The ascent of the 6 steps that leads to Catholicism begins with proving that God exists. Today we take a look at one of the arguments based on the motion and change that we see in the universe.

Ave Maria!

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12 COMMENTS

  1. Interesting. So, you agree on a Prime Mover at the beginning which set the whole thing in motion. What is the difference between the Big Bang and your Prime Mover then? None, just a name. Because that is the theory of the Big Bang, a Prime Mover that set the whole thing in motion, Billions of years ago.

    So, you only proved by your logic that there must to have been a Prime Mover initially, but you did NOT prove by that logic that God exists. Those are two different things. It is illogic to think that just because there was a Prime Mover, or a Big Bang, or The Source, The Force, The Initiator, whatever you want to call it, which all of them make sense to that point, that therefore this Prime Mover is ALSO what YOU call God. NOW, this outrageous concluding jump, you have, NOT proved. A Prime Mover is one thing. Quite another is an invisible entity (incapable of becoming visible now btw) that although he could created an entire Universe in only 6 days couldn’t put together a book by himself to the world he created but instead needed regular folks to write it for him. That has no logic. That is absurd. If the Prime Mover was also your God he would have put together the book himself, and not only to a bunch of people, who they themselves called each other the “Chosen” people, but he would have put it together to everyone, in their own language, no translation errors, and with regular updates. But that is not the case, is it?

    The reality is people 3000 years ago created out of their imagination [an ancient, ignorant imagination], a God, said about Him all kinds of unverified events, impossible events, contradictory events and some right out lies. But that makes sense actually. After all, these were ignorant people, that wrote what they thought must to have made sense to them at that time, and their stories are very much like other stories told by other civilizations, and their books of the same period. We call those now mythologies. Legends and stories like a God creating the Universe in 6 days, stopping the Sun (from turning around the Earth) in order to give extra daylight to someone named Joshua so he could finish off his enemy’s army. Because as you know (actually I don’t know, maybe you don’t know), the Universe, and the Earth itself was formed at least BILLIONS of years ago, and the Sun is put, not moving (relative to the Solar System that is). The Earth is the one that moves around the Sun, not vice versa. But you knew this right? It is absurd that your God didn’t know this facts 3000 years ago. But, the people the wrote the Bible surely didn’t know this fact. They had in their head a lot of erroneous ideas like most people of that time. So, that they created their book with erroneous ideas of that time makes sense. What doesn’t makes sense is that you now believe 3000 years later that the Prime Mover is the same one that “inspired” that nonsense to these people. There is NO LOGIC in that, and you have offered no proof to that effect either.

    If you however continue with your idea of a Prime Mover who just started the Universe in motion, billions and billions of years ago and that is it, NO other intervention, then you can arrive PERFECTLY to today’s date. It explains the small changes from the elements of the Universe (Oxigen, Hydrogen, carbon etc) at the beginning, and the small evolution taking billions of years to today’s bast amount of peoples, animals, insects and plants. It explains dinosaurs, other humanoids before Homo Sapiens, the incredible forces of the planet in forging itself from horrendous earthquakes and ocean currents/waves (when our Moon was so much closer to the Earth than it is now, moving an inch away from us every year), the fury destruction of volcanoes, comets and other asteroids hitting the Earth, great Ice Ages, tsunamis, hurricanes, animals, and plants being wiped out completely, to human’s epic wars and destruction as well as construction, and beauty in certain parts of our World. All by the forces of nature and our own. Your God’s divine hand no where to be found. It would be illogical to have all this beauty and great unnecessary destruction with a thoughtful, “merciful” God, an invisible one that can’t show up himself when needed, only to be spoken of him in ancient books, through other “deducting” symbols and 2nd hand stories. No logic in that.

