On jumping ship.

I had an encounter recently that made me angry.

It wasn't a very good reason to get angry - at least, if you don't mistake my anger for righteous anger. It wasn't really the carelessness towards something I cared about that made me angry.

I had an encounter a while back with someone who was deciding whether or not they wanted to leave the Catholic Church. I talked to them patiently about it and gently prodded and poked until it came out that they didn't believe what the Church taught because they never tried to learn why the Church teached it in the first place. I encouraged the person to "make the faith their own" and read some books or articles, they said they would "read," and we said goodnight.

Recently, the person spoke to me again. I brought it up and they said they were in the process of joining another Church. As we talked, it came out that they never did what they said they would do. They did not care about the truth. They said they still thought the Catholic Church was the Church Jesus founded, and yet they still wanted to leave because they "just wanted to be happy." They said they didn't read because they were afraid they would be convinced to stay...as if it couldn't be more clear that they were simply running away.

Well, I got angry and told them exactly how I felt about what they were doing. I suppose I wouldn't have been so hurt if it weren't for the fact that they lied. If they had said before that they had no intention of giving an equal chance to staying and going, then I would likely have had an entirely different conversation with them. As it was, though, I wasted my time on gentle encouragement and providing some of my own knowledge to try and help light their way. But really all they wanted was "Yeah, do it! Who cares what the Church has to say? It's only been around 2,000 years, they've never really thought about any of the cool heresies stuff we've revived discovered since the 60's!"

I wish this person had been as eager to learn and make informed decisions as people who had never even heard of the Catholic faith. All they wanted was to throw it away because it was too hard. They didn't want to go to confession. They didn't want to wrestle with finding what was true anymore. They just wanted to be happy. And I told them if that's what they wanted, that's what they would get. Because it's absolutely true. But people should want more than happiness. People should want greatness. And you will never be great if you do not care what is true.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for truth.

On being counter-cultural.

It occurred to me the other day that I haven’t really written anything insightful on this blog in a while...at least, that was insightful to anything other than how I feel. So here’s something for your minds to chew on.

I love the culture that I have chosen, not because it is easy (on the contrary) or because it is most pleasurable, but because it is so rebellious. In the distant past, it was, perhaps, a rebellious thing to drink to excess, to treat sex as other than a part of marriage and family, to accept that there “is no truth” and that everything is permissible. Now, that is what it means to be of mainstream thought. That is the culture. So the culture I have chosen is strictly counter-cultural, and, therefore, rebellious. And I love it!

I remember very distinctly a wonderful evening I had with a close friend. We were college students at the time (well, he still is, actually, since he’s going for his doctorate) and had decided to go downtown to get a drink to St. Patrick’s health on St. Patrick’s feast day.

Oops.

No sooner had we arrived in the bar area than we were exposed to women dressed immodestly, hordes of young people spouting vulgarity, a young man trying to cross the street who was too drunk to be able to successfully pick his phone up off the road where he had dropped it.

My friend and I slipped safely inside a bar we enjoyed because it was quieter, and proceeded to enjoy a fine Irish beer in the spirit of St. Patrick (a Guiness). A beer. We talked to one another about the topic of what a truly good thing beer was and what a truly Catholic thing it was that a beer blessing prayer exists, and various other things while we drank, and as soon as that warm feeling of beer washed over us we paid and were out the door, headed home as we continued to talk. And on our way back, we went to stop in to church to pray and thank God for a wonderful evening. But before we did, we were stopped by a group of drunk boys (I refuse to call them men) who gruffly inquired why we were headed home “so early” (it was really almost midnight at that point). We explained that we had our drink already and were headed into church to pray. At that point they became very belligerent and informed us we were missing out on promiscuous sex, though not in such polite terms. They let us rebels really have it. Guess we made them uncomfortable.

I am never reminded so strongly how strange I am to other people as when I inform someone who is of mainstream thought that I spend time with girls as friends alone. Seriously! I remember one young lady’s reaction when I told her about a time when I had a 3-hour conversation with a girl friend of mine. She was stunned, and it took me a moment to figure out why. The reason was because three hours with a member of the opposite sex alone meant sex! And really, the thought never crossed my mind while I was with my friend. And yet I still cultivate friendships with women without any intentions of more than just conversation and laughs. I suppose that makes me feel very rebellious!

It is fun to be different. It is a good thing to be radically opposed to the Romanesque, decadent culture of the West, to be so diametrically opposite of what it typically means to be an American male in his mid-20s. If I am to take pride in anything, it is good to be proud that I have cooperated with grace just enough to rise above the influence of the current cultural climate. Though I still have plenty of faults, it is good to reflect on how incredibly different I am from the image that our culture proposes I ought to be.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a rebel’s dream.

Things that are OK.

I am OK.

Just OK, though. Not especially good. But not especially bad, either.

I went to a job interview today. I was worried about it, but it wound up being pretty easy. Too easy. In fact, that was the only good thing about today. I did OK at an interview.

Everything else was pretty bad. I ended up not visiting anyone I wanted to visit in Cincinnati. I'm pretty sure the place I interviewed at is a terrible job where they treat you like cattle and work you to death until you quit or get fired. Is that what I worked all this time for? To get in a job like that?

My little brother has a girlfriend now. She's nice, I like her. They are both great together. They seem happy. I hope they are together for a long time. I thought I would be jealous of his happiness but I'm not. I'm just OK. I'm OK with the fact that nothing seems to really work out for me and that I've given up on dating relationships for...I don't know. As long as it takes for it to be OK to date again...or try to.

Why am I OK with these things? I don't know that I am. I just feel OK. I can think about all the people I can't call but I wish would call me and then just...not think about it for a while. I'm not numb. I'm just acclimated to this stuff.

Before long I'll have to decide where to go from here. What do I do with my life? I suck air and eat food and drink water and go on. I do the best I can do with what I have. I feel nihilistic but I try to think Catholic. I hold on to hope. Sometimes.

What else can I do?

There was a dream that I dreamed, an OK dream.

The Long Defeat.

"I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect 'history' to be anything but a 'long defeat' – though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory." - J.R.R. Tolkien

I keep coming back to this quote because I believe it applies to my life. I know it is cliche to talk broadly about one's life, but really. More often than not, I really feel like I'm just getting beaten.

I was talking with a friend who is undergoing similar circumstances, and at one point in our conversation we came to the same conclusion: we have no idea what we're doing.

I think we all grew up with this notion that all adults know what they're doing. Our parents know everything and are completely capable. How wrong we were. I really feel like all we ever are is clueless until we die, with the only advantage of age being a little more experience. How I wish it were different.

I feel like I'm just along for the ride sometimes, and no matter how hard I try, control is just out of my reach.

Me too.

All I can ever really do is just keep trying, but sometimes it just feels ridiculous how little progress I make. That's what makes me feel clueless - I think if I truly knew what I was doing, I'd be doing better.

So, I am living this long defeat, awaiting final victory that has already been won for me. But there's so much I'd like to do before I get there. Like get married, God willing.

I think I could have gotten married. I might have been engaged by now, at least. But I ended that relationship half a year ago, today, I think. It was a good decision - don't get me wrong - but I lost more from breaking it off than she did. I always thought that I was more replaceable to her than she was to me. I think she's the only one who ever really knew me in the way she did - something that I'd wanted for a long, long time. Turns out I was right. Here I am, single months later with no real hope of dating anyone anytime soon, and she's started a relationship. I've never been more upset finding out I was right. I am disposable.

I've been writing letters lately to people whom I really feel are important to me. At the same time, I'm discovering how unimportant I am to most people. I really feel like there are just three people who would miss me - really miss me - if I were gone. All I can do is whine about it like a little kid on this stupid blog and hope that someday, if I just continue being patient and nice to people, that might change.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of the end of the long defeat.

