Why Should I Become Catholic?

[Call_Me_V]

Hi everybody, I’m new here. I left Catholicism roughly a year ago because I could not see any more reason to believe that Catholicism was true than to believe that any other religion was true.

So, since I don’t want to bring up the banned topics of the existence of God or evolution, the main point of this thread is this: What reasons are there that an earnest seeker of truth should convert to Catholicism?

Thanks in advance,
V

 

[Bookcat]

a book to recommend…

amazon.com/Religious-Sense-Luigi-Giussani/dp/0773516263

then after that…one can read the next in the series.

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/urbi/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20090412_urbi-easter_en.html

 

[Call_Me_V]

a book to recommend…

amazon.com/Religious-Sense-Luigi-Giussani/dp/0773516263

then after that…one can read the next in the series.

Thanks, the book looks really cool. Unfortunately, I’m a cash strapped teenager who can’t get a job in this depression . I can afford one or two books, if they’re really worth it, but I can’t go buying books willy-nilly. If you don’t mind, could you tell me which argument in the book you find most persuasive? If you really think that the book is worth it, I’ll see if I can get my hands on it.

Bookcat:

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/urbi/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20090412_urbi-easter_en.html

Let me try to put Benedict’s argument in a logical form. If anyone disagrees with the way I’ve portrayed it, let me know and I’ll fix it. He seems to me to be saying:

Premise 1: Many people claimed to have witnessed Jesus’ Resurrection
Premise 2: If people claim to have witnessed something, and we have no evidence to the contrary, we should believe that the thing that they claim to have witnessed really happened.
Conclusion: We should believe that the Resurrection really happened.

If I understood him correctly, then I would have to disagree with Premise 2. The hitch that Benedict (and most Christian apologists, for that matter), falls into is he seems to think that only Christian miracles have “eyewitnesses”. He claims that we should believe in the Resurrection because there are eyewitnesses who claim to have witnessed it. But there are plenty of miracles from other religions that have plenty of eyewitness testimony for them. For example, there were six eyewitnesses who claim to have seen the Indian mystic Sathya Sai Baba create a magic portal in India that allowed him to transport one of his followers instantaneously to Australia to visit his sick mother. Yet despite these eyewitnesses, I doubt that Benedict (or most Christian apologists) would want us to accept the argument:

Premise 1: Many people claimed to have witnessed Sathya Sai Baba create a magic portal.
Premise 2: If people claim to have witnessed something, and we have no evidence to the contrary, we should believe that the thing that they claim to have witnessed really happened.
Conclusion: We should believe that the magic portal really existed.

Again, why should I believe the Christian miracles based on the testimony of “eyewitnesses”, but not believe in the miracles of other religions when they also have equally compelling “eyewitness” testimony?

Thanks in advance,
V

 

[robdaddyf]

I grew up Protestant…went to a Reformed college…traveled to Jerusalem…encountered the Orthodox and Catholic Church…explored other religions…joined a non-denominational congregation…converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith…spent the last ten years digging, praying, researching, questioning, asking, etc and will be entering in to full communion with the Catholic Church this Easter Vigil! Am I like Goldilocks or what?

Why should YOU become Catholic? Let me tell you why I am…

Let me first say that if you’re looking for a quick and easy answer to this question you probably won’t find one and if you do you should be very suspect of your motivations and intentions. Truth is a lifelong pursuit and should be viewed on a continuum as opposed to a simple “either/or” or a check list of “pros and cons.” I don’t assume that YOU would take this pursuit lightly…too often people simply go with what “feels best” and frankly this is pure stupidity. People in our culture have learned to exalt their feelings as a god…I say this because people don’t examine things with their minds, hearts, time, energy to find what all of these things (emotions/feelings included) point to as Truth. They go where they “feel at home” which has SOME value of course and shouldn’t be totally ignored but the fact is this feeling will wear off and what then? On to another bed that isn’t too hard, too soft…you get the picture.

