Why did the raving atheist convert

Is There A God? More atheists convert. Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging. The Word says that God woos us into a relationship with Him. You were so obviously wooed. What an amazing and beautiful story. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. February 16, James Bishop.

Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Let me know your thoughts! Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. They actively lobby against the right for two people of the same sex who love each other to marry legally, when it has nothing to do with what marriages they would have to solemnize or recognize.

They are lobbying to make any employer able to dictate birth control coverage based on their religious belief to any of their employees regardless of the employees belief. You can argue all day long that they are just against paying for it, but they know full well what they are doing and they are thinking strategically and I would have to be a fool to accept that their goal is not to restrict access to birth control.

And they also lobby against emergency contraception, and obviously lobby to make abortion outright illegal. Meanwhile, back when birth control was illegal, you can bet the Catholic Church supported that. Papal infallibility — fine, whatever, only certain statements made under certain circumstances, whatever. The notion that one man, elected by men, centuries after the founding of the Church, millennia after the supposed death of its supposed founder who supposedly was given his position directly by God, can ever speak or issue edicts in any way with any kind of infallibility inspired by God in any way is patently absurd.

And as to all this open and closed minded claptrap, I never should have used your phrase. I reject the very notion. We have reams of written documentation on its past evils and its modern evils and its teachings and how utterly absurd its beliefs are. The notion of somehow being open minded about the Church is meaningless. What I am open to is evidence. Show me evidence that Catholic doctrine is true, and I will consider it, but there is none.

So Gus, I take it that you always use a condom when you have sex with your HIV positive sex partners. Equal treatment before the law is a human right. So as it pertains to marriage as a state recognized contract conferring specific legal rights and responsibilities, denial is denial of equal rights and therefore human rights. As far as some church having their own definition of marriage completely separate from government legal recognition, with no consequence, they can go ahead and be bigots all they want.

To me the whole anti-contraception thing is as head-in-the-sand ludicrous as the geocentric kerfufle. Fact: Infant mortality rates have plummeted.

Fact: Population has skyrocketed. Fact: without contraception, we would need need some other way to halt the population explosion. I hope that once the evidence is given links to follow you will vociferously denounce the behavior as cruel and inhumane, and openly reject official catholic behavior that supports this. The claim is similar to me saying I cannot support a statement saying someone should not be criminalized for a belief system, because of fears that it will lead to decriminalizing acts based on that system.

It is a non sequitor which reveals their true motivation. I may or may not personally approve of the UN declaration. I certainly disapprove of criminalization of homosexuality. Though one of the oldest tricks in the book is to have a bit of legislation, or a declaration, or some such that calls for something good, but has something in the details that is not so good. But one must take the thing as a whole.

Rejecting the whole because of a part is not the same as being against what most of the whole is about. Nor does it follow that because I may be against the US resolution that in such a case I would be for criminalization of homosexuality.

Yes, we do. As we define God as omnipotent, there is no problem in believing that He can easily create one male sperm and impregnate one Jewish girl. Yes we do. Do you understand that this means that Mary was born without the stain of original sin?

As God planned for His Son to be born of this woman, it is only logical that she would be spared from this stain. Well, actually the substance is bread , not crackers, but in any case with an omnipotent God, where is the problem? You have greatly expanded this belief beyond what is included. The belief is only that when the Pope releases a statement that is a matter of faith and doctrine, that the Pope is infallible. Again a massive exaggeration of the actual teaching.

It may be possible that some health problems would justify using these medications following the principle that a living person is the one who must be protected. And of course, natural birth control, abstinence, is perfectly acceptable. This follows the precedent set by the fact that all of the apostles who went out to convert the world were men. The failure rate of condoms is a contributor to the spread of AIDS. The only sure prevention is abstinence from sexual activity.

Homosexuality is not a sin. Homosexual activity is a sin. The sexual interactions of a male and a female are required to continue the human race. Homosexuality can be considered to be an attempt at genocide. They are all about your objection to doctrine. And you call this a moral action? Homosexual activity is as mentioned above a direct attack upon the continuation of the human race. I find your augments to be at best specious, but completely unable to hold up to reality when analyzed.

