Why did you leave the Catholic Church?

[Techno2000]

This is where we differ. I agree that science cannot explain everything yet, and it may never be able to. However, I would not call this a miracle. Perhaps the doctors made a mistake with the diagnosis? They are only human after all.

Millions of babies are born each year with similar conditions, and the vast majority die. However, a very few with access to the best medical care and a very strong will for survival will live. From a simple statistics point of view, if a million babies are born with the odds of survival at 10 000:1, then about 100 of those would survive. I would not credit the survival of those 100 to a miracle anymore than I would credit the death of the other 999 900 to a miracle.

There are Thousands of Miracles out there that people just can not
explain a way, and that is a BIG problem for the atheisits

 

[Suat]

There are Thousands of Miracles out there that people just can not
explain a way, and that is a BIG problem for the atheisits

Not really. I doubt that any atheist will claim that human knowledge of the universe or of the natural world is complete. There will always be things that we cannot explain while our knowledge is not complete. However, I think it is a fallacy to call things that we do not yet understand ‘miracles’. What if we understand them in 50 years, do they stop being miracles?

Every religion has its miracles, not just Christianity or Catholicism. Does that make them equally correct?

But what do I know, I am hell-bound anyway, right?

 

[Techno2000]

Not really. I doubt that any atheist will claim that human knowledge of the universe or of the natural world is complete. There will always be things that we cannot explain while our knowledge is not complete.

Yet they Know with %100 certainty there is no God,Heaven and
Hell.

 

[drifting_away]

Hello. I’m considering leaving the Church. I’m starting to think that the claims the Church makes are exagerated regarding it’s exclusive and one and only Eucharist. I also have doubts as to the holiness of many of the clergy, and I’m wondering if the hierarchy has just gotten to be too bogged down with bureaurocracy over the years. I’m not sure where I’ll go if I leave.

 

[Suat]

Yet they Know with %100 certainty there is no God,Heaven and
Hell.

That is not true. They may exist, I have been wrong before. However, because I see no evidence of god, heaven or hell, I think the chance of them existing or caring what I think about them is small. Without evidence, I can see no reason to believe, ergo, I am an atheist.

 

[Techno2000]

That is not true. They may exist, I have been wrong before. However, because I see no evidence of god, heaven or hell, I think the chance of them existing or caring what I think about them is small. Without evidence, I can see no reason to believe, ergo, I am an atheist.

Did you ever stop and think the reason you don’t believe is because you DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE ???

 

[Crumpy]

Hello,

I am asking this question to those who were members of the Catholic Church and then left - either to join another Church or to stop being religious altogether.

The question is:

What was the reason that you left the Catholic Church??

I didn’t leave the Church, it left me. Locally, lots of talk and action that contradicts CCC.

Why did you chose where you went?

Just stopped going to church; watch EWTN a lot and other religious programming on TV, broadly speaking.

 

[Suat]

Did you ever stop and think the reason you don’t believe is because you DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE ???

Yes. Have you?

 

[Techno2000]

Yes. Have you?

Yes, me too, I was a unbeliever, because didn’t want to believe,but I had a change of Heart.

 

[eliasaph99]

Not really. I doubt that any atheist will claim that human knowledge of the universe or of the natural world is complete. There will always be things that we cannot explain while our knowledge is not complete. However, I think it is a fallacy to call things that we do not yet understand ‘miracles’. What if we understand them in 50 years, do they stop being miracles?

Every religion has its miracles, not just Christianity or Catholicism. Does that make them equally correct?

But what do I know, I am hell-bound anyway, right?

It’s funny, because you are playing the same game that you are implying that religious people play.

You are implying that whenever an unexplainable event occurs, religious people attribute to it to God, and that this is irrational. At the same time, you are taking every unexplainable event and attributing its lack of explanation to incomplete knowledge. But this is also irrational.

It allows you to categorize truly difficult events without ever really having to examine them. When confronted by the truly difficult, you can just say that our knowledge must be incomplete. You can lump everything onto human fallibility and never have to confront events that may make you uncomfortable.

As an example, you dismissed the story told earlier in this thread about the baby in the ICU. You said that maybe the doctors made a mistake. Well, maybe they did, in that case. I don’t know. But there are certainly plenty of cases where no mistake was made and something genuinely unusual and perhaps supernatural happened.

