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My girlfriend is Catholic and I'm not religious. We had a long & thorough talk about how that would work once we have kids and we've pretty much ironed out all the big issues except for gay kids (we're on the same page with the trans issue).
I told her that I would go to mass whenever it was important to her and when I didn't have someone else going on. I've been going with her most weeks and trying to give Catholicism a fair shake. I told her not to bet on me converting, but I'm not actively opposed to it. I just don't see it happening given my age and how foreign the Catholic culture is.
The stumbling blocks I'm having are twofold:
1. The divinity of Christ. I've come to the conclusion that the existence of God can be apprehended through observence of the natural world (which I believe is part of the Catechism), but it's a huge leap from that to believing the testimony given in the Bible and accepting more complex theological ideas such as the trinity. If I had met Christ and seen his miracles, I would likely have become a believer right then and there. As it stands, I can't see how I can ever believe.
2. The rituals and ceremonies are so totally foreign as to be meaningless to me. I knew quite a bit of Christian history & theology before meeting my girlfriend (which luckily really impressed her parents), but it was pretty shocking how little that and my knowledge of the Bible meant in terms of understanding the actual practiced faith. I'm sure it doesn't help that we're attending the Tridentine mass. I might as well be watching Hindu ceremonies - at this point, any active participation on my part feels like a deceitful LARP.
Any advice on how I should go about steeping myself in Catholicism as a total outsider to Christianity?