Not sure what the question is. I presume you want to know what I think about the story at the link you provided. After a quick scan I would say that I hope the man gets his day in court like he wants. And yes, exposing fraud is good and should not be proscribed by law. And, I love my mother. Kittens are nice.

Peace is better than war. Okay, glad we cleared that up. Can we safely assume that they are also unfit for being priests? Genocide — the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. Anyone with half a brain knows that there is a difference between extermination and…not having kids.

If homosexuality is an attempt at genocide because they are not contributing to reproduction, then abstinence is also an attempt at genocide. Certainly, it has to do with words. It means that if I say something is literally bread, it is actually, physically bread.

It is not metaphorically bread. If you picked it up, it would have all the qualities that you usually associate with bread. Do you believe that the bread physically becomes flesh and the wine physically becomes blood? But the whole reason there are so many different denominations is because they disagree on all the other things! Dude, you are SO out of line. You guys are confused. Having admitted to being catholic destroys any credibility you may have had with me, at least.

I rest my case. BTW: I thought the same thing as the people above. She changed her mind. Cool, I get that. But… Catholicism!?? That quote sounds like some college kids drunk or stoned, talking about whatever comes to their heads.

What is her evidence that such things exist? Just looked at the lower comment and saw that the other poster was you, so I am with you in my lack of knowledge, then. Well, I wonder how much she understands evolution and the arguments for evolutionary derived morality really doubt she gets much, if anything, of it , but how can anyone who I think wants to claims rationality follow such tripe as neo-platonistm?

Why not believe that homeopathy works, the doctrine of signatures is real, bigfoot exists…. Having trouble resolving a conundrum? Glad to clear that up. I was getting the impression, albeit not said in so many words, that the RC Church could do no wrong.

I link to a Time article and you say it is not evidence because you have not read the opposed declaration with no statement saying you intend to read it because you are alarmed that the church may be fighting for such a horrific cause, leaving the reasonable assumption that like the other article you are not really concerned enough to review the evidence.

How exactly are these actions consistent with sincere desire to seek the truth of the matter. Your original dismissal of the accusation implied you found the accusation to be quite serious. I love how you can read my mind and have discerned what I imply as opposed to what you infer and what really lurks in my reason for making a given statement. Like I said, I see no necessary problem with being against the UN resolution itself, nor does opposition to it equate with pushing for the criminalization of homosexuality.

In any event, Time magazine is a rag, and I pretty much oppose anything out of the UN on principle. So, if you think this is some great rhetorical victory for you inasmuch as I refuse to read up on all the twaddle you cite, all I can say is congratulations. If God could absolve Mary of alleged wrong-doings committed before she was even born without magically transferring them onto a scapegoat, it only stands to reason that God could do the same for anyone and everyone.

As such, the whole story of Jesus seems to have been an exercise in grandstanding and guilt-tripping. Oh, except for Mary. I saved her without all the bells and whistles but she was my squeeze, so I might an exception. It all makes sense, you guys. Love me! There is a huge fundamental theological difference between Catholicism and Protestantism.

No man or woman is above any other. Everyone is, ultimately, their own priest and while the Bible is thought to be the go-to manual, its correct interpretation is a personal relationship between the individual and God.

You do have priests, of course, but their authority is derived not from God but by the amount of work they put into making it their business to study the Bible and the spiritual: anyone may still trust their own studies over that of the priests.

The Catholic Church was right to distrust Protestantism. Protestantism, in a sense, is skepticism, which eventually peters out in atheism. This is also, historically, what has happened to most Protestant countries. Sure, in the actual content Catholicism and Protestantism are superficially similar: God, Jesus, original sin, all that jazz.

So even one hates it it it might be among the most common things atheists do become. Examples include. Anna Haycraft — British novelist. Ignace Lepp — French psychiatrist. Claude McKay — Poet, also bisexual like Leah. Wright — Science fiction author. I do admit wondering how it will work for her considering many of her beliefs.

So thumbs up there. Another editor of a church magazine was also silenced. And this was related to their fairly minor differences with the Church on the issue of married priests.

Nuns in the United States, who have also been admonished, would be interested to hear your opinion as well. First of all, Mr. The LCWR is not an independent entity happily doing its thing but was created by the authority of the Vatican itself. It only exists because the Pope gave it permission to exist, and it remains under his direct authority to this day. Was Steve Jobs supposed to just let Apple employees badmouth the iPhone? Is Obama supposed to just let members of his Cabinet say that his policies stink?

