For Those Who
Practice
Some Other Form of
Religion, or Who
Lay Claim to No
Religion at All
My dear soul, I thank you. Thank you
for not pretending to be Catholic or Christian! Of course I want you to be Catholic --- and thus
Christian --- but I want you to be the real
thing and not something fake.
Most people today going by the names of Catholic or Christian are phony. They
are not the real thing. They may honestly think they are, yet all the sincerity in the world doesn’t
turn make-believe into reality.
Naturally, you won’t want to
believe this. The many different kinds of ‘christians’
are either irrelevant to you or only ‘prove’ how ridiculous the
whole thing is in your sight. But you might want to stop and think for a second, using that God-given
brain of yours that you may (or may not) want to believe is there to see the
truth.
Because that’s
the bottom line, dear reader… the
truth.
And the truth is, if you practice some
other form of religion, then you want to think that your religion is
totally true, or else all religions share some truth and it
doesn’t really matter where they differ, or that every religion is a fantasy
and it’s only a ‘psychological comfort’ which religion you
pretend to ‘believe’ in.
The truth is, too, if you lay claim to
no religion at all, then you want to think that no religion is totally
true, or else all religions share some truth and it doesn’t really
matter where they differ, or that every religion is a fantasy and
it’s only a ‘psychological comfort’ which religion a person
pretends to ‘believe’ in.
That’s the truth. And it’s
just simple logic. Anybody can see it.
Anybody.
It’s also why I combine the two
things together, grouping those who practice some form of religion other than
Catholicism with those who lay claim to no religion at all. Because it merely
amounts to the same thing in the final analysis --- the assertion that Catholicism can’t be totally true.
Period.
Which is really just a
religious belief. After all, my dear
soul, are you omniscient (all-knowing)? Or are you infallible
(never-wrong)?
No?
Then you don’t know for sure
that Catholicism can’t be totally true. Your assertion is merely an opinion. An opinion
that is of a religious nature,
and hence is a religious
conviction.
In other words, to say that there is
no God, or that you can’t be sure if there’s a God, or that God ---
even if He exists --- doesn’t care what religion a person is, is a belief about something that is religious.
It doesn’t matter if you have formal religious practices to go along with
it. Lots of people call themselves ‘christian’
and don’t practice anything ‘christian’
apart from calling themselves by the name. The point is that they have beliefs
that are religious. For instance, “Jesus is God.” That’s a
belief and it’s religious.
Likewise atheists. They have beliefs, too, that are religious. For instance,
“Jesus isn’t
God.” Or, “God doesn’t
exist.” Those are beliefs… and they’re religious.
Nor can they be absolutely
‘proven’ to be true --- a fact that clever atheists admit. I mean,
think about it. If you aren’t all-knowing or never-wrong, then how could
you ever completely ‘prove’ the assertion that God doesn’t
exist, or that Jesus isn’t God? As logicians like to say, you can never
completely ‘prove’ a statement that is negative.
Why?
Because there’s always the possibility for the person
who isn’t omniscient or infallible, however remote you might want to
think it, that an example exists which disproves your negative
assertion. And it only takes one such
example to do the job.
Consider. A person asserts that stones
never fall from the sky. Why does he do this? Because he has never
himself seen a stone fall from the sky and most people don’t go around
claiming to have seen a stone fall from the sky. Hence, it seems to him,
it’s pretty safe to assert that they do not. And since he can’t
imagine how there could be stones flying around endlessly up in the heavens
till finally, for reasons that are inexplicable, they decide to drop unexpectedly
on the earth below, then he thinks it essentially ‘ironclad’ to
assert that they do not.
Case closed.
Or is it?
The smart reader knows where I’m
headed with this. Up until two or three hundred years ago, scientists did not
believe that stones fell from the sky. They did not because they themselves had
never seen one fall from the heavens. And they couldn’t imagine how it
could be that a stone would ever fall from the sky. Ergo, they concluded,
stones don’t fall from the sky.
