The Reluctant Atheist

This site has moved

2006-02-20T17:54:00.000-06:00

Please update your links to: http://et-tu.blogspot.com/

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We have a verdict

2006-02-18T13:11:00.000-06:00

Thanks for all the great suggestions about a title for a new blog. But I happened across a potential title this weekend that I'm really excited about. The title of my post from 2/13 reminded me that I'd seen that phrase somewhere else recently and I went looking through my email archives. Sure enough, I found three short words that explain in greater detail than I could with 50 posts where I am in my life right now. Here's the story:

A couple weeks ago I was emailing with a friend who I've known since college. We're really more "acquaintances" than "friends" now since our friendship mainly revolved around our mutual penchant for blowing our money on overpriced drinks downtown. One of the other things we had in common was our great distaste for religion, particularly Christians. We'd muster up our most condescending voices when talking about the "religious right" and "those family values people" and shared many laughs at the expense of Christianity. At one point we formed a close bond in our mutual horror and disgust that someone in our circle of friends had joined a church and wasn't interested in going out with us anymore.

In our recent email exchange I declined brunch plans on the grounds of going to Mass. (I would have loved to see the look on her face when she read that email). I got a quick reply asking who was pressuring me into going, my mom or my husband or what? I typed out a vague reply about just kind of, you know, sort of liking Mass a little bit every now and then. And then I deleted those words and wrote the truth: that I'm no longer an atheist and that the Catholic church is one of the best things that's ever happened to me. She replied with just three words, "Et tu, Jen?"

When I Googled the original Shakespearian phrase ("Et tu, Brute?") to make sure I understood its meaning I found an explanation that's so rife with symbolism that I immediately knew that it would be the title of my new site:

Perhaps the most famous three words uttered in literature, "Et tu, Brute?" (Even you, Brutus?) this expression has come down in history to mean the ultimate betrayal by one's closest friend. This scene, in which the conspirators in the Senate assassinate Caesar, is one of the most dramatic moments on the Shakespearean stage.

The audience has just witnessed the arrogance and hubris of a ruler who has sought, within a republic, to become a monarch, comparing himself to the gods. Brutus, a friend of Caesar and yet a man who loves Rome (and freedom) more, has joined the conspirators in the assassination, a betrayal which is captured by the three words above. [from eNotes.com]

I'd explain exactly why this is symbolic but I don't think Blogger has enough server space. Instead I'll just point you to my new site. To quote my atheist friend, "Et tu, Jen?"

A question about Mary

2006-02-14T19:06:00.000-06:00

I happened to flip through Lesley Hazleton's book Mary the other day (not my normal reading material, long story there) and came across the following passage that tries to make the linguistic case that concept of the virgin conception was a simple case of mistranslation and misunderstanding, and that the Holy Mother was possibly a rape victim. I've heard this argument before but don't know what the Church's response is. Something tells me it's not, "Dude, we totally missed that! Thank you, feminist author, for pointing out what some of the greatest thinkers in Western civilization have missed for 2,000 years."

Can anyone give me a summary of the counter-argument to this theory, or to a book that would address it?

Here's a passage from Hazleton's book:

The original Hebrew uses the word alma, which referred to any unmarried woman...Matthew uses the Greek word parthenos, which generally meant physical virginity. The difference in meaning was not exactly Matthew's fault. The Hebrew bible had been translated into Greek three hundred years earlier. That edition, known as the Septuagint...was the one the Matthew author would have used.

It may be convenient to argue that parthenos meant a physical virgin, but that was not always the case. The word was also used for a girl who had been raped or was an unmarried mother. Faced with an evident pregnancy and no known father, the language allowed for there having been no father at all, despite the physical evidence. In short, prthenos was an ancient euphemism.

She goes on to say that referring to unwed mothers as "virgins" was common practice back in the day.

This classic tome also includes a graphic description of what it was probably like when Mary was raped, and a mention that Mary was probably skilled in the ways of abortion and considered that as an option. (With this sort of content I'm shocked it didn't get a Pulitzer.)

Et tu, Rachael?

