Replies

“I never figured on what basis you’d pick one as an adult.”

Couple reasons.

1. Apostolic Succession. The Church has been in existence since Christ walked the earth, and the Bishop of Rome is in unbroken succesion with St. Peter.

2. Universality. The same principles, the same mass, worldwide is very attractive.

3. The stance of the Church on the primary issues of the day, abortion, gay marriage, contraception, male priests.

4. The Church heirarchy. Not voting on doctrine. Having an acknowledged head of world wide church. Authority of the magisterium.

5. Focus is on Christ in the mass, not the priest or the pastor. You don’t go to church to hear a wonderful sermon, you go to receive Christ.

With all due respect:
1) “Apostolic Succession - The Church has been in existence since Christ walked the earth, and the Bishop of Rome is in unbroken succesion with St. Peter.” - the Greek Orthodox church would disagree with you

2) “Universality” - I will agree with you on this
3) “The stance of the Church on the primary issues of the day, abortion, gay marriage, contraception, male priests.” Unfortunately, most parishioners don't take the teachings seriously, but just go through the ritual motions. My evidence would be the fact that Catholics are a huge voting bloc for the Democratic party.

4) “The Church heirarchy. Not voting on doctrine. Having an acknowledged head of world wide church. Authority of the magisterium.” - no point in debating this as I know it's strongly believed by Catholics that Peter was the first Pope. The Greek Orthodox, who also claim to be the people who were the first church, claim that the concept of the “Pope” was not introduced until centuries later. Of course, you will disagree with them and they will disagree with you and both will state their own evidence.

5) As a non-Catholic who has attending Mass, I see much less focus on Christ in these services than I do in evangelical services. Attention seems to be shared with the Holy Mother, the Saints, and some other things that I don't understand.

Those are all good enough reasons. But how does one jump from general rational agreement to it being the Truth. I never was able to drum up religious feeling from mere rationalization, and certainly not exclusively for one creed. I don’t even like always to be a conservative, let alone pin my eternal fate, if I have one, to one religion.

Maybe I am so constructing the argument that the only answer is the “leap of faith.”