The last thing on earth, seriously, that I thought I would ever “land on” would be the Catholic Church. I viewed it as stodgy, outdated, not to be taken seriously…I reasoned that the Pope was just a nice old man with a bunch of religious bureaucrats telling him what to do and say. Simply, I didn’t give it a second look because I had so many false, preconceived ideas and let my “gut reaction” lead. This was until I began studying Theology, Church History, Scripture and the Early Church Fathers more deeply…entering in to a regular growing prayer life…that I began seeing some of my wrongly nurtured ideas fall apart. I thought that I knew what the truth was and that others simply didn’t know…I didn’t realize (until later) that there were early Church foundations, writings and martyrs who died for their beliefs that were, you guessed it, undeniably similar to CATHOLIC beliefs and practices of today. It was as if I uncovered a lost treasure.

I began studying (one by one) beliefs held by all of the various Christian traditions…Protestant, Evangelical (which I saw so many holes scripturally, historically, and practically in their backgrounds that these seemed to not even hold to their own beliefs very strongly! Or if they did they couldn’t clearly back up their own traditions with a solid biblical or historical witness) I looked from every angle I could think of and kept coming up empty on several points. Yet, when I had nearly lost hope I thought, at last I would give the Catholic Church an honest look…I reasoned it to be best to go where the path of Truth was clearly leading…it led me straight into the arms of the Catholic Church.

Why Catholic? I began examining the scriptural and historical background of things like the papacy, the Marian dogmas/doctrines, again, one by one, and found myself seeing such clarity, harmony of faith and reason, Truth and Tradition etc. My friend it was undeniable…undeniable. On top of all of this there was so much more to the Catholic Church (that I had once dismissed as “unnecessarily or extra”) that truly opened my eyes and heart to know and love God and His Church much more fully and completely. I found I had to go in person then…I’ve gone through the RCIA process over the last year and have only grown in my love and appreciation for the Church the more I look.

It can be said that many people follow their gut…or simply stay where they are for a lack of desire to examine and explore and search out Truth. I hope nobody reading this fits this description. I can safely and easily say that the Catholic Church is “home” because it is where the Lord has clearly led me. It wasn’t quick and easy by any means but it is something that I now can say I stake my life on…the lives of my family…my children…everything that I might follow Christ in the embrace of HIS Church…which is the Catholic Church. Our Blessed Mother, The Pope, The Saints, The Sacraments, The Liturgy, Tradition, Magesterium, etc…I would never desire to live without these ever again.

You are in my prayers.

 

[St_Francis]

Thanks, the book looks really cool. Unfortunately, I’m a cash strapped teenager who can’t get a job in this depression . I can afford one or two books, if they’re really worth it, but I can’t go buying books willy-nilly. If you don’t mind, could you tell me which argument in the book you find most persuasive? If you really think that the book is worth it, I’ll see if I can get my hands on it.

Try inter-library loan–your public library should be able to get it for you from another library system if they don’t have it themselves.

(This is a great resource, btw. I have often used it to evaluate books before I buy them because I live very far away from a bookstore)

Let me try to put Benedict’s argument in a logical form. If anyone disagrees with the way I’ve portrayed it, let me know and I’ll fix it. He seems to me to be saying:

Premise 1: Many people claimed to have witnessed Jesus’ Resurrection
Premise 2: If people claim to have witnessed something, and we have no evidence to the contrary, we should believe that the thing that they claim to have witnessed really happened.
Conclusion: We should believe that the Resurrection really happened.

If I understood him correctly, then I would have to disagree with Premise 2. The hitch that Benedict (and most Christian apologists, for that matter), falls into is he seems to think that only Christian miracles have “eyewitnesses”. He claims that we should believe in the Resurrection because there are eyewitnesses who claim to have witnessed it. But there are plenty of miracles from other religions that have plenty of eyewitness testimony for them. For example, there were six eyewitnesses who claim to have seen the Indian mystic Sathya Sai Baba create a magic portal in India that allowed him to transport one of his followers instantaneously to Australia to visit his sick mother. Yet despite these eyewitnesses, I doubt that Benedict (or most Christian apologists) would want us to accept the argument:

Premise 1: Many people claimed to have witnessed Sathya Sai Baba create a magic portal.
Premise 2: If people claim to have witnessed something, and we have no evidence to the contrary, we should believe that the thing that they claim to have witnessed really happened.
Conclusion: We should believe that the magic portal really existed.

