X-Atheists Conversions to Catholic Faith

The Truth of Christianity

I came across this impressive answer to a Yahoo question “What do you know about Jesus?”  I think more than any other answer I ever seen posted this spells out the facts and the truth of Christianity. 

“I know that almost everything that you listed is simply borrowed from some other older Mediterranean basin religion to create a mythology around Jesus.

What you need to remember is that the bible was compiled under the auspices of the roman emperor Constantine in an attempt to bring all of the various belief systems of the empire under a common faith.

The result was to be the universal or catholic faith. The word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective καθολικός (katholikos), meaning “universal”.

There is nothing wrong with this and I do not mean for it to sound derogatory. You just need to realize that it is an amalgamation of the various faiths and the dogma and theology of these belief systems. Even assuming benevolence on the part of Constantine’s people, making this all make sense would have been a monumental task.

The bible relied heavily on Jewish scripture and the New Testament was highly modified to support Paul’s teachings, which included such localized ideas as blood sacrifices to wash away sins, virgin births and resurrection of deceased deities.

Sadly much of the central part of the Jesus theology was lost in the blended mythology. A mythology was created around a great teacher comparable to the Buddha and he was turned into an amalgam of all of the Mediterranean deities. His teachings on love and non-judgment were all but lost in a maze of judgmental often-vindictive gibberish that he would have never agreed with.

Sadly some of the greatest teachings of all time were all but lost in Rome’s effort to be all thing to all people

Love and blessings Don”

Faith & Science

Here is an ancient critique that I think also applies to some contemporary Catholic biblical scholars. Note that St. Catherine thinks that a sign of ignorance of the grace of God is an inability to see beyond the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture. I’ve noted a belligerence among some biblical scholars to anything but the literal meaning.

  “Ignorant and proud men of science were blind notwithstanding this light, because their pride and the cloud of self-love had covered up and put out the light. Wherefore they understood the Holy Scripture rather literally than with understanding, and taste only the letter of it, still desiring many other books; and they get not to the marrow of it, because they have deprived themselves of the light, with which is found and expounded the Scripture; and they are annoyed and murmur, because they find much in it that appears to them gross and idiotic. And, nevertheless, they appear to be much illuminated in their knowledge of Scripture, as if they had studied it for long; and this is not remarkable, because they have of course the natural light from whence proceeds science. But because they have lost the supernatural light, infused by grace, they neither see nor know My Goodness, nor the grace of My servants.”

St Catherine of Siena

 Faith and Science

This is from a Zenit interview with Opus Dei priest, Fr. John Wauck, on Dan Brown and Catholicism:

 It’s relatively easy for people to see that a lot of the great art of the Western World — music, painting, sculpture, literature, architecture — is the product of a Christian culture, often inspired by the faith or even funded by the Church. That seems obvious. But what people don’t realize is that something similar is true of the sciences.

Think about it. Universities are an invention of the Church. Copernicus was a Roman Catholic cleric, and he dedicated his book on the heliocentric universe to the Pope. The calendar we use today is the Gregorian Calendar, because it was promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII, who was working with the best astronomers and mathematicians of his time. Galileo himself always remained a Catholic, and his two daughters were nuns. One of the greatest Italian astronomers of the 19th century was a Jesuit priest, Angelo Secchi. The father of modern genetics, Gregor Mendel, was a Catholic monk. The creator of the “Big Bang” theory was a Belgian priest, Georges Lemaitre.

In short, the idea that there is some natural tension between science and the Church, between reason and faith, is utter nonsense. Nowadays, when people hear the words “science” and “the Church,” they immediately think of Galileo’s trial in the 1600s. But, in the larger scheme of things, that complex case — which is frequently distorted by anti-Catholic propagandists — was a glaring exception. There’s a reason why critics of the Church are always bringing it up: It’s the only example they’ve got. So, when we hear the words “science” and “the Church,” we should think Copernicus, Secchi, Mendel and Lemaitre. They’re representative. Galileo’s trial is not.

 Posted by Robert Gotcher

Classic Catholic

http://robertgotcher.blogspot.com/

Exposing the Lies of Religion

 I have no religion, but I know God exists from personal experience and suspect that I am alive today because it is Gods will rather than natures doing.  When I was ill, ill enough to die, God made its presence known.  It wasn’t interested in my spiritual health but rather in my physical health and my continued existence.  I was ill, but in denial and had no idea what was causing it and how dangerous my condition was. 

 

  Not having a religion to understand God by I struggled with and still struggle with comprehending God and it’s interaction with me.  Did it sustain my life, support and encourage me, create a destiny so that I would flounder in a sea of uncertainty.  What to think and what to believe.  I know God exists, I know what I experienced really happened, I know I should have died, but didn’t.  So, at the time I did turn to the Bible.  