2006-02-13T19:12:00.000-06:00

Alas, even Rachel Ray doesn't seem to be immune to the slut-chic trend that's omnipresent in our society (for those of you who aren't familiar with the perky Food Channel host, bio here). Is there no young female celebrity who won't strip down to her bra and panties and lick inanimate objects in the name of a little extra publicity?

I guess I shouldn't be, but I'm really surprised that Rachel Ray did this shoot for FHM (especially that she's recently married). I can just imagine the conversation between her and her publicist.

PUBLICIST: I booked you for a photo shoot. It's set in a kitchen.

RACHAEL: Great! What should I pretend to cook to best represent my skills? Maybe baked goods? Or something grilled?

PUBLICIST: Actually, we were thinking of something more along the lines of you licking a phallic kitchen appliance. And maybe bending over in a short skirt wearing only your bra while taking something out of the oven.

RACHAEL: Hmm...but I'm a chef, not a stripper--

PUBLICIST: How do you expect people to be interested in your show and what you do if you don't show off your body? Speaking of which, how about doing the Rachel's Valentine's Day Special in nothing but a lace teddy?

It's not all that surprising when vapid Hollywood starlets take the ho route and end up half-dressed in Maxim and FHM, but it's really depressing when women who have some actual talent and don't *need* to make money off of exposing themselves end up in their bras and panties in front of a photographer.

Our society is really starting to get to me. Sometimes I think I need be a hermit.

Because it's true

2006-02-13T14:48:00.000-06:00

I recently met up with one of my husband's good friend's wives. I don't know Mai very well but was happy to have the opportunity to hang out with her for a day and get to know her better.

One of the things I couldn't wait to ask her about was her religious choices. Like me, she was raised pretty much without religion. Her dad is agnostic and her mom is Buddhist, but neither of them ever talked about religion much. While she was in school at a notoriously liberal Ivy League college she decided to convert to the Eastern Orthodox faith. (I think it's safe to say that she may be the only person ever at this school to go in agnostic and come out Eastern Orthodox).

As we ate cucumber sandwiches outside and watched the kids play in the yard last week I asked her how on earth she ended up choosing Christianity. Why not Buddhism? It seems like she would have been drawn to that since Buddhism is the hot "spirituality" on college campuses right now, and it's extra-cool that her mother, who is of Vietnamese descent, is the real thing. It seems like that would be a very tempting path for a college student exploring her religious beliefs.

I expected a lengthy intellectual discourse on the sociopsychological merits of the various schools of thought in modern religion, but the simplicity of her answer caught me off guard.

"I did explore Buddhism first," she said with a shrug. "But it's not true."

Seeing that I expected a bit more of an answer, she elaborated, "As soon as I started looking into Christianity I saw that it spoke the truth. The things it teaches about God, the meaning of life, what the afterlife is like, etc. were to me just obviously more accurate than what Buddhism taught. If one religion is telling you that two plus two equals five and another tells you that two plus two equals four, you go with the latter."

She went on to explain how she ended up with the Orthodox church as opposed to the other branches of Christianity, but I was stuck thinking about her simple answer to my question.

I realized that that was pretty much why I had chosen this route too. For all the doubts that still linger, I have yet to encounter another religious worldview (including atheism) that was a better fit for explaining life as I know it. And the more I research the historicity of the New Testament, the actions of the early Church Fathers and even the history of the Church the more I think that these people are telling the truth.

I think I've been overanalyzing a lot of the issues I have with my beliefs right now. In all my mental thrashing around and self-analysis I've lost sight of the big picture. Every time I get lost in thought, frustrated that I still have doubts, that I haven't seen any concrete proof of God's existence, I should take a moment to ask myself why I'm still even bothering to explore this religion. After all, back in my "open-minded" days (read: open-minded to everything except for Christianity) I explored a variety of different belief systems but never stuck with any one. So why now do I go to Mass every Sunday; spend way too much time updating this blog; bend over backwards to find time in my schedule to read Lewis, Chesterton, Geisler, Groeschel and all the other Christian authors whose books have overtaken my bookshelf? If my doubts are so deep and so strong then why am I devoting more and more time from my busy schedule every day to pursue Christian thought and activities?

Because I think it's true.

