(November 22, 2016 at 6:44 pm)Balaco Wrote:

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Before I begin, I ask that you please avoid being hostile or anything. I'm a Roman Catholic, but I feel like many people of faith immediately jump to degrading atheists as people, rather than trying to understand their mindset. I'm heavily confused right now, and am asking both Catholic and atheist sites for their mindsets. Obviously, Catholics are going to defend Catholicism, while atheists are going to defend atheism. I ask that you please be civil about it, as this could be life-changing for me.


I've been questioning how to improve in my Roman Catholic faith lately...but this morning I came to the realization that I never really questioned my faith itself. I was lightly raised Catholic and recently took it upon myself to grow closer to God. Now, for probably the first time in my life, I feel like I'm genuinely considering atheism as a possibility.

From what I understand, atheists do not accept the possibility of a supernatural being, and restrict themselves to our "natural" human thinking. Previously I thought that atheists are simply conditioned by society to the point where they are unable to "rationally" believe in a supernatural being...God doesn't allow us universally undeniable proof of his existence as a test of faith. Now, though, I feel like it's impossible to tell whether that mindset is correct, or whether atheists are correct in their focusing on our natural human mindsets. I do feel like I've felt something while praying throughout the past. 

The other night, for example, I was planning on praying for about fifteen minutes, but felt oddly calm and ended up taking about an hour. Now I feel like that could have just been because I was comfortable, and my mind was "making things up" as I was more convinced in my faith.


Atheists, why do you reject the idea of God, and why should I? I know that your answers will include "there's no evidence" and all that, but please try to explain.

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(November 28, 2016 at 8:59 am)mh.brewer Wrote: Balaco, why is your god referred to as a "HE/HIS/FATHER"? Why does your god have a sex?

Quote:how did existence come into being? Catholics believe God has always been, from eternity to eternity, but how do atheists explain that? Without a supernatural being there from eternity, there is nothingness, how does something come from nothing?

Quote:God, first of all, chose to create the universe, the world we live in, all the creatures that live here, and the human race, He chose of His own free will, with no obligation whatsoever, no need to create anything, because He Himself is perfect, and perfectly happy, and had no need of anything, however, God is not predictable, and we do not understand His ways

Quote:Have you ever looked into the miracles of the church? Perhaps those would give you something to hold on to, for example, the incoruptable bodies of the saints, the miracle of the sun at Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes...there are countless miracles in the church, but those are a few which have been(and are) witnessed by the public, believers and unbelievers, which no one has ever been able to explain away

Quote:There is a distinction between faith and knowledge. One comes from authority, the other from direct experience. There are certain things which in this world can only be accessed by authority... It is not satisfying to the intellect which has not yet humbled itself, because we really want that direct experiential knowledge. But this sets up an exercise in futility. It is only when you are willing to admit openly that you can't demonstrate this or that but are willing to trust the witnesses to those things that the restlessness will decrease.

(November 25, 2016 at 5:52 pm)Balaco Wrote: From what I'm gathering, you guys generally view religion as a product of the mind, an excuse for hope or political power, etc. that ignores logic and bends accordingly.

What are your thoughts on miracles, whether large-scale ones like the events of Fatima, or "personal" miracles like those listed on sites like these, http://www1.cbn.com/700club/episodes/all...ng-stories ....Lies? Coincidences? Exaggerations?

(November 28, 2016 at 8:43 am)Tazzycorn Wrote:

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Oh, Balaco, I'd like you to ask e_c regarding his assertion that early christians wouldn't die for a lie if islam is also true as millions also died for that (some of whom are dying this very day), or if nazism is true (considering the thousands of Waffen SS and Wehrmacht recruits who died in the sincere belief that Hitler was right).

Just because people are willing to give their lives for an idea, that doesn't give it a free pass on showing the idea is right.

