FreeSpirit1983
Starting?
If something comes as a result of evidence, then there is no need for faith. It is knowledge since it has been proven.
If he believes in grace, then perhaps he is not such an atheist as one would believe. Anyway, I would sooner take a pantheist over some believers because their feelings and experiences (the pantheists’) of the universe and nature come closer to the kind of awe and reverence and mystery which I experience. Perhaps I am a pantheistic agnostic. lol
I cannot say one way or the other if there was truly a Jesus who lived, an historical figure. Historians may believe that it is possible but they sometimes lie or do not get the facts right. Has it actually been proven?
I wonder how that would hold up in court, FreeSpirit. What evidence? You do realize that eyewitnesses sometimes get it wrong. They miss a lot, and they sometimes see what it is that they want to see.
How can one possibly prove that a man was literally the Son of God? You do realize that people are not beyond the Lie in order to get something started, founded, because to them it would be part of the greater good, to bring forth a more loving, compassionate, humane world.
Some things in science are rational to believe and then one goes forward to prove that.
Yes, it probably is a rational thing to believe that there can be Something which began all of this based on the evidence around us (though we cannot really prove it) but that does not specifically point to Catholic/Christian doctrine as being “real”.
Where does an agnostic like me? Limbo?
You have every right to your beliefs — they are your subjective beliefs for whatever reason — but do you have the right to insult people so casually for their disbeliefs, for their way of thinking differently, simply because they conflict with yours? Do you have the right to condemn them to a hell because their hearts and minds experience things differently than yours?
I am only paraphrasing here but Carl Jung has said that we become in time what we fight the most. I would add “internally” to that. Psychologically speaking it makes sense. The suppressed and repressed things which we do not bring to our consciousness will eventually take their hold on us. Many of us have learned that.
Do you ever take the time to see what a beautiful universe has been created? I am not saying that you do not. Do you see that, do you experience that, or do you just cut to the chase and see only the one who you believe created it, missing it all and all of its meaning?