I wholeheartedly believe that the silencing of religion, sometimes self-inflicted, is a major cause of atheism.
I had a brief discussion with someone recently who was kind enough to give me a ride (I had bruised my knee). When I heard what was on her radio (Christian music), I discovered that she was a Christian. I had no idea up to that point, and this was a person I spent some time with every week. I broached the subject a little bit but had to go...the ride was over.
We had time enough to talk about how the kind girl "had the sense" that a lot of people who work on this student newspaper were Christian. Obviously if she has the sense that this is true, they must be living Christian lives at least a little, but not talking about it? What for?
I thought about what might be the reason for this. I feel like people don't want to talk about their faiths. Maybe they are afraid that they might offend the other person for "evangelizing." Perhaps they believe it makes people uncomfortable...or maybe it makes them uncomfortable. Or maybe they are just not that strong in their faith to actually want to talk about it.
I think if you love Jesus, truly love Jesus, your love will be loud. You will talk about Him and everything related often. You won't be able to help yourself. And if you live a Christian life, and know the joy of a Christian life, you will want to share it, because you love other people enough to want them to have it too.
Whatever the reason, I think many atheists don't believe at least partly (whether or not they will admit to it) because religion is dead as a subject. I'm sure if some people were exposed to more public religious conversation (notice I said conversation, not debate) they would more carefully consider it. But people who really know and love the Lord remain silent in public because that is what is politically correct. Or perhaps they don't want to be the "Jesus freak." It's easier to say "I'm an atheist" than "I'm a Christian." So the crowd will follow...
Whatever the case, there needs to be more God talk...outside of Church. Outside of bible study. Live your love authentically, or people will think it doesn't exist...just like I didn't think it existed in that nice girl who gave me a ride.
There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for a love that is LOUD.
Showing posts with label atheist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atheist. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
You are meant to be a frog.
"Every man dies. Not every man really lives." It's a good quote because it's true, and none the worse for having been quoted many times before.
I can't hold off posting any longer. I've been too busy to post but it seems if I try to go without posting any longer my head won't be able to contain all my thoughts anymore before I start forgetting.
My girlfriend and I were talking to a friend last night and the topic was almost entirely centered around God no longer being the center of people's lives. It's not something people feel comfortable talking about anymore. The public at-large either has no thoughts about God or puts God in a little box and sets it aside as another part of their life that has little to do with the rest of it. It's sad that when you're in the company of people you know, God is often the least likely thing we can talk about...because it's the thing we have least in common.
I lead a small group of men in discussion about faith every week. The program is called Awakening Faith and it's designed to get Catholics who are at different places in their faith life to grow more and really think about it. Our culture is a busy culture, full of distractions and short attention spans. I take my group of about five guys and go into a room set aside at the parish for such activities and just talk for usually about 90 minutes about REAL stuff. No sports, no weather, no "I did this and that" talk. Real talk.
So far it's been great. I feel like everyone is participating and really thinking about where God is in their life, whether or not He is important or even real. I pulled out an analogy the other day that I often use to help people who, like myself, did not understand the big picture of the faith. It's not just a set of rules and a religion. It's the whole meaning of life.
We are all like tadpoles in a pond. We have our tadpole stuff, our tadpole cell-phone, our tadpole computer, our tadpole friends and family...we like being tadpoles and don't want to stop being tadpoles. We don't think about anything but our tadpole life. However, eventually we grow arms and legs...we become frogs and we have to leave. And we consider this a scary prospect. "It's so morbid to think about becoming a frog," we say. "Just stay focused on your tadpole life and have a lot of tadpole fun. The pond we live in is a beautiful place and it's all that matters."
But that's not true. It's a lie. We are meant to be frogs. It's the purpose of our tadpole existence to grow into big, beautiful frogs, moving out into the vastness of the world beyond the pond.
We are put on this earth to become perfected. We are imperfect beings loved by a perfect being who wants to marry us. But this being, God, is not a rapist. He is a true lover...he won't take us home with Him if we don't want to. He left things in the world like mountains and meadows, flowers, earthly marriage, cookies, etc. to give us a small taste of life with Him. They're like little gifts he is giving to his girlfriend, the Church (us). If we get to know God and move forward in love with Him, we'll be truly happy, because He is our true love.
But if we fall in love with the things of this world instead, well...like a true lover, though He knows that we're meant to be with Him, and that we'll be truly happy with Him, He will respect that and break up with us. God doesn't send us to Hell, we send ourselves there. Hell is simply eternal separation from God...and that's what the pain of Hell is. And the pleasure of Heaven is his eternal presence. Earth is just somewhere in the middle...a dating ground for God.
That's why it's so important to have your faith to be not just a part of your life but all of your life. It's the purpose of your existence to grow into relationship with God where you will be truly happy...not just chasing after the pleasures of this world that are just a shadow of what God is like.
"I came that you might have life, and live it to the fullest," says Jesus. What? You mean the Church isn't down on fun? Yes, that's right. The Church teaches that God wants you to be happy. And true happiness, not temporary false happiness caused by chasing after temporary worldly joys, is found in growing to be perfect - to be a saint! Of course, we'll never be perfect...but it is in the journey to perfection, not the destination, that we find redemption. The job is finished after we die...so long as our striving was genuine.