    We have been existing without God from Billions of years and will continue to do so for some more Billions, like other planets and stars ours will die down eventually, and other planets will spring life in another cluster of billions of years from now. Those that use Reason will fair better than those that follow ancient books written by sexist, racist, genocidal, war mongering men, even if sometimes you manage to do some good deeds, ignoring however the very destructive nature of certain parts of your Bible. It doesn’t make sense that if you believe in one hand that that silly book is the word of God, that then you choose to ignore and accept at random only the parts that make sense to you and at the same time be forced to propagate and do those very stupid and hurtful sayings and deeds that you know deep in your heart are wrong, to “leave no stone unturned” does NOT jive with mercifulness, not at all. You can say that a book comes from a divine intervention if it has ONE error, not to mention a whole bunch, plus contradictions, sections removed, sections added after it was said it was the word of God. You then must conclude, but must have courage to do so, that the Bible is NOT the word of God, it simply can not be. And simply move on with just doing things that make sense, like doing good deeds as yo have better chances of being reciprocated.

    There will be more Peace on Earth if you would only focus in doing good deeds than following some one else’s books and dogma. You don’t have to be of any religion in order to be good and do good deeds. You just have to do good.

    • Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, honorary prelate, professor of physics and astronomer at the Catholic University of Louvain.

      Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his ‘hypothesis of the primeval atom’.

      How’s that for Dogma?

      Carlos, I say this gently, you simply do not understand all that you think you do. Especially not about Catholics. Fides Et Ratio, Faith and Reason. They coexist from necessity and are a gift from God. One without the other is lacking.

      • Haha, gently, you simply do not understand all that you think you do. Just because Lemaitre was a catholic priest, and a scientist, and the creator of the Big Bang Theory, does NOT mean the Bible, that base for your dogmas are true. Billions of years since the creation of an ever expanding Universe, does not match 6 days of your dogma. And you are also confusing regular faith, with Religion Faith, the former is the belief of probable events as in “I have faith in you my friend”, most likely from previous experiences with that friend, that faith is Reasonable. So in this instance Faith and Reason can co-exist. The latter is in believing Snake Oil Salesmen as in believe the World was put together by an invisible Entity in 6 days (because those that wrote said God told them so), and on the 7th he was so pooped that he needed to rest. Right….That Faith is not Reasonable. In order for that type of Faith to exist, Reason can’t. Why don’t you have your God make the video instead, and let’s call it even. Why must he be invisible for you, and yet Omnipotent? Why does he need old folks from 3000 years ago to write his laws? Can put the Universe together in 6 days but can’t write a book?

        • You misunderstand again: we read the bible literally, but not as a “literalist” does. We take the literal meaning, which is the meaning that he writer meant to convey. The writer wasn’t trying to say that God created the world in “six days of twenty-four hours” but rather, God created the world and everything else. The order of creation is in part to show that the stars didn’t cause there to be life on Earth and other such truths.

          Some basics:

          The bible is inspired by God, not written by God personally.

          Furthermore, 6 days of creation isn’t a Catholic dogma and never will be.

          And we don’t get our dogmas straight from a literal interpretation of the bible as you say, we get them from faith and divine revelation and we get them from reason. The bible isn’t dogma, it is sacred scripture. There is a difference. Get a Catechism if you want to know exactly what the Church professes.

          Also, you are again mistaken on the meaning of the word “reason,” it doesn’t mean, “contradictions between empirical measurements that may or may not be correct” because, one can never prove something that is empirical to be absolutely true, because it is only a measurement; a theory, unlike a theorem that mathematics deals with which uses logic and reasoning.

        • But, in some ways you are correct that the argument for the existence of God from the need for there to be a beginning isn’t as air-tight as desired. That is why Thomas Aquinas makes the argument that there has to be a God existing right now to hold the universe in existence. And that is air-tight.

          Also, you made a comment about “I have faith in you my friend” and how that is different from religious faith and you are correct that it is different. One is faith in a human friendship and the things that a human being can provide for you and help you with and such, and the other is faith in God and the things that come from him (which is everything that is good, by the way). Now, you seem to think that having absolute faith of this nature is unreasonable. But, the point is, that if God exists, he is omnipotent, omniscient, perfection in all things, pure actuality, divine, etc. and it is from Him all good things come, then the only reasonable faith that one can give to Him is one of complete faith, BECA– USE He is God and you are his creation.