 

Now I watch things on you tube and dip into the God Channel.  It’s ever so confussing for one such as me with no religious indoctrination.  What I have noted is the emphasis on prosperity and materialistic wealth when ever I switch on to the God Channel.  This form of Christianity seems far from the truth of the Bible.  It feels fake and disengenuous, insincere, untruthful, hypocritical, decietful, devious and dishonest.   The minister works the audience and the audience, like part of a well oiled machine respond with applause and cheers.  They are only told, for the most part, what they want to hear.  Tell an audience what they want to hear and you will have them eating out of the palm of your hand.  To me they are slick salesmen plying a trade in false rhetoric for personal wealth.  All the preachers seem notably wealthy and a few have even been caught at tax evasion. 

 

But, as I said I am not relgious, however even I have noticed discrepancies between their interpretation and emphasis on the Bible and what I do know of the Bible and God.  I can not point to specific passages and say where they contradict the intent of what is written in the Bible but I am sure many Christians and theologans can.  I am posting these videos of a learned Christian preacher who does know what’s going on and is able to explain why when I see these “prosperity” preachers I think of the warnings against “false prophets and false churches,”  that I know I have come across somewhere in the New Testament. 

 

Logos Hope

History

1970: OM’s first ship was named Logos, meaning “the Word” in Greek. The vessel sailed on her maiden voyage to India in 1971. People flocked to the ship, hungry for the literature and good news which she carried. OM leaders began looking for another ship to cater for the increasing demand.
1977: A second ship, renamed Doulos (another Greek word, meaning “bond-servant”), was purchased, with the vision that the vessel and those on board would be a servant to the nations. Doulos is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest active ocean-going passenger ship
1988: Logos ended her service in January 1988 after running aground in a storm off the coast of Chile. Despite atrocious weather conditions, not a single life was lost – a tribute to high safety standards, weekly lifeboat drills and God’s protection! During her 17 years of service, Logos sailed 231,250 nautical miles and visited 257 ports in 103 different countries.
1989: Within a year of the tragic accident, Logos was replaced with a passenger car ferry, renamed Logos II. After changing ownership in 1989, her car decks were rebuilt and she was converted into a service vessel of a different kind.
2004: Opportunities for ministry began to overstretch the ships’ capacity. In 2002, a record number of 800,000 visitors climbed Logos II’s gangways, and in 2003 more than 1,400,000 visitors came on board the two ships! In April 2004, OM Ships purchased a 12,000-ton ocean-going ferry and renamed the vessel Logos Hope, which has undergoing extensive outfitting which finished the end of 2008.
2009 She is currently docked in Cardiff Bay and will be heading next to London and then Ireland. She and her crew will then be leaving the British Isles and heading for the Caribian and the Islands of the East Indies.

The initial vision has been far exceeded, with millions of lives all around the globe impacted through the work of these ships. After over three exciting decades of ministry, OM Ships continues to be passionate about who they are and what they do.

As a cutting-edge example of international cooperation and cultural understanding, this growing fleet has been sailing the world since 1970, housing at any one time over 600 unpaid volunteers from around 70 countries! These crewmembers have each given several months or even years of their lives to serve on board, promoting world-wide education, cooperation, aid relief, social awareness and a personal relationship with God, in the ports and countries to which they travel.

Operated by non-profit organisation GBA Ships e.V. based in Mosbach, Germany, Logos Hope is the newest ship in a fleet which has impacted millions of people world-wide. Look around our website to get a glimpse of our lives!

http://www.logoshope.org

There Purpose
Bringing knowledge, help and hope to the people of the world

Knowledge

Over 37 million people in 142 different countries have walked up an OM Ship gangway to visit one of the floating book fairs. For many, it is their first ever opportunity to purchase good quality literature at a fraction of the retail value. From car manual to children’s novel to cook book, many without the means to study, have learnt vital skills and been able to enhance their lives through a purchase from over 6,000 available titles.
As well, the ships are a hotbed of cultural variety, where five continents meet on 12,000 tonnes of steel. For volunteer crew they provide a life-impacting training programme, sharing experiences with a wide range of people around the world, as well as learning valuable skills and broadening their horizons. For visitors, interactive programmes provide fresh perspectives on the breadth of life in this large world.

Help

Travelling from port to port, crew experience the needs of the world first-hand. Being in a position to help – whether through donating supplies, building a house, or offering a listening ear – is both a privilege and a responsibility. The ships seek to bring aid and relief as an outworking of God’s love, through any possible means. Coupled with their promotion of education, this approach aims not only to alleviate immediate needs, but also to bring long-term change in each community.

Hope

Every crewmember can testify to a radical transformation in their personal life – a turnaround from despair and death, to hope and purpose, through entering into a reconciled relationship with God. Having experienced this change firsthand, they desire to share it with others, and thus spread a message of good news around the world. This is always done with greatest respect for and sensitivity towards the culture of the community hosting the ship.