Death, Exile, and Magus.

"At the heart of the Christian faith," says Thomas Merton, "is the conviction that, when death is accepted in a spirit of faith, and when one's life is oriented to self-giving so that at its end one gladly and freely surrenders it back into the hands of God the Creator and Redeemer, then death is transformed into a fulfillment. One conquers death by love - not by one's own heroic virtuousness, but by sharing in that love with which Christ accepted death on the Cross. This is not apparent to reason: it is, precisely, a matter of faith. But the Christian is one who believes that when he has united his life and his death with Christ's gift of himself on the Cross, he has not merely found a dogmatic answer to human problem and a set of ritual gestures which comfort and allay anxiety: he has gained access to the grace of the Holy Spirit. Therefore he lives no longer by his own forfeited and fallen existence, but by the eternal and immortal life that is given him, in the Spirit, by Christ. He lives 'in Christ.'"

This post shall talk about three things: emotional death, feelings of exile, and a character named Magus from Chrono Trigger. And even though I never plan these posts out beforehand, I'm sure I'll be able to tie it all together somehow.

First, Magus. Who is Magus? Magus is a character from my favorite video game, Chrono Trigger, a game about using time travel to save the world. If you plan to play this game on SNES, PSX,  or DS/3DS, skip the next three paragraphs. Magus' story begins in the game's "middle ages" period, wherein Magus is an evil villain bent on taking over the world. The "good guys" at this point, believe that Magus is the creator of an evil creature named Lavos, who eventually destroys the world. After a puzzling series of events, it becomes clear that Magus did not, in fact, create Lavos at all. Lavos crashed into the planet 65 million years ago. Magus was merely attempting to summon Lavos out of the ground - to kill him. Why? Revenge. However, the "good guys" foil Magus' attempt and through a bizarre accident they all end up in 15,000 B.C., a time when the "magical kingdom of Zeal" reigns over the earth. It is my personal favorite part of the game - the scenery, the music, and the dreamlike experience of the area is glorious.

Anyway, apparently, Lavos' presence on earth actually has given some humans magic powers. The Queen of Zeal, however, is bent on resurrecting Lavos to use him as a gigantic source of magical powers (which at this point in the game we have already discovered is a terrible idea). Your group follows the events as they unfold, and it is clear that Schala, the Queen's daughter, is instrumental in being used to help bring about Lavos' return (against her will), while the younger brother, Janus (whom you discover is actually Magus as a young boy), has no apparent magical ability and broods around the Kingdom, disliking his older sister's treatment. Your group, the good guys, show up and make trouble, but are foiled by a mysterious prophet. You cannot stop the resurrection of Lavos, and once it occurs, the prophet reveals himself to be Magus in disguise. However, at this point in the game Lavos is so powerful compared to all of you, including Magus/Janus, that you must make a desperate escape and actually lose one of your characters to Lavos' wrath. The young version of Magus, Janus, is sent to the middle ages, where we can easily assume he eventually became Magus. The adult Magus goes off to a remote area to think about the course of events (being a Byronic hero of sorts).

Not only did Magus live his entire life exiled almost 20,000 years beyond his birth date seeking to gain enough power to summon and destroy Lavos to revenge his sister and fail that, but when he finally gets another chance in his original time period to defeat Lavos, he is still not strong enough. He had to live through the most traumatic time in his life twice.

What does this have to do with me? Well, first of all the character of Magus strikes me as admirable in a sense. Of course, he believes the terrible means by which he gained power justified the ends of killing the evil Lavos, which would be bad enough except he also was motivated by revenge...but yet, I can't help but admire the great tenacity. The determination it would take to live one's entire life motivated by avenging his sister's (apparent) death - well, I don't know what else to say except I like that. It reminds me of my own lesser determination to follow God's will for my life, which I believe is to take part in the self-gift of married life. Right now, however, it's not going so well.

In fact, I feel like I'm reliving some of the worst parts of my life, as Magus did. It hurts, but it is a necessary hurt. I know that one cannot gain something good without sacrifice. Often times, it ends with me sacrificing my comfort in not saying something terrifying and making myself vulnerable to someone else, only to get stepped on. So be it - it will all certainly be worth my trouble, someday. At least, I have to believe so. Magus did, and he's not even real.

And so now, however, I go into an exile of sorts. I feel as though in this moment of my life, I am really bidding farewell to many of the people who have known me the best in my life. Who I have become emotionally attached to...I have to let them go. There is nothing I can do. I can only move on. That is the nature of friendship - it's not forever. It's transient. And it feels like being exiled. It hurts to feel so alone in the world. But what am I to do, except go on.

It feels like a death. Did you read the quote at the start of this post? It is all about this kind of death. I am not experiencing a literal death, however, but an emotional one. If I am to not let this conquer me, I must look at it realistically - if I have given myself as a gift to these friends who are leaving, then I should be happy to give it all back to God as they go on. I must conquer this death through my love of them.

In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, "I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect 'history' to be anything but a 'long defeat' — though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory." I believe this applies also to my life - it will be no more than a long defeat. But it will have "glimpses of final victory," in which, perhaps, I will see the fruit of my love. Perhaps in only a smile.

I know this is a long post...but thank you for reading. It always means a lot.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of conquering death by love.

My Conversion Story (And Why You Can Too!) (version 2.0)

Version 1.0: written by [redacted], March-April 2012
Version 1.1: added version history, fixed some minor errors, added further details to Answer 1 and Answer 7, added text to three links, converted to blog format
Version 1.2: fixed more minor errors
Version 1.3: fixed a quote attribution (St. Ignatius to St. John of the Cross)
Version 1.4: extended introduction, added the quote by G.K. Chesterton, added another philosophical proof (argument from desire)
Version 1.5: added a viewing resource section, first entry Catholicism
Version 1.6: fixed two minor references to email (version 1.0)
Version 2.0: expanded and modified parts of entire post

Quick note: This is not a regular blog post. This was originally an email to some friends about why I believe in God.
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And how! (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

Often times, Christians have a very difficult time explaining why they believe in God. I am no exception, though I would say I am better than some. The following Chesterton quote provides an explanation for this trend:

"But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, 'Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?' he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, 'Why, there is that bookcase... and the coals in the coal-scuttle... and pianos... and policemen.' The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible." - Orthodoxy, "The Paradoxes of Christianity."

Really, the problem is there are so many reasons at once the Christian has difficulty pointing to any particular one at all. I have tried to solve this (for myself) in the following blog post - first, by telling you my story, and then by telling you individual reasons that point me toward God.

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First off, I want to be clear about something. There will be no empirical proof of God's existence. Why? Because there is none and there never will be any, and thank God for that. I explain more about this at the bottom of this post.

Secondly, this is my story. As such, I'm not going to make an argument that will convince everybody. Heck, I'm not even really going to make an argument, per se. I'm just sharing why I believe. There will be a philosophical Q and A of some of the questions I've asked and gotten answers for, but that'll be about it. Hopefully by the end I will have established at the very least it is reasonable to believe in God.

So let's begin where I begin.

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FAITH AND GROWING UP

Like many others my age growing up, atheist and theist alike, my parents made a half-baked attempt at indoctrinating in us in religion. I am what is often referred to as a "cradle Catholic" ...I was baptized, had my first communion, all that. It was a big cultural thing where I'm from. Faith, growing up, was about the least heroic and inspiring thing I could ever see in any of the people around me. For my parents, it seemed as though it was simply another chore we had to do - go to Church on Sunday, pray as fast as we can before meals, stuff like that. I didn't learn anything about God from them; I went to Catholic school for that. There, it was just a job. If I learned the basics I could go up a grade and relearn them in more complicated language. I think the only influence on my life who was actually a real Catholic - who actually cared - was my Grandma. If you knew my Grandma, you would know she's about as gentle and unobtrusive as can be, and probably figured my parents would prefer to be in charge of bringing me up in the faith.