          Given God exists, faith in Him is reasonable.

  2. “But, the point is, that if God exists, he is omnipotent, omniscient, perfection in all things, pure actuality, divine, etc. and it is from Him all good things come, then the only reasonable faith that one can give to Him is one of complete faith, BECA– USE He is God and you are his creation.”

    Right, that is the POINT. IF GOD EXISTS, and he is omnipotent then Why in the hell did he need to “inspire” men 3000 years ago to write His Laws? What is the point of his Omnipotence? Why not continue with His Creations and write a darn book Himself? One without contradictions so that you all don’t have to dance around with Circular Reasoning and Smokescreens trying to move away from the obvious.

    Don’t you get it? You have Faith in a book that someone else wrote, and this human being is the one telling you, in the book that he wrote, that God said this and that. WTF? We call that HEARSAY. Now, IF ALL that these men wrote and said that God said would have been ALL correct, then I would agree that it must be the word of God, although still, why not write the book himself and be done with translation issues, removing books one time then adding others some other time, ah, forced to “interpret” this and that. It sure takes away from the Divinity of the whole thing, doesn’t it? I mean, come on, why not “inspire” the men to write billions instead of days, even men that stupid knew the difference between a few days and thousand of years. Why something so Divined, needs a whole bunch of you guys (ah, only men of course, no-women-allowed-club) to twist and turn, like a snail in a salt bath, smokescreens galore, circular reasoning, more smokescreens, bringing some paragraphs from one end of the book to cover the whole in some other area, to then need to do the same to cover the whole you just created in the process, and on, and on you go. Why? The fact is that those books put together by men which you call the Bible is full of events that have been proved wrong. And all you need is ONE error to kill the idea of Divinity. Man, there is a whole lot of errors, plus contradictions, and things that while not proven they certainly don’t jive with a perfect, merciful being, let alone God.

    That the Universe must to have started by something? OK, Logical, Reasonable. That that something told a bunch of men to write a bunch of books who you now call the Bible, and it must be true because ONE, there is a Universe AND TWO, they said it was God himself who told them all those things they wrote? NOT Logical, NOT Reasonable, and stupid therefore to believe blindly (FAITH) in the presence of EVIDENCE to the contrary. End of the story.

    http://suttervilla.blogspot.com

    “The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.” – Benjamin Franklin

    • The Universe as we (humans) see it is an infinite string of cause and effect. Infinity is a concept that is well accepted and agreed upon, and is a component of all math and science.

      Infinity is also something that cannot be completely proven 100%, because, ironically, by the limitations of our own sciences, there is no such thing as 100% or totality… that’s what the concept of Infinity imposes.

      I believe that Infinity begins and ends with God; the Alpha (beginning) and the Omega (end), and being that we’re imperfect, limited human beings, we’ll never be able to comprehend, or reach the upper/lower bounds of Infinity, again, because we are limited by our own concept of Infinity; which is, essentially, a Scientific Faith statement established by observable truths.

      Blind Faith is dangerous, and the Catholic Church does not teach one to be blind. We are all called to be seekers of wisdom and truth. I have Faith in God for the same reason we accept Infinity as a truth – because in my limited, human view, I see patterns in the Universe that lead me to only a single conclusion. A conclusion that can really only have one answer.

      I pray that we all will one day be able to see the absolute Truth – in all things Godly and not. Until then, we are all in the same boat – Building Faith on observations and limited understanding of the World, people, and things around us.

      God Bless all of us, awake and asleep in the Lord.

      Greg

  3. I’m late to this party but…

    In reading many of the interesting and remarkable things narrated in the Book of Genesis, for example, we must not be surprised if the events connected with the foundation of a universe and of human society are not of the commonplace type that make up our daily history. Supposing a creation and a revelation, what wonder if the hand of God should in some sense be visible in His creation? What wonder if a mingling of the human and the divine should be a matter of frequent occurrence?