Again, why should I believe the Christian miracles based on the testimony of “eyewitnesses”, but not believe in the miracles of other religions when they also have equally compelling “eyewitness” testimony?

Thanks in advance,
V
Now, I don’t know about the Indian “miracle,” but has the Church denied it? It might have happened… Catholics still witness miracles, but the Church investigates them. For example, the most inexplicable cures at Lourdes are thoroughly evaluated, and 80 have been declared *definitely *miraculous.

As to the Pope’s argument, another aspect is that no one *denied *that this happened. The Gospels were written within the lifetime of people around there, and yet we have no evidence of anyone’s saying–naw, this didn’t happen, they’re making it up. So it’s not *just *that people saw Christ after His Resurrection, but that no one contradicted them either.

As to the portal, Catholic saints have bilocated as well, St Padre Pio, and others.

 

[robdaddyf]

amazon.com/Handbook-Catholic-Apologetics-Reasoned-Questions/dp/1586172794/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270055010&sr=1-2

I would HIGHLY recommend this book…it’s a bit of work…but very readable and will answer many burning questions. It is one of the most highly regarded books of it’s kind…and becoming the most popular.

 

[forlorna]

Because it is the real church…Because God is calling you to it…Because we can say the rosary…Because we have the saints as our friends…Because Mary is there to bring us closer to Jesus…p.s. read 7th story mountain by thomas merton see you here soon, until then i remain a simple happy catholic girl

 

[ausculta]

In either case a miracle is reported to have happened that was witnessed by some number of persons. I see other variables; for example: Either the witnesses observed an actual miracle, experienced a mass-hallucination event, or have a motive for misrepresenting the truth (also called lying). Just some things to consider.

I think the resurrection event is not nearly the same in scale as the purported miracles of Baba. But I don’t find miracles all that extraordinary. If miracles ceased happening, then I would start to worry.

Pax,

A

 

[jmcrae]

Let me try to put Benedict’s argument in a logical form. If anyone disagrees with the way I’ve portrayed it, let me know and I’ll fix it. He seems to me to be saying:

Premise 1: Many people claimed to have witnessed Jesus’ Resurrection
Premise 2: If people claim to have witnessed something, and we have no evidence to the contrary, we should believe that the thing that they claim to have witnessed really happened.
Conclusion: We should believe that the Resurrection really happened.

If I understood him correctly, then I would have to disagree with Premise 2.

I would, too, if that was all there was to it. What we see is not merely a “claim” that this happened, but an insistence that it happened, on the part of several thousand witnesses, all of whom went to their painful, public, humiliating deaths as criminals, rather than “admit” or say that they were making the whole thing up.

Have you ever kept quiet about something, or refrained from doing something that you wanted to do, because some loudmouth at school might start making fun of you?

If the Resurrection had never actually happened - if they had just been making the whole thing up - how long do you think the subterfuge would have lasted? Probably right up until it started being embarrassing to hold that opinion - don’t you think? Yet, they persisted in believing and teaching this, past the stage of embarrassment, past the stage of yelling and threats, and even past the stage of being arrested and put to death for it.

Now, it’s possible that there could have been one or two stubborn, proud people who would rather die that admit to telling a lie - but all those thousands?

That’s even harder to believe than the Resurrection itself.

As far as I know, no one is being threatened with death, or even with exclusion, for believing in the magic portal of Sathya Sai Baba.

 

[Call_Me_V]

First off, thank you for your honest and heartfelt post.