OM Ships has four core values which form the basis of all that they do:
Loving God
We each enjoy a relationship with God, the creator and sustainer of life, and seek to worship and honour him by the way we live and work. We want to reciprocate His love, which has given our lives hope and meaning.
Esteeming People
Valuing the uniqueness and worth of every person, we aim to treat everyone with respect and dignity. We want to have relationships which are characterised by truth and compassion, and to help everyone reach their potential.
Working as a Team
Together we can support, inspire and motivate one another to achieve far more than we could as a group of individuals. We actively engage the knowledge, experience and skills of all team members, and rely on a network of local and global partners.
Serving with Excellence
We aim for excellence in all we do – whether serving our co-workers, partners and visitors, meeting organisational service, environmental and safety standards, or being good stewards of our resources.

Their Achievements

 We have welcomed 37 million people on board since 1970
 142 nations have welcomed the ships, including places such as China, Vietnam, Russia, the Sudan and Lebanon
 In total, the ships have made more than 1,100 port visits
 50 million scripture portions have been distributed
 4.5 million have attended conferences and other events on board
 10 million children, representing every continent have visited the ships and many left with the children’s gospel tract “The greatest story ever told” in their own language
 10,000 young people trained on board for future life and service
 Partnership with 50,000 churches worldwide
 30,000 local participants enrolled in our port volunteers programme
 Hundreds of tonnes of books donated

This Week-End

Logos is birthed in Cardiff Bay and open for business.
For further information please visit their web sight where this information was copied from

http://www.logoshope.org

Jesus in Islam

Jesus is talked about in the Holy Bible and extensively in the Muslim’s Holy Book, the Koran. To be a Muslim you have to adhere to certain beliefs. One of them is to believe in the prophet Jesus, messenger of God. You can not be a Muslim and not believe in Jesus the prophet. This documentary tells the story of Jesus as accounted in the Koran and the special role he plays in Islam.

To me personally I feel the account of Christ given in Islam much more believable. The story of Mary, mother of Jesus is accounted in a chapter of the Koran dedicated to her. Different to the Christian Bible it seems more realistic than the wonderful Christian version that resembles a fairytale more than a realistic account.

Arguments For and Against Christianity 15 May 2009

I have read parts of the, the Old Testament, The Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John and Revelations as a curiosity. To me the story ended with Christ’s story of death and resurrection, less important was what happened next. However, there are many arguments for and against the original story and understanding the context in which these events occurred and history of that time makes sense of the arguments some people have in questioning the origins of Christianity.

I have heard the arguments that:

 The origins of Christianity are in pagan myth as demonstrated in the documentary The Rivals of Jesus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6itXpIDkCY
 The Council of Nicaea viewing religious division as a threat to the unity of the empire, Emperor Constantine summoned a of bishops at Nicaea in 325 C.E. The council created the Bible from a collection of documents, excluding some, including others and editing the texts to fit in with Roman ideals. Banned from the Bible is a documentary that covers this subject
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EPOsTVjWlE
 Jesus is a prophet not the Son of God or the Messiah as Jesus in Islam. Surprisingly you can not be a Muslim unless you believe in Jesus the prophet of virgin birth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7aHBNzP7eo

 Paul of Tarsus invented Christianity and was responsible for writing almost all of the New Testament

 There is no archaeological or historical evidence supporting Christianity

Yesterday while surfing the web I came across a site called EVIDENCE FOR GOD at http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/answers.html . This is a Christian based site that answers a lot of the questions atheist ask. Well worth looking at if you have questions of faith. I don’t know what type of Christianity it supports but Catholicism, JW, Mormons and those that believe in only the King James version of the Bible are considered aberrant beliefs. In the quiz the correct answer to one of the questions is “the whole Bible is inspired.” which is not a belief held by most Christians. Later in the evening I came across a wonderful film on you tube about St Paul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUSkYeb7Lq4.
It’s an excellent, high quality production, the acting, costumes and scenery are wonderful. A great deal of effort has gone in to getting the look and feel of the place right. It’s about 2 hours long. On you tube in can be viewed in 21 parts in total and is well worth seeing. It certainly added to my understanding of the struggle and determination of early Christians to tell the world what they had experienced, seen and knew.