    An impartial and broadminded examination of the Bible stories in question will show that, so far from being a counterpart of pagan mythology, they stand out in bold relief from the whole mass of ancient legendary lore, and exhibit a dignity and sobriety of content which is conspicuously wanting in the fabulous history of pagan origins.

    To pass in review all the alleged mythical stories of the Bible would be to write a commentary far outrunning the limits [of these brief video presentations]. We shall have to content ourselves with a specimen or two. From these you will get an idea of the light in which Catholics read the Bible.

    *The Serpent Tempting Eve*

    An evident fable, says the skeptic; and he dismisses the subject with a shrug of his shoulder.

    Nevertheless it is not so evidently a fable. Animals do not speak, but beings of the purely spiritual order, such as the angels, may use the animal nature, or material substance of any kind, for their purposes. But perhaps our objector is a materialist and does not believe in spiritual natures. The angels are to him only another mythical feature of the Bible narrative. To prove the existence of spiritual beings does not fall within the scope [of the present video]; but whilst referring our skeptical friend to other parts of [uCatholic], we can not refrain from asking him why he denies the existence of spiritual beings.

    Is it not to be feared that his opposition to the spiritual is resolvable into a mere feeling, or impression, based upon a crude, unreasoned notion that anything imperceptible to the senses—anything that has not three dimensions—has no reality whatever, is simply nothing? But we must assume here the existence of spirits and show how, on this assumption, the narrative we are considering acquires a dignity and a degree of credibility which remove it far from the absurd or the fabulous.

    The evil one made use of the serpent as an instrument of temptation. But why make use of an animal of any kind? Because an animal, and especially the serpent, was the best suited to his purpose. Consider the circumstances. The devil, who is a spiritual being, plans the ruin of man, who is partly of a spiritual, partly of a corporeal nature. The devil seldom tempts by direct suggestion, but usually through our natural concupiscence.

    But in the state of primitive innocence *concupiscence*, by God’s special favor, was absent. There was nothing in man’s nature in sympathy with moral evil. Hence the only available instrument within the devil’s reach was the purely animal nature, with which man has so much in common. He chose the serpent, at that time gracious of form and known to be “more subtle [wise] than any of the beasts of the earth.” We may add that he selected as the direct object of his temptation the woman rather than the man, as the weaker of the two.

    Eve was doubtless surprised to find the serpent, wise though he was, using human speech; but she knew there were superior beings in the universe who might speak through the serpent; and if she was aware that she stood in the presence of such a being the fact easily explains the deference she showed the serpent’s judgment during the temptation. As sensible appetite was then under the control of reason and gave no handle to temptation, the devil assailed her through reason itself. He plied her with the why and the wherefore of God’s commands.

    “Why hath God commanded you that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? . . . God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

    Pride was awakened, as it had been among the angels. Eve, the joint ruler with Adam of God’s creation, was already high in the scale of being, but now she would rise higher; she would be a goddess; she would know how to distinguish good from evil, and thus be the arbitress of her own destiny. It was only now that sensible appetite was awakened: “And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold.” She plucked the fruit, ate of it, and afterward used the devil’s arguments to induce her partner to do the same—adding, no doubt, an appeal to his affection.

    Such is the story of man’s fall from grace—a story whose details are so true to nature, so intrinsically probable, and withal so replete with dignity. And yet it is a story that has been brushed aside as a piece of absurd fiction.

  4. *The Flood*

    No less vigorously has the biblical account of the Flood been assailed; and yet, as regards the fact as distinguished from the circumstances, the Bible account has been confirmed by the traditions of so many ancient peoples that even the most skeptical must admit its truth. This is one of the many instances in which an independent study of antiquity has corroborated the sacred text.

