Doubt and atheism....

Phil.....(yeah) said:

To listen to some devout people, one would imagine God never laughs.

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I just noticed this. It sure gives us a lot to think about, yes? I'm sure we all know a few of those holy ones!
Welcome to OBOB, by the way. Nice to meet you!

Brikkz said:

I guess that seeing the devil means all the evils of the world....right? In that case I kinda find I can just blame the evils on human nature if I really wanted to go there. People can be bad without the devil....but I know he exists.

So I can't deny the devil does have a big part in things like Maria Talks and Planned Parenthood for starters.

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what I mean is, there is good and evil- these aren't concepts or realities that we can just deny. We feel the battle and we know there is one. A battle, a fight and it exhausts us. In us, in our families and in the world. There is a fight, not just there are bad things but its a real fight between the two, good and bad.

There is what we ALL know is good and then we all know there is bad, very bad things. and the bad at times is so overwhelming it might cause us all to think there is no God becuase of all the bad... but if there is bad, then there has to be God becuase why is there bad if its not to destroy God and all His goodness, like our faith?

Your doubt is in of itself a proof of God becuase the doubt is one of those evils in the world that fight against the good.

Job was allowed to face a whole lot of pain and loss - because God allowed it.
God will put some to the test [a whole lot] because we may be [in His knowledge of us rather than ourselves] strong and He allows the doubts to refine us to make us stronger each time we go through the period of 'drought' when He seems to back away and let evil be in the ears to work against us.

All in all, this may - if we remain faithful - be for a better reward in Heaven and overcoming it may be a penance we face to prove our love to Him.

He carries us literally thru His graces... sometimes He lets go of our hands to see if we can do it for ourselves. Not abandoning us, but seeing how strong we are.

Just my mind wandering again... it needs a leash.
But something to chew on.

He must have great trust in you as He grooms you.

d/p

and its also very possible that if we ever dabbled in the occult or paganism or out right belonged to it, the devil has a legitimate stake, claim to us and will fight for us by constantly attacking what he knows is our weakness. Because we once gave us to him either through willful sin or occultism, even if its one of those indirect occult belifs like Wicca or paganism.

In the end, we are God's and Christ's blood redeemed us, however, we are still in the world and we are all called by God to "work it all out" we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because as I have learned, its not fairy tale, you are baptized, redeemed and that's it- it gravy from here on out.

The CCC says, this is when we are summons to a spiritual battle an the fight for our soul is on. We will constantly be fighting something or another deigned by the enemy to make us fall away.

Hey the devil does not care if we believe in Gd and reject him through some nasty sin we have willfully chosen over God or if we fall away becuase of atheism.

He does not care what side we exist on- right or left just as long as we do.

The nasty devil knows our weakness and kows what bait we will take.

So its a battle and why we are called the Church militant. Because we are in a battle.

So in faith, we do have to exercise some blind faith sometimes and just do what the Church prescribes and that is prayer and the sacraments and confession is very important.

God allows satan only so much power, or certain levels of temptation or even how much he may show himself to us.
He still knows us and protects us and satan may have more ability to attack us - but we are God's - and depending on our constitution - is the level of which God allows satan to pursue us.

For instance, St Pio was attacked physically by satan [and never dabbled in the occult] - because St Pio was very strong spiritually. Having the stigmata and converting so many, and conversing with Jesus and Mary in his small room - means St Pio had a very strong gift to see the spiritual world and therefore could see satan and because GOD gave him these gifts, it was allowed by God that satan could attack - yet God used those attacks for the sake of other conversions.
So satan undid himself by attacking, yet satan was trying to stop St Pio from converting more souls.

See how that worked?

And true, people who are attacked by satan who are converted to God after the occult are attacked depending on their desire for holiness - and the amount of zeal they have.
For instance, those are weak in faith and want a comfort level where they wont be attacked and or give into the attacks will possibly either leave their faith behind and live the worldly way - and satan will leave them alone, or he will be able to 'possess' them if they are open to it. Remember free will is even part of what satan is allowed.

Being they played with the occult, the temptations will be more - because satan wants us to not be close to God.
As our priest said, he has no power to condemn us, for we do that for ourselves.
He does have the 'green light' to do all he can to try to take us from God, sometimes successful, sometimes not.

In the whole picture of it, our free will is the determining factor...even to be possessed..the weaker free will and fear is how satan works on.