My girlfriend and I agree that we must strive to have real conversation...about God and faith. It must be the center of our lives and our thoughts, because if it's not, we'll simply be floating along like so many others, focused on the world. The reason she and I are dating is not because she is a good person, a gentlelady, is nice to me, gets along with me, etc. Those things are nice and pretty important for us to get along, of course. However, the most important thing, the most vital part of our relationship in which all other things about us are nothing, is that I believe she is the best person to help me reach heaven. We are dating to find out if this is true...praying and asking God if it's true. If we get married, that will be our acknowledgment that it is. If not, it will be upsetting but no great loss compared to the risk of each other bringing us away from God. Because if we did not share the same faith, I strongly believe that is what would happen. She can't bring me forward if she's behind me. I can't bring her forward if I'm behind her. Only if we are hand-in-hand in faith can our relationship be one founded in Christ.
The one thing, the ONLY thing, we absolutely have to do on this earth, spoke a very wise man in my Awakening Faith group, is die. It's the only thing we have no choice about. Everyone dies. But not everyone finds true happiness, their purpose in life.
God is that purpose.
There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for unity in the purpose of Heaven.
I can't hold off posting any longer. I've been too busy to post but it seems if I try to go without posting any longer my head won't be able to contain all my thoughts anymore before I start forgetting.
My girlfriend and I were talking to a friend last night and the topic was almost entirely centered around God no longer being the center of people's lives. It's not something people feel comfortable talking about anymore. The public at-large either has no thoughts about God or puts God in a little box and sets it aside as another part of their life that has little to do with the rest of it. It's sad that when you're in the company of people you know, God is often the least likely thing we can talk about...because it's the thing we have least in common.
I lead a small group of men in discussion about faith every week. The program is called Awakening Faith and it's designed to get Catholics who are at different places in their faith life to grow more and really think about it. Our culture is a busy culture, full of distractions and short attention spans. I take my group of about five guys and go into a room set aside at the parish for such activities and just talk for usually about 90 minutes about REAL stuff. No sports, no weather, no "I did this and that" talk. Real talk.
So far it's been great. I feel like everyone is participating and really thinking about where God is in their life, whether or not He is important or even real. I pulled out an analogy the other day that I often use to help people who, like myself, did not understand the big picture of the faith. It's not just a set of rules and a religion. It's the whole meaning of life.
We are all like tadpoles in a pond. We have our tadpole stuff, our tadpole cell-phone, our tadpole computer, our tadpole friends and family...we like being tadpoles and don't want to stop being tadpoles. We don't think about anything but our tadpole life. However, eventually we grow arms and legs...we become frogs and we have to leave. And we consider this a scary prospect. "It's so morbid to think about becoming a frog," we say. "Just stay focused on your tadpole life and have a lot of tadpole fun. The pond we live in is a beautiful place and it's all that matters."
But that's not true. It's a lie. We are meant to be frogs. It's the purpose of our tadpole existence to grow into big, beautiful frogs, moving out into the vastness of the world beyond the pond.
We are put on this earth to become perfected. We are imperfect beings loved by a perfect being who wants to marry us. But this being, God, is not a rapist. He is a true lover...he won't take us home with Him if we don't want to. He left things in the world like mountains and meadows, flowers, earthly marriage, cookies, etc. to give us a small taste of life with Him. They're like little gifts he is giving to his girlfriend, the Church (us). If we get to know God and move forward in love with Him, we'll be truly happy, because He is our true love.
But if we fall in love with the things of this world instead, well...like a true lover, though He knows that we're meant to be with Him, and that we'll be truly happy with Him, He will respect that and break up with us. God doesn't send us to Hell, we send ourselves there. Hell is simply eternal separation from God...and that's what the pain of Hell is. And the pleasure of Heaven is his eternal presence. Earth is just somewhere in the middle...a dating ground for God.
That's why it's so important to have your faith to be not just a part of your life but all of your life. It's the purpose of your existence to grow into relationship with God where you will be truly happy...not just chasing after the pleasures of this world that are just a shadow of what God is like.
"I came that you might have life, and live it to the fullest," says Jesus. What? You mean the Church isn't down on fun? Yes, that's right. The Church teaches that God wants you to be happy. And true happiness, not temporary false happiness caused by chasing after temporary worldly joys, is found in growing to be perfect - to be a saint! Of course, we'll never be perfect...but it is in the journey to perfection, not the destination, that we find redemption. The job is finished after we die...so long as our striving was genuine.
My girlfriend and I agree that we must strive to have real conversation...about God and faith. It must be the center of our lives and our thoughts, because if it's not, we'll simply be floating along like so many others, focused on the world. The reason she and I are dating is not because she is a good person, a gentlelady, is nice to me, gets along with me, etc. Those things are nice and pretty important for us to get along, of course. However, the most important thing, the most vital part of our relationship in which all other things about us are nothing, is that I believe she is the best person to help me reach heaven. We are dating to find out if this is true...praying and asking God if it's true. If we get married, that will be our acknowledgment that it is. If not, it will be upsetting but no great loss compared to the risk of each other bringing us away from God. Because if we did not share the same faith, I strongly believe that is what would happen. She can't bring me forward if she's behind me. I can't bring her forward if I'm behind her. Only if we are hand-in-hand in faith can our relationship be one founded in Christ.
The one thing, the ONLY thing, we absolutely have to do on this earth, spoke a very wise man in my Awakening Faith group, is die. It's the only thing we have no choice about. Everyone dies. But not everyone finds true happiness, their purpose in life.
God is that purpose.
There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for unity in the purpose of Heaven.
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