Why should I believe?

[Chanel]

The answer to the problem of evil is this:

God gave us free will. We choose to follow or we choose not to. The terrible things you speak of are the effects of evil humans. God does hate evil. That’s why he casts the evil into hell, unless they repent.

Well God shouldn’t have let evil exist for cripe sake!! That’s stupid to hate something then let it exist!

If your God casts the evil into hell, then he has no mercy. If God is so all-knowing and all-powerful then he should know who is going to be put into hell before they’re even born and just not let them be born.

This ties in with the concept of hell. Many atheists say “Well, how could an all-loving God have hell?”. God is still loving, because He became incarnate, and suffered so that we could all be forgiven and have eternal life. So even the most evil can be forgiven if they repent(although they may have some time to spend in purgatory).

Wow, I didn’t know God could suffer. If he can suffer, then he should bloody know what it’s like then do something to change this world! Duh.

But the better question to ask yourself is this: “How can a completely just God allow unrepentant evil people to have eternal happiness, while people work to be good their whole lives?”

I thought you said that God throws evil souls into hell…so if that’s the case, then the evil people can’t have eternal happiness. So this is confusing here.

As far as I’m concerned, this is not real justice in the world.

And why does God give us the free choice between good and evil? Because these choices determine your eternal fate. Isn’t your fate for *eternity *something that you should have the choice of?

Pax tecum.

Oh, so God doesn’t give a rat’s you-know-what where you will spend your eternity? So why would your God do such a thing? To give us a choice of heaven or hell? Why the freakin’ freak would God even come up with a concept like that?

It all just doesn’t make sense.

 

[Chanel]

Hi Chanel,

God allows bad and evil things to happen because he can handle them.

Now I’m beginning to get real agitated.

Well, you know what? We are only human for cripe sake and we are weak and pathetic. How dare God allow bad things to happen because he can handle them!

That’s nothing but an insult to humanity!:

You know what, that is almost bringing me to tears.

I don’t care if he can handle it or not! Your God is…crazy. How could you even for a second come up with something so crazy and indifferent like that??? Huh?

I’m quite offended and disgusted by that concept! I can’t even come up with a word to describe how terrible that is!

I’m very disappointed by your religious teachings! That is just so unreal.

Catholic Faith states that God wouldn’t allow any evil to happen unless he can make good out of it.

Again, that’s an insult.

And this is where he almighty power is. The fact that of all evils you see, God conquers them.

No he doesn’t. Stop making excuses about evil and God and all that just to suit your purpose for what you believe.

The Catechism teaches us that God’s almighty power is expressed in forgiving our sins.
And this is the mystery of his goodness and his greatness. We are like kids. Because of his love, he allow us to be free, to do as we will, even to turn our back on him. But whenever we decide to change, he has enough power to heal us and restore us in friendship with him.

For all harms done to ‘innocent’ people, God is not indifferent. Who are we to know what is innocence anyway. We judge according to human standard. But God knows everything, he knows that in everything you and I see, there is justice. Even when true innocents are suffering, from God’s point of view, and from eternity, there is justice.

You can think of the worse thing you have ever seen, the worse injustice. Yes, God allowed it to happen because he knows everything, and he knows what is on the other side where we can’t see. He knows what he can do there, what he will do tomorrow, or what he can and does in secret where we can’t see and feel and sense with our other senses.

Sometimes we think of people who suffer and die in great sufferring and sadness and we say ‘How can a good God allow that?’ But this is a prideful question. Because we assume to know what is on the other side of death. In a way, we presume to know everything and therefore we are capable of pronouncing a judgment on the matter.

Believing is an act of humility. We recognize that we are finite creatures, that we don’t really know much. Our knowledge of reality is so tiny that we basically rely on Faith, even when we can’t tell that we believe.

At the beginning someone pointed to you that you can’t do any good unless you believe in goodness. This is a small faith in God. Because is the ‘absolute Good’. Perhaps you can’t recognize it but it is.
Faith grows. At some point we start noticing it. As it grow, we even start to notice its form…it grows stronger and stronger …

But it can also be wounded, and suffer, etc. If it is not nourished, it can stop growing. It can be sick and even die/be extenguished like a flame… Faith is the life of the soul.

So ‘Why should you believe’.

The idea that you don’t 'believe is relative. There are things you believe already, and they are things you don’t believe yet. Perhaps your faith is small and frozen somewhere, not growing, and all you need is for it to grow. You are likely asking ‘why should I believe in x’. X meaning the next thing that you don’t make sense of yet. Perhaps it is God as seen by Catholicism…

God bless

I don’t have time to quote and answer all your writing.

It is not pride when one questions when stuff happens. There’s a good reason why people question what they do.

For you, you have to remain tiny, fragile and humble. Why? Then your God allows all this nonsense to happen and yet you still must be humble?

Religion does nothing but insult humanity. Why can’t you see that?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I am no more a fanatic than you are stupid.