RCIA

2006-02-09T12:58:00.000-06:00

I keep waiting for one of my commenters to finally tire of my ramblings and just write, "Maybe you should get into an RCIA class instead of pestering us with all these elementary level Catholicism questions!"

For those of you who might be wondering why I talk so much about how strongly I'm drawn to the Catholic church yet I haven't mentioned anything about starting RCIA, I can explain:

Unfortunately, it looks like I've got a loooong wait before I'm officially Catholic. (It might be for the best anyway since I'd feel weird about becoming Catholic when I'm not even totally sure if I believe in God at this point.) Evidently there was one guy at my church who was the heart and soul of the RCIA and other new member programs, and he recently had to move out of state for his wife's job. So the organization is reeling right now, everybody working overtime to take over his workload and try to figure out how to replace him. They are not currently offering new RCIA classes and can't even give me an answer about when they will start offering the classes again since they haven't found a replacement for him yet.

We've been toying with the idea of just doing RCIA at another parish but have decided against it. We want to get to know people at this church, and I don't particularly like any of the other churches around here. So it'll at least be a few more months until I get that ball rolling.

So, in the meantime, I appreciate my readers allowing me to use this blog as my Catholicism/God 101 class.

Running errands just got a lot more fun

2006-02-08T09:38:00.000-06:00

My city now has Relevant Radio. How sweet is that? It's really surprising considering that my city isn't all that big, and it's very liberal (I think it's a local law that you're required to listen to Air America and NPR around here).

The only downside is that now my husband is trying to get stuck in traffic on the way to work. :)

Ups and downs -- more problems with prayer

2006-02-06T12:43:00.000-06:00

You know, this whole process would be a lot easier if I could just have some Constantine-style flaming cross in the sky message and just be completely assured of God's presence, never to doubt again. (Maybe I should change the name of this blog to The Lazy Atheist). I know, I'm confusing almighty God with a cheap parlor magician who does neat tricks for my amusement again, but I've been thrown back into a period of frustration and doubt recently that's bumming me out and just wanted to take a moment to whine that I wish this were easier. :)

There are a few things going on, but the main issue (again) is prayer. I've been following Colleen's suggestion and using the Lord's Prayer as my guide. I've tried to not focus on specifics based on what I think I need (e.g. "please don't let us lose this client"), but rather praying for divine guidance to help me see what God wants me to do in this situation. (A follow-up to the post Colleen commented on: sure enough, the client left us. And it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to our business.)

After praying in this manner for a few weeks I was very surprised at how well it was going. I truly felt like my prayers were being answered -- God was very clearly guiding me to new insights and perspectives that would have never occurred to me on my own!

...And then there was that annoying materialist voice in the back of my head telling me that I was just seeing what I wanted to see and becoming like "one of those Christians" who fabricated religious experiences to make themselves feel better (the way I used to see all Christians). But I was so happy and the experiences I was having seemed so clearly to be answers to my prayers that I was actually able to ignore that snippy little voice.

And then while watching the Superbowl yesterday I decided to thumb through my copy of Fr. John Hardon's Catholic Catechism to see what it had to say about an issue that had been troubling me lately: what is and is not the will of God. I didn't exactly find the answer to my question, but I came across this passage about prayer:

With human intercession we seek to inform another person of our wants, and then to sway his will on our behalf. Obviously neither of these considerations applies when we make our petitions to God. Our intention is not to divulge our needs and hopes, for God knows all things. Nor can the divine will be persuaded to alter a decision...Prayer is necessary for our sake, to make us reflect on our great needs and arouse our wills to desire what God wishes us to have.

We might add that God has foreseen our prayers from eternity and thus included them in his plan for the universe, to give us (and others) what he knew we would ask for. [emphasis mine]

Maybe it shouldn't have, but that passage took the wind out of my sails about the whole prayer thing. The part about God having seen our prayers from eternity and included it in his plan gave me a headache so I didn't dwell on it too much. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the whole free will vs. God's plan concept, e.g. that if I decide to let a coin toss determine whether or not I pray today, that the outcome of the toss was part of God's plan and my prayers will be answered (or not answered if the toss lands in favor of not praying) accordingly. That's baffling to me so I'll move on to what I found to be the most troubling part of the passage:

I interpreted the passage to say that a) prayer is not for expressing your needs and wants to God and b) God is not going to do anything based on your prayers since his plan is already laid out; prayer is really just a mental exercise for you to remember who's in charge here. That annoying voice in the back of my head was quick to point out that if the purpose of prayer is just "to make us reflect on our great needs and arouse our wills to desire what God wishes us to have," then my prayers over the past few weeks have not really been answered. What I thought was the hand of God guiding me to see things I had not seen before was really just me using the meditative time of prayer to figure things out for myself.