Falsely and ad hominem my eye. It was called the Kirchenkampf. The Nazis gutted the Christian calendar, Christmas traditions and carols, and repopulated them with pagan and Nazi imagery.

Christmas became the Solstice, St. Nicholas became Odin, the star of Bethlehem became a swastika. Ratzinger saw all this happen in front of his two eyes. Where were you at the time? What a load of steaming feces. You can parse this any way you want, but my statements are all fundamentally correct. I did not specify the circumstances, but the statement that the Pope supposedly issues infallible doctrine is correct, you just said so.

I never said every word from his mouth was considered infallible. Homosexuality vs. And yes, I believe telling women what they can do with their own bodies is immoral. Making women second class citizens is immoral. Favoring fetuses over the lives of living, breathing women is immoral. Apparently I have a much broader notion of morality than the Church.

Not seeking a rhetorical victory, just pointing out the clear decision you made to request evidence and specifically refuse to even read evidence when presented.

You keep ignoring the article that shows specific catholic church leaders hireing a legal team to oppose decriminalisation of homosexual behavior.

You accuse me of inferring that which is not implied, and then go off on a rant about abortificants which was not even brought up, as though this was somehow part of my mindset. Ok keep telling yourself you are looking for the truth, want evidence, and then refuse to review evidence that may put your holy church in a negative light.

The conversion happens when you come to believe that the Church is a truth-telling thing. Which, I might point out, is exactly what a good scientist does in the face of a seeming contradiction.

Yeah, sure, he has every right to under the structure of the Catholic Church. The Church believes what it teaches is divinely revealed. Not open for negotiation. You know what Hell is, Gus? Eternal fire and all that? Now the LCWR. They purport to be the nice tolerant liberals that they are. They do not believe these things are immoral and will result in Hell.

There is an objective question here. Is the Church right or wrong about Hell? Because if that barrier is not there. Ohhh I see. So the church can continue to fight against women and gays to keep them out of hell. Where have I seen that before…? Oh yeah, every interview with members of the Westboro Baptist Church. The reason they do what they do is to warn these sinners that they will go to hell if they continue to act this way. In fact, they believe that they are the only true Christians because they love gay people enough to warn them and try to keep them from hell.

That is where your logic leads. It definitely was not Christianity as you know it today. But they did use God and Jesus to justify their actions. But to say it was atheists that did all that is extremely ignorant. All atheist organizations and secular schools were banned. The transubstantiation thing is very weird. Perhaps this is not the same as metaphorically or figuratively, but its not, as we rationalists, realists, materialists, etc.

They just say that. The teaching on sexual ethics is stupid? Oh, but what a paradise contraception has created on earth! Thank heavens you have all saved us from the stupidity of using the Reproductive System…you know….. If only we could convince all the animals out there to get the message. If only we could stop them from the mindless cycle of mating and destroying the earth through overpopulation. This mindless generation of children and life.

Who needs it?! The Church was late to the party on that one. Did you hear anyone say different? So how exactly do you figure which church if any are telling the truth? How do you figure out which one is objectively true? What are your reasons for not being Mormon? And there is a huge difference with science and religion.

Scientists figure out things as they go. They come up with hypotheses and theories based on what they have researched. Scientists are willing to admit they are wrong. I distrust anyone who says they have absolute truth.

I think the problem here may be your reading comprehension, or your penchant to infer things neither written nor implied. First: I have not refused specifically or in any other way to read the evidence you cite. I just commented on the tediousness and pointless nature of doing so. I have read the info at the two links and made a response which you have seen fit not to address as of yet.

Specifically, I have not ignored the article about the hiring of a legal team, but I have gone to some length to point out that opposition to the UN effort here is not the same thing as opposing decriminalization. But more to the point, the claim that sparked this subthread was NOT that the Church opposed decriminalization, but that it leads to denying basic human rights. This is a distinction lost on many free thinkers who think they are critical thinkers.

Yet, it is still an important and real distinction, especially in terms of law, which is at the heart of the links you cite. In both cases there is a fundamental inability or refusal to recognize basic distinctions.

