Prologue

The Enlightenment brought us …

Our life should be constructed about facts & what’s true. Otherwise, we risk to have a disconnection between our mind & reality, and we end up living in an illusory mindset.

There’s 2 types of truth.

What’s relativism?

It’s the belief that there’s no absolute truth, everything is relative, mostly in the name of ‘tolerance’.

Relativism itself is both unpractical, irrational & self-refuting. It violate the law of non-contradiction. There are facts that stays facts no matter how we like or or not. Ignoring them doesn’t eliminate them.

Anybody who hold a position become himself intolerant, including the relativist who believe their truth to be true.

If everything is relative, why criticizing absolutism?

Relativism: “There’s no absolute truth!”
Answer: “Is that statement true?”

Relativism: “We can’t be sure of anything!”
Answer: “Are you sure about that?”

Relativism: “You are wrong to impose your truth on me!”
Answer: “Isn’t that an objective truth statement?”

Relativism: “It’s arrogant to think your opinion is right and others are wrong!”
Answer: “If I disagree with that statement?”
Relativism: “Then you’re wrong!”
Answer: “You’ve just made a truth statement.”

Relativism: “Tolerance requires us to accept all views equally.”
Answer: “That’s nonsense, some views are false.”
Relativism: “I reject your bigoted view!”
Answer: “Didn’t you just said we have to accept all view equally?”

“Beliefs do not change facts.
Facts, if one is rational, should change beliefs.”
Ricky Gervais (atheist)

Any reasonable person would admit that mathematical & scientific facts are objectively true.

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” ¹
Pope Benedict XVI

What it matter

We should all search for the truth, because a wrong belief can bring us to serious consequences. Every decision we make leads somewhere. That’s the principle of natural cause & effect. Belief affect our life: society, economic, etc.

• If I decide to eat fast food for the rest of my life because it feels good, the reality is I’ll get sick early and risk to have a cardiac arrest
• If a doctor prescribe the wrong medicine, someone can die, no matter what he believe.
• Gambling on the wrong stock can make you lose a ton of money.

Christianity isn’t a life philosophy. Militant atheists would also agree.

“The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.”
Ricky Gervais (atheist)

If Christianity is true, then surely there will be false teachers both internally & externally, leading people astray. We will be held accountable for those actions.

If Christianity is true, then surely there will be false teachers both internally & externally, leading people astray. We will be held accountable for those actions.

“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not.” ²
C.S. Lewis

Pascal’s Wager

If one is sincere & honest, we ought to follow the evidence to where it leads. If atheism is true, we should all become atheists. The same apply for any worldview, including Christianity.

…

Who are you to judge?”, “You have your truth, I have mine.”
We probably heard this many times around us in our modern culture.
It seems arrogant to claim that our truth is the only one.
We want to be nice, look trendy, fashionable & tolerant toward others. Nothing wrong with it! The problem is when truth is eliminated. Deep down, we don’t want to be rejected by others, so we try to “fit it”, even if it’s completely irrational.

We live in a world where’s there’s a catalog of possibilities & beliefs.
I am a Catholic because I believe it to be true based on facts, evidences, rationality & personal experiences of God.

Anybody who holds a point of view becomes himself an intolerant because they believe that’s the truth (atheism, political left or right, Islam, etc…).

For example: “I believe that God doesn’t exist.” — you hold an atheistic view, therefore it’s contrary to the theist view

Law of non-contradiction
…

Without a destination, there’s no way to say that someone is on the wrong path.
If there’s ultimately no Heaven or Hell, there’s everything is just reduce to mere opinions. We can pick & choose whatever pleases us or makes things easy. The temptation behind is that you low down so much the standard that the “hard way” becomes a burden.

The origin of the “cafeteria Catholics” resides there. Without any objective truth, people pick & choose whatever pleases them.

This sounds harsh but think about it for a moment: every single decision we chose leads us somewhere to an end result.

Why is Heaven so narrow? Because it demands a certain lifestyle.
Being healthy demands us to live differently. Being holy demands us to live differently.
If I’m eating McDonald every day, I’ll get fat, unhealthy, and quickly become sick. Don’t blame them because it doesn’t make you skinnier. If we wish to become healthy, we have to eat well & do physical exercise daily. The same happens with holiness.

Doctrines in the Church matters.

They aren’t here to makes us feel miserable, but to give us guidance toward the Truth.

You can refuse to follow the Church, but it doesn’t guarantee your salvation.

If you’re driving for the 1st time in an unknown area without a GPS, if there’s no road sign, you’ll get lost and not get to your destination as planned on time.

Sometimes, Christians might look “judgemental”, but the goal behind it is to save people. It’s like a parent. They don’t want their children to go on the wrong direction so they correct them. A teacher don’t give perfect mark for a student who made mistakes.

At the root of the popular quote “I feel offended“, there’s a disconnection between someone’s idea and reality.

People today are so used with subjective truth (everything is just based on personal opinion) that the moment they start to face reality, it becomes a huge burden for them.

Conclusion:

One of my friend actually asked me once when I was in Rome, why I choose to be Catholic rather than Buddhist (my mom converted to marry my dad).
I answer very quickly: “Because it’s the truth!” Then she answer: “Oh yeah, that’s right!”

Why it matters
In today’s world, it looks nearly negative to affirm that one religion is the truth, or on the contrary, it’s positive to say that all religion leads to God.
Without a destination, there’s no way to claim that someone is on the wrong direction.

It’s self-refuting to affirm that there’s no absolute truth.
An atheism who says that, affirm that his atheism is correct, since he states that Christianity is wrong. It must be an absolute.

We can’t all have the fullness of the truth.

If there’s an ultimate destination (ex: Heaven), then there’s things that

Why not other beliefs?
Does it matter if I’m Catholic or Protestant? Yes. Why?
Whatever you believe will lead you to an end result.
If I take Prosperity Gospel and believe that my life should be wealthy by God’s grace, then I am deceive and have a false picture of Christianity when things don’t get right.
If I believe that I am “automatically saved” by baptism, I can just subjectively do evil without any worry to lose salvation. That’s not Christianity, that’s delusion.