Let me first say that if you’re looking for a quick and easy answer to this question you probably won’t find one and if you do you should be very suspect of your motivations and intentions. Truth is a lifelong pursuit and should be viewed on a continuum as opposed to a simple “either/or” or a check list of “pros and cons.” I don’t assume that YOU would take this pursuit lightly…too often people simply go with what “feels best” and frankly this is pure stupidity. People in our culture have learned to exalt their feelings as a god…I say this because people don’t examine things with their minds, hearts, time, energy to find what all of these things (emotions/feelings included) point to as Truth. They go where they “feel at home” which has SOME value of course and shouldn’t be totally ignored but the fact is this feeling will wear off and what then? On to another bed that isn’t too hard, too soft…you get the picture.

I’m certainly no fan of going with what “feels best”. Without going into too much detail, at the time I left the Church, it was the last thing I wanted to do, emotionally. My entire life was tied up in the Church. My Catholic faith had helped me to throw off a a bout with depression and helped me defeat a porn addiction. Many have asked me since my deconversion, “were you mad at God” or something along those lines, and my response was no, at the time of my deconversion, I was in the middle of a lifetime high of devotion to Christ. My entire life, my spiritual, emotional, and social life were all tied up in the Church. Leaving it certainly wasn’t what “felt best”. The place I felt most “at home”,as you say, was the Church. I certainly didn’t leave it for emotional reasons. I left it in spite of my emotions. However, my deconversion is not the subject of this thread, so I won’t ramble on about it any longer.

The last thing on earth, seriously, that I thought I would ever “land on” would be the Catholic Church. I viewed it as stodgy, outdated, not to be taken seriously…I reasoned that the Pope was just a nice old man with a bunch of religious bureaucrats telling him what to do and say. Simply, I didn’t give it a second look because I had so many false, preconceived ideas and let my “gut reaction” lead. This was until I began studying Theology, Church History, Scripture and the Early Church Fathers more deeply…entering in to a regular growing prayer life…that I began seeing some of my wrongly nurtured ideas fall apart. I thought that I knew what the truth was and that others simply didn’t know…I didn’t realize (until later) that there were early Church foundations, writings and martyrs who died for their beliefs that were, you guessed it, undeniably similar to CATHOLIC beliefs and practices of today. It was as if I uncovered a lost treasure.

Well, believe it or not, I don’t think about the Church as being stodgy or outdated. Frankly, its ability to keep up with modern science (accepting evolution for example, and its recent conference where I believe that it accepted the possibility of alien life), has made it one of the most attractive options, at least compared to some of the more scientifically outdated sects, such as the fundamentalists. Of all the Christian sects, I respect Catholicism the most.

It can be said that many people follow their gut…or simply stay where they are for a lack of desire to examine and explore and search out Truth. I hope nobody reading this fits this description. I can safely and easily say that the Catholic Church is “home” because it is where the Lord has clearly led me. It wasn’t quick and easy by any means but it is something that I now can say I stake my life on…the lives of my family…my children…everything that I might follow Christ in the embrace of HIS Church…which is the Catholic Church. Our Blessed Mother, The Pope, The Saints, The Sacraments, The Liturgy, Tradition, Magesterium, etc…I would never desire to live without these ever again.

I certainly am no fan of following my gut. Like I said, my gut was telling me to remain in the Church. I, like you, have a strong disapproval of those who “feel” their way to a conclusion rather than approaching it logically.

You are in my prayers.

I truly appreciate that, thank you very much

 

[Biggie]

I am unclear as to what your crisis of faith actually consists of. Are you doubting the existence of God? Are you doubting the historical presence of Jesus Christ? Or simply the attribution of his Divine nature? Are you doubting his performance of miracles? Are you thinking that faith should be based on miracles? You ask “why should I become Catholic” but seem to be asking “why should I believe?”

Since Catholicism proceeds from a belief in God and the historical Jesus and then from his Divinity, maybe you could clarify exactly where you are.

 

[Call_Me_V]

Wow, lots of people replied. Bear with me, it’ll take me a while to respond to everyone.

 

[hatsoff]

Since Catholicism proceeds from a belief in God and the historical Jesus and then from his Divinity, maybe you could clarify exactly where you are.

Well, he’s an atheist, right? So, like me, he’s going to take issue with god-belief. However, it seems like he’s willing to assume the existence of some kind of deity, just for the sake of argument.