    “The historicity of the biblical Flood account is confirmed by the tradition existing in all places as to the occurrence of a similar catastrophe. F. von Schwarz . . . enumerates sixty-three such Flood stories which are in his opinion independent of the biblical account. R. Andree discusses eighty-eight different Flood stories and considers sixty-two of them as independent of the Chaldee and Hebrew tradition. Moreover these stories extend through all the races of the earth excepting the African; these are excepted, not because it is certain that they do not possess any Flood traditions, but because their traditions have not as yet been sufficiently investigated. Lenormant pronounces the Flood story as the most universal tradition in the history of primitive man, and Franz Delitzsch was of the opinion that we might as well consider the history of Alexander the Great a myth as to call the Flood tradition a fable. It would indeed be a greater miracle than that of the Deluge itself if the various and different conditions surrounding the several nations of the earth had produced among them a tradition substantially identical. Opposite causes would have produced the same effect.”— A. J. Maas, S.J., in the “Catholic Encyclopedia,” vol. iv., p. 407.

    So much for the fact:—an extraordinary event, which impressed itself deeply upon the memory of mankind really took place, and the history of it the Bible professes to give in its details. It is these details that are principally attacked by the “higher critics.”

    It goes without saying that it is the supernatural element of the history that bears the brunt of the attack. The Flood story savors too much of the miraculous to be acceptable to the atheistic critic. The gathering together of the countless species of animals and the housing of them in the Ark—the feeding and tending of so vast a herd by eight persons—the submerging of immense continents to the height of the loftiest mountains, and the consequent emptying of half the seas—the preservation of fresh-water and salt-water fish in a mixture of brine and rain-water, which must have been fatal to both kinds—these and other circumstances are rejected by the “higher critics” as fabulous, because apparently miraculous.

    Whether there is any need of invoking the miraculous, strictly so called, to explain the facts as narrated may be a question. God could have given Noah special assistance short of the miraculous to enable him to perform the task assigned him, and by a purely natural catastrophe, though on an extraordinary scale, could have accomplished without miracle the destruction of the human race. But still, if it be shown that any one of the disputed circumstances calls for a miracle, we, of course, shall not be staggered by the prospect of admitting one.

    We believe in the possibility of miracles, and would naturally look for them in a universal deluge. In a destruction of an entire race we should expect an assertion of God’s power and majesty of the most impressive kind.

    And yet we must add that even the most devout believer in miracles will place a limit to his acceptance of miracle stories in the concrete. “Miracles are not to be multiplied without necessity” (i.e., necessity of interpretation), is a sound adaptation of a medieval formula. Working under the guidance of this principle, many of the most orthodox Christian scholars have endeavored with some success to reduce the limits of the miraculous in the case of the Flood.

    One question on which many others are thought to hinge is whether the Deluge covered the entire globe, or only a part of it. In the first place, it is well to remember that among the ancients the common conception of the earth was not that of a globe, but rather of a more or less flat surface, with a mysterious substructure of one kind or other, and with watery bounds whose extent was no less mysterious. Its vastness was not even dreamed of. No expression in their literatures ever conveyed the idea of a globe 25,000 miles in circumference and covered by oceans and continents of enormous extent.

    But, great or small, the earth was seldom spoken of as a whole except by philosophers and astronomers. Words in ancient writings which we frequently render by “the earth,” or “the world,” meant, at the most, the inhabited part of the earth, which in Noah’s time could have been a small fraction of the whole. Frequently they meant only that part which was most familiar to the writer and his countrymen.

    It is conceivable, therefore, and even probable that when any such expression as “the earth,” or even “the whole earth” is found in the history of the Flood its meaning is to be similarly restricted. It has been noted, moreover, that the Hebrew expression which has been translated ” the earth” may easily be rendered “the land,” “the region.” If this rendering be adopted the interpretation of the Deluge history will be comparatively easy.

    Views in favor of a restriction of the geographical area of the Deluge have been held by many “orthodox” writers, and amongst them a large number of Catholics. We, for our part, should welcome any successful attempt at demonstrating that the Deluge was geographically not universal. Any such demonstration would obviate the necessity of our believing that God flooded the entire globe in order to destroy a race inhabiting only a small part of it; and expressions denoting universality might be regarded as only relatively universal; that is to say, as relating to a particular region; and thus the defender of revelation would have a freer hand in dealing with its adversaries.