Yet what about all those cases, regardless
of how rare, where people did apparently
see stones fall from the heavens?
Ah, said the scientist back then, but
we all know how rumors and superstitions are so very prevalent. There’s
no reason to think, just because some yahoo claims it, that a stone has fallen
from the sky. Besides which, even if there is
any truth to the claim --- which there probably isn’t --- I’m sure
there’s some completely reasonable
explanation for it that doesn’t involve stones falling from the heavens.
End of story.
Except it wasn’t. And we all know nowadays how this story really ends. They’re
called ‘meteorites’ and everyone knows today that rocks truly do
sometimes fall from outer space. They follow paths through the heavens called
‘orbits’ and, however long it may take, sooner or later some of
those orbits intersect with the mass of the earth and plunge through our
atmosphere as ‘meteors’. And if they strike the ground then
they’re called ‘meteorites’. That’s the real story and
now everybody believes it.
Why?
Because eventually
scientists saw at least some of the phenomenon for themselves. Enough of them, and prestigious enough in their reputations, that
other scientists were forced to
accept their testimony, that there really was something behind this whole
‘stone-falling-from-the-sky’ thing. Not only that, but some clever
scientist or scientists came up with the explanation for it that we accept
today. Namely, that rocks or other material bodies are traveling around
continuously in the heavens along paths that are called ‘orbits’,
and when these paths intersect with the earth then they become
‘meteors’.
Case really closed.
Which brings us to the
next point. Because those so-called
‘yahoos’ that saw stones falling from the sky were right…
weren’t they? It wasn’t mere rumor and it wasn’t
simple superstition that caused them to claim that stones fell from the sky.
They actually saw it. They were reasonable. It was the scientists who were irrational!
Contrary to the scientists, the so-called ‘yahoos’ put two and two together
and came up with four --- “Hey!
These stones suddenly crashed straight down through our roof. They must have
fallen from the sky. How weird!”
So why didn’t the scientists
believe what they said?
The late Carl Sagan
put it most succinctly (and I paraphrase roughly):
“Extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence.”
The catch is… what is ‘extraordinary’? Ponder
carefully.
Someone has to define the word. So who gets to determine its exact
meaning in this context? Just what is truly ‘extraordinary’ and
what is merely ‘ordinary’? Upon what does the definition of that
‘extra’ in ‘extraordinary’ hinge?
Is it simply a lack of familiarity? In that case, a giraffe was
once ‘extraordinary’ to an ignorant farmer during the mid-19th
century on the American frontier. His disbelief in the existence of such a
creature was hence ‘logical’. After all, for all the testimony in
books, or from persons who had seen giraffes in person and could tell him about
it, he could dismiss every bit of it as ‘ordinary evidence’ which
can hardly begin to satisfy an ‘extraordinary claim’ like
that of the existence of an outlandish-looking animal called the
‘giraffe’. He must see it with his own eyes in order to believe it.
And, yet, we today call him a rube and a complete nincompoop when it comes to
the fauna of this world.
Or is it only a lack of an acceptable explanation? In that case, a
spherical earth was once ‘extraordinary’ to most Europeans during
the early 2nd millennium A.D. Their disbelief in such sphericity was hence ‘logical’. After all, how
in the world could folks on the opposite side of this sphere not fall off of
the earth, or how could they explain the apparent flatness of the world ---
relatively speaking, of course --- in their area? The suspicions of ancient
thinkers, regarding the umbra of a lunar eclipse or the difference in angle of
sunlight at the same time in distant places on earth, they could dismiss as
‘ordinary evidence’ incapable of satisfying an ‘extraordinary
claim’. Let them see the whole earth with their own eyes… and then
they might begin to believe it. And, yet, we today call them simpletons and
consider them uneducated fools when it comes to the fact that the earth is a
globe.