If I'm interpreting this correctly I guess I could get used to the idea that prayer never results in action on God's part, but that's a whole lot less comforting than what I originally perceived the purpose of prayer to be.

Am I misinterpreting this part of the Catechism? How do most religious people (particularly Catholics) perceive that prayer works? I've heard a lot of people talk about prayer in a cause-and-effect sort of way ("my prayers were answered!") -- were they all mistaken?

-----------------------------

UPDATE:

OK, I just re-read this after I posted it and I can see that the second paragraph of the passage I quoted is indeed encouraging. It seems to be saying that God does answer our prayers...sort of...but it's different since he knew what we were going to ask for and already had it planned...so hopefully you're asking for what was in his plan...although he knew you were going to ask that so maybe he incorporated it into his plan.

Maybe this issue here is that I need to think a bit more about the fact that God doesn't work in the cause-and-effect sort of way that we humans do since he already has the universe all planned out.

Homeschooling -- Yup, I was missing something

2006-02-02T13:26:00.000-06:00

Thank you to all who commented on my last post. I read each of your comments carefully and found that, indeed, I was missing something. Between your comments and this wonderful book I just finished (The Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot) I now understand why homeschooling is so appealing to so many people.

I don't think it's ultimately the route I will take, and I can't quite put my finger on why (I have about four years to change my mind, though). I think one of the big reasons is that my children's spiritual life is so important to me that I don't want it to rest solely in my hands. Those of you who are regular readers know that I'm really struggling with my beliefs right now, and if that doesn't change I worry that I'll be an awful spiritual role model for my children. Because of this I'm heavily leaning towards sending them to a small private Catholic school that's near here.

Anyway, for those of you who are not homeschoolers or also don't understand it, here is an excerpt from an email I just sent my husband that summarizes what I understand of the pro-homeschooling point of view:

So I posted the "I don't get it" homeschooling post to my blog and got a bunch of great comments. I also finished that Mother's Rule of Life book which shed a lot of light on the subject. Here's a condensed version of why we should at least consider homeschooling:

- There is a lot of b.s. that goes on in public schools (e.g. the one commentor's daughter not being able to check out a library book because it was "above her reading level"; biased history books; kids terrorizing each other; etc.)

- Homeschooling younger children doesn't take that much time -- maybe 3 - 4 hours per day. When you cut out all the fluff that goes on at elementary schools and the fact that it's taught toward the lowest common denominator, you can give your kids an equivalent (if not much better) education in less than half the time they'd spend at regular school.

- There are plenty of ways to get your kids to interact with others. Most homeschooled kids get interaction with other kids a few days per week through: scouts, Sunday school, local homeschooling group meetings, sports, other church activities, etc.

- Your older kids can help you run the house. It's like you have your own little home management company at home. The elementary-school-aged kids can help with the babies, cleaning, dinner, etc. If you send your kids away just when they're that age you're perpetually in the "at home with little ones without help" phase. It also makes your family very close to have everyone interacting and pitching in and working together all the time.

- You can keep your kids in the moral path that you want them on. You can include religion in their daily activities and explain potentially troubling subjects (e.g. evolution) in light of what you believe.

Homeschooling -- I think I'm missing something here

2006-01-26T14:49:00.000-06:00

I spent some time this morning reading through blogs by Catholic moms and was struck once again at how similar I am to these women. Over the past few years, even before becoming Catholic was a remote consideration, I always noticed that the people I clicked with were very often Catholic. And this morning I was thinking yet again of all the things I have in common with most orthodox Catholic mothersÂexcept for one big one:

It seems that many strict Catholic families homeschool their children. This one I don't understand at all. Homeschooling isn't appealing to me at all for a variety of reasons (I'm not saying I think it's bad that others do it, it's just not for me). Yet I can't help but feel like I must be missing something since so many women that I am intellectually and theologically aligned with on so many issues are adamant about their beliefs that homeschooling is the way to go.

