At one point I felt very drawn to the religion but after extensively looking into it, and attempting to commit to it I've basically fallen away.
Making a sort of last ditch effort here: what convinced the majority of you here who are converts / christians who returned to the religion? What are your conversion stories? What helped you overcome doubts? Also what denomination are you if anybody answers this. And to those who have consistently been Christian what's the basis of your faith?
I'm basically on my last legs here with it so I figured I'd post this and similar threads to see if I end up with any sort of sign.
The gospel of John was probably my favorite part of the Bible out of what I've read so far (I've the NT as well as a large amount of Psalms, Job and Genesis)
I guess my biggest issue is it's either all LITERALLY true or it makes no sense. Either there is an actual metaphysical basis for all of this stuff that really exists or its nonsensical.
That's my biggest issue, is I can't decide to what degree these valuations and ways of the world are actually the way of approaching things rather than the best way devised so far. If there isn't really a God then its the latter, if there is actual Divine Truth in the truest sense of the word then it all makes sense, and I just don't see anything that indicates the latter is true aside from me wanting it to be true.
Xavier Phillips
I got away from the church for a while but never wholly stopped believing that there was a God, I guess that'd mean I used to be a deist or something like that. I felt like I was drawn to be a Christian, so I started to look into it deeper (kinda like you're doing now), and started going to church again pretty regularly. I kept growing in my faith, little by little, and now I've given my life to the Lord. Recently I've started to read the Bible a lot, and have been watching videos and listening to podcasts explaining things about theology and faith, and that helped a lot. I'd recommend Living Waters on YouTube, RC Sproul, and reading the gospel as a good start to getting back into it.
As for the denomination question, I used to be catholic but would now say I'm a Baptist. The Bible is God's word, we should do what it says and read it often. One of the things that the Bible tells us is that we are saved by faith, not that of works lest any man should boast. Of the 27 books in the new testament, 19 of them have at least one verse referencing this idea (see first pic related). I don't think the catholic view of "no salvation outside the catholic church" is correct based on the fact that pretty much the whole NT tells us anyone who has faith is saved. For an explanation of salvation by faith alone VS salvation through faith and works, see my second pic. I'll let you choose which one you believe is right, but I believe the Bible supports the protestant view. I also found, in my research, that the word for "church" used in the Bible is the Greek word "ekklesia", which is a gathering of people. This would mean that "the church" is not a single hierarchical institution on earth but is simply the gathering of believers. Believers are even called "a royal priesthood" in 1 Peter 2:9. Also, the term "saints" in the Bible is used to describe believers, not dead people that the church voted on and gave a title to because they were righteous in their life.
It's up to you to choose which denom you think is right, but these are just a few of the reasons for my faith. I pray that the Holy Spirit will guide you to the truth, whatever that truth may be. Have a blessed day brother!
That's why it's called faith. Sometimes you just have to let go and trust that God is right.
Isaac Nelson
Were you the same guy that posted the thread about reconsidering catholicism after watching steven anderson, by any chance? I remember posting in that thread awhile ago.
Thanks for the response by the way. Yeah I mean I certainly think there's a way of reading that supports that but certain doctrines like OSAS are less obvious to me. Ultimately I think its really a question of whether scripture is meant to be interpreted alongside tradition or alone in and off itself. If its the latter the Baptist point of view would probably make the most sense, but with Tradition in mind and the traditional interpretations it would make more sense to adhere to either the catholic or orthodox points of view.
Will probably look back through the bible in a bit, thanks for the prayers and advice, I appreciate it.