Perhaps it is only a coincidence that each cse deals with sexuality. Note Bene: I am not talking here about the gay priest pederast and pedophilia crimes, but I will be shortly. Now, regarding taking the time to read documents, have you read the UN resolution in question? Did you read the version under consideration when these articles to which you link were written? Third: I have not refused to review evidence. The fact is I lost a few friends in the church because I was vocal that there were many, many priests and many bishops and at least a hand full of Cardinals that should be in prison.

They should be in prison specifically because of the sex abuse of which we are all too aware. There are indeed many things for which those in charge of the church should be criticized.

So, if you want to share a link to the version of the UN resolution in question at the time the articles were published, I would certainly review it despite being hard pressed to do so.

Now, having said all that, if you show a case in which the Church actively pursues the positive criminalization of homosexuality, count me as one who will criticize that effort.

But that has yet to be shown. So fine, toss out the Nazi-atheist comparison, since they were more neo-pagan than anything else. Let me just say that the teaching is certainly that the bread and wine literally, actually, really, physically becomes the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus. Small point of order, the Church does not mean that the bread and wine become the body of a year old dead guy. I find it odd that anyone believes. I find it odd that I believe. But I do.

No explanation as to why I do will satisfy. It is very obviously metaphorical. I suspect most of them are shaking their heads at the idea that personally choosing to not have a baby equates to genocide. Hey, can we charge the Catholic clergy with genocide then? Center of the Universe- yes, science is a self correcting mechanism.

Religion is not. It is science that has created the population problem by drastically lowering the mortality rate in humans. The distinction I was trying to make was admittedly a bit pedantic and not really important to anything I was trying to say.

How do you figure out anything in this life? You study it and test it. And so you stop doing that thing, and you suddenly find yourself agreeing with what some church was preaching all along. Huh, you say. And then it happens again. And again. And you start noticing a pattern—that every bit of wisdom you acquire, the Church had before you did.

At some point, you just realize, you are better off listening to the Church than yourself. You begin to see the Church as a truth-telling thing, and you begin to conform yourself to Her, rather than conform Her to you.

And religions make all kinds of historical claims as well. Why am I not a Mormon? Partly because I find the Mormon account of history singularly unconvincing. They make claims about the early Church that can be tracked back through history. Also, religion is, for many of us, is a grant experiment in Life itself. Julie, the Catholic mass is meaningless if transubstantiation is false because the whole mass is based on transubstantiation being true.

The problem here, and this is why of all Catholic doctrines transubstantiation should be the most repellant to materialists, is that the Church teaches that despite appearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting like bread and wine, that is, despite all physical evidence to the contrary, the Eucharist is no longer bread and wine. Biological cycles are imposed externally by nature, not the organisms themselves, who generally try to maximize their production of offspring.

So nice try. Remember, the Church has no problem with choosing not to reproduce. What it has a problem with is choosing not to reproduce yet engaging in the behavior that is expressly meant for reproduction. You can lose weight by not eating. You can also lose weight by stuffing yourself silly and then sticking two fingers down your throat.

We call the first one good common sense, the second one bulimia. Rich, would love to sit down with you to some brews and cigars and tell you the story, or at least chat about whatever comes up. I would say that the part of the Church comprised of what some here would call woo in fact cannot do wrong. Now, the men running the Church can and do commit wrongs all the time.

Pisses me off. Clearly incorrect? The Sidereus Nuntius came out, and they asked Galileo…. She said that her blog will now be moved over to the Patheos Catholic channel. The Patheos site is used for discussion and finding information on different faiths.

Libresco did not immediately respond Tuesday to an email from msnbc. Follow US News on msnbc. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Politics Covid U. The Angels rejoice, as we should. One person with God is a majority. Join Date: Jun Posts: 7, There's no sign of a buildup. I looked around at all the stupid comments on that atheist thread, and this comment was the best:.

Three years ago he appeared in the atheist documentary "The God Who Wasn't There" and so at first blush many might think this was a hoax. Especially since last year on April Fools another person who was part of the same documentary released a video singing a Christian praise song.

Some of his friends such as Dawn Eden vouch for him on this and I believe that this is no joke. Now I know why God delayed the Rapture. When I first read it I believed "That prank will lose him a lot of friends".