works independent of threats of hell or enticements about heaven. Therefore, I would imagine that if there is such a thing as hell, it is crowded with people who were good as a means of earning something. That is not achieving a state of being, and I would imagine that heaven is in fact a state of being and not a paid retirement achieved by racking up points or following litigious processes like making sure you’re never late for church or never look lustfully at anyone. That is not only impossible for most of us, but it is also not achieving a heavenly state of being, but rather it creates a hellish state of being built especially for people with obsessive tendencies. This in turn invites and encourages churches of all stripes to come up with convoluted apologetics to get around untenable positions that exclude everyone else, like maybe an atheist can get to heaven so long as he’s a virgin who dies at a crossroads during a new moon. I made that up but that’s how foolish some of these things seem to a Catholic who has heard it all. Meanwhile, there are Catholics who swear a Muslim has a hard road to heaven and Muslims who sear that all Catholics will burn in hell and Evangelicals who say that the Catholics and Muslims both will miss out on the great sucking sound that will hoist the Evangelicals into the sky at the Second Coming, and the Mormons wait for the trumpet of Maroni, the ones who love for loves sake alone and cares for the sake of goodness alone has probably found the place the others sought.

All the best!
 
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Latetotheparty said:
An atheist who does dedicates their life to helping others but masturbates is going to get to heaven
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I wouldn’t assume that. Rejection of God is extremely serious: ‘But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.’ - Rev 21:8
 
Quite possibly the best answer I’ve ever heard on the subject. Excellent post! I agree.

The possibility is left open, but it’s mostly speculative and should not substitute the objective truth we know that the only way to the Father is through the Son. Christ is the core of our salvation.

I think if people were to focus a lot on that speculative possibility it would almost make the sacrifice our Lord made pointless. It would also open the door to universalism.

Why do people want that speculation to be true and the official position of the CC?
 
It is not all just about heaven. It is also about the fullness of life now. It is about love of God.
 
Actually that atheist’s motives are unclear and such a person might not even exist.
 
Good Evening Start: Lots of people like that exist. Love is a condition that is displayed throughout living things, and out of millions of species, only one species has a subset of noisy constituents who do good things because of organized traditions that promise rewards for being good and threaten punishment for failing to be good. There is no logical or sound reason to believe any of that lore, and therefore we call it faith. And as I have heard it explained with equal puzzlement, some of us are blessed with it and some of us are not. Who chooses who is able to believe and who is not? Who gives out that mental capacity or proclivity and who withholds it? Providence? A loving and just creator? Why do we call that loving and just? For fear of calling it what it seems to be? Because there might be a hell for people who think such things? Well anyway, our ability as individuals to reason one way or the other doesn’t seem to be a choice, but a matter of cognition, experience, upbringing both familial and cultural, punctuated by the unnerving fact that what pops into our heads and why remains a mystery. Meanwhile, here on the ground, it makes all the sense in the world to be good to others and to care for others, simply for the sake of the outcomes such things produce, and I have heard many an atheist say so. It is plainly obvious that even without a God, we are at least accountable to one another, and I would imagine this is much more genuine a motive than an enterprise of racking up merit points to cover admission to paradise.

All the best!
 
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