    Another question has been mooted which can hardly be a question for Christians who hearken to the voice of authority and tradition; namely, whether the Deluge was universal as regarded the human race. Were all men destroyed, or were only those destroyed who inhabited a certain limited area to which alone the Bible history refers? The Biblical account, considered in itself and apart from authority and tradition, may possibly admit of an interpretation limiting the destruction of men to a part only of the entire race, but indirectly, that is to say, through the interpretation given it by the Fathers of the Church, it forbids any such view.

    No Christian, therefore, who respects the authority of those great teachers of the early Church can safely permit himself to hold that any part of the human race was saved from the deluge except Noah and his family, who had taken refuge in the Ark.

    It has been objected that the history of the race furnishes evidences that not all men are descended from Noah’s family, and that consequently some must be descended from a part of the race unaffected by the Flood. The supposed evidence lies in such facts as the following: Nations which certainly have sprung from Noah found in the places in which they first settled inhabitants who had occupied those places for a considerable time. Egyptian monuments of very remote antiquity exhibit the Negro just as we find him today; even at that early period he was completely differentiated from the Caucasian. Languages, too, have developed in a way that must have required a greater time than has elapsed since the Flood. The gist of all such arguments is that more time is needed to explain the development of races and languages than is allowed by any version of the Bible.

    This objection has been urged with some persistency, and yet it is based on a false assumption. We do not pretend to have established a fixed and certain system of biblical chronology. So that if it can be demonstrated from undeniable facts that the development of races and languages required a longer time than is usually assigned, there is nothing in Christian hermeneutics forbidding the concession of a longer interval between the Flood and the present day.

    Such, if we mistake not, is the general attitude of Catholic scholars toward history and science in their bearings on biblical questions. Obscurity and mystery hover over many parts of the sacred writings; but where a clear and decided meaning is not otherwise discernible the well-balanced Catholic student avaib himself of the services of history or of science, whenever either can offer an interpretation at once well based and well defended.

    Our position, then, is briefly this: We are ready, if need be, to accept even as miracles the wonderful events by which God visited His wrath upon a sinful race; it is rational and, in some sense, natural to suppose that at the close of one great act of the drama of human existence, and one that was marked by an all but universal catastrophe, the power of the Almighty should have been more than ordinarily manifest; but at the same time we are aware that Christian, and even Catholic, scholarship points to an interpretation of the text which reduces the miraculous element to comparatively small dimensions. Only that part of the earth may have been submerged upon which human beings were living—God’s primary purpose being to destroy the human race.

    On this hypothesis such expressions as “all flesh,” “all things wherein there is the breath of life,” need not be taken in a strictly universal sense. They are neither more nor less universal than the expressions which have been rendered by “the earth,” which may have meant in reality only that “region” of the earth inhabited by men. Whilst holding, then, that all human beings were destroyed by the Deluge, we need not hold that the entire globe was submerged; and whilst holding that all living things within reach of the Flood were destroyed, we can still believe that many species of animals (not including men, however), were not touched by the Flood. If this be the case Noah’s task of collecting specimens of each species may have been a comparatively easy one.

    As to the anthropomorphism of the Bible, or its representation of God as acting in a human way, we know, on the one hand, from the Bible itself that God is purely spiritual and that He is infinite and unchangeable; and if, on the other hand, He is represented as acting in ways inconsistent with these attributes it is only because He wishes to accommodate Himself to our human limitations. “He knoweth our frame” and adapts His ways to ours.

    He is described as being moved to anger, or as being pleased with the sweet odor of a sacrifice, or as repenting of having created man. The deep impression produced upon men’s minds by such modes of representing the Deity enables us to understand something of God’s motive in permitting Himself to be so described.

    As regards apparitions of God vouchsafed to His servants, although it was forbidden in the Old Testament to represent Him by any graven image, nevertheless He Himself deigned to give man a sense of being brought nearer to his God by sensible forms which impressed upon men’s minds the awful feeling that they were face to face with their Maker. When God is represented as fashioning earth into a human body it need not be supposed that an actual moulding of the clay by an apparently human hand might have been witnessed.