If there is, for instance, a prime mover, then we might be tempted to refer to him as His Supreme Indifference, for he does not appear to be active in the world. Perhaps he had a specific plan, such that those natural occurrences we observe do so only because God designed them to occur. However, the Resurrection of Jesus is usually associated with active intervention on the part of God the Father and/or his angels, clearly outside the domain of the otherwise natural function of the universe. In any case, whether God exists or not, I do not see any reason to suppose that the laws of physics have been suspended in one instance or another. Perhaps that sort of thing does happen, but if so, how should we ever hope to identify when and how?

And that, of course, is the crux of my resistance to the historical argument. It’s not that I need more evidence before I’ll believe Jesus was raised. Rather, I need a method of determining which events are natural and which are not. The historical method takes for granted that supernatural events don’t ever occur. I’m certainly willing to entertain the possibility that such a sweeping assumption is mistaken. But then how shall we evaluate history?

 

[Bookcat]

Thanks, the book looks really cool. Unfortunately, I’m a cash strapped teenager who can’t get a job in this depression . I can afford one or two books, if they’re really worth it, but I can’t go buying books willy-nilly. If you don’t mind, could you tell me which argument in the book you find most persuasive? If you really think that the book is worth it, I’ll see if I can get my hands on it.

Let me try to put Benedict’s argument in a logical form. If anyone disagrees with the way I’ve portrayed it, let me know and I’ll fix it. He seems to me to be saying:

Premise 1: Many people claimed to have witnessed Jesus’ Resurrection
Premise 2: If people claim to have witnessed something, and we have no evidence to the contrary, we should believe that the thing that they claim to have witnessed really happened.
Conclusion: We should believe that the Resurrection really happened.

If I understood him correctly, then I would have to disagree with Premise 2. The hitch that Benedict (and most Christian apologists, for that matter), falls into is he seems to think that only Christian miracles have “eyewitnesses”. He claims that we should believe in the Resurrection because there are eyewitnesses who claim to have witnessed it. But there are plenty of miracles from other religions that have plenty of eyewitness testimony for them. For example, there were six eyewitnesses who claim to have seen the Indian mystic Sathya Sai Baba create a magic portal in India that allowed him to transport one of his followers instantaneously to Australia to visit his sick mother. Yet despite these eyewitnesses, I doubt that Benedict (or most Christian apologists) would want us to accept the argument:

Premise 1: Many people claimed to have witnessed Sathya Sai Baba create a magic portal.
Premise 2: If people claim to have witnessed something, and we have no evidence to the contrary, we should believe that the thing that they claim to have witnessed really happened.
Conclusion: We should believe that the magic portal really existed.

Again, why should I believe the Christian miracles based on the testimony of “eyewitnesses”, but not believe in the miracles of other religions when they also have equally compelling “eyewitness” testimony?

Thanks in advance,
V

Very different…than your example…

He did not die all bloody on a cross (Romans were good at killing) and have his disciples run away for the most part…and hide in fear…and then be quite shocked to encounter their Master again alive …walking through walls and eating fish…and then be so transformed that they risked death with many actually giving their lives…for him.

Now i am not going to get into all the ins and outs of arguments regarding the resurrection…that would take too much time for me now…and here…there have been thick works done on it…

but I will say from my own experience of knowing Jesus Christ is that I also know by this experience…knowing by following him…knowing by the Holy Spirit…by the joy…the hope…the life…the experience of the Church of the Sacraments…of prayer…as a Catholic (I who came in from the outside).

PS:

I encourage you to read the audiences and homilies of Pope Benedict.

 

[Bookcat]

Thanks, the book looks really cool. Unfortunately, I’m a cash strapped teenager who can’t get a job in this depression . I can afford one or two books, if they’re really worth it, but I can’t go buying books willy-nilly. If you don’t mind, could you tell me which argument in the book you find most persuasive? If you really think that the book is worth it, I’ll see if I can get my hands on it.

If you wish…PM me your address and I will send you a copy in time. (do not put it here…not good idea and not permitted)

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Hi everybody, I’m new here. I left Catholicism roughly a year ago because I could not see any more reason to believe that Catholicism was true than to believe that any other religion was true.