The Church doesn’t run around crying miracle everytime something unusual and outside the realm of common experience occurs. Potentially miraculous events brought to the attention of the Church are carefully scrutinized. Every possible rational explanation is considered and explored. The process is quite rigorous and it is unlikely that an event which was naturally occuring would be mistaken for a miracle. Still, the Church leaves room for its possible error and only proclaims that the finding is that the miraculous has occurred. The faithful are not required to believe in specific miracles (outside the Gospel of course).

Fatima is a great example of this. The Church investigated for an extended period of time. The finding of the Church is that the miraculous happened and that the Virgin did appear to the shepherd children. But, no Catholic is required to believe that it is true.

 

[eliasaph99]

Hello. I’m considering leaving the Church. I’m starting to think that the claims the Church makes are exagerated regarding it’s exclusive and one and only Eucharist. I also have doubts as to the holiness of many of the clergy, and I’m wondering if the hierarchy has just gotten to be too bogged down with bureaurocracy over the years. I’m not sure where I’ll go if I leave.

I’m sorry to read that.

I was outside the Church for many years. I found the same human frailty outside the Church as there is inside. People are inclined to sin no matter where they are.

Eventually, I was lead to return to the Church. Although I find the same afflictions inside as out, there is nonetheless something quite different. Personally I think that it’s real palpable hope.

Why do you think that the claims about the Eucharist are exaggerated?

 

[eliasaph99]

I didn’t leave the Church, it left me. Locally, lots of talk and action that contradicts CCC.

Just stopped going to church; watch EWTN a lot and other religious programming on TV, broadly speaking.

But what about communion?

 

[Mirdath]

It’s funny, because you are playing the same game that you are implying that religious people play.

You are implying that whenever an unexplainable event occurs, religious people attribute to it to God, and that this is irrational. At the same time, you are taking every unexplainable event and attributing its lack of explanation to incomplete knowledge. But this is also irrational.

There is nothing irrational about saying ‘I don’t know… yet, or potentially ever’.

 

[eliasaph99]

There is nothing irrational about saying ‘I don’t know… yet, or potentially ever’.

There is nothing irrational about having that as an attitude in a specific circumstance. There is something irrational about using it as a blanket response to avoid having to confront situations which would challenge belief in atheism.

 

[Mirdath]

There is nothing irrational about having that as an attitude in a specific circumstance. There is something irrational about using it as a blanket response to avoid having to confront situations which would challenge belief in atheism.

Perhaps the events which provoke that response are cut from the same cloth? That would seem to be the case with religious miracles. It is not so much that it’s a blanket response, but the particulars of each situation are similar enough that it inspires the same reaction.

 

[KellyEr]

It’s funny, because you are playing the same game that you are implying that religious people play.

You are implying that whenever an unexplainable event occurs, religious people attribute to it to God, and that this is irrational. At the same time, you are taking every unexplainable event and attributing its lack of explanation to incomplete knowledge. But this is also irrational.

It allows you to categorize truly difficult events without ever really having to examine them. When confronted by the truly difficult, you can just say that our knowledge must be incomplete. You can lump everything onto human fallibility and never have to confront events that may make you uncomfortable.

As an example, you dismissed the story told earlier in this thread about the baby in the ICU. You said that maybe the doctors made a mistake. Well, maybe they did, in that case. I don’t know. But there are certainly plenty of cases where no mistake was made and something genuinely unusual and perhaps supernatural happened.

The Church doesn’t run around crying miracle everytime something unusual and outside the realm of common experience occurs. Potentially miraculous events brought to the attention of the Church are carefully scrutinized. Every possible rational explanation is considered and explored. The process is quite rigorous and it is unlikely that an event which was naturally occuring would be mistaken for a miracle. Still, the Church leaves room for its possible error and only proclaims that the finding is that the miraculous has occurred. The faithful are not required to believe in specific miracles (outside the Gospel of course).

Fatima is a great example of this. The Church investigated for an extended period of time. The finding of the Church is that the miraculous happened and that the Virgin did appear to the shepherd children. But, no Catholic is required to believe that it is true.

That is precisely what I was thinking as I read Suat’s response.

 

[eliasaph99]

Perhaps the events which provoke that response are cut from the same cloth? That would seem to be the case with religious miracles. It is not so much that it’s a blanket response, but the particulars of each situation are similar enough that it inspires the same reaction.

To be quite honest, I’m not really sure what you mean.

 

[Mirdath]

To be quite honest, I’m not really sure what you mean.

All miracles are attributed by the religious to God; for one who does not believe in such a deity, to say that the cause of a seemingly unnatural event is as yet unknown is hardly a violation of reason.

 

[Exalt]

What was the reason that you left the Catholic Church?