Well, this only taught me two things, really: that religion was a chore, because everyone around me lived like it was just a cultural obligation, and that religion was boring, because I had to learn it in school. So I treated it like that.

Then came 8th grade. I started going through a phase where since I wasn't really good at anything people cared about, I started trying to be good at being a hardhead. Any conservative ideology, including religious observance, I ate up like a sponge. If I couldn't "be good" like everyone else because I was cool, or good at sports, or a really good student, I would "be good" by being a more moral person than everyone else. Really, my problem was just low self-esteem, but when you're in the 8th grade you know jack crap about who you really are, and all you care about is knowing you're just as good as everyone else.

In high school, things got kinda better for me. For some reason, instead of hating me and ostracizing me as people once did, in high school most people really liked me. That still didn't change much for me, as I still had low self-esteem, so I was still playing the "hardhead with higher moral principles than you." This led me to try and be kind of involved with the Catholic group in high school. If I would have been honest with myself, I would have known that I was really just a lazy kid who had no interest in his faith. But because my self-esteem relied on me believing that I was "morally superior to you," I instead went on a few Catholic retreats, prayed a little "harder" than most other people, kinda took part in the mass a little more. Just enough to get noticed...after all, it was a precarious balance between showing I was more religious than everyone else and actually getting involved in something I considered quite boring. And of course, I felt better about myself when I chose to get involved in something boring just to be better than other people. Haha! Ha! Ha...ah...

SEEDS OF DOUBT

Well, it was also around this time that I began to seriously have doubts about my Catholic religion. There was no philosophical basis for it, really...it was just this intellectual nagging at me that what I was doing was incredibly fake. Yes, yes, it was. I still think it was fake because I was trying to be something I wasn't. But back then, what I thought was that the whole ritual was kind of fake. There would be these...hmmm, moments of clarity, you could say, when I would look around myself at mass, see people not paying attention, teachers trying to look interested, and I would view myself in this light and think "this is just utter nonsense!" I don't think there was ever a time in all that where I really believed that the bread and wine at mass really became anything other than bread and wine touched by a priest. Of course, if I didn't believe in God anymore, I no longer had any reason to believe I was better than other people at school, so I would bury these thoughts like a cat turd in a sandbox.

So, I must have put on a really good show for everyone in high school, because when I graduated they actually gave me a medal for (essentially) being a good Catholic. It's called the Bishop's Cross, and I still have it. Heck, even if I became an more or less permanent atheist I'm pretty sure I would have kept the thing. It's pretty sweet.

When I was looking for colleges, I can't really say at the time I was super interested in it. My search was pretty lazy, but I knew there was something special about a certain college (BGSU). To this day, I really don't know if it was something about the brochure, or the fact that it was close to home but not so close that I would have to live at home, or a genuine experience of God really tugging at me. I just knew I had to go to BGSU, or college would really suck. So I did.

THE FALL OF MY FAITH

I was quickly roped into a Catholic group on campus called Creed on Campus. I never really intended to join a Catholic group, as I considered my job well done in High school and I could just go on feeling good about myself for at least going to Sunday mass, unlike the rest of the heathens on campus. Heh. Anyway, by some kind of divine intervention, either literally or figuratively, I got involved in this group and made a lot of friends. I still don't know how. By the end of the year, though, I was really getting tired of the cognitive dissonance in my head. Sometimes when I would look around at my fellow Catholics, I would think to myself "I can't be the only one here who doesn't actually believe in this stuff" and of course I would bury that thought down and be like "Haha! Funny trick, brain. Yeah, I believe in this. Of course I do. Yeah..."

Well, that summer I started playing video games...a LOT more. I have always been an enthusiast, but this was always tempered by my father's limiting of my game time. While I was emancipated my freshman year of college and could play as much as I wanted, this, too, was tempered by the fact that I was making friends and stuff. By the summer, I returned home and was working full time, and had very few friends I could spend time with. I was super lonely. So, on my off time, I would play video games, specifically a browser-based MMORPG called RuneScape.

By the time I returned to school, I had made a ton of agnostic/atheist friends on this game and had some serious doubts about Catholicism. Specifically, prayer. This fundamental belief that we can commune with God somehow was thwarted by the feeling that in prayer, I was doing jack. In fact, I think I had this feeling since I was in high school, too. I decided to finally express my doubts to a Catholic friend of mine, who was unfortunately not full of answers. In fact, she seemed to kind of have the same doubts. Well, that was it for me. Game time!

For the next year and a half, I would go to mass faithfully on Sundays, sometimes even attend the Catholic group, but mostly on my own I would do whatever I wanted. I was living like there was no God, and for some time I enjoyed it. I remember one time, sitting in mass, I was watching the consecration of the Eucharist and in a moment of truth a voice in my head (mine, I thought) said "I am an atheist." Well, I was momentarily stunned and then horrified, and of course buried that deep down. Remember, I was still pretending I was a believer because it made me feel like I was still OK. I do believe atheists can be good people now, but back then I had a completely different idea of atheism.

THE SPRING OF MY CONVERSION

Well, at some time during this year and a half, I began to be very lonely. Of course then I didn't realize it, nor did I know why. I just thought I needed more online friends, not real life contact. Still, I was miserable on the inside. My online friends saw more and more of me, and I think I spent more time as my online persona than I did my true self. I was entirely lost within my online personality. Sometime during this I became internet famous as Jek Nexus, a video maker and "high level" on RuneScape, and this, of course, gains you the adulation of adolescents from around the world. Even though my fanbase was, on average, about 6 years younger than me, I fed off of this because of my deep-seeded self-esteem issues. I was so lonely though. Having fans and friends on the Internet was only a band-aid to my inner problems...they masked it while it got worse and worse. Then, something happened.

I had met a girl online who was from Pennsylvania, "only" about a 6 hour drive away. Her name was "Kayla", and I thought she was my soulmate. She was very attractive, nerdy, had some faith (I still valued this even though deep down inside I was hiding the fact I had none), and most important of all, was really nice to me and thought I was swell. I met her in September, and by October I was already talking to her on the phone almost every night. I would text her during class sometimes, and she would text me back. It was like I had a girlfriend without actually having one. Looking back on this with more mature insight, I am quite sure she knew I liked her, and I thought at the time she liked me, but she continued to pretend like we were only friends. But she knew, which was why it made her nervous to give me a phone call in November.

By the time that November rolled around, I was already very, very upset. Kayla was already being very distant and "busy" and even though I was kind of stupid back then, I wasn't a moron. I knew something was up. And then the phone call came: she had a boyfriend. I was crushed...destroyed, even. I had put all my trust, all my hope, all my feelings...into this girl. And of course she hurt me, she dealt me a blow that became a nightmare over the next few months. I didn't know why it hurt so much, but I do now. I had made Kayla my God.

I didn't know this back then, all I knew was that I was hurt. There were times I really, really wanted to die. I started playing RuneScape less and less, and spending more and more time at the Catholic parish nearby, and at the student group I was by this time only marginally attending. I really only wanted friends...people to talk to besides the people on the Internet like Kayla who only hurt me over and over, and I was slowly discovering that when I actually made an effort to be friends with people in the real world, I actually satisfied some of those lonely feelings I had. By God, I actually felt better when I had some real, personal contact instead of internet chat! By April, I was ready to quit RuneScape, and I did. To this day, I have never logged in to that game again.

