Ever get into a discussion with someone an in the end wonder if you are even talking about the same thing? I often have that feeling when I debate atheists (at least the ones who are bent in proving me wrong) on the existence of God. I try to make it clear at the beginning that I cannot prove the existence of God in a scientific manner. But, I can make other arguments for the reasonability of his existence. That is then followed by disinterest or invoking Hitchen’s Razor, “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” The atheist is not interested in my thoughts about God because he sees no reason to believe. Meanwhile, I am equally unconvinced because I find God and people’s beliefs in him a supremely interesting subject and see no reason to limit my knowledge to what I can scientifically prove. Thus, an impasse is created.
Just as nature abhors a vacuum, I abhor lack of communication. In this debate, both sides can walk away thinking themselves justified and then make cheap shots at each other. All over the internet, I find all sorts of anti-Theist and anti-Christian pictures and music that make critiques through humor than I do not find particularly funny. Many of these jokes have to do with the supposed inconsistencies of believers and their theology. Other jokes make fun of faith by invoking belief in Cthulhu or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I do not see the same vigor on the believer side going after atheists. Though, every so often I see a cheap remark being made their way as well. I know from my own part that I take what atheists say about God with a grain of salt and sometimes think, “They just don’t get it.” Or, “How can they believe all of this came from nothing!” However, I admit this is the wrong stance to take since it discounts the reality most atheists are experiencing.
I am going to try a different route in this essay to get past this deadlock. I will not try to prove directly or indirectly the existence of God. I will do my best not to refer to any religious text. I will not try to take a cheap shot at anyone. I will try to take a step back from proving anything and look at the basic assumptions made by religious and non-religious people. Being that I am a believer, I am much more likely to explain my side well. So, any atheist who is reading this should not see anything I say about atheists and atheism as a condemnation but as an opportunity to explain to me what you actually do believe. Also,I do not believe that all religions are correct even though they all have at least some truth to them. I am a Roman Catholic and I believe that religion is true and my idea of religion centers on the Catholic faith. I am not going argue for why I think this is so here. I am just letting all readers know what my biases are. For the sake of brevity I will not go into the debate between “religion” and “spirituality” for now.
The important thing to remember when communicating with a religious person is that we believe what we believe based on faith. This means that we are not making it up as we go along nor are we inventing what faith tell us. I bring this up because sometimes I hear the critique that falls flat, “That’s convoluted! Where on earth did you get that from?” The reason why this critique usually does not make an impression is that it’s the wrong question. It is like a logician telling a zoologist that his description of an duckbill platypus is convoluted because the zoologist did not invent what he observes but is just describing it even if it seems contrary to expectation. If I were building something in my own philosophy divorced from faith, then that we be a perfectly logical thing to ask. But, when I believe something has been given to me by a higher source that is beyond my understanding, it is not my role to discount what was given to me or pick and choose which dogmas I believe. A believer either accepts the whole thing or rejects the whole thing or he is guilty of hypocrisy.
Many atheists would then say that we have lost our freedom to think because we submit our intellect to a higher authority. But, this is like being told from my point of view that because you have been given a map, you are less likely to find your destination. But, what we are given in the faith is more than just a map to heaven: it’s an explanation of the purpose of everything. If a revelation were not true, then it would limit our ability to discuss because we would be starting off with false conclusions. But, at least in orthodox credal Christianity, there has been a flourishing of thought precisely because we all agree to those basic truths. I could go on about how the faith creates a natural tension within itself that causes this discussion. But, it is suffice to say, for now, that Christians have been just as internally critical of Christianity as atheists have been. I am less knowledgeable of other faiths and would not want to speak for them on this point.
When some people describe Church teaching, they sometimes treat it as an absolute conclusion. Yes, the Church has had to condemn notions in the past and support others. It usually done after a long discussion and certain ideas are seen to be incompatible with the faith. If the Church were telling us what to think, there would be no need to interact in a long discussion for someone would just have the answers and spout it out like some Old Testament prophet condemning those who turn away from the covenant. Instead, the more accurate analogy would be the faith is the light by which we see what is otherwise hidden. Examples of these truths include the basic dogmas, those things directly revealed by God, such as that Christ is both God and man and that God is a Trinity. There’s no way we can come to know these things through reason. But, they are a starting point for further discussion about who God is and what it means for the spiritual life. And, if it is true, we are more free by knowing it. Since, by knowing the creator, we can know his creation even more intimately. (Again, whether or not the faith is actually true is separate topic for now.)
