Ask a Catholic

[Esquilax]

What was the question?

Why do you feel it is acceptable to dictate to a bunch of strangers what their positions are, and to speculate, bindingly, on the motivations of people you literally cannot know about? Is there a specific religious doctrine that you feel empowers you to tell other people what they think, or are you doing it for other, equally dishonest, reasons?

[henryp]

I made it through 20 pages of this stuff, and just skipped to here, so apologies if it's already been asked.

God has always known a bunch of us aren't going to make the cut. The consequence being "hell" which sounds like an unpleasant place. To the point that, and I may be misremembering a bit, but I think the (para)phrase "better off never been born" gets tossed around a couple times in the bible.

With the knowledge that much of His creation is going to end up in a situation so bad they'd be better off never having been created, why go ahead and create us anyways? Are us bad eggs a means to an end? Collateral damage to get the good one's their eternal happiness? Could He not have created a system with just the nice folks who make the right choices, and left the rest of us with our non-existence?

[Randy Carson]

What was the question?

Why do you feel it is acceptable to dictate to a bunch of strangers what their positions are, and to speculate, bindingly, on the motivations of people you literally cannot know about?

Isn't that a question that I could just as easily ask of most any member of this forum chosen at random?

That's why we're chatting...to get to know the other side better.

Is there a specific religious doctrine that you feel empowers you to tell other people what they think, or are you doing it for other, equally dishonest, reasons?

I have never beaten my wife if that's the question.

---

I made it through 20 pages of this stuff, and just skipped to here, so apologies if it's already been asked.

God has always known a bunch of us aren't going to make the cut.  The consequence being "hell" which sounds like an unpleasant place.  To the point that, and I may be misremembering a bit, but I think the (para)phrase "better off never been born" gets tossed around a couple times in the bible.  

With the knowledge that much of His creation is going to end up in a situation so bad they'd be better off never having been created, why go ahead and create us anyways?  Are us bad eggs a means to an end?  Collateral damage to get the good one's their eternal happiness?  Could He not have created a system with just the nice folks who make the right choices, and left the rest of us with our non-existence?

Excellent questions.

Some people are predestined to heaven. But Catholics do not accept double-predestination (a Calvinist belief) that some are predestined to hell.

God knows what our choice is before we make it, but that does not limit the fact that it was ours to freely make. He simply sees further down the road than we do, so to speak.

Nice folks with free will can, do and did make bad choices. Without the ability to choose badly, we would be robots.

[dyresand]

Excellent questions.

Some people are predestined to heaven. But Catholics do not accept double-predestination (a Calvinist belief) that some are predestined to hell.

God knows what our choice is before we make it, but that does not limit the fact that it was ours to freely make. He simply sees further down the road than we do, so to speak.

Nice folks with free will can, do and did make bad choices. Without the ability to choose badly, we would be robots.

by that standard i am going to hell. What i mean is god knew at one point i would stop believing in him even if i only believed in him 
not even for so long. I mean i am doing good i have done and still do good things. Then it wouldn't god be a hypocrite if he sent nice good atheists
to hell because they don't believe? I mean christians and just people in general to claim they love everyone these days well they clearly only show it to 
their own believers or people who believe in a god. But they attack people who do not believe in a god and use hatred and name calling. So much for
love for fellow man i suppose. 

[henryp]

---

I made it through 20 pages of this stuff, and just skipped to here, so apologies if it's already been asked.

God has always known a bunch of us aren't going to make the cut.  The consequence being "hell" which sounds like an unpleasant place.  To the point that, and I may be misremembering a bit, but I think the (para)phrase "better off never been born" gets tossed around a couple times in the bible.  

With the knowledge that much of His creation is going to end up in a situation so bad they'd be better off never having been created, why go ahead and create us anyways?  Are us bad eggs a means to an end?  Collateral damage to get the good one's their eternal happiness?  Could He not have created a system with just the nice folks who make the right choices, and left the rest of us with our non-existence?

Excellent questions.

Some people are predestined to heaven. But Catholics do not accept double-predestination (a Calvinist belief) that some are predestined to hell.

God knows what our choice is before we make it, but that does not limit the fact that it was ours to freely make. He simply sees further down the road than we do, so to speak.

Nice folks with free will can, do and did make bad choices. Without the ability to choose badly, we would be robots.

Right, I'm not asking why God doesn't design/force us do the right thing.  Being robots defeats the point, which makes sense.  And this answered the part of the question of whether or not we are 'foils' to get the good people into heaven.  

But I'm still confused why He would create those of us He knows are going to blow it and be damned for all eternity. He knows we're better off never existing, but creates us anyway.  Why would He do that?  

[Esquilax]

Isn't that a question that I could just as easily ask of most any member of this forum chosen at random?