We could go on much longer. The point is,
‘extraordinary’ is a word that means whatever the prejudices of
a person will demand it to mean. We repeat:
The word
‘extraordinary’ means whatever
a person’s prejudices demand it to mean.
To an American farmer of the 1840s, the reality of giraffes is an
‘extraordinary claim’ requiring ‘extraordinary
evidence’. For a typical European of the 1100s A.D., the sphericity of the earth is an ‘extraordinary
claim’ that needs ‘extraordinary evidence’ in order to
believe in it. To mid-18th century scholars, the existence of
meteorites was an ‘extraordinary claim’ needing
‘extraordinary evidence’ before they could accept it. For
physicists of the early 1900s, it was ball lightning which was an
‘extraordinary claim’ and demanded ‘extraordinary evidence’
for them to believe it was true.
The word ‘extraordinary’, then, says far more about the person speaking than it does about the thing
spoken of. We reiterate:
The word
‘extraordinary’ says far more about the person using the word
than it does about the thing that is being described by this word!
Or, to put it another way, facts
are facts. And if the facts at hand show clearly that a so-called
‘extraordinary’ claim is true, then no amount of hard facts
beyond what we have already found to be sure is going to make the claim any
more or any less true. Ergo, our reluctance to believe is not because of the absence of
a sufficient proof, rather, it is because of the
presence of a deficient bias--- our
bias.
As in, “I can’t
believe it’s true because I don’t want to believe it’s
true.”
In other words, it has nothing to do with whether or not
it could be true. To the
contrary, it is has everything
to do with whether or not you like
it to be true. That’s the problem!
And hence why hard
evidence all by itself is not going to change this kind of person’s mind. It’s going to take tons of hard evidence. Furthermore, if
the person’s prejudices are big enough and strong enough, then not even a
ton of hard evidence is going to make a dent in his mind. He’ll
stubbornly stick to his bias no matter what the evidence indicates. Or, in the
case of religion, he’ll believe what he believes regardless of whether or
not it’s true. His mind is set… little things like facts
aren’t going to change it.
So how does this tie in with you, my
dear reader?
Whether or not you lay claim to a
particular religion, you’ve got a certain amount of prejudice. Human
beings love to think nowadays that it’s only ‘religious’
people who are prejudiced. This is nonsense. And anyone who dares to look with
an unbiased mind can see it. Religion is not the litmus test of whether
or not someone is biased. Or, should we say, even the supposedly
‘irreligious’ person is biased --- and precisely because he holds a belief that is religious
and which is not grounded in hard fact!
To wit, the atheist who dogmatically
says, “God does not exist,” is just as religiously
‘biased’ as the person who dogmatically asserts, “God does
indeed exist.” Religion either way, and bias
either way. It just depends on which side of the coin you stand. The coin,
however, is there in either case.
What’s more, while the atheist
can cite lots of impressive sounding evidence that seems --- spun in a certain
way --- to ‘disprove’ the existence of God, the theist can cite
lots of impressive sounding evidence that --- spun in the other way --- appears to prove the opposite, that God
exists.
So which is it?
The bottom line is this:
Without God then a human being is left
ultimately with chance. Everything
in the end, without a Creator, comes down to mere randomness. You may try
to assert certain ‘rules of physics’ but the question still remains
--- why those rules and not
others? And if those rules just suddenly popped into existence for no
discernible reason, then what’s to stop them from suddenly popping back
out of existence, or for other rules entirely to suddenly pop into existence in
opposition to, or replacement of, the rules that existed up till then? And why
should those rules apply equally everywhere? Where’s the sense in that? If they suddenly and inexplicably
popped into existence at random, then who’s to say they must apply
equally at all points in our relatively local existence? It would make just as
much sense if the ‘rules of physics’ popped into existence and only
applied for a few centimeters or a few seconds. There is no rhyme or reason without a Creator. Nothing has to
make sense. It’s all random
ultimately, period.