Gabriel Johnson
I have so much reasons to believe in Jesus atheism is completely absurd to me, and it's mind boggling why someone would be an atheist. I've made a thread about the fullfilled prophecy of Jesus concerning the fall of the temple in Jerusalem and how could someone could not be a christian after this. They said "well the text was written after the fact ) with no evidence of course, i told them the multiple reasons of why this couldnt be the case and they stopped responding. It's all mental gymnastics. Keep in mind: Well documented miracles with NO scientific explanations ( atheists will they you that everything has an natural explanation but they're bullshitting, actual scientists don't know how to explain them) Fullfilled prophecies both in the new and old testament ( Daniel's prophecy of Alexander comes to mind ) Creepy unexplainable stuff like two people tripping and meeting the same entity/spirit and having a conversation with them, and demons in general ( stuff like people knowing ancient languages and knowing secret information that they could not know about ) Eucharistic miracles which are pretty damn convincing..like finding live blood on a hundred years old eucharist, or FREAKING HEART TISSUE in the eucharist Finally, the person of Jesus. I've got a lot more, cant show you links right now because im on my phone, except for this one: mostholyfamilymonastery.com/news/video-on-magicians/#.XJPEGnRv_qA, which is pretty interesting.
Nathaniel Lopez
1) I'd be better off dead unless this life had meaning, 2) Apostolic Christianity is moral, 3) Christianity is the heir to the classical Judeo-Hellenic worldview.
So why not be devoutly Christian? If life is meaningless anyway and there is no truth, why do I even care about that statement? Does being Christian affect my likelihood of getting meaningless sex? Yes because I shun it, but I never gave a shit about it either by the grace of God. Does believing in God mean that one day I might have to accept martyrdom? Probably not, but if it so happens, it's not like I'll live to see a better world if I'm not killed, or that my life will be improved by having purposeless years added to it.
Finally about practicing other virtues, I've learned that I practice vices because of fear. Why the winnie the pooh do I want to keep fear? I'd rather be a whole person with a dumb religion (of course I don't think Christianity is dumb, but I'm referring to what others might say), than be a fearful, miserable person whose ideas are approved of by my social milieu and our degenerate culture.
Robert Bell
Hasn't been enough for me so far, I don't really feel anything that would point me towards that, not even the simplest sign.
The closest thing I can think of to a spiritual experience I've ever had are moments of extreme clarity and euphoria where I felt connected to something "divine" but many denominations count these as unreliable and perhaps even demonic. And another time when I saw an apparition in the woods which along with other spooky stories, has kept me from writing off the spiritual altogether. But I'm still at an impass.
I've actually watched the vatican catholic magicians video and I remember being incredibly spooked when I first watched it then looking up a bunch of the so called unexplainable magic and realizing many of the tricks had explanations easily accessed on the internet.
As for the others I'm certainly interested, I've seen nothing completely compelling, but if you could elaborate on the spookiest, most compelling ones I'd be interested. Most people point to stuff like Jesus fulfilling old testament prophecies but if we're playing devil's advocate/ the skeptic we could say these were merely written in later. Which one's specifically couldn't have been written in? I'll admit catholicism does seem to have the most going for it in terms of miracles.
But yeah I'd be interested to see the rest of these best arguments because its hard for me to say nothing miraculous was going on there whatsoever.
Kevin Cox
No, I'm not the OP from that thread. In regards to tradition, I'd urge you to look at 2 Timothy 3:16-17. There is tradition in Christianity, it would be foolish to deny that, but that doesn't mean tradition has authority alongside or over scripture.
Jeremiah Sanchez
At one time I would have agreed with you and the world felt cold without absolute truth or specifically Christianity, but I can see myself living a fulfilling life without it (assuming its not literally true). I guess after reading a lot of arguments against Christian morality I would say my issue with it (if its not literally true) would be that it denies this world in favor of another. I have no interest in doing that if there isn't another world behind this one. I'd move deeper into both the pleasant and the painful and experience all of it more intensely if there is no God.
My hesitation here is that without Christ literally dying on the cross for our sins, and without there REALLY being sin and there really being salvation, its all absolutely meaningless to me.
