A common attitude or approach towards different religions is to treat them as all equally true – we can’t prove which one is actually correct, and given that they all try to achieve the same thing, describing one particular religion as having more truth value than another just doesn’t make sense. This view is known…
Questions of Faith It can be heart-wrenching when a couple experiences fertility problems that make bearing children through natural conception impossible. The inability to have children can cause severe emotional stress, and make the world seem like an unfair place. After a long period of anguish and discernment, many couples eventually find closure in their…
Questions of Faith It’s often said by theologians that before the Incarnation, history was pregnant with Christ – that is to say, history itself was waiting for God to enter into humanity. It’s a powerful and almost poetic idea, that the world was preparing and anticipating for this momentous point in time. But was there…
Questions of Faith A common question that often puzzles believers and non-believers alike concerns God’s hiddenness. The question might look something like this: “If God wants us to know and believe in him, why doesn’t he present himself more explicitly, perhaps through a miracle? If God can do anything, surely this is the first thing…
Questions of Faith It can seem odd to non-believers that at a certain point every year, Catholics abstain from certain practices considered comfortable, or adopt new behaviours aimed at improving their spiritual lives. While initially this may sound slightly off-the-wall, there’s a very good reason behind it. The season of Lent lasts 40 days (technically…
Questions of Faith One common argument presented against religious people is that faith is completely incompatible with science and the empirical method. The sentence might go something like this: “I only believe in what we can see, analyse and prove, whereas religion says we should believe ideas based solely on faith. They’re completely contradictory.”…
Questions of Faith Most people have heard of or watched pseudo-Christian movies like The Da Vinci Code or Stigmata which make claims that Jesus had a secret marriage with Mary Magdalene or that the Kingdom of God is in all of us. The role of these movies is to sensationalise commonly accepted teachings about Christianity…
Questions of Faith There’s an old saying, usually attributed to Benjamin Franklin, which points out that there are only two things certain in life: death and taxes. While Franklin’s economic predictions may not hold water in some distant society of the future, his first point about our mortality certainly rings true. We all die. Religions…
Questions of Faith The problem of suffering, sometimes academically referred to as ‘theodicy’, is a troublesome topic everybody wrestles with, both spiritually and intellectually. It’s been phrased in many different ways, but the most famous version of the question is attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not…
Questions of Faith It’s no secret that Catholics believe Mary is the Mother of God, a fate she learned about at the Annunciation. According to the Gospel of Luke, the angel Gabriel came to Mary as a young virgin and said: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now,…
Colm Fitzpatrick