So, since I don’t want to bring up the banned topics of the existence of God or evolution, the main point of this thread is this: What reasons are there that an earnest seeker of truth should convert to Catholicism?

Thanks in advance,
V

Hi,

We can make arguments and provide reasons until we’re blue in the face, but this kind of decision is made with the heart as much as with the head. You have to read the gospels and feel called to follow Jesus. Or at least, you need to pray and feel a desire to get to know God better.

If you haven’t experienced a calling, or talked to God, or at least have deep questions that you are seeking answers to, then all of our logical reasons for why we are Catholic probably won’t help

So… do you pray? Do you like the gospels? Do you wonder about the meaning of life?

 

[Call_Me_V]

Now, I don’t know about the Indian “miracle,” but has the Church denied it? It might have happened… Catholics still witness miracles, but the Church investigates them. For example, the most inexplicable cures at Lourdes are thoroughly evaluated, and 80 have been declared *definitely *miraculous.

.

Well, this mystic claims to be the Son of God, the incarnation of some Hindu God, and several other things that go strongly against Church teaching, so I assumed that the Church would not want to call it a genuine miracle. I could be wrong though.

As to the Pope’s argument, another aspect is that no one *denied *that this happened. The Gospels were written within the lifetime of people around there, and yet we have no evidence of anyone’s saying–naw, this didn’t happen, they’re making it up. So it’s not *just *that people saw Christ after His Resurrection, but that no one contradicted them either.

Not that we know of. The truth is, due to the fact that many, if not most, of the ancient documents we have, we only have because they were preserved, by hand, by Catholic monks and priests, it’s not hard for me to believe that there might have been contradictory evidence, that simply did not survive the ravages of history. I’m not saying that the priests were scheming “hehehe, we’ll get rid of all these documents that contradict our beliefs”, I’m just saying that copying these documents by hand was long work, and no monk in his right mind would spend his time preserving a document that disagreed with the Church when he could be copying something much more important, like the Bible. Besides, I think the Jews did deny that the Resurrection happened, it’s in the book of Matthew I believe, they claimed his disciples stole his body, though the merits of that argument are up for debate.

As to the portal, Catholic saints have bilocated as well, St Padre Pio, and others.

Well, that’s what’s at issue here, should we conclude that a miracle occurred on the basis of people claiming that it did? That’s still up for debate. But yes, I’m aware that many Catholic saints have miracles attributed to them.

amazon.com/Handbook-Catholic-Apologetics-Reasoned-Questions/dp/1586172794/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270055010&sr=1-2

I would HIGHLY recommend this book…it’s a bit of work…but very readable and will answer many burning questions. It is one of the most highly regarded books of it’s kind…and becoming the most popular.

I think my parents own that book actually, I’ll try to find it, thanks.

In either case a miracle is reported to have happened that was witnessed by some number of persons. I see other variables; for example: Either the witnesses observed an actual miracle, experienced a mass-hallucination event, or have a motive for misrepresenting the truth (also called lying). Just some things to consider.

I think the resurrection event is not nearly the same in scale as the purported miracles of Baba. But I don’t find miracles all that extraordinary. If miracles ceased happening, then I would start to worry.

Pax,

A

Well yes, I certainly agree that there are alternative explanations for almost all miracles than that they actually happened. I am a heathen, after all

Your correct that the Resurrection is superior to most of Sai Baba’s miracles, most of which could be dismissed as parlor tricks, but some of them are, if true, very impressive. The magical teleportation portal that I mentioned was one of the more significant ones, but he’s also reported to have performed miraculous healings and even raised the dead. I think that his miracles can hold their own against the purported miracles of Jesus.

I would, too, if that was all there was to it. What we see is not merely a “claim” that this happened, but an insistence that it happened, on the part of several thousand witnesses, all of whom went to their painful, public, humiliating deaths as criminals, rather than “admit” or say that they were making the whole thing up.

Thousands? Even the New Testament puts it at a little over 500 if I remember correctly. I could be wrong though.