There is a plethora of information for and against Christianity. The famous and Brilliant scientist, author of the God Delusion did a documentary called GOD STRIKES BACK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48dA7VV6pmo The title is the first of a few misdirection’s in the documentary. This is not infact about God striking back but about man striking back at the idea of God with the theory of evolution. An interesting perhaps Freudian slip or perhaps a hint that things are not quite as they seem. This acclaimed scientist through out the length of this documentary repeatedly talks of Evolution as a fact when infact all of science proclaims it as a theory and this is an important fact to understand. A theory means that it is more than an idea but incomplete as a fact because we do not have all the facts. This leaves the theory of evolution open to change and that change can be justified as the on going process of accumulating ever increasing information to obtain a better understanding. No doubt as aspect to this theory change those who hold Biblical literalism to be fact would jump with joy interpreting any changes to be proof of invalidity. Interestingly enough there is a pregnant pause half way through this documentary as Richard Dawkings discusses with high school science teachers why they teach evolution and don’t crush students religious beliefs. The teachers reply that they teach evolution because they are scientists. Richard Dawkins replies that it’s not because they are scientists but because it is a fact to which the teachers once more reply that they teach evolution because they are scientist. Dawkins repeats his original assertion that they teach it not because they are scientists but because it is fact. There is a pregnant pause as the camera pans over the faces of the teachers and no further comment is given. I wonder what the theory of evolution would have said if Darwin had modern scientific resources and facts. Somewhat different I expect. It is noticeable that when Richard Dawkins talks about evolution and hard evidence in the hard physical matter of DNA and molecules he doesn’t talk about or even hint at what quantum physics has to say. According to this field of science atoms are not physical objects but fields of energy that appear to transcent time and space. Molecules being made of atoms would therefore be of the same nature. But, of course this is not mentioned by Dr Dawkins since the evidence and theories presented by Quantum physics seem to be taking us in a direction that resembles spiritual beliefs shared by all the major religions. He also doesn’t point out the anomalies, amended and missing parts in the evolutionary theory. It seems the accusation by one of the Christian ladies supporting teaching evolution and other alternative concepts, early in the documentary, that he is narrow minded is unlike evolution, a fact. I think it’s a fact that God, the spiritual and science is a vast field of exploration and it is both unwise and narrow minded to keep your feet planted firmly only in one single camp and exclude all other ideas. Certainly the existence and nature of God can not be understood through ancient text or modern day science. It is beyond either, but perhaps in time we will take the total sum of man’s knowledge and then have some understanding of God.

Christless Christianity

Today I listened to a very inspirational sermon by American Evangelical preacher Joel Osteen on the God Channel. He asked the congregation to go on a spiritual diet of positive thinking. Infact his whole service was very positive and upbeat, only speaking negatively about “toxic thoughts that pollute our minds” and make us feel insecure and bad about ourselves. There was a huge congregation in the massive hall where he spoke and frequent cheers and applause to his advice on feeling good about yourself. He said two things of note. One that “you are what God made you” rather than what you or the world makes you. He also talked about those who have suffered many misfortunes and feel as if their society or families have cursed them. His much appreciated comment on that was “ Before man cursed you, God Blessed you.”

In this blog I can not give credit to the sermon delivered and the skill of the motivational speaker. It is true that he does seem somewhat like a sales man and sounds like a life coach. But does the appearance of the preacher really matter? It doesn’t matter what words are used or how they are phrased as long as the spirit of the message is true.


I have included in this blog a radio programme where other ministers, I suspect of a non-evangelical ministry give their opinions on Joel Osteen’s ministry. It is unfortunately a negative critique and argues that his form of Christianity is Christianity without Christ. It is also unfortunate that I couldn’t get the clips to down load in the right order!!!

Well, I’m not a Christian nor educated as one, so I can’t comment on whose right or wrong or if neither. What I do know is from personal experience of God. It didn’t seem to matter to God whether I was a Christian, no angels were sent to preach the Bible, although admittedly God has used the Bible on more than one occasion to draw my attention, ignorant sinner that I am. I don’t know about ecclesiastical things or every passage of the Bible. I do know that in the sermon I heard today, I could relate to it and say yes, I think this is how God has both viewed and treated me.

I do however respect the tradition of Christianity and understand that to be a Christian is to follow a specific creed or philosophy. I can’t be a Christian because I don’t except Jesus as my saviour or as the son of God, even though I believe he existed as the greatest of all prophets and holy men. I understand that from a Christian perspective this will land me in hell. But, frankly, the fact that when my life was on the line God literally stood by me unwaveringly, and I wasn’t a willing and co operative supplicant, and yet nothing was mention that for the sake of my eternal soul I should become a Christian.

I also note that in what I have seen of American Evangelism they waver from the direct message of the Bible and don’t seem to quite adhere to the Christian creed, what ever that may be. Since mans understanding of God is imperfect and surely anyone’s translation of Gods word, the Bible, would be equally imperfect, it is hard to determine who it is best to listen to when trying to educate yourself about God. I feel that American Evangelism does seem to stray dangerously away from the accepted path of other forms of Christianity and even though I may not understand issues of a religious nature I think there is danger in straying to far from the source of your religion.