Look at it this way - if satan is able to make someone fall away - they will either be open season to him, or he wont need to work on them because they have already decided to live comfortably and worldly - therefore he doesnt need to put in overtime on them.

Leaving God and living with the doubts is open season for evil.
It seems that although some go through these periods of drought, God still has that small voice in them echoing in their ears to stay and hold tight...instinctually the human soul hears and stays.

It is like with Mother Therese, God giving evil its chance at her towards the end, and Him trusting her fully, that she persevered without graces being EVIDENT to her - that she succeeded. The astronomical rewards she received must be breath taking.
An entire life of servitude and passing the test of blind faith in her darkest hours right before death - means she heroically succeeded in God's plan.
Even when He didnt make His graces obvious in carrying her, she felt alone and still stayed in love with Him.
NOW that is awesome...and inspiring.

"God, save me from my unbelief."

Useful prayer.

there are also things that can shake our faith more then others. some of those are part of some field of study. like psychology, philosophy... some have lost their faith while going through those courses.

Freud, Edward Bernays, William Coulson and Carl Rogers are a few that have done quite some ravage in our society. just as an exemple, Coulson managed to empty a convent of nuns and see it closed within a year and a half. by allowing them to express themselves and give them a few thought to explore. it is said that 300 left within one year. how can a bunch of 1960's traditional nuns all renounce their vow so quickly? with just thoughts? if they could do that, what can their ideas do to the faith of non religious?

i know you were studying psychology or you may still be... i have a hard time keeping up. but that alone is enough to shake someone's faith, regardless of your past.

at times while researching through conspiracy theory, some stuff has made me pause and doubt. i had to back off and ground myself again in my faith. prayers helps and i offer you mine

There are Catholic psychologists who work for Catholic Charities to help ppl overcome situations.
I studied a bit in college as a minor subject - and i didnt think of it as an opposition to the Church, but complimentary. I guess that makes me odd, go figure.

I didnt know that dude emptied a convent, that is so horrific. And so sad.

WarriorAngel said:

There are Catholic psychologists who work for Catholic Charities to help ppl overcome situations.
I studied a bit in college as a minor subject - and i didnt think of it as an opposition to the Church, but complimentary. I guess that makes me odd, go figure.

I didnt know that dude emptied a convent, that is so horrific. And so sad.

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i had seen a documentary about it, i couldn't remember the name or even the psychologist who conducted the experiment, had to google again. found the documentary on google video... "the century of the self". i always thought psychology was interesting but this is something on it's own. showing how they were able to influence our whole modern society as we know it.

Brikkz said:

As many of you know I used to be an atheist....lately I have been feeling the.....atheist pull of my past. I have been having doubts and not your usual doubts like "Is Catholicism the true Church?" or "Was Mary actually conceived without original sin?" No....nothing like that.

BIG doubts like "Is God REAL?" "Is there a God?" "Am I wishing and hoping on nothing?"

My atheistic past is coming back to...haunt me...

And I am not going to leave the Church....I can't seem to turn back..I love...being Catholic and I love that I believe in God......

But a little piece of me...or maybe a medium sized piece D) doesn't know what to believe......and is feeling like what if I am wrong what if there is no God? What if at Church all that I am doing IS sipping wine and munching on a cracker? If there's no God......then all that is bad in the world will never be remedied and we have no hope.

Prayer may be helpful but it doesn't seem to help my fears, concerns and huge....borderline atheistic...doubts.

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I was talking about this yesterday. Since i've experienced an apparition i no longer have a choice to believe. I've sometimes wondered if maybe that there might be something wrong with me because i have faith because i have seen and not having faith in what i have not seen?

if you ask Jesus for faith you will receive it.

Would you like to read about the apparition?

My 1st Angel
I was traveling to Tula to work at the Pemex refinery. Some new reactors were being installed. I was taking some transducers with me that we were going to use to inspect pipe welds and the welds on the reactors.

I guess it was about midnight, actually, i recall it was right at midnight. I was going down an incline on the mountain side. There was a convoy of 18-wheelers going up on my left and a wall of rock on my right. All of a sudden right in front of me there were a set of headlights comeing at me. I had enough time to get two words out... O' s- . lol

I remember jerking the wheel to the right, i guess hitting a wall of rock rather than a big truck was more tempting. The truck hit me. Glass flew all over the place. I remember the sound, it was not very pleasant. The car was skidding down the road, i looked back and saw the red lights from the trucks going over the top and disappear. I remember thinking, that i could not believe no one stopped! I turned back around to look in front of me and the car was skidding to a stop. My body was shaking. I made myself stop shaking, as best i could. My car was totaled. I had just bought it too.