Some would then say that we are irrational for accepting what is not provable. Yet, we constantly encounter things that we cannot prove or that we merely accept out of convenience. In fact, I would say that because most people are not scientists, they accept what scientists say on a de fide basis instead of seeing it as part of a discussion usually amplified by reporters that do not understand what the scientists are saying. More practical, I trust that the sun will rise in the morning and that the laws of physics will work the same tomorrow as it did yesterday. I can surmise from previous experience and it is quite rational to assume that past results will repeat themselves. But, I cannot prove it to someone who refuses to believe. So, by accepting what seems obvious and right in front of me, I am not making an irrational conclusion but accepting reality. This is similar to what happens in faith where I accept what has been handed down to me. By being a religious person, one does not invent these truths, but humbly accepts them.
In conclusion, you may notice that one of my underlying assumptions in writing this essay is that faith and reason do not contradict each other. (And if they seemingly do, someone made a mistake.) I also say that when used correctly with each they will lead each other to greater truth. It is often said that philosophy is man’s search for God. Meanwhile, faith is God’s search for us. There is a hunger in human beings for eternal truth and purpose. Some atheists predict that we are entering into a new stage of rationality where religion will be non-existent or at most moved into the sphere of private beliefs. They point to the irrational things said by fundamentalists and the abuses of Muslim extremists, neither or whom do I sympathize with, and see it as the gasping breath of a dying way of life. However, what is shown historically is that where stable religion withdraws, rationality does not win out. Instead what one gets is more extreme forms of faith divorced from any sort of reason. There could be many reasons why this could be. But, I would like to posit one possible answer based on what I have previously said. I believe that reason alone cannot satisfy the hunger humans have for purpose and meaning. I believe that when we take away meaning from people’s lives it dehumanizes them and makes them turn ungodly things into idols. It was no mistake that the ancient Egyptians worshiped animals nor communists building a shrine at the tomb of Lenin. Nor is it odd to see the rise of occult activity as people leave established religious groups. As scripture says, man cannot live on bread alone. They will find that bread either through faith outside themselves or by inventing a different faith in their own image disconnected from eternal truth.
Dear Fr. Carter, I can see in your earnest essay that there is a burden weighing heavy on your shoulders. By expressing your frustration through this blog I hope you have received some relief.
I work hard to stay in the present moment and yet I cannot help think of the future without a bit of worry. My fear, as a Catholic, is that this burden you feel will continue to problematic for us all as we enter the the “Year of Faith” and become indoctrinated into the “New Evangelization.” It is clear that B16 intends to entrench the Church in a battle with secular society.
On another topic, I would point to one sentence you mentioned in your essay: “If the Church were telling us what to think, there would be no need to interact in a long discussion for someone would just have the answers and spout it out like some Old Testament prophet condemning those who turn away from the covenant.” We, Catholic faithful, need to be aware that New Evangelization could be an attempt by Church leadership to do just what you described. When you read the words of B16 he is saying that Church leaders need to get on the same page, his page, regarding re-education and catechetical formation. Very soon you may not be able to say that the Church is not telling us what to think.
God bless.
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There are quite a lot of things here that I feel warrant in-depth discussion, far too many to address in a single comment. I do have a question for you, however. I’m curious about your comment, ‘The important thing to remember when communicating with a religious person is that we believe what we believe based on faith. This means that we are not making it up as we go along nor are we inventing what faith tell us.’ Faith seems to be a central theme to this piece. While you did offer the analogy of the map, I still feel as though your concept faith itself is not quite entirely defined or formulated by this. My question is, how would you define faith or describe the essence of faith to an atheist?
From the Catholic League website re atheists: people who “believe in nothing, stand for nothing and are good for nothing.”
http://www.catholicleague.org/adopt-an-atheist-campaign-begins/
A few comments, if I may:
“an impasse is created”
A conflict of beliefs, with no proof on either side, tends to create such an impasse. Neither side will ever be able to convince the other, you are correct.
“I do not see the same vigor on the believer side going after atheists”
I do. Regularly. Atheists are routinely demonized by people who feel that their belief is the correct one, and that atheists must be ‘corrected’, or be condemned to hell. There is no compromise, and their vigor is extreme in many cases.
“This means that we are not making it up as we go along nor are we inventing what faith tell [sic] us.”
Would you be above admitting that you were indoctrinated by birth? To turn away from this indoctrination would mean that everyone else in your family is following false beliefs, and most people cannot accept that. Thus the perpetual indoctrination.
” If the Church were telling us what to think, there would be no need to interact in a long discussion for someone would just have the answers and spout it out like some Old Testament prophet condemning those who turn away from the covenant.”
i disagree. Every church I have attended in the past welcomes questioning of the faith. When I questioned the Pentecost, the minister was quick to rationalize why we should be capable of speaking in tongues to this day. When I spoke with a Catholic priest regarding gays, he pointed to Leviticus (while wearing mixed linens, I might add). Never have I been to a church where a preacher spoke as if on the mount, conducting a one-way flow of information. On the contrary, questions were welcome, and justifications provided. That is the job of church elders. That, and to tell members what to think, thus the sermoning.