What makes you think that they all went to their deaths? I’ve done a bit of research into the martyrdom accounts of Jesus’ earliest followers, and they seem to be exaggerated. I don’t think that the evidence for their martyrdom is as impressive as most Christians make it sound. I recall reading from a Protestant researcher, (who can hardly be called biased against Christianity) that there were no less than 13 different, contradictory accounts of the Apostle Matthew’s martyrdom. Even if we give the stories the benefit of the doubt, and assume that one of them was true, that still means that the early church managed to invent 12 completely false martyrdom stories. And once you realize that the early church invented 12 completely false stories, why should we assume that one of them is accurate? Even the Catholic New Advent Encyclopedia acknowledges, “There is a disagreement as to the place of St. Matthew’s martyrdom and the kind of torture inflicted on him, therefore it is not known whether he was burned, stoned, or beheaded.”
I think that the early church was very good at inventing inspirational martyrdom stories.

 

[Call_Me_V]

I am unclear as to what your crisis of faith actually consists of. Are you doubting the existence of God? Are you doubting the historical presence of Jesus Christ? Or simply the attribution of his Divine nature? Are you doubting his performance of miracles? Are you thinking that faith should be based on miracles? You ask “why should I become Catholic” but seem to be asking “why should I believe?”

Since Catholicism proceeds from a belief in God and the historical Jesus and then from his Divinity, maybe you could clarify exactly where you are.

I certainly believe that Jesus existed. The question I’m asking is what reason is there to believe he was the Messiah, Son of God, etc?

Hi,

We can make arguments and provide reasons until we’re blue in the face, but this kind of decision is made with the heart as much as with the head. You have to read the gospels and feel called to follow Jesus. Or at least, you need to pray and feel a desire to get to know God better.

If you haven’t experienced a calling, or talked to God, or at least have deep questions that you are seeking answers to, then all of our logical reasons for why we are Catholic probably won’t help

So… do you pray? Do you like the gospels? Do you wonder about the meaning of life?

I used to be a very devout Catholic. I prayed quite a lot, though I don’t anymore, no. Believe it or not, I do enjoy the Gospels. Jesus’ teachings improved my life drastically when I truly began to follow them, and live them out in my life. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Jesus’ teachings, and a renewed devotion to him, helped me to conquer a bout with depression and a porn addiction. I still read the Gospels sometimes, so yes, I still enjoy them.

---

I wrote all of this really fast, sorry if I missed anybody. I really appreciate you guys dialoging with me.

Thanks,
V

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I used to be a very devout Catholic. I prayed quite a lot, though I don’t anymore, no. Believe it or not, I do enjoy the Gospels. Jesus’ teachings improved my life drastically when I truly began to follow them, and live them out in my life. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Jesus’ teachings, and a renewed devotion to him, helped me to conquer a bout with depression and a porn addiction. I still read the Gospels sometimes, so yes, I still enjoy them.

Then I would recommend “The everlasting man” by GK Chesterton. I find he gives a lot of logical reasons to believe in Christianity (and Catholicism).

 

[jmcrae]

I recall reading from a Protestant researcher, (who can hardly be called biased against Christianity) that there were no less than 13 different, contradictory accounts of the Apostle Matthew’s martyrdom. Even if we give the stories the benefit of the doubt, and assume that one of them was true, that still means that the early church managed to invent 12 completely false martyrdom stories.

If 13 of your friends, one by one, come up to you during lunch and recount to you that an accident has taken place in the school parking lot, and each of your 13 friends recount different (and even contradictory) details about the accident, do you therefore assume that all 13 of your friends spontaneously and independently, all in the same moment, suddenly decide to invent a story about an accident in the parking lot?

Or is it more reasonable to think that an accident actually occurred, and that some of your friends are mistaken about certain details? Especially if no one is coming forward and saying, “No, there wasn’t an accident - everything is fine.”

I would say that 13 witnesses talking about the martyrdom of St. Matthew, it is reasonable to assume that St. Matthew was, in fact, martyred, and that some of the reporters were mistaken about certain details.