We repeat:
Without a Creator there is no rhyme or reason to our
existence. Nothing has to be rational. It’s
all ultimately based on randomness --- period,
and we are nothing but the offspring of chance. Even the purported
‘rules of physics’ are purely random in origin, it being mere
chance that they popped into existence as they are, and there is no reason
to think that what popped into existence unpredictably out of thin emptiness by
non-causal chance will stick around indefinitely or remain the same forever.
Sheer logic demands that what happens unexpectedly without causation can just
as easily stop happening unexpectedly without causation, or happen differently
without causation. It is thus completely irrational
to act like things are even partly rational
when chance is the origin of everything, including the so-called
‘rules’ that are supposed to ‘govern’ everything!
Granted, the theist can’t
ultimately explain here on earth why God exists. For the moment it is a mystery
that is beyond our fullest grasp. Nevertheless, it is a rational mystery
and thus possible to explain in a totally reasonable way --- just not
until we know a lot more than we do now. Whereas the mystery of randomness as a
source of existence is utterly irrational --- it is impossible to explain, based ultimately on chance
(and always will be since true randomness has no causation and is not
utterly subject to logic!), why anything should pop suddenly &
unexpectedly into existence or be the particular way that it is, subject to the
sudden & non-causally extant rules that it is apparently subject to.
End of sentence.
Therefore, for an atheist to assume,
or act like, the universe is rational --- or that it ought to be
rational --- is completely irrational. It is a leap of faith even bigger
--- far bigger! --- than the one they accuse theists
of making by positing that there is a Creator.
Meanwhile, the theist is thoroughly rational in presuming the existence of a
Creator. He can’t keep God in a box or produce Him on demand. He
can’t explain everything about Him, or explain all the reasons why He
creates as He does.
But the intelligent theist does know
this:
Nothing else makes rational sense. If
any order exists in our world… and it does… then only a Creator can
rationally be the source of that order. Forget the existence of supposed
‘disorder’ in the world. Clever atheists love to tout this
so-called ‘disorder’ as an argument
against Deity. But we’re not concerned with any of that. Because no
matter how much ‘disorder’ they may think they find, the same
mystery always remains unexplained… how is there order --- any order at all --- in the world?
The standard evolutionist explains
order as the result of ‘random mutation’ via ‘natural
selection’. The term ‘natural selection’ is code for
‘rules of operation’. This is the Darwinist’s fallback, regardless
of whether he’s talking about biological evolution or cosmological
evolution. Always, out of randomness, chaos & disorder there is
periodicity, predictability & order because --- voila! --- there is actually order in the
world to begin with.
How so?
Because we begin not
with randomness solely, but with
randomness allied with order. That is to say, with the ‘rules of operation’. Call
them the ‘rules of physics’ or the ‘rules of genetics’
or whatever, it amounts to the same thing --- existence in an atheist’s
world really isn’t completely random.
In fact, these ‘rules of
operation’ are actually his god, the thing that makes everything what it
is.
A very convenient god,
too. A god that doesn’t require
anything of him and leaves him utterly free to do whatever he wants to
do… or, rather, whatever he can get away with, unopposed by those around
him. Because, after all, this god of his is a very petty
thing. A set of unconscious rules. Utterly
banal, a mere construct of material precepts. Not very
inspiring or noble. Although a particularly loquacious atheist can
almost make it seem like a religious experience to fathom the Darwinistic basis of his philosophy.
The upshot?
The evolutionary atheist takes a huge
leap of faith and presumes a rational basis for a world that he must, if he is
to be completely logical, explain as totally irrational in order to escape the
necessity of invoking the existence of a Creator. Whilst, in stark contrast,
the intelligent theist takes only a little leap of faith and infers a rational
basis for a world that, if he is to be completely logical, he need not explain
as anything except rational due to him first causally positing the existence of
a Creator.
This won’t persuade an atheist.
