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Agnostic Assesses Vatican Dialogue at Assisi
Catholic Culture ^ | 1/16/12

Posted on 01/20/2012 8:33:03 AM PST by marshmallow

One of the agnostics who took part in the day of reflection, dialogue, and prayer in Assisi in October suggested that the Vatican recognize that “non-believers are usually somewhere between the two extremes: on the one hand are the rabid atheists, enemies of God and of religion; on the other, the spiritual agnostics who are on the point of converting to some specific religion.”

“Between these two extremes, so remote from each other, there are many kinds of non-believers--the tolerant, the indifferent, those who are seeking God, those who resist believing in him,” said Guillermo Hurtado, director of the Institute of Philosophical Investigation at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Hurtado added that he was moved by Pope Benedict’s words:

In his Assisi Discourse, Benedict XVI distinguished between atheists and agnostics. He described the former as anti-religious and the latter as people who suffer from their lack of faith and who, in their search for truth and goodness, are also seeking God. I was moved to hear this definition of the agnostic. Indeed, in my humble quest for the truth I have asked myself about the existence of a God who could provide an answer to my questions.

Moreover in discovering myself to be without faith and without anyone to stand up for me, I also wanted the existence of a God who would give me support on the darkest days. However, I do not always think and feel in the same manner. Sometimes my search for the truth, that is to say, for the objective truth – what else could it be?--makes me think that God does not exist, that we have to seek the answers on our own.

Moreover on occasion I feel lonely and suffer from loneliness, from my finiteness, and something within me makes me rebel against the idea that only a magnanimous God could rescue me from this state. It is then that I rediscover in my condition sufficient dignity and courage to forge ahead. The agnostic who suffers from being without God and seeks him, is, to my mind, a very special kind of non-believer who cannot be held up as a paradigmatic example of the agnostic.


TOPICS: Catholic; Ministry/Outreach; Skeptics/Seekers
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 01/20/2012 8:33:08 AM PST by marshmallow
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To: marshmallow
as people who suffer from their lack of faith and who, in their search for truth and goodness, are also seeking God. I was moved to hear this definition of the agnostic.

Somebody gets it!

I ache for the certainty of an atheist or a believer.

2 posted on 01/20/2012 8:40:09 AM PST by null and void (Day 1095 of America's ObamaVacation from reality [Heroes aren't made, Frank, they're cornered...])
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To: marshmallow; zot

Thanks for posting this.


3 posted on 01/20/2012 9:04:03 AM PST by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: null and void
I ache for the certainty of an atheist or a believer.

I can prove there is a "god" with as much certainty as any astrophysicist can prove that "a god is not needed" for creation and/or our existence.

I once put it this way. Scientific theory suggests that all mass in the universe came from a particle/space that was infinitely small. That particle/space had infinite mass. Then it went boom. When asked what made it go boom, Hawking is on to string theory and some say infinite universes in infinite dimensions..... "It's all sound theory." Most scientists studying the origins of our universe are agnostic to atheist.

We've all heard, "What made it go bang?" or "Where did the other theoretical universes come from?" I ask this...

"Why is your preposterous belief in a theoretical particle of infinite mass and infinite size, which has no scientific basis, any different than my belief that God created the theoretical scenario you envision? I think it takes an awful lot of faith on your part to believe something you can't see, prove, test or observe. Why are you so dismissive of my faith in a higher power that I can't see, prove, test or observe?"

"If you are right and I am wrong, no harm done to either of us. BUT, if I am right and you are wrong....well....if you have doubt, better to be safe than sorry?"

4 posted on 01/20/2012 9:10:56 AM PST by Tenacious 1
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To: Tenacious 1

Pascal’s wager...


5 posted on 01/20/2012 10:36:23 AM PST by null and void (Day 1095 of America's ObamaVacation from reality [Heroes aren't made, Frank, they're cornered...])
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To: null and void

I’ve not heard of it, but will investigate.


6 posted on 01/20/2012 11:15:42 AM PST by Tenacious 1
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To: GreyFriar

Thanks for the ping to this honest statement.


7 posted on 01/20/2012 2:52:57 PM PST by zot
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