That's why we're chatting...to get to know the other side better.  

Randy, you have never had anyone assert to you anything even close to "you're just angry with god," or "when you're about to die, you'll believe, everyone does," so stop being obtuse and acting like you're just one in the crowd.

I have never beaten my wife if that's the question

Hey, I'm sorry that your own words reflect so poorly on you, but when you come into a discussion on the existence of god and assert that we already believe in him but are just angry with him, then you are being dishonest, as you have no way to know that, and asserting that something is true when you do not know it to be true is a lie. I'm just wondering whether this is a doctrinally approved lie, or what? I did include some other possibilities in my original question; it just so happens that none of the possible causes for why you're conducting yourself like a con man are very flattering.

[Iroscato]

I know I asked this before, but you seem to have missed it: define truth.

How would you know that a particular set of beliefs is true... or rather, because that makes no sense at all, how would you know that what a particular religion claims is the truth?

By the grace of God.

Make your point, poca. There are lots of posts I need to respond to...

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2200 years ago or so, the religion of Rome would've been accepted as 'true' by the vast majority of people. Main reason being, it was the dominant power in the world at the time, and could damn well back up those beliefs with a few legions of soldiers to come and smash your windows in and do unspeakable things to your bottom.
Guess what? Despite its immense military power and wealth, Rome fell. As did the religion of the Aztec Empire, as did the religion of Egypt, as did the religion of ancient Greece and so on ad infinitum.
So will the Catholic faith fall, the last remnants of Constantinople, lost to the relentless juggernaut that is time. Inevitably it will be replaced by another form of lunacy, only with a fair fewer people believing in it, if the general decline of religion is to be factored in.

The existence of the graveyard of the gods does not prove that Christianity will one day rest there.

Just because some conceptions of God are fictional, how does that prove that all conceptions of God are fiction?

It does not prove anything, but surely even you won't deny it sets one hell of a precedent to go by. Just because you were born in this little slice of time, you think your particular brand of bullshit carries any more weight than the literally tens of thousands that have come before it? Come on.
I'm sorry that you cannot accept that in the grand scheme of things, your faith really is Nothing Special, but reality has this funny habit of being just so whether you hide from it or not

[Esquilax]

Hey Randy, how about you start an "Ask All Atheists," thread, since you claim to know better about what we're all thinking than we do?

[Cato]

Pick your favorite argument against Catholicism...just one...and give me your question.

I don't respond to shotgun posts. One point at a time.

Your evasion of the point is telling. Not getting the point would be even more damning.

I'm not asking a question, but I think you know this. For the record I completed catechism and was confirmed in the church. Like many others here I've heard it all before. Your assumption that I reject your beliefs simply because I am ignorant of what it all really means is insulting and couldn't be further from the truth. You have no evidence, only rationalizations. This is why you're not taken seriously.

[nihilistcat]

Pick your favorite argument against Catholicism...just one...and give me your question.

My favorite argument against Catholicism is the same argument against religion in general ... it's based on bullshit. 

1) first we believed that the universe and man was created in seven days, then came biology, physics, geology, etc., and now most religions call that story figurative.

2) most mainstream archaeologists have concluded that the Exodus narrative never happened, which suggests that Moses never actually existed (this is a development that most churches have not yet been willing to concede, nonetheless, when you look at the evidence, it's very decisive). 

3) Paul claimed 500 witnesses, the context of the sermon on the mounts implies there were perhaps thousands in attendance, yet not a single corroborating report or artifact in history. 

4) we now know the gospels were written by well educated, native Greek speakers, not Aramaic speaking barely literate fishermen from Galilee. The churches response to this, to the extent they're willing to admit the inherent problems in their ancient manuscripts, it doesn't matter because all those authors were inspired by god, and how do they know, because they say so (and since they claim to be the official representatives of god on earth, the normal skepticism with which we treat circular reasoning shouldn't apply e.g. they get a special pleading, why, cause they say so, never mind that you could support any claim, even the most absurd, with this flawed reasoning).

5) Islam is a religion with over a billion followers, based on a story about one guy who entered a cave, alone I might add, and emerged from his cave with a nice bedtime story about his encounter with an angel (and of course he emerged fully equipped with a new buy-bull). 

It's just one big long DUH!

I'm reminded of the story of the prehistoric tribe who would pray to the rain god to avoid drought, floods, famine, etc. Then they realized that rain would occur when clouds formed in their proximity, so they changed the story, and started praying to the cloud god. They then realized that the direction of the wind influenced the direction of movement of clouds, so they changed the story again, and started praying to the wind god. In fact, with each new bit of knowledge they acquired, they had to change the story. Eventually, a few of the smarter members of the tribe recognized the trend .... and became atheists.

If this were differential calculus, we would say the limit is approaching bullshit