Mondays are usually not the best of days, but I was quite joyous to see that Leah Libresco of the “Unequally Yoked” blog announced that she was now attending RCIA and that she was moving her blog from the atheist portal on Patheos to the Catholic portal.
The “Unequally Yoked” blog was in part based or her disputes with there Catholic boyfriend. This is of course not the first time somebody arguing with a Catholic spouse or boy/girlfriend to get them out of Catholicism turns about. I think of Jimmy Akin’s conversion story for one. Or even in the case of my own conversion story since my wife was a cradle Catholic while I was a cradle Atheist.
It is always rather interesting when an atheist blogger comes over to the “dark side”. This was true in the case of the former “Raving Atheist” blog, Jennifer Fulwiler, and now Leah’s blog with hundreds of resulting comments.
Now it is quite easy to fall into the us vs. them divide and seeing a conversion as a win for our team. Kind of like the Protestant verbiage of “winning a soul for Christ” and keeping score. The personal story is easily lost in such a view. For anyone who had been a life-long atheist up to that point coming to belief is quite difficult and even more so when done in a public way. There is that private interrogation when first you suspect that you are leaving atheism behind and have come to belief in God. That private interrogation can be quite rough and quite scary as you question your motives and try to verify the use of reason that has brought you to this point. Atheism for me had become a crutch and a reason not to repent of my sins. Belief in God is more than realizing that your Sundays now have a recurring event for the rest of your lives. The real recurring event is continual repentance and that is quite annoying when your previous refrain was “I am only human.”
Going from atheism to Catholicism is kind of like a rags to riches story. From having nothing in the spiritual life to the riches of what the Catholic faith delivers. So many saints, so many devotions, and oh so many books! I look back at all my years as an atheist with a certain fondness in that I was striving for the truth despite bumbling around like Mr. Magoo. It is hard to describe the joy of being Catholic despite all the challenges. To find that you could actually overcome sins that you had pretty much given up on despite periodic applications of stoicism. But coming into relationship with Jesus is what is the most joyous. The ride on his back as the lost sheep being returned to the hold is wonderful ride.
There are some advantages of going from atheism to Catholicism compared to conversion from Protestantism. For one once you get over the “yeah there is a God” thing all the Catholic distinctive are much easier to grasp. Not having the Protestant prejudices towards Catholicism makes some of the faith much easier to learn. The fact that the Catholic faith is symphonic and that all the truths of the faith interlock and support each other you are constantly awed in this new understanding that just becomes stronger over the years. There are certainly atheist prejudices that have to be overcome such as what a big lie the Church vs. science meme is. I am quite happy that Leah Libresco will miss out on the theism phase. Coming to belief in God for me did not mean instantly embracing the Catholic Church, it was some years of first a general theism and then movement towards the Catholic Church after reading much of the religious section at the library.
So welcome home Leah!
15 comments
“announced that she was not attending RCIA…”
I think “not” is supposed to be “now.” 🙂
>. Not having the Protestant prejudices towards Catholicism makes some of the faith much easier to learn.
And you have no similar prejudice to Protestants?
>The fact that the Catholic faith is symphonic and that all the truths of the faith interlock and support each other you are constantly awed in this new understanding that just becomes stronger over the years.
Really? Even the bits that make no sense at all?
>There are certainly atheist prejudices that have to be overcome such as what a big lie the Church vs. science meme is.
Huh, so the Bible mentions evolution and declares the universe to be about 14.75 billion years old and that the Earth was made in 4.75 billions years? Are you sure you’re not pretending that there is no conflict because it’s something you can’t win?
>e Catholic Church after reading much of the religious section at the library.
So… if the Protestant books made a better argument you’d have gone that way? Did you read about Muslims or Jewish versions of theism or when you decided that gods were real it must be Christian?
How eloquent; a poetic phrasing of how I now perceive my time when I was “in the wilderness.” I, too, experienced my letting go of all the useless, irreconcilable lattice of sophist postulations (all which merely drove me deeper into despairing) for a more whole, sweet, enduring and eternal truth.
Years after my “reversion,” all the people that matter stayed with me. Even a few of the angry bitter atheist friends of mine still claim me as a friend. And, once you’ve tasted the truth, shallow friendships are easier to live without. Welcome home!
(((Or even in the case of my own conversion story since my wife was a cradle Catholic while I was a cradle Atheist.)))
What “Love” can do for “ONE” self?
I hear ya! If only “IT” would work on salvage? 🙂
Peace
Ah… Kyle beat me to it. The Mr. Magoo reference. That was it for me too. Exactly.
Salvage:
Does it somehow boggle your mind that someone can turn from atheism to Christianity?
>Does it somehow boggle your mind that someone can turn from atheism to Christianity?
No, not “mind boggling” at all in fact it happens all the time. Children are born atheists and would stay that way if their parents didn’t teach them the religion they are. You could have a baby born from two Muslims raised by Jews who gave their natural born offspring to Mormons who handed their spawn off to Hindus and the children would grow up to be those religions.
What boggles my mind is how adults of any sort of learning can think it true much less make sense.
But we live in a world where people wrap themselves up in all sorts of delusions from Tom Cruise’s Scientology to Fred Phelps homo obsessed god to people insisting that crop circles are real UFO evidence (despite the guys who did them saying they’re not) to Tim Tebow being traded to the Jets the human mind can do some wonderful bits of yoga to distort reality to a comfortable shape.
I understand that the idea of having an all-powerful father-figure deity looking out for you in life and making death not suck is tempting. Who wouldn’t want that to be true?