    At any rate, it is plain from the Scriptures that when God produces anything He does so by a simple act of His will, and that His willing of anything is from all eternity. Neither change nor motion is in Him, but only in things without.

  5. I am so glad I have the faith of a mustard seed! God is in everything I see. He gave us all free will. We are all His children. Do you do every little thing for your children? Why do I ask this? Well a good parent guides a child’s development, a good parent aids his children in the learning process, he does’t force feed everything at once but utilizes everyday experiences to aid in his children’s development in a livable and gradual manner, all in a loving caring manner. Sometimes I think we tend to try and over think things when the really important things are bypassed,
    Most importantly…Love God, love yourself, love one another. If we can all do that then the Kingdom of God is at hand now and when we are born (through our mortal death) into Eternity. How you live now determines where you will live in your eternity! I trust in Jesus! Mercy oh lord on all of us because we all fall short without Jesus’s forgiveness which is freely given. Peace to you all, sounds like you really need it.

  6. My comment to Carlos would be this: what is the purpose of the higher order human brain from an evolution standpoint if not to contemplate? Our brain is way more complex than it needs to be for effective hunting and gathering or pure survival. We are made to ask, “Why are we here?” This has been our philosophical endeavor since the dawn of man in every culture around the world. The conclusion that every culture around the world has come to is that there must be some higher purpose to life. Most of those people came to the conclusion that there is a God or gods that are outside of our realm of perception that are controlling things or are in a higher realm that desire us to know Him/them.
    I find it interesting in Carlos’s posts that he continually spells God with a capital ‘G’, thus acknowledging the entity in the first person. Why would you do that for a myth? Regarding the myth of Christianity, the earliest Christians did not regard the man they knew as a myth and they died horrible deaths at the hands of those who knew what myths were to protect the memory of the man they knew, who was God on earth.
    Carlos, if there is no God willing is to existence and to come to know and love Him, then we must just be here on this rock by pure coincidence doing nothing but taking up resources. If that is the case, there is no purpose to life. If that is so, then YOU are just taking up resources and if you believe that to be the case, find a cliff and jump; stop wasting the resources of those who believe that there is more to life; that there is a purpose for us here on this planet and that is to achieve a Godly life here so that we may attain to be with God in the next world. If you are just a waste of oxygen, jump off a cliff and see which of us is right.
    God loves you even if you don’t love God or even think He exists. I do not want you to jump off of a cliff and to die. I want you to ask yourself if only for a second, why have 99% of the people who have ever lived come to the conclusion that there is a God or gods and you have not? Take a moment and just ask “why am I [Carlos] being a troll on a Catholic website if I do not even believe in God? What kind of human does that make me?” If that though does not disgust you, then I feel sorry for you. I will be praying for you brother that you at least stop denegrating what others believe for your own pleasure. Religious people have a word for that behavior, “evil”, not argumentative or enlightening, evil.
    As to the simplicity of those men and women of old, yeah they were so dumb as to construct the pyramids and the aqueducts of Rome and to develop mathematical theorems that are still in use today. By the way it was FATHER Nicolas Copernicus that enlightened the world that the earth was not the center of our solar system. Religion is NOT anti-science. God and science are not mutually exclusive.
    As to “occasionally doing something charitable” )or some such that you stated), the Catholic church feeds, clothes and provides medical services to more people around the world every year than any other organization on the planet and it always has and it always will. The Catholic church started the first hospitals and the first universities to bring people out of poverty and despair. Atheism will not do these things and we will not have more peace on earth with not God, we will have less.

    God bless you and for your sake you’d better hope you are right, because if you are wrong about God, hell is a nasty place, an eternity of pain and suffering, with no hope and in complete isolation from love and God. If there is even 1% of you that questions if you are wrong, you’d better get on the path to finding out why you might be wrong. If you are right, so what? You, me and everyone will die and nothing will happen. Then religious people of all ages will not have wasted our time trying to be better people through our religious faith. I know where I place my bet and it seems we know where you place yours. However, in gambling, the house (God in this case) usually wins. Good luck brother and our prayers be with your soul.

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