Uhhh, Chanel… Doxiemom was *complimenting *you. She was saying that calling her a fanatic was just as untrue as calling you stupid.

As for the content of any of these assertions, I have no comment.

 

[CentralFLJames]

unsubscribing - we have a fundamental communication and obstinancy/control-hubris problem when somone gets offended by accepting an invitation to denigrate the other and induce his own insult. That’s not stupid that’s someone so in need of attention and self-affirmation that they are willing to practise self-flagellation just to have shadow-boxer to spar and shout at.

Outtta here…

James

 

[Chanel]

In example, I simply cannot fathom the good that comes from a child being raped, tortured and murdered by a sadistic lunatic. These types of things, I openly admit, cause me to question the very existence of the God I worship. So much so, that at times, I’m really not sure what I believe anymore.

Well, there’s a reason for you to question those kinds of things.

“Obviously, something’s not right here or makes sense” goes through the minds of people.

But then of course, you’ll get religious people condemning that and saying that cliche, “Oh, we don’t know God’s ways”.

 

[Chanel]

As terrible as things like the Holocaust, the Rwanda genocide, and cases of individual evil are, this can be answered by free will. What I don’t understand is how an all powerful, all knowing, all loving God would use processes like macro-evolution to create beings in His own image (rational/spiritual).

I’m just can’t believe we evolved to be the way we are. I probably evolved from a reptile.

I just can’t believe an all powerful, loving God could even let aggression exist even in the animal kingdom. I thought aggression/evil was for humans but until I read biology, oops, I was wrong.

That’s the kind of God you want to worship?

 

[Chanel]

Chanel (and others), let me throw my 2 cents worth in.

Don’t give me all your 2 cents…you can save that to buy yourself something special.

Up until very recently, I was a non-believer like you are. When I would ask questions I would get a lot of the same answers you are seeing here. What my Catholic brothers and sisters forget sometimes when they answer your questions is that you do not believe in God. So when they provide “Christian” answers to your question, it doesn’t register with you. Telling you to read something in the Bible or the Catholic Catechism isn’t much different than answering a Bhuddist the same way. The point is, if you don’t believe in God, how can we expect you to believe in Jesus, Moses, Mary, the Saints, the Popes, etc, etc. You need to discover the truth about God first. Then you will be able to understand the rest.

The problem is, religious people are too closed-minded. They never really consider any other possible answers except the answers that they were brought up with in their religious beliefs. And if you don’t agree with them, they’ll condemn you to hell-fire.

I’ve learned as much as I can about God but it doesn’t convince me. All I think is that man made God so that we wouldn’t feel so alone on this small planet in the corner of the galaxy, somewhere lost in the universe.

Let me offer you a place to read some of the proofs for God’s existence. I understand the proofs but I do not have the time or vocabulary to get into them in detail. This is a site for some of the writings and audio recordings of Dr. Peter Kreeft. He is a well known Catholic and Philosophy professor who has written many articles and books on many of the questions you have. Even though he is Catholic, his answers are not “christian heavy”.

peterkreeft.com/featured-writing.htm

Let me say you are throwing Catholic stuff at me. But I will be open-minded and give it a try anyway.

Read the articles and give it a chance. You may be surprised by what you read. Believe me, I was when my conversion began. After I realized the truth of God’s existence, the rest fell into place. I’m not sure if I felt more happy or defeated when faced with the truth. Either way, it has opened up a whole new world to me.

Please don’t be discouraged with my fellow Catholics. We mean well and want to help someone asking questions any way we can. We sometimes forget that using explanations from our faith do not register with someone outside the faith. (I have been on BOTH sides of that)

I’m quite skeptical about Catholic teaching I’ll admit but like I said, I will give it a try.

I still don’t believe that a man can become God, FYI.

Read these articles. Do some deep inner searching. Keep asking your questions and find the answer. Don’t expect others to be able to “hand you” the answers. It won’t happen. Until YOU do the work, thinking and searching, you will never find the answer that finally hits deep inside. The site I offer above is a great place to start. If nothing else, it should get you thinking.

God Bless and Good Luck (I can still wish the best for you in my way can’t I?)

I remember a Jew once told me to not always rely on religious teachers/people, that sometimes to find the truth, you have to do your own research and thinking.

And I have obviously and it’s why I am the way I am. And if people have a problem with that, they can feel free to stone me.

 

[jmcrae]

The problem is, religious people are too closed-minded. They never really consider any other possible answers except the answers that they were brought up with in their religious beliefs. And if you don’t agree with them, they’ll condemn you to hell-fire.

What about religious people (like Dr. Kreeft) who were brought up in Atheist homes? Are you going to say that they were somehow brainwashed without being aware of it when they were adults?

I still don’t believe that a man can become God, FYI .

Neither do we. Jesus was always God - it is Jesus who created the Universe. He became a man and walked among us. He is not a man who became God; he is God become Man.

And I have obviously and it’s why I am the way I am. And if people have a problem with that, they can feel free to stone me.