Like emails from Nigeria about long lost inheritance windfalls if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn’t.
It boggles my mind that people still fall for those scams but it still happens every day.
But that wasn’t what I was talking about, can you answer the questions I asked?
Salvage,
I can’t speak for Jeff, but perhaps I can answer some of your questions.
“And you have no similar prejudice to Protestants?”
There is no requirement for Catholics to have a prejudice. I can’t speak as to whether or not Jeff has any, but whether or not he does has no bearing on what is true and what is not.
“>The fact that the Catholic faith is symphonic …
Really? Even the bits that make no sense at all?”
Because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean that it makes no sense. In addition, there are things in life that we don’t understand, yet are still true.
“>There are certainly atheist prejudices…
Huh, so the Bible mentions evolution and declares the universe to be about 14.75 billion years old and that the Earth was made in 4.75 billions years? Are you sure you’re not pretending that there is no conflict because it’s something you can’t win?”
You are making Jeff’s point here about atheist prejudices. The fact is the Bible is not a science textbook. If you read a history book that said “the sun rose over the battlefield”, would you say it is false because the sun doesn’t go around the Earth? Of course not. So why invent such silly arguments about the Bible?
“So… if the Protestant books made a better argument you’d have gone that way? Did you read about Muslims or Jewish versions of theism or when you decided that gods were real it must be Christian?”
Again, I can’t speak for Jeff, but I would say for my own part yes. If one is searching for truth, one goes where the truth leads, not where one is comfortable.
Finally, you wrote “…the human mind can do some wonderful bits of yoga to distort reality to a comfortable shape.”
Including denying the existence of God. It must be comforting to know that you are the ultimate judge of yourself, and the rest of the universe as well. Who wouldn’t want that to be true?
I hope this gives you something to ponder.
>There is no requirement for Catholics to have a prejudice.
Really? Your god plans to throw everyone who doesn’t think as you do in Hell. So your god is prejudice but its followers are not?
“>Because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean that it makes no sense.
Your god “sacrificed” itself to itself so it wouldn’t be wrathful at its creation for behaving the way it made them / knew it would behave.
That is the story of Jesus boiled down to the basics (if I’ve missed something please tell me) and it makes no sense. I understand it and from that understand I can come to no other conclusion.
Your religions is a mix of Roman paganism and Bronze Age mythology, it’s because I understand this fact that I can’t understand why anyone would think it true. Why are those myths real and all others (Greek, Norse, Australian, South America aboriginal etc) false?
> In addition, there are things in life that we don’t understand, yet are still true.
Sure. The supernatural isn’t amongst them.
“>You are making Jeff’s point here about atheist prejudices.
Well, I said things that are true, not sure if that’s prejudice and if it is why would that be wrong?
>The fact is the Bible is not a science textbook. If you read a history book that said “the sun rose over the battlefield”, would you say it is false because the sun doesn’t go around the Earth?
No, because we accept the meaning of “sunrise” to be a figurative description. Your Bible is literal is it not? Your god didn’t mean six days when it said six days? Why didn’t it say the actual time?
>Of course not. So why invent such silly arguments about the Bible?
I invented Genesis? A book that your church took literally for about 1700 years and would set fire to anyone who said otherwise?
Your god claims to have made the universe, the Bible contains a detailed description of that claim and for the most part it’s wildly inaccurate when contrasted with the physical evidence.
On the other hands it contains all the hallmarks of primitive mythology that predates your Bible by at least 2,000 years. Like it’s just retelling on older story? There’s actually a lot of that sort of thing in the Bible. Do you know there is nothing original in the story of Jesus? Everything he is said to have done was done by older gods?
I’m not sure if pointing out a glaring flaw is a silly argument but enlighten me, why did your perfect god make its perfect book so deeply imperfect?
> If one is searching for truth, one goes where the truth leads, not where one is comfortable.
And the Catholic version of Christianity, the one that had countless bloody schisms is the right one? Amazing that so many others have gotten it wrong. But curiously they would say the exact same thing, that they’ve got it right and it’s you who have it wrong.
Does your god like conflict? Is that why it made its religion so malleable and open to interpretation?
>Including denying the existence of God.
No, that’s rather easy, takes no distortion of reality at all. Let me show you:
Odin. Real or myth?
Zeus. Real or myth?
Jesus. Real of myth?
So tell me why the first two (I assume) are fake and the third real.
>It must be comforting to know that you are the ultimate judge of yourself,
Am I? I think people around me have a say but of course what I think is important as well.
So you need a supernatural entity to tell you if you are good or bad? Why? Can’t you figure it out on your own?
>I hope this gives you something to ponder.
Not really, all of that is pretty typical theists stuff , heard it before. I know you’ll ignore my response but I’d really like to know why your god is real and all the other ones are fake. That’s one question no theist can ever answer. The closest I’ve gotten here was someone told me there are bunch of books that explain and the answer is too big to post.
Because truths are always super complicated.
Mike; head’s up: Salvage is a mere troll. I tried in good faith to better understand him but he’s not serious here. He; does like troll food, though. Just don’t mistake the cause and effect of responding and response as anything like an honest conversation.
LOL! Yes! There is no thought or points in anything I have said here, it’s just complete gibberish!
It is best to ignore what I say however, thinking and theism just don’t get along very well.
I think what you really mean is that it’s easier to call me names than to address my points.
Kyle can you answer this or tell me why it’s “trolling”?:
Odin. Real or myth?
Zeus. Real or myth?
Jesus. Real of myth?
So tell me why the first two (I assume) are fake and the third real.
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