He’s committed to his theory a
priori, regardless of what real logic dictates. Hence, all he needs to do
--- in his very limited thinking --- is find what he wants to believe is
inexplicable ‘disorder’ in this world. Then, based on that, he
builds his little empire into a cosmically transcendent philosophy --- of how
order arises out of disorder, and all because randomness is allied with some
‘rules of operation’… but rules that pop into existence just
as unexpectedly & unpredictably as the matter or energy that goes with
them. So how can these rules explain anything in the end? Are we just supposed
to ‘take it on faith’ that they’ve stuck around for long
enough, remaining as we think them to be, to do what they’re supposed to
be able to accomplish, given enough enormity of time?
Yet how does this apply to the person
who practices some form of religion other than Catholicism, but who
doesn’t consider himself atheist or agnostic or what-have-you?
Very simple, my dear
reader. Because whether overtly &
formally religious or not --- and as we said before --- the non-Catholic person
who knows at least a little something about Catholicism justifies his position
by believing that Catholicism can’t
possibly be totally true. In other words, his position must be okay
since there’s no way the Catholic Religion could conceivably & correctly
contradict his religious beliefs. After all, if the Catholic Church was
completely right in its religious teachings, then the non-Catholic person’s position couldn’t
possibly be totally & logically true at the same time… could it?
No, it couldn’t.
Ergo why he must believe what he
believes --- regardless of any solid evidence to the contrary.
Ah, but the evidence…
that’s where the rubber meets the road. And what is the evidence that
most impresses someone, what are most people blown away by regardless of the
logic or lack thereof?
Miracles. Something undeniable that they can’t
explain naturally.
Obviously, a miracle on behalf of
Catholicism is going to be anathema
to the non-Catholic, who doesn’t want to become Catholic. Whether
practicing some other form of religion or laying claim to no religion at all,
non-Catholics are going to do everything they can, axiomatically --- and even
before they look at the evidence impartially --- to destroy the testimony for
that miracle. If possible, they’ll ignore it. If not possible to ignore
it, then they’ll ridicule it. If not possible to ridicule it, then
they’ll explain it away.
Anything to get rid of
the spiritual thorn in their side.
As Carl Sagan
once said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
And, of course, a miracle on behalf of
Catholicism is going to seem the most ‘extraordinary’ to someone
who very much doesn’t want to believe in the Catholic Faith. But
as we already established, the word ‘extraordinary’ tells us far more about the person who says it
than it does about the thing described by that term. That is to say,
‘extraordinary’ tells us about the limits of the mind &
knowledge of the speaker --- of how prejudiced
he is in the matter. Whereas it tells us very little about the thing being
called ‘extraordinary’… which may seem
quite ordinary to another person.
Now, there are a lot of things that
demonstrate logically & evidentially the correctness of Catholicism in contrast
to the other religions & philosophies in this world. All of these things
are needful, and all of them are useful in upholding the Catholic Faith. And
they are in blatant opposition to the popular bias of our times which claims
there are ‘too many’ competing religions & philosophies.
“Who can know which one is right or true?” goes the reasoning.
Which then gets turned into, “All of them are equally true.” Or,
“It doesn’t matter which one is true. God doesn’t
care.” Or, “None of them are true. Do what you want.”
All of these claims --- and others ---
are a load of crock. They are not logical, and they are irrational. Because if
you look at it long enough and hard enough, thinking it through carefully, then
eventually the truth is clear.
You will see which one does make sense and matches up with the evidence best
of all.
Meanwhile, miracles are the drop-dead
proof of religion. Only the wholly materialist mind dares to deny it. Because
if their philosophy dreams of a world without God, then what could rationally
explain a real miracle? Nothing at all. Hence,
they have to deny it, even without looking at the evidence
impartially. Or, during the era of science fiction and a love affair with
extraterrestrials, they can vaguely invoke spacefaring
creatures who, via their incredible technology and
fantastic control over nature, do things that can’t help but
‘look’ like miracles to the poor backward earthling.
