Friday, June 15, 2007

Knowledge is Power

Tonight, I read Jack Chick's tract "The Death Cookie" after hearing about it a while ago. I find Chick tracts so good to make fun of, especially when it relates to my Church. The misconceptions, generalizations, and flat-out fallacies in there had me both giggling and exasperated.

What made me feel at peace, though, was realising that I could easy counter the arguments in the tract, both by Scripture and common sense. A while ago, I would have not only been unable to defend my own beliefs, but may have even been swayed by some things in the tract. I did ask myself some questions as I read. When I wasn't able to answer, I researched and found explanations that satisfied me.

Things like this help to only strengthen my faith in Catholicism's truth. Take, for example, my friend S, who is a Protestant. He and I have spent the majority of this school year in dialogue about our denominations. At times, it got very, very heated. It took us until June to face one another with open minds and a willingness to learn. He challenged me to provide Scriptural support for many parts of Catholic theology, and I asked him to find strong evidence against those ideas. Both of us grew through the experience. I don't think he meant for it to happen, but S only made my faith stronger. I owe him for that.

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