tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005473794963219887.post2503762382640711190..comments2024-03-14T18:56:31.716-05:00Comments on Two Catholic Men and a Blog: Steps to Truth ContinuedJoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13632007696351816323noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005473794963219887.post-65130183363135133462014-08-30T16:28:13.829-05:002014-08-30T16:28:13.829-05:00You're welcome! And thank you for saying so.
...You're welcome! And thank you for saying so.<br /><br />Yes, militant atheists love to say that animals and babies are "default atheists", but the fact is that you need a concept of God before you can knowingly and deliberately reject His existence--and only this latter counts as atheism. If you cannot even say or even think "I'm an atheist", how can you be one?Michael E.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03388855678756001137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005473794963219887.post-12956756524643030902014-08-29T16:50:55.334-05:002014-08-29T16:50:55.334-05:00Thanks!
Your conclusion of "if there were no ...Thanks!<br />Your conclusion of "if there were no God, there would be no atheism" is intriguing. Reminds me of those that say anything humans do can be found in the animal kingdom to a lesser degree, since we are only highly evolved animals. What evidence is there of animals having primitive "religion" or desire to worship. There isn't because they have no souls and therefore can have no concept of God and therefore, no concept of God to consciously reject.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11953563578914140396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005473794963219887.post-11017213719853055272014-08-29T14:55:58.710-05:002014-08-29T14:55:58.710-05:00Thank you very much for this blog entry! It is ve...Thank you very much for this blog entry! It is very similar to what I went through in returning to the Church. Having Asperger's Syndrome I went through it entirely logically and tried my hardest to take all possibilities into account (that were reasonable--I had to narrow it down somewhere, especially at the beginning). I was that determined to get it right.<br /><br />But looking back on it now, it was really a question of three things: 1) Is there one Creator God or not? 2) Is Jesus of Nazareth His only-begotten Son or not? 3) Is the Pope the Vicar of Jesus Christ with infallible teaching Authority in his own office (apart from any other Bishops, in other words)?<br /><br />I have since concluded that 1) if there were no God, there would be no atheism (not just in the sense that there would be no one to reject God's existence without a Creator but that, even if man could still exist in that scenario, we wouldn't then even have a concept of God to consciously reject--how could such a concept arise in our minds in a godless universe?); 2) if Christianity were false, there would be no Christians (the claims of Christianity are so outrageous and--for the first 280 years of its existence--were so dangerous that the continued existence of the faith has no natural explanation that I can see, and this is only also true for Judaism among the world religions, and Christianity claims to be the fulfillment of Judaism so even that doesn't conflict with the Truth of Christianity); 3) if, given Christianity as true, Jesus did not give us the Catholic Church, we would have no way of knowing even this fact (that Jesus gave us a non-Catholic Church instead of the Catholic Church), much less which non-Catholic Church He truly gave us (the Papacy is the only visible source of infallible teaching authority in all Christendom that both was around from the beginning, from Pentecost, and is unique to only one Christian faith and so can define that Christian faith).<br /><br />God bless!Michael E.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03388855678756001137noreply@blogger.com