There is a lot more to say about this time in my life, but I'll keep it simple and talk only about the things that led to my conversion. During my depression following the November let-down, I rekindled a few old friendships and made some new ones. These people, of course, kind of knew that I was incredibly depressed, and like good Catholics, just ascribed it to a poor relationship with God. I played along...but this time, I was actually kind of curious about the faith. I felt as though I never really gave it a shot. It was always a half-baked sort of faith where I "kinda" tried to learn about it, I "kinda" lived it, and of course I believed I knew everything about it. This time, though, I knew I was wrong. So I began to do some reading.

AN INTRODUCTION TO OLD, DEAD BRITISH GUYS

My first foray into Christian literature was C.S. Lewis. My friends liked him a lot, so I thought "Why not me?" Within a few months I had read several books by him, including "Mere Christianity" which I was surprised to see was clear, rational, and intellectually pleasing to me - and about God, of all things. I got so many answers to many of my age-old questions - answers that I couldn't help but feel as if somehow I had already known. And I corrected many of my misconceptions about Christianity. I will explain some of these later in a Q and A format.

My hunger for more knowledge of God was proven to be insatiable. It was like a hunger I didn't know I had was suddenly being fed, and so of course this hunger just got stronger. At the same time, I began to have an active prayer life and also attended mass almost every day. I couldn't get enough of it, I just loved it and I can't explain why. I really can't. This is one of the biggest problems in explaining the allure of God to those who don't know it. It's just there.

Not only that, but my belief in God was also changing me as well. I was growing in patience, generosity, love of others, and I was really happy doing it, too.

PROBLEMS

Well, this was destined to not last forever. Eventually I began to have questions that weren't being answered again, and the good feelings I had were mostly gone. Needless to say, I was concerned. I remember clearly one time, during adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, standing up in my disbelief and walking out in tears. I just felt so ridiculous sitting there, and I ran out to the pond where I was accustomed to praying and just walked around it, crying for a while. A good friend came to talk to me, which was nice, but inside, I felt as though I was back where I started.

I didn't know why I could no longer pray. I was really concerned that my whole conversion was just some kind of illusion based off of my emotions. But I knew two things: I was not happy as an atheist, and being Catholic changed me. I had tried to change myself without God, and it didn't work. Somehow when I prayed and believed, I was changed.

I returned to my books in earnest. It turned out that there were answers for me...I was just looking in the wrong places. I was reading the easy books on God, and I was ready to graduate. God must have withdrawn his support from me to make me search harder. I had slacked off. What I needed most was to search for Him - because that would change me for the better. And it did.

In this "dark night of the soul" as St. John of the Cross calls it, I purified my desire for God. My desire before was superficial and selfish. I only wanted God because He made me feel good. I didn't love God. And God wants to be loved.

NOW

I suppose all that's left to say is that I have continued searching for the truth, and for God. And I believe I've found Him. It sometimes disturbs people who are not believers in God when I say I really can't foresee having doubts about Him again. I know that God must exist - the universe makes no sense without Him. But I am always interested in further dialogue between atheists and believers. How can I say I'm interested in the Truth if I am unwilling to listen to other's perceptions of it?

In conclusion, I really don't think that any atheist can be convinced of God's existence. If you don't want to believe in God, you can find a reason not to. If you do, and you continue to do so, you will find Him if you are really looking. Sometimes, He finds you.

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For a list of my questions and reasons why I have chosen to believe in God, read on to the next section. For a list of philosophical proofs of God's existence that I have found compelling, scroll to the bottom. I have also included a "further reading" section at the bottom, for those who still want more.

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Questions I have asked and Answers I have received

1.

Q. Why doesn't God just prove himself to non-believers? Can't I just pray for God to show himself to me so that I can believe? Is He that selfish?

A. It's easy to forget the implications of being an all-powerful, all-knowing deity looking for love. Love must be a choice, after all, and I think if God appeared to all of us, we would really have no choice but to believe in Him and follow Him - we would be too terrified not to. God doesn't want mindless, terrified slaves. He wants us to love Him, and in return, that is good for us (as I've tried to show in my story how well loving God worked out for me). God, of course, has appeared in many forms in the past, but this has always seemed to be a very selective calling, and done very delicately. I think I understand this best when I consider what it would be like if God had never appeared to anyone at all - we would have absolutely no record of God working throughout history to speak to mankind by extraordinary means. In addition, demanding God's appearance in order that we may follow Him presumes that seeing someone is necessary to love and obey them, or that it is, in fact, somehow helpful. God's appearances have always been depicted as terrifying occurrences done to people who already believed in His existence - and as many atheists often say, it is a poor reason to believe in something out of fear.

2.

Q. You keep saying that God loves us. Why? Isn't it rational to have the deist view that God just created the universe and stepped back, rather than doing it "because He loves us"?
A. God needs nothing from us. That is a necessary corollary of being all-powerful. As such, I can see why deists could believe God would create the universe and then do nothing. However, this also explains nothing. My main problem with this view is that it is easily disproven with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. There is plenty of historical evidence for Jesus, such as the 2,000-year existence of Christianity, which would be pretty odd if He didn't actually exist, and I think it would be intellectually dishonest to just dismiss it as some elaborate hoax. Something happened. Many ancient writers such as Josephus and Pliny the Younger also left accounts of Jesus’ existence. This is why I can't buy the deist view that God would create the universe for no purpose at all - because obviously He did, if He was willing to die a human death for it. And if He died a human death for humanity, then He must love us. That is why I believe God is interested in our love, over anything else.

3.

Q. Why does God have rules? Am I going to Hell because I don't want to follow all these Christian laws?

A. Well, why do laws exist? Good laws, I think, are designed to create good citizens. If we had no laws, there would be absolute anarchy. Not that it wouldn't be fun for a few days, but after a few busted windows and stolen cars, I think we'd get sick of it. Since the Ten Commandments were given to Moses, I think God has always tried to give us laws not because He is some kind of eternal supercop, but because He doesn't want to leave us to just "figure it out." The laws are for our benefit, not His. If you really think about it, if everyone followed the Ten Commandments, we'd probably all be better off.

4.

Q. Why does God seem like a real jerk in the Old Testament? What about laws about slavery, and the orders from God to kill people? What about the she-bears eating those kids (Kings 2:23-24)?

A. Haha, that last one is my favorite example. This is one of the big problems with not putting the OT in its historical perspective. Let me just speak broadly first. The common expression as beings created by God is to call ourselves "children of God." As children, we don't learn right from wrong right away. When we are young, we have different rules, rights, responsibilities...when we grow up, we have less of those. We're called to more - more responsibilities, less rules. Think of this in light of the Old Testament and New Testament. God didn't change from the OT to the NT...we did. In our youth in Genesis, Exodus, etc., God was slowly trying to build us up for more. In the NT, Jesus came and "fulfilled" those laws, and called us to more. Think of Matthew 5:3–12 as God sitting us down for a talk as teenagers and giving us the car keys if we promise not to wreck it.

Another thing about this question is that the Bible can only be properly understood in its original language and original context. This is why the Catholic Church often emphasizes Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic when speaking about the meaning of a passage. If you want to see a great example, click this. Another great example is talked about in this article. A response to questions about Abraham being asked to kill his son can be found here. People love to take odd bible verses out of context and hail them as examples of God's cruelty (and thus, His non-existence at least as a good God), all while forgetting that the Israelites were often evil people who needed to be slowly converted - but still treated themselves and other people better than other nations! Moses, after all, wasn't a king, and had to slowly bring the Israelites to conversion...which is showing its fruition in Christian society today. Even now, Christianity and other religions are sometimes used as justification for horrible policies and behaviors - however, are the religions really to blame, or is it a misogynistic/violent/intolerant culture? Would people act the same if there were no religion? Considering religion has also been used to justify good actions that were culturally opposed (e.g. slavery/emancipation), I am thinking yes to the previous question.

5.