“Examples of these truths include the basic dogmas, those things directly revealed by God, such as that Christ is both God and man and that God is a Trinity.”
This “truth” is actually a belief system.
“we believe what we believe based on faith”
Anything anyone believes is based on faith. Faith that their belief system is correct. Some may say, “Faith in God is faith; atheism is lack of faith in God.” The same could be said this way: “Faith in God is internalized belief; atheism is internalized belief that there is no God.”
“And, if it is true, we are more free by knowing it”
And, if it is NOT true, you are placated and able to be manipulated.
“it’s an explanation of the purpose of everything”
Which is ultimately the simple answer to humankind’s question – “Who are we?” Simple and tidy. Just like King James wanted it. No more questions. Just belief.
“Yet, we constantly encounter things that we cannot prove or that we merely accept out of convenience”
Such is humanity. We are basically an unenlightened bunch, willing to accept what makes most sense to us individually without too much questioning.
“But, I cannot prove it to someone who refuses to believe.”
Exactly the essence of the impasse you described.
“So, by accepting what seems obvious and right in front of me, I am not making an irrational conclusion but accepting reality.”
A reality you inherited. It was still invented, and is no more valid or invalid than the conclusion of reality accepted by any atheist.
“faith and reason do not contradict each other.”
Of course not! If they did, religions could not exist. In fact, they rationalize and justify one another, in whatever way is necessary to confirm the belief.
“There is a hunger in human beings for eternal truth and purpose”
This is precisely why, once we internalize beliefs, that we cannot be swayed once we are entrenched.
“However, what is shown historically is that where stable religion withdraws, rationality does not win out. Instead what one gets is more extreme forms of faith divorced from any sort of reason.”
I must confess, I am ignorant of this historical context. Maybe at some point I can learn more about this. Have you already written about this? I would like to research this statement further.
“I believe that when we take away meaning from people’s lives it dehumanizes them and makes them turn ungodly things into idols.”
Maybe so, but God is not the only thing that may give people meaning. It works for you, but painting everyone with a broad brush is hardly sound reasoning. Does it make my life any less meaningful because I believe that we are an experiment by a scientist from a higher dimension? Of course not. I have been with this knowledge all of my life. I even made attempts to ignore this, because of the influence of society. God’s truth proved false, in my case. Just like amoeba in a petri dish, we know nothing, nor do we have the capacity to understand our creator. Unlike amoeba, we have been given the ability to think (much to our undoing). The old religions were wiped clean by the new religions, and we were taught that anyone who doesn’t believe as we do are blasphemous, condemned, hateful people. We have created and internalized a safe, neatly packaged explanation. Meanwhile, the experiment continues….
I have to give the caveat before I begin that this article angered me. Many of your arguments are contradictory or down-right nonsensical. I mean no offence by this, it’s just my opinion. With that said here are some things that stood out to me.
“Being that I am a believer, I am much more likely to explain my side well.”
Sets the tone for the whole article an is quite a fascist statement. I, being a non-believer, can argue my point just as well as you.
“But, when I believe something has been given to me by a higher source that is beyond my understanding, it is not my role to discount what was given to me or pick and choose which dogmas I believe. A believer either accepts the whole thing or rejects the whole thing or he is guilty of hypocrisy.”
But then you go on to say:
“In fact, I would say that because most people are not scientists, they accept what scientists say on a de fide basis instead of seeing it as part of a discussion usually amplified by reporters that do not understand what the scientists are saying… This is similar to what happens in faith where I accept what has been handed down to me. By being a religious person, one does not invent these truths, but humbly accepts them.”
Thank you for defeating your own argument for me. Scientists have credentials, they have rules that they follow like not accepting something as true the first time it happens.They also have a huge community of other scientists to bounce ideas and experiments off of: “This worked for me did it work for you?” is a common question in the scientific community. I would say that scientists deal with a realm that is “beyond my understanding” but it still is my responsibility, as an intelligent human being, to question all that I am told, including religion and science. So who tells you all of these truths? The Pope, some old men two thousand years ago that hand selected bits and pieces of stories told by some other guy? What makes those people different than scientists? Well let’s see. Maybe it is proving time and time again that something happens consistently.
In short you are saying “question scientists but if your bishop tells you something don’t.”
“It is like a logician telling a zoologist that his description of an duckbill platypus is convoluted because the zoologist did not invent what he observes but is just describing it even if it seems contrary to expectation.”
This analogy makes so little sense to me. I don’t understand how this can be comparable to faith (mostly because you didn’t bring it back around) but here is how I would respond to this.
