r/Catholicism • u/Infamous-Picture7877 • 2h ago
Why I converted to Christianity (Catholicism)
Firstly I want to apologize if this may be hard to read: I'm not very good at expressing myself, I could've used AI to optimize it but I decided it's better to try and do it on my own.
To begin, this is a three level question, and it's mainly intellectual. First, why I started believing in God, which began my search for who he is; secondly, why I think Christianity is the truth; third, why Catholicism specifically. The third reason makes all the others true as well, especially Vittorio Micheli's case which I'll cover at the very end. Thanks to this I have intellectual assent to Jesus' divinity, but probably could lack some passionate faith, which may make it worse as I know the truth and sometimes miss to act in accordance to it. But let's start now.
The first level is about why I believe God exists, it's scientific and philosophical, and it's three reasons: the fine tuning argument, consciousness being fundamental to the universe, and morality being objective. The first emphasizes how statistically almost impossible current cosmic circumstances are and how perfectly engineered for life they are. The counterargument is that there may be a multiverse and this type of universe should've come into existence at some point; the reply is what gave this multiverse these specific laws allowing universes like this? There is hardly any answer besides a law giver as God; secondly, how conscience should have no reason to exist, copies of us without experience could've easily developed, and there is no explanation for how matter produced experience, yet it exists; third, morality is objectively felt by everyone, which is weird since we are just random particles that happened to come together, which points to a law giver.
The second level relates to why I think Christianity is true, and there are two reasons: first, the fact that people genuinely experienced the resurrection, which can't be a fabricated tradition due to Paul mentioning it early on and personally naming witnesses of it which he personally met, and the second reason is the apparitions to Paul and James, who went from being anti Christian to being major figures in the religion, even paying a price for it, like James, whose martyrdom is independently attested by the non Christian Josephus; secondly, it can be noted how much of Jesus' life facts are to be found in the old testament, which mention a Messiah who is also an Everlasting God, that should be crucified and despised, and also the translation of the names of the genealogy of one of the starting chapters of the old testament make up a sentence mentioning an appointed mortal man who descends and by his death shall bring peace, mirroring Jesus, though some names are of less certain etymology but the bigger picture is this.
The third level is why I believe Catholicism to be the truth, and it's mainly about the miracles. The ones I found to resist skepticism are: the Lourdes miracles, where 72 scientifically unexplainable healings are attested (more on this later); four eucharistic miracles, namely the Buenos Aires' and Sokolka's one, where independent blind tests found actual human cardiac tissue, in agony, on a Mass's bread (DNA tests found low human trace but this could be because it was very degraded); India's two apparitions of Jesus' face on bread, one of which was thoroughly scientifically examined for possible ink or any contaminations and it resulted not to be the case; Padre Pio's stigmata, which was thoroughly examined by numerous doctors and they all agreed it passed all tests on counterfeiting; Charbel's body incorruptibility, which, even in bad conditions, stayed mostly intact for decades, defying every law of decomposition, just to decompose suddenly and very quickly after sanctification, which is a notable connection; the apparitions, like the Fatima one where there are thousands witnessing the sun miracles, and the Lourdes apparition, where a poor ignorant girl was guided to find a major subterranean spring that soon after would have the fame of being curative, and she refused any money from pilgrims, even though she was dirt poor, to show she wasn't lying for profit, she even became a nun which forbids lying and shows great faith; lastly, numerous scientifically saints' healings. The healing I find most compelling, though, is that of Vittorio Micheli, someone who had his hip bone so deteriorated that, if I remember correctly, most of it was gone due to an illness, couldn't even move, had to be transported on a stretcher, and suffered from anoressia and pains which made him took painkillers. But the moment he immersed himself in the Lourdes water, all the pain disappeared, he didn't need painkillers anymore, and his anorexia was gone, and he could move alone with sticks, and a few weeks after his bone began regenerating alone almost perfectly, something unprecedented in medical knowledge to this day. He was ill, and the moment he took the holy bath, coincidentally, everything changed. This can't be more clear of a miracle to me.
So these are all the main reasons I converted, and the one that flipped the intellectual question for me was Vittorio Micheli's case. Sorry for being too long.
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u/Refundian 2h ago
The reason for me is faith. Having faith because of Gods grace.