Q. Why would a God who loves us send anyone to Hell?

A. It's not so much that God sends us to Hell, as we send ourselves to Hell. C.S. Lewis says "the gates of Hell are locked from the inside." I really think Hell is little more than a necessary corollary of two other beliefs we couldn't do without: our free will and God's love. God doesn't want mindless slaves. He wants love. Who ever said a rapist loves his victim? I'm pretty sure no one. I hope so, anyway. What is God if we have no other possibility than to live with Him in the heavenly marriage forever? I'd say He's a rapist. Hell is merely the result of our free choice to not love God. Simple as that. How do we love God? We simply follow our conscience as best as we can towards Him - seeking Him always. We make no presumptions about who goes to Hell, not even atheists - we just know how to go there.

6.

Q. Doesn't evolution disprove God?

A. On the contrary. I think if that were true, it would be equally true that it proves He exists, which is of course nonsense. The Bible is not a science book. In fact, it's not even a book. It's a library. There are many literary genres within its pages - historical, metaphorical, How to Be Hebrew for Dummies...it's all there. Heck, if Genesis were really meant to convey a historical truth about the origin of mankind...why would there be two contradictory stories right next to each other? Hahah. That would be bizarre.

7.

Q. If God is all-powerful and all-good, why does evil exist? Seems like a contradiction to me.

A. Not really, if you consider that God is also all-loving. Love, understand, does not mean kindness. It means willing the best for another. What if you were omniscient and knew how to prevent all evil? What if preventing one evil meant causing another? It is against God's nature to cause evil...evil is simply the absence of God. Just food for thought, that's not really my argument.

Obviously, God has a prerogative not to interfere with free will if He wants us to love Him. Sure, He could prevent people from doing evil, but in the end, that person will probably just do it again. Do we want God to control us? He has no interest in puppets, He wants us to love Him (see question 2 above).

That said, what about natural evil? What about hurricanes and tornadoes? I suppose you could say that nature has been given a free will as well. Before the Fall, nature had a perfect order as we had a perfect order - we had absolutely no inclination towards evil (concupiscence). God gave us dominion over the world, and as we were in perfect union with God's will, the world was as well. But as soon as our forefather and mother no longer wished to be under His dominion, nature changed as we did. We could not both get rid of God and have God's protection. We cannot be imperfect and have a perfect world. The habitat must match the species.

Furthermore, pain can be good for us. Just take a look at my story. There's even a piece of it I have not told: my mother passed away when I was 16 - she is not better off living here on Earth than she is in heaven, and I know for me I have gained a great deal of emotional and spiritual maturity as a result of greiving her death.

C.S. Lewis has a much longer and clearer explanation of this "problem" contained within his book The Problem of Pain.

8.

Q. What about other religions? Are they just all wrong? Is God sending them to Hell for not being Catholic?

A. Haha, nawwww they won't go to Hell, at least not just for not being Catholic. This is another one that puzzles me - I don't understand how having lots of religions proves there is no God, or even how it makes it more troubling to believe in Him. I think the pervasiveness of it throughout the world's cultures is further proof of His existence. Surely an all-good, all-powerful, all-loving being would be so mysterious that many religions would crop up around trying to figure Him out?

Many saints of the Catholic Church have surmised that God is so mysterious that God is "that which no higher thing can be thought." It does seem like a cop-out, doesn't it? Yet, if you think about it, an omnipotent, omnipresent, all good, all loving being, with perfect justice and perfect mercy is...well, a bit incomprehensible. We need to have enough humility to admit that.

Also, no. The Catholic Church doesn't believe people of other religions go to Hell simply because they believed in another religion. Jesus gave two commandments that were the most important - Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself. Essentially, if you had never heard the gospel, but were genuinely striving to love God in your own way and loving others, you have loved God and thus would likely go to heaven. Let me make it even more simple. Everyone is born with a compass to Jesus - so long as you have been following it to the best of your ability, you would probably go to heaven. See this for more information.

9.

Q. What the heck is with prayer? Don't you find it the same as doing nothing? What's supposed to happen?

A. Prayer is the thing I always most misunderstood. I think my reconciliation with the important practice of prayer happened when I realized what communing with God really meant. It's not usually a voice in your head, nor is it really some kind of supernatural feeling. It is emptying yourself to God so that He can fill you. Prayer does nothing to change God, it changes us. We ask God things because it makes us ready to receive what God wants to give. I can say very little more without ceasing to make sense. All I know is, that when I go to pray, I return slightly different, even better, than before. What else can I ask for? I suppose you have to experience it yourself.

It would be a gross simplification of the above to say that prayer is an "exercise in making yourself feel good" as I have heard from at least one person who has read it. Prayer often doesn't feel good, and often I don't want to pray. But I do it any way because it's good for me. Giving my time and energy to speak to God empties me of my own desire to go do something else. That's what the emptying part is all about.

Further Philosophical Proofs of God's Existence I Find Compelling

First mover, first causer:

Since every action has a cause and an effect, everything that exists has something else that moved it. Why do we exist? We can talk about how we came from a father and mother, and they came from their father and mother...back into time, when we split off from primates, back into the primordial soup from whence we came...and still not really explain why we exist. Going back farther, to the creation of the earth in just the right place in the Universe at just the right time to provide an environment for life...but why? We still don't have the first cause, the reason for our existence. So we can go back further, to the birth of the Sun, and further back to the death of other stars that allowed the creation of our sun, and back farther to the explosion of our Universe into being with the Big Bang. But what caused the Big Bang? Even if we explained that, we still have not explained why we exist. We can keep explaining causes forever and so on, ad infinitum, which in the end explains nothing. There must be a being whose nature is simply to be being itself, whose nature is simply to be eternally creating. This is the only way to solve the infinite regression. God is being itself, the great "TO BE." He says this himself to Moses, when Moses asked Him the very reasonable question of "what god He was"...after all, there were many "gods" in his time. God answered, "I AM WHO AM." Being itself.

Argument from intelligibility:

Something interesting about the Universe is that it can be explained in a language we can understand. Science has always been able to unravel the mechanics of the Universe, our brains always being able to comprehend the language the Universe is written in. It is odd that if the Universe is all the product of some happy chance, that we are there to unravel it in an intelligible manner. Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) has a more complete and clear formulation of this argument in his book, Introduction to Christianity.

The odds:

The odds of intelligent life (us) being created by accident is "low."

Argument from desire:
"In my life, and I assume my experience is pretty consistent with most human beings, I have desires. I desire food, I desire sex--and even more than sex, I desire intimacy with another, I desire comfort and to be liked and to be safe. Some desires are passing and can easily be satisfied (I want that cookie. I ate that cookie.) or even dismissed (I want that cookie. No, it is not worth the calories). But some touch at the very root of who I am as a human being—and most especially the desire for love. I want to be loved. I need to be loved, and I need (even though this does not always come “naturally”) to give love. Every person that I have ever met, from people in jail to people on death beds to high schoolers who just seem to care about parties and Jersey Shore, all want love. And we want to experience a love that is selfless, that does not end, that keeps on going deeper and deeper. Unlike all of the surface desires that I could ever experience, this desire for a love that does not end cannot be satiated. That is why we are so struck, confounded and saddened by the death of someone we love deeply, because we don’t want this love to end, and even though we should be “used” to it by now (you’d think that evolution would have weeded out this irrational desire, no?), our world is shattered when we encounter death. I am hungry, and there is food. I hold my breath for 20 seconds, desire oxygen, oxygen thankfully exists, and I take in a great big inhalation of life giving air. I desire love that doesn’t end, and it makes sense that there is the possibility of that desire being fulfilled." - An anonymous Catholic priest

The argument against empiricism:

I said earlier in this post that I would provide no empirical proof for God's existence. Many people claim that this is unacceptable. But why? Suppose I say I love someone. What kind of evidence would constitute enough proof of that? Can one even prove such a thing? Would one say "I will not believe you until I have absolute conclusive evidence that this is true!"? I think not. There are many, many things that we take without empirical proof. I think the most important one for the atheist to consider is whether his reason is even grounded in objective reality...please provide evidence. :-)

Argument from morality:

What are our moral principles grounded in? The atheistic worldview holds that what exists in the material world is all there is. There is no empirical proof of God in the world, but there is no empirical proof of right or wrong either. I can't prove good, nor can I prove bad. If I ground my moral principles in God, however, I can know. If I don't, well...I suppose I still have my own reason, right? I can think about what the reasonable thing to do is in a situation. Mentioning the whole "moral compass instilled by God thing" aside, if there is no God, why would I do that? Why should I be bound to reason alone? Why not some other value, like progress? Or narcissism? Stalin, as an atheist, knew this when he said "The idea of a concentration camp is excellent" in response to the idea of eradicating "counter-revolutionaries and traitors" in Estonia. "Might makes Right" is the only logical conclusion to atheism. After all, if there is no God, there is no way that I can even say with any conviction that it is "good" that I exist - and so in the name of "progress", one may be entirely justified in removing me.

