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waterbadger | 5 months ago

[flagged]

discuss

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tasuki|5 months ago

Why Catholicism specifically? Why not any of the myriad of other Christian denominations? Why not Islam? Why not Buddhism? Why not any other religion?

waterbadger|5 months ago

That’s a great question! Basically all of the religions make truth claims, and these truth claims are contradictory. For example christianity says that there is one God and that Jesus is the son of God, fully human and fully divine. Every other religion makes truth claims as well. So we can kind of look at this in a patronizing way and say the truth claims don’t matter, just the effect of believing in them matters, which is kind of the modern approach, but obviously you are not seriously engaging with the beliefs at that point.

So I would say that christianity has the most logical, comprehensive and historically/experientially validated truth claims. As to why catholicism specifically its the church Jesus, ie God himself, founded. All the other christian denominations were founded by men hundreds or thousands of years later.

Plus (as does the eastern orthodox) for various reasons it has valid versions of all 7 of the sacraments, especially communion which is kind of the summit of the Christian life.

evanjrowley|5 months ago

OP is based in Iraq

waterbadger|5 months ago

That is probably a very challenging situation and I don’t know the state of the church there. But I would say life is short and the benefits so enormous I would encourage anyone to do their best to pursue becoming a part of the church in whatever way they can. And I’m sure God will provide them with whatever resources they need over time, miracles certainly do happen and sometimes the intention from us is what matters the most.

brcmthrowaway|5 months ago

Whats the best intro to Catholicism?

prewett|5 months ago

I'm not Roman Catholic, but Bishop's Barron Youtube channel seems to be a good introduction to Catholicism and how Catholic teaching interacts with with current events. It's not systematic like a catechism, though, but quite thoughtful.

waterbadger|5 months ago

The official Catholic church catechism that was published in the 90s is good. Its older but Baltimore catechism “4” (it is the most adult oriented version) is also really good.

_kb|5 months ago

The God Delusion, by Richard Hawkins.

trash3|5 months ago

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