We don’t stone heretics and unbelievers.

(We never did - stoning was for sinners]. Heretics and unbelievers got the fire. )

 

[Hospitaler]

Don’t give me all your 2 cents…you can save that to buy yourself something special.

See? You’re practicing Christian charity already!

Let me say you are throwing Catholic stuff at me. But I will be open-minded and give it a try anyway.

I’m quite skeptical about Catholic teaching I’ll admit but like I said, I will give it a try.

You’re right, I’ll admit that. There are certainly articles at this site that are defenses of the Catholic faith. The items that I wanted you to look at are some of the proofs for God’s existence. These are not necessarily Catholic since you don’t have to be Christian to believe in God. I thought these would be good articles for you to read and chew on a little. You have to address the idea of God’s existence first before anything else will matter or make any sense.

I remember a Jew once told me to not always rely on religious teachers/people, that sometimes to find the truth, you have to do your own research and thinking.

This advice could not be more accurate. Religious teachers/people are going to give you religious answers.

I had the exact same attitude and thoughts you do. Actually, it’s been very entertaining reading this forum because I understand both points of view. I completely understand where you are coming from and the opinions that you have but I also understand what my fellow Catholics are trying to explain.

I ended up being a Catholic after I spent many years trying to prove them wrong. I was convinced (like a lot of people) that the Vatican was some “evil empire” (Darth Vader anyone?) that was only interested in mind control and money (sound familiar?). And when you look back at the history of the Church, there are a bunch of examples that can prove this point. I would battle with Christians/Catholics over these points and very few of them could offer any good explanation. And we Catholics can get REALLY defensive when you attack the faith (so can the Protestants, Muslims, Jews, etc, etc,). A defensive attitude is all fine and good, and even expected, but unless you can give someone a solid answer, don’t get all bent out of shape when someone doesn’t believe you. I think you are experiencing a little of that here. This is why I encouraged you to keep digging. Nothing any of us say in this forum is going to change your mind. Trust me. Been there, done that.

And I have obviously and it’s why I am the way I am. And if people have a problem with that, they can feel free to stone me.

“He who is without sin may cast the first stone” - J.C. circa 33 A.D.

Sorry. I had to throw that in there for my Catholic brothers and sisters. It’s just a nice reminder that we are not perfect either and our Lord calls for humility when we deal with each other. I don’t think anyone is going to be chucking bolders your direction anytime soon.

Keep digging. I can’t stress the importance of that. If you knock on the door long enough, someone is going to answer.

 

[LBSDBS]

This is going nowhere. If you guys want to reason with an Atheist, you have to meet them on logical and scientific grounds. There are plenty of scientific arguments in favor of Christianity, but if you don’t understand them or are unwilling to address them, then you are wasting your time.

Well God shouldn’t have let evil exist for cripe sake!! That’s stupid to hate something then let it exist!

If your God casts the evil into hell, then he has no mercy. If God is so all-knowing and all-powerful then he should know who is going to be put into hell before they’re even born and just not let them be born.

I thought you said that God throws evil souls into hell…so if that’s the case, then the evil people can’t have eternal happiness. So this is confusing here.

Oh, so God doesn’t give a rat’s you-know-what where you will spend your eternity? So why would your God do such a thing? To give us a choice of heaven or hell? Why the freakin’ freak would God even come up with a concept like that?

It all just doesn’t make sense.

Few Christians will accept it, let alone admit it, but both nature AND the bible suggest that God has a sadistic side. Read the Old Testament. You will find more stuff like: “You will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee” then you will friendly and fluffy stuff.

Well God shouldn’t have let evil exist for cripe sake!! That’s stupid to hate something then let it exist!

If your God casts the evil into hell, then he has no mercy. If God is so all-knowing and all-powerful then he should know who is going to be put into hell before they’re even born and just not let them be born.

One theory to consider is that the universe was created as it is to demonstrate to all life that things can be very ugly should those who live want to venture around, so that in a possible future recreation of the universe without death and suffering, those who live not question the make-up of the universe. That of course is a theory, which may not even explain those sent to the lake of fire forever. Worth taking in to consideration though.

Wow, I didn’t know God could suffer. If he can suffer, then he should bloody know what it’s like then do something to change this world! Duh.

It isn’t hard to figure out what most Christians believe (or want to believe) on this matter, but you are going to have a hard time coming up with anything concrete on whether or not this is scientifically possible AND whether or not it’s even consistent with Christian prophecy.

I thought you said that God throws evil souls into hell…so if that’s the case, then the evil people can’t have eternal happiness. So this is confusing here.

As far as I’m concerned, this is not real justice in the world.

The first part spells out the Christian teaching. As for no real justice, that’s how it’s always been.

Again, that’s an insult.

If you look at how things worked in the old testament teachings, they believed that God’s assumed control over the world was very limited for whatever reason.

It is not pride when one questions when stuff happens. There’s a good reason why people question what they do.

Ain’t that the truth.

 

[Michael_Francis]

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