by Susan Fox
A friend of mine began a discussion with me on Christianity by asking the question, "Susan, why am I gay?" This resulted in a very long dialogue beginning with the post: Sex and the Mystery of Gravy
This is Part II of our Dialogue, and explains why I chose to be Catholic at the age of four. My answers appear in red. His questions in black.
This is Part II of our Dialogue, and explains why I chose to be Catholic at the age of four. My answers appear in red. His questions in black.
Anonymous: It's not that I don't think that I need a god, it's that there is no god that I am convinced exists. I used to. But my research shed a lot of light on the fallacy that is the Christian god.
Are you aware that the Christian religion is the only one in the world that teaches: love your enemies, do good to those who harm you, the first shall be last and the last shall be first? It’s the only religion where God expects you to forgive others before receiving His forgiveness.
Anonymous: I will never believe in him (the Christian god), though I will always be open to another. I have spoken to people who have claimed to have "felt" their own god, to have "seen" him, to have "spoken" to him and he spoke to them. The thing is, all of their gods were different.
Brother, yes, it can be very confusing when you have conflicting views of truth. However, there is only one God. God is the Father of ALL mankind. And regardless of what each person believes when they do experience God they are experiencing the same God that I do. However, their understanding may be different then mine.
For instance, I have a friend who is a Shinto. She believes in 886 gods. She gets upset if I kill a bug. She loved my mother, and she came to my mother’s Catholic funeral. During the Mass, she badly wanted to receive Holy Communion (the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist) during the Mass. Our custom is to instruct a non-Catholic to fold their arms over their chest and then go to Communion. The priest will bless them, but not give them Communion. However, when Yuriko got the blessing she still stood waiting because she wanted Communion. The priest didn’t know what to do, so he gave her Communion. Yuriko came back with tears streaming down her face. After Mass, I said, “Yuriko, what happened?” She said, “Susan, when I go to the Shinto Shrines in Japan, God comes down to meet me. That was what it was like to receive Holy Communion. God came down to meet me.” So you see, we had dramatically different understandings of God, but the God she met at the Shinto Shrine was the same as the One she received in the Catholic Church.
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