Comment by waterbadger
Comment by waterbadger 5 days ago
[flagged]
Comment by waterbadger 5 days ago
[flagged]
That’s a great question! Basically all of the religions make truth claims, and these truth claims are contradictory. For example christianity says that there is one God and that Jesus is the son of God, fully human and fully divine. Every other religion makes truth claims as well. So we can kind of look at this in a patronizing way and say the truth claims don’t matter, just the effect of believing in them matters, which is kind of the modern approach, but obviously you are not seriously engaging with the beliefs at that point.
So I would say that christianity has the most logical, comprehensive and historically/experientially validated truth claims. As to why catholicism specifically its the church Jesus, ie God himself, founded. All the other christian denominations were founded by men hundreds or thousands of years later.
Plus (as does the eastern orthodox) for various reasons it has valid versions of all 7 of the sacraments, especially communion which is kind of the summit of the Christian life.
> So I would say that christianity has the most logical, comprehensive and historically/experientially validated truth claims.
That's nonsense. The Bible is full of contradictions[0]. Also, you write "Jesus is the son of God" and next paragraph you write "Jesus, ie God himself". Is Jesus his own son? (Fwiw, I attended Catholic schools for 13 years, made many good friends, and still think that religion is nonsense.)
> As to why catholicism specifically its the church Jesus, ie God himself, founded. All the other christian denominations were founded by men hundreds or thousands of years later.
Are you saying Catholicism is better because it's older? The Jews would say Judaism is the right one. That Catholicism and all the other Christian denominations were founded much later, and Jesus was just another prophet.
[0]: https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/first/contra2_list.ht...
The Trinity consists of three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Philosophically we are able to understand that God must exist without even requiring theological revelation. And we are actually able to derive that the Trinity must exist too.
The Father, the first person of God (who is pure actualization) would have a thought of Himself and the thought would be so perfect and complete that it would be actualized into the second person of the Trinity, the Son. Then the Son and the Father love eachother and make such a perfect gift of themselves to eachother that this combined gift of love becomes a third person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. So once a God exists as philosophically He must, we also can reason He must exist as a Trinity although the thought might not occur to us without theological revelation.
Catholicism is Judaism! It is the continuation and fulfillment of the covenant God made with Abraham. The Old Testament and the many, many very specific Jewish prophecies of Jesus that are fulfilled in the New Testament are part of the Catholic faith.
Catholicism is correct because Jesus founded a church with the 12 apostles as the first bishops and the succession of bishops from the 12 apostles has never been broken in the catholic church. Normal people like Martin Luther or Calvin or Joseph Smith do not have the authority to start valid religions on their own especially since Jesus (who is God) has already created the religion He wants us to follow and has been very clear that it is the way God wants us to worship Him.
People inevitably will reject the call to be obedient to God because of pride and various other influences. If you read the New Testament Jesus predicts that many people will reject the church as many people rejected Him.
The church is very intellectually rich. If you engage with it in good faith and an open mind you have the smartest people of the past two thousand years who have devoted their lives to thinking about and answering any questions you might have in much greater detail than I can certainly. The saints are the most inspirational role models I can imagine, learning about them is a joy. And I can’t emphasize enough, the fruits of engaging with the church in good faith and asking God to help you are very, very real and literally the antidote to 99% of the problems that modern people are suffering from.
Unfortunately I don’t know if all of this stuff is even on the radar of people in the tech sphere so I hope some people have their curiousity sparked and learn more! It’s a fun hobby even if you are just interested in diving deeper into history.
That is probably a very challenging situation and I don’t know the state of the church there. But I would say life is short and the benefits so enormous I would encourage anyone to do their best to pursue becoming a part of the church in whatever way they can. And I’m sure God will provide them with whatever resources they need over time, miracles certainly do happen and sometimes the intention from us is what matters the most.
The official Catholic church catechism that was published in the 90s is good. Its older but Baltimore catechism “4” (it is the most adult oriented version) is also really good.
(I would also recommend going to your local mass and introducing yourself to the priest! they are usually very nice. this is actually a good time of year I think that lots of places have “ocia” classes starting in the fall for people who are curious about the church)
I believe there are catholic churches in Iraq but that is certainly a more challenging situation! Would still encourage starting somewhere, even just learning to pray the rosary can bear a lot of fruit.
Why Catholicism specifically? Why not any of the myriad of other Christian denominations? Why not Islam? Why not Buddhism? Why not any other religion?