Further reading:

Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton

Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis

The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis

Surprised by Joy, by C.S. Lewis

The Rage Against God, by Peter Hitchens

The Godless Delusion, by Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley

Catholic Article on the Existence of God

Wikipedia summary of many of St. Thomas Aquinas' thoughts on God

Catholic Article on God

For viewing:
Catholicism, by Fr. Robert Barron

Much love in Christ,

"Dream"

Gloria patris, in saecula saeculorum!

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"There's no way of telling people that they're all walking around shining like the sun."
-Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

The good choice.

What is the greatest thing to be achieved in this life?

Often times, putting the needs of others over your own can be difficult. I cannot say it is the easiest thing to do to sit on your hands and do nothing so that others may live in comfort - because by acting on your own desires, you may impede theirs...either for their own hopes, or their own comforts. And that is often what I must do.

How can I call myself a friend if I don't act like a friend should? My friendship doesn't end as soon as I want more. No, I can only choose to be a good friend, and nothing more. Everything else will follow, and it will either be what I want or it will be something better:

"...We do not always have to foresee every possibility. We have only to judge whether the act is right, just, and accords with the truth and love here and now, because we "believe in the good" and are therefore convinced that, whatever consequences may follow, they will certainly be good ones, beneficial to ourselves and to society." - Thomas Merton

...And so as Merton says, I go on, doing whatever good I believe I can in my friendships. Even if it means not being as close of a friend as I would like. Even if it kinda hurts to say nothing where I would really like to.

This is why I dislike when menboys go after girls who have only recently broken off a relationship. They need time, and they're so selfish they won't give them any. I believe they call it "catching her on the rebound" and it's little more than emotional manipulation. It's disgusting.

What is the greatest thing to be achieved in this life? It is to be a virtuous person, I think. Truly virtuous...and to have that quality is worth everything. I would go as far as to say that it is better to die a good man than to live as a cheater, liar, thief, or murderer. It's to never give in to the easy path, even over the smallest thing...it's to say "never!" when evil comes and calls.

I'll never join you!

That's what that choice is. Selfish, and therefore evil. Even if it seems trivial to some people, you can never be a virtuous person if you make exceptions for even the smallest evils.

So, never. I say never.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to do good always.

The lost virtues.

"Might have to go where they don't know my name...Float all over the world...just to see her again! And I won't show or fear any pain, even though all my armor might rust in the rain! A simple plot...but I know one day...good things are coming our way."
-Coldplay, "Up With the Birds"

I have been wanting to write about something for a long time.

I have a friend I've known since high school. Often when I think of this friend I regress emotionally to the level of a little girl. It's embarrassing to admit but I say this for a reason.

I've spent my entire life doing a lot of things. I think the most profound of these is my own quest for power - Power over myself.

I have lived a life lacking integrity. I've lived in fear and despair.  I was brought up to hate myself and to fear those I lived with. I never thought anything would get better.

My mother was the only person in my family I could really talk to. I lost her at 16. I really didn't appreciate her as I should...she really let me take a lot out on her. The guilt of it stayed with me for a long time. I'm still getting over it.

My friend in high school...well, she has had some kind of strange affect on me. I haven't seen her in years, but I've never been able to forget about her. I still worry about her, and I don't know why.

A long time ago, she shared a lot about her life with me. She has had a very hard life. She had a lot of trust issues with males, but for whatever reason she gave me hers. I blew it. I was impatient with her and said some stupid things I really wish I could take back. We're still friends, technically. But it's been so hard to stay in touch with her. There have been periods many months long where I lost all contact.

She's not the only friend I've betrayed either. With my year and a half long hermitage lasting over my sophomore and junior year of college, I really lost a lot of friendships that I've never really been able to get back.

Trouble is, I never really wanted to do any of these things. I knew what I was doing was stupid and I did it anyway. I lacked integrity.

What's more is, I lacked courage to do what was right. There are so many people in my life who could have benefited from me having the courage to say something they really needed to hear...or, I could have benefited from saying or doing something to make a change in my life.

And over all, my lack of hope for change made me unable to develop any of these virtues.

I have so much regret. I could have made it clear to my mother how much I loved her. I could have made a difference in my friend's life. I could have matched my thoughts to my actions and been responsible with my time...and not been a bad friend.

On a cold November night in 2009, I got a phone call that made me snap. I totally lost it. It took me three months to really get over what I heard on that phone. What I was told made me realize all at once how lost I really was. I'm not really even sure if it was all due to that phone call, but I have to place the start of my change somewhere, and I guess that's it. Maybe I'll never know how or when, but somehow, it happened. My lost virtues...just sort of came.

I know a lot of people probably feel the same way, but the band Coldplay seems to write songs about me. The songs...just get it. How I feel.

How I "Might have to go where they don't know my name...

How I would love to just "Float all over the world...just to see her again!"

How I'm determined not to "show or fear any pain, even though all my armor might rust in the rain!"

It's "A simple plot...but I know one day...good things are coming our way."

I only hope that maybe someday, I can look back on my life and really believe that I made up for what I failed to do because of who I was. That I can say I lived a life of integrity, courage, and hope.

I hope.

Seagulls, my favorite animal, in a picture particularly applicable to this post

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for hope, courage, and integrity to be renewed.

A hard Lent.

The season of Lent is over, and I feel it necessary to tell something of my experience.

I have had a very special trial this Lent, either by God's choice, diabolical influence, or the twists and turns of my own life. I don't think I have done as good as I could have.

I am reminded this Lent of how far I've really not come after all. How really weak I am. It's a sobering realization.

I don't wish to embark on a tale of woe and false humility and what a depraved human being I am. Any good Christian knows how much we need God and I think it would be a useless gesture to get on the pulpit about it now. I only wish to tell a story.

I've realized that I still have addictions. Addictions to the Internet I thought I left behind. I like watching Internet videos, so I gave them up for Lent. Turns out I've probably cheated on that a dozen times.

I'm not sure why but all of Lent I was also more tempted than I'd been in a long time to sexual impurity of all sorts, even new things I hadn't been tempted to before. I don't mind admitting it, after all, who is not tempted in some form? But for whatever reason the temptation to do something, anything, was heavy on my mind. I didn't do anything, though. Thank God for that.

I find I welcome temptations much more often than I should. Details would take forever to impart but suffice it to say I stink at avoiding near occasions of sin. I walk the line and never cross it, but I should be staying away, far away. It sends the message to me that I don't take it seriously enough. I love my faith and I love fighting for heaven, but actions speak louder than words. If I really cared as much as I say I do, I would never even come close to doing something...stupid.

