Ask a Catholic

[Randy Carson]

What would change your mind about Christ, God and the Catholic church?  What would it take for you not to believe?

I suppose that if I were captured by ISIS, tortured, and watched all my family be slaughtered before my eyes, then I might be tempted to despair. Conversely, I might be greatly comforted by the presence of God during such a trial, so it's hard to say.

Beyond the doubt caused by extreme suffering, I'm not sure I can envision anything that would rattle me too much at this point.

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I can define it, and I can make a probable (though uncertain) evaluation of whether someone is saved based upon some knowledge of their lifestyle, etc., but I cannot demonstrate unless we agree that either someone has met the Christian Church's general standards for salvation or they haven't. 

If you concede that "being saved" is a matter of meeting a certain standard, then it may be possible to at least describe what being saved looks like.

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, being saved requires involvement of a powerful supernatural being, along with some metaphysical postulates such as sin, soul, redemption and so forth.  If you can demonstrate all that, I'd be most impressed.

You can start by demonstrating the existence of the big guy...

Oh, well, if that's all you wanted, why didn't you say so in the first place? 

Seriously, what kind of proof would you find convincing, Jorm? Are you open to logical proofs?

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Nice architecture....







Fucking phonies.

Here's a little response to your point that I put together awhile back:

Why is the Church so rich? Why doesn’t the Church sell its property and give to the poor? The Cardinals and Pope should be like the wandering monks of the Middle Ages.

 
They could all be wandering monks, I suppose, but then where would the Vatican keep all its secret files?

The Church needs buildings in which to conduct its meetings and to run its day to day affairs. Protestants also have large churches (the National Cathedral (Episcopal) in Washington, DC is the sixth or seventh largest Church in the world), and Bob Jones University has a very large art collection. Why don't they sell all their "stuff" as an example for us?
 
The fact is that the Catholic Church maintains these buildings in the same way that the US Government maintains national parks, monuments, and historic buildings. Should the government sell all of its land and property to pay off the national debt? Or is there some advantage in maintaining these treasures so that everyone can enjoy them? Similarly, the Church holds its property, art, libraries and archives as treasures open to all.

Sadly, there is little cash flow generated from these things relative to the cost of upkeep, so the Vatican routinely needs to request additional money just to break-even on an annual basis. This annual collection is called "Peter's Pence."
 
Finally, are you envious that people have donated their time and money to glorify God through works of art and fine architecture? Does the Church have the right to take what has been donated to God in past centuries and put it all on the auction block without regard for what the original donors desired?