Later, after the federales came, they made their report and all. I had to hitch a ride, and not speaking spanish, made things very difficult. When they guys i got a ride with were driveing off, i saw the federales again about a mile down the road at the scene of another wreck except this one looked much worse than mine. The people in that car were dead. The wreckage was balled up into a little crushed car.

Long story short, i had decided to have my car repaired thinking that it would be much cheaper in Mexico. Boy was i ever wrong, i got ripped off.

Several months later, I had to fly back into Mexico to go and get my car. I took a bus from Mexico City to where my car was.

The next day, while driveing out of the mountains, and this would be between Tampico and the mountain range i decided to give it a little gas, since i was out of the moutainous terrain and had some straight road now i wanted to see how it was driveing. The motor started makeing a clacking sound and looseing power. Eventually, it died and left me literally out in the middle of no where. I could see nothing around, nothing at all. I recalled seeing a little village a couple miles back so i hicked to it.

Once there i began to try and communicate that i needed some water for my car. That wasn't going very well, but they seemed to get some humor out of the fact that some foreigner was walking around out in the middle of nowhere. When i gave a few pesos it seemed to help move the negotiations along well.

I went back to the car, poured the water into the radiator and it started. i was off and down the road. As soon as i got to the next town, it died and i coasted into the 1st gas station. I went up to the clerk and tried to tell him my car was broken and that i would be back as soon as i can get a wrecker. I don't think he understood anything i said, and just said, "sisisi" lol

So i flag down a cab and get taken to a hotel, i get a room, check in, and get something to eat. This was already night tiime. I decided to go out and walk around the town square some. Everything was dead except for one place that had some people going in and out of it and small groups of people standing around outside. I went there and went in, ordered a beer and sat down. There were alot of people in there. It was big and alot of folks were danceing.

After awhile a girl came to me and started saying a whole bunch of stuff and i couldn't make any of it out. I just looked at her and smiled. lol I tried talking to her, but she just kinda smiled back and walked away. She soon returned, with what i guess would have been a group of her friends, and they all started talking to me! Jeez! i couldn't understand any of them. They just all started hanging out around me and motioning for me to go with them, so i did.

Later, i left, outside we all went. One of the girls was motioning for me to go into the back of a truck. It had a camper shell on it. I then looked into her hair and saw what looked like cob webs? and a spider! I said, no, i'm gonna go to bed and walked off, i went back to my room and went to bed. I guess my instincts kicked in or something?

The next morning, i woke up, sat up in bed. I started thinking, o great, what am i going to do now. I just spent thousands of dollars getting a car back that broke down on me on the side of the road and i'm stuck here in Mexico!

I saw something moveing up in the top right corner of the room. I looked and saw a woman standing, looking at me. She looked like a nun to me. Her head was covered with whatever you call that thing they wear. I could see her clear, except she looked so clean and the white cloth was so white. She raised her hands together to her mouth, kissed them, then threw them out towards me. A white dove flew out from her hands towards me. I watched it fly towards me, past me towards the window. I looked back to see her, and she was gone, i looked back to see the dove and it was gone. The dove had flown towards the window, so when i looked back to see the dove, all i could see out of my hotel window was an enormous beautiful catholic church. The feeling i got then was unlike anything i have ever felt before. I had never felt so at peace in all my life. It is a feeling of pure good, there was no fear, not a drop. It is just amazeing!

this was many years ago. i never really understood any of this till recently. I was in my room getting ready for work and i heard a voice tell me that i must believe the word of Jesus. I looked around and didn't see anyone. I kinda figured it was an angel, since i had been haveing lots of dreams at that time of me and angels hunting demons. They would show me where they are and i would attack them and send them back to wherever they come from. lol

So this is what has gotten me to read the bible so intensely on a daily basis now. I've learned alot from the bible that explains alot of these experiences i have had.

edit 7-28 *** today, i know why i never found the dove in the curtains, well... i've known for sometime now, just figured this is a good place to insert this bit of info, I found it right here inside of me.
Last edited by stone; 28th July 2006 at 09:37 AM.