OK, I am a completely a Catholic person, but I am starting to have a doubt about the Catholic church, not God,

Question

They say that God is good right, he's is the source of good. If you are a parent is there something, anything, that your son/daughter can do for you to wish him to suffer for the rest of his life if he killed someone would you want him to suffer for the rest of his life. NO, right so then if you kill someone it is a sin and you do go to hell for the rest of eternity ( according to the bible).
now here is my theory;
if god is so good and he doesn't want his son that he created to suffer is it ok for him to send you to hell if you kill someone ?
for example let's say:
you are 19 yrs old and you come to your house and you see a guy raping your mom and stabbing her and you come in and you see a gun, kills her and turns to you, let's say you shoot him and kill him.
according to the bible you go to hell
isn't it more possible that god would give you... another chance
reincarnation. i think that's possible, but according to the bible if I believe that I am not a catholic
got any opinions ?

Answer 1

In the example you gave that is not murder; it is self defense. The Church teaches that we have the right and obligation to defend life. If you came home and caught someone raping and killing your mother, you have every right to defend her, even if it means killing the rapist. That would not be murder, but defense of another life.

The sins that send you to hell are mortal sins. These are sins that are grave and serious, like murder, idolatry, sexual sins, etc. If you die and are guilty of those sins and – here’s the kicker – ARE NOT REPENTENT, you condemn yourself to hell. God can forgive any sin, but you have to ACCEPT His forgiveness. It’s a two-way street. Make sense? God offers His forgiveness to everyone, but not everyone accepts it. Those who don’t damn themselves. Those who do are given His mercy.

Hope this helps. God bless and take care.

Answer 2

*Is Catholic*

No actually you have a doubt about God. In what you wrote, you have no question or doubt about the Church.

1. You need to understand that God is who He Is and not who we think He should be. You need to be willing to listen to who He says He is.

Here are your answers.

First God is not our parent, He is our creator. We call the Father, father because through Christ He has adopted us as sons and daughter, but God is still our creator. That means that His love for us is magnitudes greater than a parent's love for a child. All that we are, all that we will be, all that we experience is of God's design and it is the way that it is because God loves each individual to the point and degree that He has given us the ability to love Him and love Him as a child would a father.

Think about that for a second. God did not have to create us to love Him let alone give us the ability to love Him as a father. Trees, plants, animals, etc. are all loved by God but these things are not able to nor do they have the opportunity to love God as Father. We humans do.

That is why God is the source of all that is good, because it is in Him that we find what we are called to love and love very greatly as sons/daughters love a father.

Other religions have god just being a controller of destiny. But Catholicism...God is Father and we are called to love Him as father.

Now into your question.

First not all suffering is not evil. There are two types of suffering that are good. First is the corrective suffering...the suffering that results to tell you "don't do that". If you put your hand on a hot stove, you are burned and you suffer. You learn not to do that again. Secondly there is redemptive suffering. This suffering is chosen so another person will not have to suffer. The prime example is Christ. We also see this in cases where people give up their lives for another, where people give up life and limb because they love another.

The situation that you give is poor because such an individual has not sinned and would not go to hell. It is allowed, it is self defense.

Let us though take the case of the GUY who raped and killed the mom.

What happens to him? Does he suffer? Should he suffer?

God's love demands that the individual suffer for this act. This is justice because when an individual chooses not to love the good and God, one cuts himself off from life and this act produces a great suffering. God however, because He created the individual so that the individual could call Him father, ever seeks to have the individual return to love. This is mercy...that God works to make the suffering end.

However such an individual might choose not to come to God's mercy. This is the choice for hell where one sets himself against mercy for all time and chooses the suffering of being cut off from life itself.

However, even hell is merciful for hell is not oblivion. An individual does not suffer completely for complete suffering is utter destruction and unmaking. So God still loves and still gives life to the individual.

The particular hell of hell is in this: the eternal situation of being loved by the one whom you were created to love but whom you have eternally chosen not to love.


PS. Reincarnation is a false belief. It doesn't make you not Catholic, but it does mean that you hold a heretical belief. Depending on how tightly you hold it, you should confess it at your next confession.

