[mickeyg13]

Perhaps I should explain a bit how I arrived at my beliefs. I was raised in an Irish-Catholic household and didn't question the faith taught to me very much as a child. Although I believed, I wasn't really educated enough to have much opinion either way. When I received Confirmation, I did question myself to make sure I believed what I claimed, but again I feel I wasn't in a great position to do so (even though I was 18, much older than most when they receive Confirmation).

I went to a Catholic undergraduate university (Jesuit in fact), and we were required to take a bunch of philosophy and religious studies courses. I surprisingly enjoyed the PL courses and took a few more and minored in it (in addition to my double major in math/CS). I spent a fair amount of time pondering the origin of the universe. Either the universe has always existed, or it has not. The former seems to be a troublesome infinite regress, so consider the latter. If it has not always existed, either some Supreme Being(s) created it, or they did not. In the latter, I'm troubled by the idea that the universe suddenly came into being out of nothing. I can accept the Big Bang and all the stuff thereafter, it's getting to the Big Bang that is troublesome for me. However, the notion that some Supreme Being(s) lit the fuse for the Big Bang is also troublesome, as it leads to the question of where the Being(s) came from. The default answer is that God always has and always will exist, but again that is troubling. No matter which way you pick, it seems you must run into some rather troubling ideas. I am slightly less troubled by the idea that some sort of omnipotent being could have, in His omnipotence, somehow managed to have always existed than I am by the idea that the Big Bang could have spontaneously arisen from nothing. You could argue then I suppose that agnosticism is the correct path. However, the fact that we have something rather than nothing, that the universe exists at all, is very troubling. My troubles are slightly more eased with the belief in some sort of God.

Now how do I get from there to Catholicism? Well I won't deny that much of it has to do with the fact that that is how I was raised. However, I really do like Jesus' message and style. Many sects of Christianity believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible, which I believe (as do the atheists here) has some problems. That is not a problem for Catholics though. Several times on this forum I've read someone criticizing Christianity, but I've observed that that particular criticism does not apply to Catholicism.

I'd set the over/under on the number of posts before someone makes a Catholic joke at 1.5...