Atheist trolls are so perceptive.
Earlier today I tweeted “TGIF, Though I thank God for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday Also!”
In reply someone tweeted “why not thank the tooth fairy instead?”
I really appreciate the fact that someone out there is scrubbing Twitter in search of references to God and replying to individuals they don’t know with such important information.
Wow, I never before made the connection between mythical creatures and belief in God. I am devastated – I will have to totally rethink this belief in God thing. After 40 years of atheism how did I miss that connection when I became Catholic. If only he could have tweeted that then and saved me so much annoyances like repenting and all that. After all throughout history people have had equal belief in both God and the Tooth Fairy. Earlier hunter-gatherers after they made up “god” to explain everything followed this up by also inventing the tooth fairy to explain away what to do with children’s teeth. It is a little know fact that after St. Thomas Aquinas went on to to describe five ways of knowing God in the Summa Theologica he then wrote about the ways of knowing about the existence of Tooth Fairies.
Objection 1. It seems that the Tooth Fairy does not exist because no one has ever seen one and it is quite an improbable creature.
Objection 2. There is inequality in the amount that children receive in monetary compensation for placing their baby teeth underneath their pillow.
On the contrary, The Tooth Fairy exists.
I answer that, Since I already believe in God than subsequently I must believe in all mythical creatures equally with no degrees of discernment whatsoever.
Over at John C. Wright’s blog “A reader I hope is young and not being serious asks:”
Let me get this straight: you, a presumably rational individual who writes science fiction stories for a living, sincerely believes that the creator of our 13.7 billion year-old universe of 70 sextillion stars magically impregnated a human female about 2000 years ago – a woman who then gave birth to a son named Jesus who performed miracles, rose from the dead and served as the creator’s messenger to humanity?
This might make for a mildly interesting, if outlandish, science fiction story, but the source of your belief system? If you’re going to base your life philosophy on absurd myths, why not choose something a bit more interesting? Why not master the Dark Side of the Force or the Golden Path, becoming a Sith Lord or a God-Emperor and strive to rule a Galaxy? Why choose something as ridiculous and wretched as Christianity? I must admit I am rather perplexed…
John C. Wright replies to him in much less snarky tones than would be my initial response to a question put that way. He describes how his conversion from atheism involved a miracle and that of course the response from his atheist friends was basically “Since miracles can’t occur because my philosophy tells me so, no evidence to the contrary be be entertained.”
I then discovered that the Christian world view makes sense of much that the atheistic or agnostic worldview cannot make sense of, and even on its own philosophical terms, is a more robust explanation of the cosmos and man’s place in it, answering many questions successfully that atheists both claim cannot be answered, and then, without admitting it, act in their lives as if the question were answered, such as how to account for the rational faculties of man, the universality of moral principles, the order of the cosmos, how best to live, etc.
At one time I would have used the same level of sarcasm and perplexity about any atheist who became a Christian. My reaction in regards to believers was to pity them for not living a life of reason as I did. The fact that my worldview undermined reason and that I unreasonably expected intelligibility in my atheistic philosophy had not yet occurred to me. My later investigation into Christianity and ultimately the truth of the Catholic Church came first off from the gift of faith which subsequently opened up my intellect to confirm what the gift of faith had given me.
After decades of atheism my newborn faith in God both filled me with joy and seriously scared me. You might say it scared the hell into me since previously I believed in no such thing. Faith for a lifetime atheist is a scary thing. For one thing you are always testing the claims of faith or at least this was so in much case. I constantly asked myself “am I deceiving myself”? How can I put aside a lifetime of belief for something I could not prove by empirical means? The roller coaster of both faith and having to wait for your intellect to catch up is unnerving to say the least. So I read everything I could get my hands on both to grow in faith and perhaps to find that fatal flaw to faith so I could go back to my old ways. I only wish religion was a crutch and an opiate. Actually acknowledging and repenting of your sins is no fun at all. Each day you wake up and know that repentance is not a one time action and requires growing in virtue and avoiding the occasion of sin. Not exactly my idea of an opiate. As Julie of Happy Catholic quoted in her book “Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that’s a tough call. That’s rebellion.” – Alice Cooper. If I was going to have faith why couldn’t it be a religion where I believed in some mythical creature and didn’t have to change any aspect of my life?
That roller coaster of both faith and serious difficulties in understanding my faith was thankfully relatively short lived. “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.” – Blessed John Henry Newman. As I started to read more philosophy and apologetics these difficulties via the use of reason diminished. I will always be thankful for the “Handbook of Christian Apologetics
So while ultimately atheism is not a coherent philosophy, people are more than the philosophy they might believe. I once pitied believers, but as far as atheists go I only pray that they receive at the minimum the gifts I have received and that they are much less hard-headed than I was.
If I have one regret (leaving aside a thousand failings as a person, husband, grandfather, great-grandfather and friend — and my lazy, slapdash, selfish attitude as an actor) it would be that I didn’t take the decision to become a Catholic in my early twenties. That would have sorted out a lot of my life and sweetened it. (p. 560) — Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography
6 comments
A really great reflection, Jeff. I might have just contented myself with tweeting back: “Because no one so far has credited the Tooth Fairy with creating heaven and earth.” Of course, your twoll (neologism alert!) was probably in no position to know of your atheist background … and probably wouldn’t have cared if he knew. Seems to me most of the New Atheists clogging up the comboxes nowadays haven’t developed their unbelief much beyond the “God = Tooth Fairy” association.
I have always wondered about faith being a gift, with the implication being that it is available to some but not all. My sense is that God offers this gift to all but not everyone opens himself to receive it. Some reject it out of hand after a struggle of considering it. Most I am afraid are too lazy or caught up with the materialism of this world to explore it. My guess is that it is the poor, the uneducated and the simple who are the most pure of heart and open to the gift of faith. They are least encumbered.
I have stopped arguing with atheists because this new breed of “rejecters” (that’s right, it is not that they can’t believe but that they don’t want to believe) is simplistic with no understanding of philosophy or capacity to reason.
As long as you’re polite and charitable with them, Rev. Flapatap, don’t give up. You never know when something might get through, even if it’s years later. Nobody deserves to be given up on.
Could I trouble you to explain the Atheistic view that there is a point to morality outside of God?
I have, from time to time, discussed this with professed Atheists. It seems very clear to me that, if there is no God, the only point to being “good” is to avoid the consequences of being “bad”. Perhaps an Atheist doesn’t have random sexual encounters because it would negatively affect their physical or emotional health. Maybe such a one doesn’t steal because they fear society setting against them. Etc.
But it seems to me that the argument breaks down when one considers that most bad behavior is not visible to others and, if everyone else is just as self-serving, there is no censure and, so, society must descend to chaos.
I know there are many “levels” of Atheists out there, some with Atheistic faith but Who gave it no deep thought. Surely this hole is plugged in Atheist teaching. What is their answer?
G-Veg,
The answer provided usually runs along the lines of prudential judgments to get along. That they change with society. They often use the language of rights, etc – but mean totally different things. While they really don’t promote sociological Darwinism, they don’t offer any rational alternative to what being good means on an intrinsic level. Positivism tries to provide a atheistic moral framework, but it has the same failings.