Jaxon Brooks
I've actually watched the vatican catholic magicians video and I remember being incredibly spooked when I first watched it then looking up a bunch of the so called unexplainable magic and realizing many of the tricks had explanations easily accessed on the internet.
hmm, interesting. Well, as i have said, interesting but not really compelling. On a side note, can you explain me how that "plushie doll trick was made?" and the levitations? all special effects? just asking out of curiosity.
I remember looking up the face changers one and they just use wires to pull off ultra thin masks. For a lot of the levitating ones its video edited after the fact or really thin wires are used. He uses plexiglas in a lot of it. For the one where the guy crosses through the great wall of china he just goes inside the staircase and come out of it when hes on the other side. With the magician stuff its all illusions and tricks, but I see nothing supernatural being done there.
Now as for the demon stuff I do find it convincing, I've watched stuff on David Paulides work a good bit and its incredibly fascinating. At the very least I believe there are entities that exist out there beyond us and some of them are likely malevolent.
I'll elaborate on the apparition I saw in the woods that I mentioned in a post above. I did a ritual that was an actual ancient ritual given to me by an esotericist/occultist and went and did it after I lapsed from Roman Catholicism and had given up on religion altogether (this is back in november). I did an invocation to an ancient norse God and nothing happened. I turned around and when I looked into the woods behind me a 6 foot or so blue pillar of light was there about 20 feet away from me. There were no lights near by that looked anything like that. I said some expletives out loud in awe and it dissipated within 5-10 seconds.
I did 2 more rituals after that and nothing happened so I gave up and I sort of wrote off the first but it was incredibly spooky. Interesting that I've fallen even more completely away from religion in the past 5-6 months which my friends joke about often with regards to the rituals there, but I figured its of note given us being on the topic of demons.
Will read through the prophecies now and the thing on eucharistic miracles. Are you catholic by the way? and you linked MHFM are you sede?
Eli Garcia
sure. Btw christianthinkthank is pretty good and you should check the other articles as well. thinking of converting nah, i just thought it was interesting.
Oliver Watson
I skimmed a bit of the Daniel arguments there and im watching the eucharistic miracles clip
Lets say we assume daniel predates the stuff, what are the actual prophecies again, do you have a link to a list?
Juan Robinson
neverthirsty.org/bible-studies/book-of-daniel/the-amazing-prophecies/ Of course there are slighty different interpretations of what happens after alexander dies and his empire is divided, but the "greek empire" part is pretty obvious. There is a huge list of prophecies in the bible, i don't have a full list rn, but you can search it later
This narrowed it down to Christianity, add into that all of the correlating evidence for all of the religious practices of Christianity being the natural state of humans for them to be happy and the fact that the Bible is ridiculously complex and I simply can't believe that a human or group of humans thousands of years ago made a plan to make several of their books foreshadow another group of books and events that would happen thousands of years further into the future, i.e. Isaiah and the entire OT.
This sort of argument doesn't really do it in me given I'm not 100% sure of classical conceptions reason or things of that nature. For me it's not enough I see no reason why just because we assign a function to something that it was necessarily designed for that reason. I'd like to believe that, but I'm not quite ready to make the leap that the universe works in this holistic, sensical way. I feel like at this point nothing short of something really wild like a sign would really convince me, or something to prove to me the literal existence of the Christian God.
The arguments from Daniel above are interesting but muslims can point to similar spooky or weird stuff in their holy texts, a lot of it is too vague, with the exception of perhaps some of the writings about the greeks and maybe Jesus predicting the fall of the temple.
But yeah I'm not sure, I definitely think the bible is a "holy text" or guided by something, I'm just not necessarily convinced of the whole religion. Same with the demon arguments above, it doesn't prove Christianity in particular.