Answer 3

I would like you to get a book called The Great Controversy, by Ellen G White. It tells about the history of the Christian Faith, and the persecution. If you read it with an open mind, and prayer...I am sure you will be able to make your decision as to which faith to follow. Another book which is an easier read is called Searching for a God to Love by Blake...
You will not go to hell for defending your family. The commandment which says thou shalt not kill actually says that you shall not murder. Murdering someone is different from defending your life or others' lives. Furthermore, God came as Jesus Christ not to condemn but to save us from our sins. None of us are perfect, not even the Pope or Sister Theresa...but Christ was and died to set us free from the bondage of sin. Remember John 3:16....

Answer 4

My opinion is that as a good Catholic when I am confused about a morality issue and cannot seem to sort it out for myself I talk to my priest. Other options would be your Religious Education Teacher or other adult in your parish with a good moral foundation. In a previous question you posted you stated you were 14, and this is an age were you are still learning.
Peace be with you.

Answer 5

Listen to Daver.

and rememeber the Divine Mercy devotion:

"I am mercy and love itself" says Jesus, "My Mercy is greater than your sins and those of the whole world. The greater the sinner the more right he has to my Mercy."

Answer 6

Here is some advice - stop treating the Bible as if it were nothing more than a legal document under the scrutiny of wannabe lawyers. Waste time doing that and you will miss many, many Biblical teachings.

Why don't we go through your comments one peice at a time.

The Catholic Church is of God. Therefore, if you are having doubts about His Church, you are having doubts about God. Don't expect to be able to make sense of all Catholic Doctrine. It is possible to believe in all Catholic Doctrine, even when some elements escape our understanding.

God created the entire universe. The rest of us are arrogant little humans, barely in control of our own lives. Why do so many expect to be capable of matching wits with God? There will always be elements of Catholic Doctrine beyond our understanding, but not beyond our ability to have Faith in these elements despite our lack of understanding. The point is, don't feel bad if there are things you don't understand. Just don't make the mistake of assuming the Church, and by extension - God, is wrong about something when we can't understand it.

Hold on. It all depends. First of all, understand that God's capacity for forgiveness exceeds man's capacity for sin.

The sin of murder is NOT beyond forgiveness. Murder is the deliberate premeditated taking of another human life. But what if the sinner repents of that sin and confesses. . . there's nothing in the Bible that says God will not forgive the sin of murder if the guilty repents of that sin. If the sinner does not repent before they pass away from this existance, there certainly is a chance this person's soul may end up in hell.

Mortal sins can separate us from God, but three conditions have to be met in order for a sin to be considered mortal:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches 1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God's law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

You said something about God sending people to hell. This is not how a soul goes to hell. People send their own souls to hell, not God. Mortal sin separates us from God. This separation is not made apparent so much in this life. It's only when going to the next is this separation made so obvious. God gave us free will, so that we may freely choose to follow Him.

God wants volunteers, not conscripts. Therefore, He so respects our freedom of will that we allows people to separate themselves from Him. He is always ready and willing to take them back, in repentence, but not everyone chooses that path. With the freedom of will to choose God also comes the freedom to reject Him. That is why it is important we make the right choice in this life.

Sin is a choice. God NEVER exposes us to temptation too powerful for us to overcome. Therefore, whenever we sin, it is because we've chosen to sin. Think about it: if we didn't have a choice in the matter, it would be unfair of God to hold us responsible for sinning if we couldn't help it to begin with. Right?

There are times when a person is justified in resorting to violence when it is applied to the defense of one's self and/or someone they love.

Your example of the 19 year old who comes home and finds his/her mom in the middle of being raped and murdered is perfect example of what I am talking about. The 19 year old would have every moral right to pick up that gun and shoot the mother's assailant.

The 19 year old is not necessarily hell bound because what he/she did cannot be considered "murder". The 19 year old did not wake up that morning having decided to kill someone that day. He/she was unexpectedly faced with a decision to kill in defense of a loved one, and took action.

It is not a bad idea for the 19 year old to confess this killing in defense, if only to receive assurance of forgiveness from a clergyman.

Reincarnaion is not possible. We are put on this earth one time and one time only. This is why it is so important that we do the right thing while we're were. it is how we love our lives on earth that determines the quality of our eternal existance in the afterlife.

I hope this helps.

Answer 7

catholicism is false, check out this...its a true Christian church..www.atruechurch.info...many don't believe but Jesus Christ said this in Matthew 7:13 that only a few will be saved , the rest will perish and that is exactly what's happening...thousands of people at a Vatican service but only few true Christians...catholicism and today's "Christianity" is false !

Answer 8

Try a Non Denominational church. Getting caught up in denominations will only confuse you.