But what does it mean to look at the
evidence impartially? Miracles can’t usually be reproduced; they tend to
be rather singular if often spectacular events. So what evidence can we
examine?
Easy, my dear soul.
First and foremost, the
testimony of those who witnessed it. If these
people are known to be generally honest and their words are rationally consistent
in and of themselves however ‘extraordinary’ the event that they
describe, then, to be rational and just, their testimony must be taken
seriously. Only a philosophical materialist would dare to reject it, and
only because his philosophy cannot, a priori,
accept real miracles since that would contradict his religious views that
nature is all that exists, there being no God or no God that intervenes in His
Creation. But why do we have to kowtow to the materialist? Thus, when some
70,000 people witnessed the sun spin in the sky and apparently fall to the
earth at Fatima in Portugal on October 13th, 1917, their rain-soaked
clothes and the muddy ground suddenly & thoroughly dry right after the
event, then we take this honest & logically consistent testimony as
powerful evidence for a miracle, a miracle which supports what Our Lady of
Fatima through three shepherd children warned about and prophesied beforehand
to Catholics throughout the world.
Second and next of all, the still
observable physical results of what occurred. If, for instance, the miracle
involves a human being who had a deadly disease and, against all medical
predictions, suddenly revives and shows no signs of the disease that formerly
wracked him (e.g., a giant tumor that disappears in less than a day), and this
happened only right after a Catholic priest or Catholic saint prays for him,
then the presently observable health of this person, combined with honest &
logically self-consistent testimony or documentation for his previous condition,
is powerful circumstantial evidence for the miracle.
Now, as I said before, dear reader, miracles are not the only
evidence for Catholicism. Nonetheless, they’re the drop-dead proof
for religion. Specifically, for the Catholic Faith. Because Catholicism is drenched
in miracles. It was founded in miracles, and it has continued in
miracles down to our very own era. This is how most of the nations of old were
converted as a whole to the Catholic Faith. Moreover, the Gospels themselves
are saturated in miracles. The Gospel of John vaunts them as a persuasive
reason for believing in Jesus Christ & His Roman Catholic Body:
“Many other signs [miracles] also did Jesus in the
sight of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God: and that believing, you may have life in his
name.” (John 20:30-31 DRC, all emphases & annotation added)
Plainly,
This, by the way, is why modern scholars have worked so hard in the
last three hundred years to destroy the credibility of Sacred Scripture in
people’s minds. Because if they don’t, then people will continue to
believe in the Bible’s truthfulness… and even if they aren’t
Catholic and thus don’t interpret
this Bible correctly. All the same, they’ll be liable to believe in it
correctly if they believe it’s an honest & reliable account of what
happened. Not so if they axiomatically disbelieve even before reading it.
Yet Sacred Scripture is
honest and it is reliable, as any
intelligent person who reads it carefully unto a full understanding can see.
The Bible does not rationally contradict itself, as critics with
impressive degrees attached to their names oftentimes try to claim, and it does
not contradict the reliable evidence of history, either --- although
modern historians’ interpretation
of ancient history will sometimes contradict what Sacred Scripture clearly
says.
Consequently, we have an entire huge book of testimony for miracles
at the fingertips of anyone who dares to read it. We also have the lives of the
Catholic saints, as well as, sometimes, their incorrupt bodies. These again are
evidences that are often testified by dozens and even hundreds of witnesses.
Indeed, in the case of an incorrupt body, where the flesh is inexplicably free
of rotting, or is even nearly as supple and fresh as the day the person passed
away --- not to mention that these miracles frequently occur in climates that cannot
be used to ‘explain’ the lack of rotting (as is sometimes resorted
to when the saint passes away in a dry desert like Egypt) --- we have a
physical result that is observable in our own times. For instance, St.