Luke Moore
see www.answeringislam.com for muslim claims some of it is pretty convinving, like the daniel one is pretty damn convincing..it even predicted that the heirs of the empire would not be the prince's sons..but it's up to you to believe. The fall of the temple is pretty good too, as the temple was completely destroyed, and the jews were exiled, exactly as Jesus said. But i digress. Friend, i also deal with doubts everyday..but i have no reason to not believe in God or in Christ, so my own doubts come across as irrational to me..but alas. Here is also an interesting site: revelationrevolution.org/jesus-the-son-of-man-was-seen-in-the-clouds-in-a-d-66/
i agree..demons in particular dont prove christianity. but in my opinion, prophecy does very much so. You don't need to respond to this post..just my two cents and some food for thought.
John Cox
I have a buddy who's a preterist so I'm relatively familiar with some of it. A lot of it seems so out of touch with traditional Christianity that I have a hard time wrapping my head around it though, part of what appeals to me is the continuity and the tradition, to have a radically different interpretation than others that came before me that would be considered borderline heretical by most christians doesn't sit quit right, but I don't know.
And yeah I'm just not really sure what to make of the prophecies, it's certainly not nothing.
With me I do have strong reasons to doubt, in fact everything seems to be pointing towards that doubt, my sort of last ditch effort / return here is almost entirely based in intuition and a hunch of sorts.
Ryan Davis
by all means , i agree with you, just posted here because the site also has more info on prophecies. pretty interesting and you should check it up later.
They surely aren't!
That's just too bad man, but i implore you to search further and to have a little bit of faith..you'll be in my prayers. Hope i helped a little bit..and don't the delete this thread just yet- other anons may have interesting things to share as well!
Leo Lee
Thanks for the help much appreciated, I'll definitely look more into the Daniel prophecies.
Might fast a bit and pray on it as well
Jackson Bailey
Not just daniel, but Ezekiel, Isaiah..these are all over the OT. Check the youtube channel AoC network, very interesting videos. Just remembered of an cool prophecy as well: piustheninth.com/chapter7.htm ( a catholic one ) , check it out! God bless and may he give you strenght and faith in him. Good night friend
Justin Sanchez
yes! Do this!! Fast , seriously. AND pray. And meditate on Jesus, literally abandoned by everyone in the garden , crying, all alone. And also on him on the cross up there , literally dying, and then actually dying. And medititare also on “love” and what that concept means. and fast! Take away sleep, too. Imo removing sleep is actually more productive, but both is super productive. Watch your emotional state, you will become more emotional without sleep, and you will become more mentally focused without food… but no food also makes me more emotional, i think…but in a different way… more as in, less distracted. Do those things and think about yourself in relation to Jesus on the cross.
Easton King
Considering becoming catholic again, might check out an SSPX mass near me. More than anything else its an intuition, kind of like what brought me on here in the first place, but I'm still trying to sort it all out internally.
Don't know about the sleep part because I've been doing lots of weight loss and exercise but I have been doing and will keep up the other two.
Adam Stewart
YOU ANTISEMITE, STOP ATTACKING GOD'S CHOSEN ONE YOU RACIST.
Andrew Clark
watch william lane craig on youtube. He has little videos "reasonable faith", you're hardly going to find someone better when it comes to Christian philosophy, at least when it comes to debating.
That or cold case christianity guy, I like that guy, he lays out the case very well and satisfying.
tl;dr click these links.
Here's Craig debating christopher hitchens. Honestly he did really well this debate but it's a lot to take in. youtube.com/watch?v=0tYm41hb48o
Historical evidence for the Resurrection, which is easily the most satisfying piece of evidence for God's existence. youtube.com/watch?v=A0iDNLxmWVM
Zachary King
oh and in case you don't want to watch 2 hrs, just watch the first 30 mins of the craig one.
Samuel Cooper
user I hate to be that guy, but you where never a strong Catholic who understood the Catechism if you think thats their view on Faith, Works, Sacrements and Salvation.