I'm also still very crabby sometimes. I am very impatient with people. I expect something and if I get something very far from that it's hard for me to be civil. When people talk to me while I'm eating and reading a book and just want to be left alone, I don't try to make conversation. Whenever I've been really upset and just don't want to talk to people, I'm very cold. When someone stole my pot and then took down the signs I put up politely asking for it back, I just ignored everyone. When people wake me up and don't seem to care, when they accuse me of things that they are responsible for, when no one seems to care that I'm having a problem they're causing, I just don't do what the saints do. I don't act out of perfect love. I act out of half-assed love.

I am left this Lent feeling pretty inadequate. I feel like an inadequate boyfriend because of my lack of new ideas for us and my general bouts of bad moods. I feel like an inadequate friend because I can't meet up with everyone I want to and I haven't been such a nice guy. I feel like an inadequate Catholic because I don't have genuine prayer, I have little faith, and I don't know if I'm growing in virtue. I feel inadequate in preparing for my future for the lack of responsibility and progress I've made in building my future.

I am inadequate. God help me.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream far beyond my trial this Lent.

The Atheist fallacy.

People are sometimes surprised to hear I used to not believe in God.

I think that ultimately my unbelief was a result of not really understanding my faith in the first place. When you don't fully understand a belief it's easy to come up with reasons not to believe in it.

A lot of my friends have become atheists over the past four years. It doesn't bother me as much as it used to, but it's still a shame. It's not their fault. They came from the same faulty system I was caught up in, and I easily could have ended up staying the same. I was saved from that, somehow. God intervened for me and put a situation in my life where I had no choice but to give faith another try. My conclusions about His existence were much different when I relied on myself for my own catechesis instead of Catholic schools.

Regardless, I still wish that somehow I could give them a second wind in the faith. My efforts in discussing faith with someone usually end up in them either claiming they already know what I'm trying to tell them, or them getting offended that this is something I want to share with them in the first place.

So, what I would share with them, I shall put here instead. Ultimately, I believe arguments to be a useless gesture in a war that is ultimately a spiritual battle, but regardless, if it proves useful for at least one person, this won't be a waste of time. Also, these are only arguments against atheism — "why Catholicism" is a much longer story for another time.

My journey back towards belief began with the simple realization that I wanted more than sexual gratification, mental stimulation, friends, money, and worldly success. Even as an agnostic, or an atheist, or whatever I was, I admired heroes. Heroes willing to fight and die, not just for their societies, their freedoms, their friends, their offspring, their food supplies — you know, the things that would make sense if we were animals only looking to increase our genetic offspring and that of our herd — but for people they didn't know, that they would never meet, never interact with...even for the honor of people who were already dead. People like Aragorn, Obi-Wan, Roland Deschain. Heroes I read about and admired, and who didn't even really exist, except in my heart. If I am the product of hundreds of thousands of years of mindless evolution, rather than evolution created by God and guided by His hand...what in the WORLD would be the advantage of me wanting to die for something greater than myself?

I began to see many places in my life that were too convenient to be mere coincidence. My choice to come to Bowling Green was completely arbitrary and ended up being an incredible blessing. The fact that I ended up meeting the people I did was a complete chance that changed my college life forever. I could see him working in every intricacy of my life, from start to present. Not exactly a convincing argument for anyone besides me, though.

From then on, I found more and more reasons to believe in God, and I have even had some crazy spiritual experiences that I've discussed before in this blog. Incredible stuff, but not very convincing to your average atheist, and since I've already talked about them, I'll move on.

That being said, I wondered why God, if He existed, would allow such painful experiences in the world. Why would a good God allow hurricanes, tornadoes, starvation of the innocent, etc.? I do believe it is impossible for imperfect beings to exist in a world without these things. In the words of C.S. Lewis, "not even Omnipotence could create a society of free souls without at the same time creating a relatively independent and 'inexorable' Nature." A fixed nature of the world implies the possibility of evil and suffering, for "not all states of matter will be equally agreeable to the wishes of a given soul." We human beings, if we are truly free, may take advantage of the nature of the world to hurt one another, and an intervention by God to try and correct this to remove this abuse, while clearly imaginable, would eventually lead to an ultimately meaningless universe, in which nothing important depended on our choices. "Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself." Do you understand, reader? Because God is perfect, he can create a perfect world for us to live in...but, it would be a world without our ability to choose, and since love needs to be a choice, it would be a world without love! So we, as imperfect beings, need to live in an imperfect world. It can't be any other way.

I'm anticipating arguments here, and I think this post would answer at least one of them. The other is technically about original sin, which I don't want to go into in this post, since this post is about explaining why I'm not an atheist, not why I'm a Catholic.

Another argument I often hear is that the world would just plain be better if we were all atheists. Well, it's been tried before. It ended up causing a lot of genocide (so much for religion being the most massive killer), and oh look - as it turns out, eventually those regimes either collapsed, or in the case of Cuba, became more tolerant of religion over time. China is pretty much the only one left. Was it because of communism? What about a democratic atheist society, where everyone just happened to eventually become atheist voluntarily? I posit that this would not work either, and I'll show you why.

Atheists would be happy to know that I think their view of a completely secular society has already begun. The changes in our culture from 1960 on has flipped our world on its head. Many older folks tell me that you never had to worry about locking your doors or knowing who your kids hung out with - pretty much everyone had the same values. Today, that's obviously no longer the case. Atheism does not teach people to be good - it teaches people to follow the law. But people can get away with not following the law.

That's not to say that you can't be a good person and be atheist. However, studies show that typically if you're atheist you give about 2/3rds the amount of time and 1/5th the amount of money a religious person does. Let's just ignore that, though. Let's say that the secular society we've begun continues in the direction it's headed in. Let's just pretend that we agree rising divorce rates are OK, that falling birth rates and rising abortions in secular countries are no problem, and that crime rates have risen since 1960.

I see a world in which people generally don't want to have children. Oh, they want sex, but they contracept and don't try for kids because kids are a nuisance, not a blessing. The number of people who do want children don't want a lot, and never enough to replace the current population. Don't believe me? It's happening in Italy right now. Eventually, maybe we'll realize our population is falling dramatically and we should just pay people to have and raise children. Of course, I'm sure many people would enjoy such a job. But not everyone would be in it because they love children. Ask any foster kid if they'd rather have a parent that wanted them than a parent that was getting money to raise them, and of course the vast majority will say yes. What a loveless way to have children. Generations without love, and the continued falling population, rising crime...see where this is headed?

Even if I'm wrong on that point, science can still never explain how this all began. Sure, it has explanations for how it all works, but not for why. Why even have a universe, an existence, a mind that knows things? Why have a rational being? Why are we not all animals, would it not be a better world that way, instead of a world where we struggle not to destroy it? Why have the beautiful cosmos, glorious stars spread across the infinite?

Why have you and me, two beings who can tell they are human and yet distinct beings?

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for belief.

Seeing the world with new eyes.

I see the world entirely different than I did not long ago.

The other day I went to my first Protestant service. There was lots of singing, praying, and talking. It was a great new experience. However, there was much missing. Much, much missing.

I know that there is at least one Protestant who reads my blog, and I would encourage that person (and people from other Christian traditions) to understand why I am writing the way I am, and that it is not out of arrogance nor malice. Protestant and non-denominational churches, as I understand them, empower the individual to interpret scripture as they understand it, with a limited guidance on their interpretation from their church and/or pastor. One can essentially believe whatever they want, with some exceptions.