A logician would never tell a zoologist such a thing because he understands that the zoologist is observing something that the logician he himself can see. Religion is not something I can see. I have never been visited by God although I know many people who claim to have been.
“If a revelation were not true, then it would limit our ability to discuss because we would be starting off with false conclusions.”
What does this mean?
“It usually done after a long discussion and certain ideas are seen to be incompatible with the faith.”
Like homosexuality and condoms? But not murder, enslavement, and genocide?
“There’s no way we can come to know these things through reason.”
Well then obviously they make no sense.
“If the Church were telling us what to think, there would be no need to interact in a long discussion for someone would just have the answers and spout it out like some Old Testament prophet condemning those who turn away from the covenant.”
I hope you realize that that is what they have been doing for the past 1800 years, right?
“Yet, we constantly encounter things that we cannot prove or that we merely accept out of convenience.”
These things, that are beyond our grasp at the moment, are later described by science ex. gravity.
With all of this said, I obviously do not agree with you. And with this kind of argument, built upon false understanding of truth and obscure analogies, I probably never will. These piece feels like a rushed, angry rant that was posted without a second glance.
Religion made sense thousands of years ago when we did not have the wide understanding of physics that we now do. It helped, through METAPHOR (an often misunderstood point), us understand what was going on around us. We did not have a concept of the big bang. We did not even understand what stars were at that point. Now we do and so religion is antiquated.
Religion still makes sense to the majority of the people in the world even though we have the understanding of physics that we do and we have the concept of the big bang.
You say that scientists are credentialed and that their claims are verified by others, and therefore we should believe them. And you know what? We do believe them. We believe them when they talk about their experiments or when they talk about physics or computers, or the space shuttle. But we don’t believe them when scientists talk about the purpose of life or happiness or many other philosophical questions because those are outside the scientific realm. The people we trust are the people who have discovered the purpose of life and have discovered happiness or deeper meaning and are truly respected in the community. They are credentialed in areas outside of the hard sciences. Certainly you know of some of those people. And a lot of those people believe in God.
If I see a person who has a great family, tells the truth, treats people well, has cared for me many times personally, and he tells me God exists, that’s pretty convincing. If most of the people in my life who I respect tell me that God exists, and they tell me they’ve heard from God I am extremely likely to believe in God. They have never lied to me before. They have always told me the truth. They are CREDENTIALED. Can’t you see that’s the way NORMAL people work? We’re not going to trust some scientists that we have 0 clue about their personal lives. They tell me God doesn’t exist but they are completely UNcredentialed in areas of personal fulfillment, purpose, integrity, love etc. Those are the things people actually care about and those things are intimately connected with the existence of God. This is the way the majority of people think and this will probably NEVER change.
A certain percentage of people are extreme rationalists or empiricists and those are your atheists. But don’t think that atheism is going to take over the world until the majority
of the people in the world lose a certain part of humanity called “trust.”
I have gone into a quest now, stemming from my last few experiences at Google plus, in particular, my experiences mingling with full fledged outright atheists, to find out the ways they utilize to be so adamantly opposed to Christianism in particular. I have not usually been interested in atheism or atheists, but seeing that I am currently going to seminary, it would be useful for me to learn the ways of our adversaries…
Granted, there are probably ethical, and well intentioned atheists out there…I pray that God in His infinite wisdom cracks an opening in their souls so that His light enters in, perhaps for the first time…even on the outright evil ones… All Glory to God!
Remember, atheists are not our adversaries: they are our patients. Like Ephesians says, “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.” Once we start looking at people as being the problem, we can very easily do evil ourselves. I’m glad someone finally had something positive to say. God bless! And persevere!
Edit: I just noticed your second post. Oops. This was really a reply to your first. I think you know what I mean, though. God bless!
That was a nice read. I’ve also always felt that a believer’s belief in religion is just as rational as a average person’s belief in counter-intuitive scientific findings. Both of them are just putting faith in different sources. Justified or not is another question.
“any atheist who is reading this should not see anything I say about atheists and atheism as a condemnation but as an opportunity to explain to me what you actually do believe.”
If anybody is interested in knowing: The reason I don’t believe in a God is that although the world might imply a creator, I don’t see anything that could justify the existence of a creator. A watch implies a watchmaker, but then the watchmaker would also imply a watchmaker-maker. “God just existed” sounds as good as “the universe just existed” to me. For me, the idea of God does not solve the problem of creation. I’m convinced that whatever the reality is, it is beyond the grasp of my limited intellect.
Regardless of my own views, I don’t see a belief in God alone as unjustified. But I do have a problem with the idea of this God sending prophets (or his son) to guide people. That’s a different debate.