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People often make the claim that Adolph Hitler adhered to Atheism, Humanism or some ancient Nordic pagan mythology. None of these fanciful and wrong ideas hold. Although one of Hitler's henchmen, Alfred Rosenberg, did undertake a campaign of Nordic mythological propaganda, Hitler and most of his henchmen did not believe in it .
Many American books, television documentaries, and Sunday sermons that preach of Hitler's "evil" have eliminated Hitler's god for their Christian audiences, but one only has to read from his own writings to appreciate that Hitler's God equals the same God of the Christian Bible. Hitler held many hysterical beliefs which not only include, God and Providence but also Fate, Social Darwinism, and ideological politics. He spoke, unashamedly, about God, fanaticism, idealism, dogma, and the power of propaganda. Hitler held strong faith in all his convictions. He justified his fight for the German people and against Jews by using Godly and Biblical reasoning. Indeed, one of his most revealing statements makes this quite clear:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God. Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school and, interestingly, walked everyday past a stone arch which was carved the monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika. As a young boy, Hitler's most ardent goal was to become a priest. Much of his philosophy came from the Bible, and more influentially, from the Christian Social movement. (The German Christian Social movement, remarkably, resembles the Christian Right movement in America today.) Many have questioned Hitler's stand on Christianity. Although he fought against certain Catholic priests who opposed him for political reasons, his belief in God and country never left him. Many Christians throughout history have opposed Christian priests for various reasons; this does not necessarily make one against one's own Christian beliefs. Nor did the Vatican's Pope & bishops ever disown him; in fact they blessed him! As evidence to his claimed Christianity, he said:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
Hitler's anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education. Christian Austria and Germany in his time took for granted the belief that Jews held an inferior status to Aryan Christians. Jewish hatred did not spring from Hitler, it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. The Protestant leader, Martin Luther, himself, held a livid hatred for Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, "On the Jews and their Lies," Luther set the standard for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War II. Hitler expressed a great admiration for Martin Luther.
Hitler did not have to parade his belief in God, as so many American Christians do now. Nor did he have to justify his Godly belief against an Atheist movement. He took his beliefs for granted just as most Germans did at that time. His thrust aimed at politics, not religion. But through his political and religious reasoning he established in 1933, a German Reich Christian Church, uniting the Protestant churches to instill faith in a national German Christianity.
Future generations should remember that Adolph Hitler could not have come into power without the support of the Protestant and Catholic churches and the German Christian populace.
The following quotes provides some of Hitler's expressions of his belief in religion, faith, fanaticism, Providence, and even a few of his paraphrasing of the Bible. It by no means represents the totality of Hitler's concerns. To realize the full context of these quotes, I implore the reader to study Mein Kampf.
The purpose of this text intends to dispute the claims made by Christians that Hitler "was an atheist," or "anti-religious," and to reveal the dangers of belief-systems. This text in no way attempts to give endorsement to anti-Semitism.

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(November 25, 2016 at 5:52 pm)Balaco Wrote: From what I'm gathering, you guys generally view religion as a product of the mind, an excuse for hope or political power, etc. that ignores logic and bends accordingly.

What are your thoughts on miracles, whether large-scale ones like the events of Fatima, or "personal" miracles like those listed on sites like these, http://www1.cbn.com/700club/episodes/all...ng-stories ....Lies? Coincidences? Exaggerations?

(November 23, 2016 at 7:14 pm)Balaco Wrote:

(November 23, 2016 at 6:48 pm)Asmodee Wrote: I had a similar experience with a similar outcome.  I finally came to the conclusion that the idea of an all-loving god who loved me more than I was even capable of loving would not lay down one right path, allow Satan to lay down tens/hundreds of thousands and then simply expect me to find the one right path on my own with the intention of lighting me on fire for all eternity if I were tricked into choosing wrong, as the Bible clearly says most people searching will be, was a massively idiotic idea.

I was taught that God doesn't give us undeniable proof of his existence as a test of faith...those with righteous minds would find him. Joker and any other Catholics, what are your thoughts on this?