To big reasons. 1) I felt the Church wasn’t meeting my needs as far as a personal relationship with God goes. 2) In my studies, I found a number of Church doctrines unsubstantiated by evidence - and, at times, contradicted by it. For example, I have significant problems with the church doctrine that scripture is “inspired” by God. That is, many parts of the Bible ascribe certain traits and actions to God that are incompatible with an all-good God. There are many other points of church doctrine that I found deeply problematic. I can expound on them later, if there is interest.

Where did you go?

I am not religious. You could say that I am an agnostic.

Why did you chose where you went?

My problem is that *no *Christian Church can facilitate a personal relationship between God and a human being - for God is clearly not a personal God. The God of Christianity is said to desire a personal relationship with human beings - he is said to be thier “abba”. (That’s, as you know, a very personal, loving name for a father.) But God, at least in my lifetime, has kept his distance from human beings. Even though billions call out for a personal contact with God, they recieve none (they’re more likely to get a hold of Mary, it seems). If God exists, he is silent and distant - and therefore not the God of Christianity.

 

[Suat]

It’s funny, because you are playing the same game that you are implying that religious people play.

You are implying that whenever an unexplainable event occurs, religious people attribute to it to God, and that this is irrational. At the same time, you are taking every unexplainable event and attributing its lack of explanation to incomplete knowledge. But this is also irrational.

It allows you to categorize truly difficult events without ever really having to examine them. When confronted by the truly difficult, you can just say that our knowledge must be incomplete. You can lump everything onto human fallibility and never have to confront events that may make you uncomfortable.

I can understand how it seems that way to you. The difference to me is that I have history backing me up. If you look back over the last 500 to 1000 years or more, you can see the progression of ‘miracles’. They used to encompass everything within the natural world from thunder and lightening or rain to more complex things like disease or diversity of life. In each case, we have figured out natural explanations to what used to be viewed as judgments from god. Now, I could look at what we cannot explain and say that it must have been due to a miracle. Or I can look back over history, notice that many things that were attributed to the supernatural actually had perfectly natural explanations, and attribute it to our lack of knowledge. In other words, you are using the ‘god of the gaps’ fallacy. Because we do not understand something at the moment, it must be god. Not a very good argument.

As an example, you dismissed the story told earlier in this thread about the baby in the ICU. You said that maybe the doctors made a mistake. Well, maybe they did, in that case. I don’t know. But there are certainly plenty of cases where no mistake was made and something genuinely unusual and perhaps supernatural happened.

So, you admit that there may be a natural explanation? Then why conclude a supernatural cause? Yes, there are many cases where people beat the odds. But as I said before, if a million people are given 10 000 to 1 odds against survival, then 100 of those will still survive. That is no more a miracle than the deaths of the rest. What about the children who did not survive? What do you say to their parents? Were they not praying to the right god? Or perhaps they prayed the rosary instead of the Divine Mercy Chaplet? Every time someone survives the improbable, it is hailed as a miracle, yet few remember the lives of those who perish.

Fatima is a great example of this. The Church investigated for an extended period of time. The finding of the Church is that the miraculous happened and that the Virgin did appear to the shepherd children. But, no Catholic is required to believe that it is true.

Perhaps that is because there is no evidence beyond the words of three children and a group of devote followers? Children are well known for embellishing the truth at times, and people can see what they want to see, especially when there are inconsistencies in their reports. Mob mentality and the power of suggestion are quite powerful and staring at the sun is not so good for your eyesight . So I have a difficult time believing that the claims for miracles are as carefully scrutinized as you claim. Now, I do know that the Catholic church does dismiss many perceived miracles, normally the ones where there is solid evidence for a hoax. However, it is impossible to prove or disprove visions.

I am confused though. If there really was solid evidence for this miracle, then why are Catholics not required to believe in it?

Do you have a list of miracles that have been accepted in recent years? I searched for a few minutes and did not find anything. It would be interesting to see how many miracles on that list are things like apparitions and how many are cures from disease or something in which there is solid evidence of a problem prior to the miracle.

That said, the existence of miracles is an interesting problem to me. I have always thought that faith was important in the belief in a god. As far as I remember, the bible will back me up on that one, and perhaps Ahimsa will too . So, if miracles do indeed exist and prove the existance of the supernatural, then what is the use of faith? In fact, does that not negate the need for faith? And what about all the miracles that believers in other religions experience? Does that mean that god is not simply Christian or Muslim or Hindu? Would a generic theistic god be a better explanation of the observance of miracles in all religions?