Christian Sullivan
Reconstructing the Rise of Christianity: The Role of Women, by Rodney Stark
The early Church grew so fast because Greek pagan culture was horrid to women: they were not allowed to leave the house or to own property. Because infant girls were much more likely to be left to die than boys, pagans had more men than women. But Christians had more women than men: women converted to Christianity because they would be treated better (and not be left to die as infants). Pagan men couldn't find a wife and Christian women couldn't find a husband. They married and the pagan (who didn't feel very strongly about his Greek gods) converted to Christianity.
I find this story to be more compelling proof that Christianity is real than all of the miracles put together. A girl thrives because she's not left out to die. She finds someone to love and brings him into the fold.
The pagans' brutality was used against them.
Ethan Gray
Christians didn't change that, nor should they have. Probably true. The opposite was the case among the northern European tribes, pagan Germanics were more or less full blown feminists but Christianity puts women in line.
People really need to stop equating Christianity with feminism, it's wrong.
Zachary Parker
That’s half right. True gender equality? Yes, it works. The new crap where they hate men? No, that doesn’t work
Isaac King
I was completely dead on the inside and randomly received salvation.
Benjamin Green
Watched the one on the resurrection and I'm watching the William Lane Craig one now, interesting stuff
Christianity has an objectively reasonable view on women, I agree, I've never taken issue with it
Hopefully something similar happens to me
Mason Cruz
OP here
Its a couple weeks later now and I've spent the last few weeks looking into religion, but now I feel like I'm not better off than where I started and still completely unsure. What should I do for clarity? Anyone have a recommended video or book or something?
Brody Harris
When I first started looking into Christianity, I was trying to disprove it. I studied for perhaps 3+ years about Christianity and theology, trying to prove that it was a bunch of hogwash– and I couldn't. I took a rational, skeptical inquiry into Christianity, and come out the other side a Christian. The evidence is undeniable for Jesus and His ministry and Resurrection. I had nowhere to run to or hide, and so I had no choice but to believe and follow what I discovered to be true.
Colton Morales
What's your exact problem, OP?
Brandon Kelly
Perhaps part of your difficulty is in considering Christianity but not so much considering Christ. I see some here have said similar. It is useful to read the scriptures and consider all the various beliefs and facts we hold true (and argue about), but it is hardly transformative or compelling. Sometimes it can even be counterproductive. What grips me, impacts me, blows my mind more than anything in the Bible is the person of Jesus Christ. I suggest reading the gospel again and setting aside all the proofs and arguments (just for a moment, your IQ won't drop!) and looking at Jesus as a real person. See him to be more real than any historical figure or fictional character you've read about, and consider that before you ever met him in reading the Bible, he knew you and loved you and died for you. Entertain the possibility that it's true, just for a moment, and see if you don't look at everything a different way. Talk to Jesus like he's sitting in front of you and wants to hear what you have to say.
If you want to be a Christian you have to meet Jesus. Videos and books won't form a relationship. It may be scary and counter-intuitive, but all the logical arguments will still be there afterwards if you set them aside for a bit. It won't cost a thing to pray besides feeling a bit silly.
This is the typical late convert's story, isn't it? My approach was slightly different: So I started studying the Bible to get my creation arguments correct. And then over night, the Lord said Hello to me, pointed me to His son Jesus Christ and started my journey.
tl;dr: Pretend being a Christian on the Internet and suddenly you become a real one.
Jeremiah Diaz
Why was the first fossil found in the 1800s during the height of Freemasonic power? Really makes ya think, user. I'm more inclined to believe in young earth creationism simply on metaphysical principles. Also try to find pic related thread on the Shroud of Turin. Once you realize the extent to which the world will try to gaslight you into denying Christ I think it will redouble your faith.
Read Nichomachean Ethics, user. It isn't merely for another world, but because the only way to lead a happy and fulfilling life is by cultivating virtue. No matter what you believe a Catholic life is the best life, pragmatically speaking.
Andrew Howard
First fossils were discovered since time immemorial you LARPer. Including by Scythians for example. That's where stories about Griffins came from