Bernadette of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, who died at the end of the 1800s
and whose incorrupt body --- which was never embalmed or otherwise
tampered with --- is observable in the chapel today where she is still
venerated.
These are all sobering to the serious & unbiased mind. And
there is no rational way to explain them away. Not if you take the time to
examine the testimony seriously, and think about it very carefully. Unless
you’re going to be a kneejerk evolutionary
materialist and discount out of hand all evidence to the contrary against your
materialism, without even looking at it, then you have to take this testimony
at face value. Because it is what it is, and so-called
‘extraordinary’ claims do not need
‘extraordinary’ evidence… only evidence that is real, and
solid, and logically consistent.
That’s all.
So, my dear reader, does your particular religion have miracles
that you vaunt as proof of its truthfulness? Or, dear soul who doesn’t
lay claim to any religion at all, do you have miracles that you take as
confirmation of your particular religious beliefs, whether or not you feel
attached to a type of religious group or religious practice? Or, dear person
who might think of yourself as atheist or agnostic or deist or monist or some
such thing, do you imagine yourself to be able to rationally explain away every
miraculous claim without having to take it seriously, and without invoking your
a priori philosophical materialism?
This little article all by itself doesn’t pretend to
meticulously showcase miracles and their evidences for Catholicism. But I do
point you in the right direction. I give you simple, straightforward reasoning
and easy-to-digest facts. If you’re interested in learning more about the
miracles of the Catholic Religion, then you can begin by reading the Gospels.
Or, if you prefer, you can read about the lives of the Catholic saints and some
of their incorrupt bodies. You can contact me if you’d like to know where
to find out about these things. I’ll be happy to help you.
In the meantime, if your mind is not shut too tight --- and you
have some curiosity --- you can learn more about Catholicism itself, and the
arguments made in its defense. For instance, you can read about the Roman
Catholic Church in the Questions & Answers section, or about Truth,
or about Church,
in the Straight & Simple section. Other things will hopefully follow in the
not too distant future that will be tailored for your particular point of view,
provided I have enough time & strength to get them written and posted.
In closing, my dear soul, you aren’t all-knowing and
never-wrong. Therefore, you need to take the Roman Catholic Faith
seriously. If you practice some other form of religion, then compare the two
very carefully. You will find the Catholic Church to differ from your present
religion in some very crucial ways --- ways that cannot be ignored or written off as insignificant. And if alleged
to no particular religion, you will find nevertheless, if you look at it
closely, that Catholicism is no
child’s play. It is simple enough for a child to understand, if that
is all a person’s mind is capable of. But Catholicism was given to us by
the Creator of All That Exists Out of Nothing… and as such it is the most profound and mind-boggling phenomenon on
earth, even apart from all of its miracles. No philosophy is more
transcendent, no cosmology more luminous & incisive. The early Church
fathers and later theologians are splendid examples of this, not to mention
many passages from Sacred Scripture.
So dig in. And ask yourself:
“Do I really know what I need to know about existence…
about my existence? And can my religion or philosophy answer this crucial
question with absolute infallibility, ensuring my conscious survival in a
pleasant situation for an infinity of time to come? Or
am I only guessing in the wind?”
Catholicism dares to answer these questions and do so with infallibility. There is no
guessing as a Catholic. An individual Catholic may not know everything there is
to know, and some Catholics are smarter than others. But when it comes to what
really matters --- the nature of existence and the purpose of your existence as
a human being --- there is no doubt, and there is no ignorance. Our Creator has
spoken, and He has spoken loud & clear through His Body on Earth, the Roman
Catholic Church.
Our job is to use our God-given minds and listen… and learn to do what He says.
There is no other way to save our souls. Indeed, there is no other way to
fulfill the purpose we were made for. Our hearts will always ache in emptiness
in the end without this purpose met.
Yours very sincerely in the love of Our
Creator’s Son & His Son’s Mother on
Earth,
-Paul Doughton
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Pilate’s
query met:
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