However, in the Roman Catholic church we believe that truth exists, and we have found it. Protestant churches view other denominations or beliefs as those who have looked over the evidence in the Bible and come to a different conclusion; the Catholic church is drawing its conclusions not only from the Bible but from tradition passed down from the apostles. How can we defend sola scriptura by saying that God trusted us with interpretation of scripture when we still come to different conclusions? Why would Jesus ascend into heaven, telling His disciples "Just figure it all out for yourselves." Why would He leave us behind with even the remotest possibility that we would disagree on exactly what was going on in the Gospels and the rest of the Bible? He is God, after all. Doesn't that seem like a mistake, that so many Christians could be left simply disagreeing on what it all means? God doesn't make mistakes. God would want us to agree on what He was trying to achieve by dying on a cross.

That being said, I hope anyone who objects to this post can understand my reasoning on why I feel obligated to speak the way I am. It is not out of arrogance, but out of a clinging to what I know is true. I don't see it as an opinion but as something valuable to know! :)

What I found to be missing in the service was the focus on Jesus at mass. His presence in the Eucharist, our praise of Him, our focus on foreshadowing our lives in heaven. I was sad that the people at the service I went to earlier that day were missing out on so much. I knew that they were there because they were seeking God and loving God, but they have probably never known what it is like to fully participate in the mass as even many Catholics do not! I was so upset at this thought that I burst into tears talking about it with my soon-to-be-Catholic girlfriend. I was imagining what it might be like to have everyone I know, and the whole rest of the world as well, truly taking part in the sacrifice of the Mass, as Jesus spoke of when He told us "do this in memory of me." I imagined what it might be like for everyone to take part in what St. Paul described in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 when he said, "The bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the Body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." The one bread! The one Christ! Not the many symbolic breads!

I imagined what it might be like. Then I realized that it wasn't so...and it broke me. I was so hurt, reader. So, so hurt. I couldn't even understand why, thinking about the experience later. I always knew not everyone was Catholic, and that not every Catholic really lived out their faith nor appreciated it. And then I understood something new about myself that crept up so quietly, that I was shocked.

I don't see the world in the same way anymore. When I first thought of my blog as one giant text, "The Dream That I Dreamed", I imagined it as a sort of melancholy tale of how my life is lived only to try and fulfill a high and lofty dream that may never be achieved. I viewed it as a determination to keep alive a view of all that my life and the world could be if only things were different, somehow. A full outline of what I'm saying can be read here in my first blog post.

These days, my blog is more about Christ's vision in my life, and the beauty that He has created if only we could see it. It should be more like "The Dream That He Dreamed" rather than "The Dream That I Dreamed." But I won't change it now, if only because I like the consistency.

If you need an example of what I mean, I'll tell you a story. Today I was praying the rosary with my girlfriend when I noticed outside that it was a beautiful day. Partly cloudy, and enough wind that the clouds would block the sun for a minute and then move away to let the sun shine again. I thought that it looked like it was glowing outside, and then I realized "maybe God made it that way just so it would look pretty on days like today" and I started crying because I felt so loved. Then I thought about how much I love everyone I know, and how happy I am, and how it can only be unimaginably better in heaven, and I started crying more! It was such a great moment...and then I went to mass! ALLELUIA! I shared in the infinite mercy of mass with a bunch of my fellow Catholics and friends, and it was so beautiful. What a wonderful thing, and it was all a gift from God!

And all this...I never understood. I thought I did, but I did NOT...and I'm not even sure when it all changed. I'm so happy. I used to think that it was impossible to cry tears of joy. I thought it was a myth...now I do it all the time.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was His dream.

Someone believed in me.

I'm currently being interviewed in a reporting class about the time I was awarded the Bishop's Cross.

It's been an interesting revisit of something I don't always think about. The Bishop's Cross is an award given in the Toledo Diocese to two Catholic students (one boy, one girl) from each high school in the diocese upon graduation every year. It's based upon (perceived) moral character, involvement in the parish and community, and high religion GPA.

All I know beyond that is that there is a committee that nominates and votes on the winners. There is no application to fill out, and no way to find out who nominated me. Someone thought I would be a good candidate and the committee that gives out the award voted in agreement. I, who only did the things he did to feel that he wasn't completely wasting his life. I, who fought for every little bit of motivation to go to church every week. I, who never had a regular prayer life. I, who was secretly precarious in belief at best and an unconscious atheist at worst many times in high school. I, who was not of the moral fiber that anyone believed I was.

I was elated to receive the Bishop's Cross, but at the same time I felt they had made a mistake. People at graduation thought they saw a smile on my face when they called my name, but it was actually a look of surprise. It was surprise, because I knew what I looked like on the inside. I felt they awarded it based on my public face, which was a lie. I didn't deserve it.

Yet, someone believed in me. Someone saw in me something I could not. My potential...who I was born to be. I am reminded constantly of how far I have to go, but it remains true that I have come far already. In the some of the most worthless times of my life, someone thought I deserved an award that I think I have only come to deserve nearly four years later.

Over the past four years of college, I've been haunted by that award. I was only getting worse at times, and it was only when I hit rock bottom that I got better. I never felt at ease when I remembered getting that award, until now. Now, the emotion is not guilt but a sense of overwhelming gratitude.

Gratitude to that one person who believed in me when I did not believe in myself.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that everyone could believe in their own goodness.

The perfect fusion.

"Kakarrot. How do you know this fusion will be enough to stop him?"
"I don't know for sure...BUT IT'S THE BEST CHANCE WE'VE GOT OF SAVING THE EARTH!"

I recently finished Dragon Ball Z, both in its manga and anime form (comic book and cartoon, respectively). I think my favorite part is definitely where the long-standing rivals (spoiler alerts galore from here on out) Vegeta and Goku finally set aside their differences to permanently fuse and stop the maniacal villain Majin Buu.

"Those two have the power...Two of the greatest masters in the worlds of the living and the dead. And it doesn't hurt that they live to outdo each other..." Epic.

At this point Majin Buu has quite literally killed or absorbed every living thing on earth except three lucky people and a dog. Those who were absorbed have the horrible fate of living forever inside Majin Buu's body, giving him unimaginable power. They are not truly alive but cannot die! However, through a series of fortunate events, Goku is restored to life and sent back to earth, and his greatest rival/enemy Vegeta is given his body back and returned to earth on the condition that he fight Buu again, after which he would be allowed to go to heaven instead of sent back to hell. Goku, after witnessing his son get absorbed by Majin Buu, finds Vegeta and begs him to put on a pair of magical earrings that will make them become one person. It was previously explained to Goku by the character Old Kai that a fusion through the earrings would make the resulting person many times stronger than the sum of their strength. After Goku explains that everyone Vegeta knows is gone, Vegeta begrudgingly agrees to fuse with him, becoming the ultimate warrior, Vegito.

To make the decision to sacrifice your very identity and become one with the one person you hate the most to avenge the ones you love...How heroic! How admirable! *sigh*

Of course, I do have a theological point behind telling you all this. As Christians we undergo a sort of fusion ourselves when we accept Christ into our hearts. Alone we are weak but in Christ we undergo an incredible transformation, gaining strength from heaven to overcome our faults and become perfect in Him, in essence, becoming a new person. Sound familiar? Those united with Christ's church do this in an even more complete way when we receive the Eucharist, undergoing a more visible transformation by literally accepting Christ's body inside of our own and becoming one with Him. Sound even MORE familiar? :)

Even more telling is the very nature of God Himself. God is infinitely just and infinitely merciful. Though seemingly opposites (like Goku and Vegeta) the two come together to form God's perfect love through the redemption of Christ's sacrifice. God's mercy works to forgive us because Christ paid the just penalty for our sins. It's a perfect fusion!

The way we deal with people needs to be a fusion as well. We need to love sinners and hate their sins. Goku and Vegeta work together in a similar way. Goku is a combat genius, while Vegeta is a brilliant tactician. Goku knows how to fight battles but Vegeta is better at planning ahead to win them. Together, it's an unstoppable combination.

This is what happens when you read a blog by a Catholic nerd.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for perfect fusion with the Lord.