So, if I have any readers out there who are pro-homeschooling I'd love to hear from you. My main reason for not being interested in this route is just the socialization of my children. I want my kids to get used to how society works, for better and for worse, at an early age, and being in school around other kids every day is a great way to do that. (I know that there are homeschool groups where all the kids in an area get together, but from what I understand they're not every day). I also worry about how stressed I'd be with that much responsibility every day and the fact that I'm pretty disorganized and impatient, but I could get past those objections.

The commenters on this blog have managed to greatly influence the direction of my life on much bigger subjects than this, so let's give this one a shot as well: why should I homeschool my kids?

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UPDATE: I just found this great post on Selkie which, along with the accompanying comments, answers a lot of my questions.

An early mid-life crisis

2006-01-24T18:35:00.000-06:00

A recent comment asked where my husband is on all this. I actually had already started on this post, which I think answers the question. The short story is that he's as excited about all of this as I am, and he's probably farther ahead than I am since he already believed in God to begin with (in fact, I don't think he's never doubted).

I think my husband and I are going through an early mid-life crisis. Luckily it's not the sort of crisis that involves man-ponytails and red sports cars. Quite the opposite, actually.

Ever since we started really getting into Catholicism in early December a strange thing has been happening with us. We've been re-evaluating everything. Everything. What we wanted to do with our life used to be so clear, and suddenly it's not at all. It's such an overwhelming, nebulous feeling that I'm not sure if I'll be able to clearly explain it, but here's a try. First, a bit of history.

- When we were first married we were focused on getting rich. We didn't think of it or talk about it that way, but that was the intention. My husband got his MBA from a top school during the economic boom and practically all his friends had huge salaries, so we just sort of assumed we'd end up there too. The industry track he was on would have meant tons of travel for him and very long hours at the office, but being able to have enough money to retire early made the path appealing.

- That grew old really quickly. We realized that we didn't want to be part of the corporate machine anymore and wanted to do something more fulfilling. We started our own business about a year and a half ago. It seemed perfect because it's the sort of business where we'd be able to help people with their problems yet probably make good money in the long-run. We were sure that this is what we'd do for the rest of our lives.

But now that we're actually in the trenches we see that a) we're not helping people as much as we thought we would, b) the ability to bring in a stable income that will reliably cover just our basic bills is farther in the future than we thought, probably two more years or so and, most importantly, c) it's very difficult to combine making a difference in the world with your career, especially when you have a family -- no matter how low your monthly expenses, you have to be focused on bringing home X amount each month in order to avoid ending up on the street.

- That brings us to now. We both feel a very strong pull to something...more important. I'm not sure how to articulate it other than to say we feel drawn to do God's work, or to follow his plan for our lives, or something like that. Meanwhile, we're tired of being obsessed with money. We used to be obsessed with money for the sake of having a lot of it, now we're obsessed with money because sometimes we have trouble paying our basic bills if the business is having a slow month. (Also, as small business owners we don't have insurance that covers pregnancy so we're hit with a ton of new expenses there as well.)

So what now? I think it's safe to say that we're literally considering everything. Should my husband go get a regular job? Should he go get a 9 - 5 government job so that we can use our newfound free time (he currently works 6am - 8pm) to work on things that matter? Should we push forward with our business and stick it out until we have a steady income, meanwhile making an effort to truly help people more?

So here are my questions: How are you supposed to balance paying the bills with making a difference in the world? Also, how do you figure out what God wants you to do with your life? I have the Purpose Driven Life and have scanned it, but it didn't really grab me. I suppose I should give it another try though.

We both feel that we're a) being strongly pulled to do something and b) are currently on the wrong path, and we don't know where to go from here.

I'm sure that if any one commenter out there had all the answers to this age-old dilemma he or she would be an internationally famous life coach/guru, but give it a shot. If anyone has any thoughts, even if they're incomplete, on what we should do from here, where we should turn for guidance, etc. I'd love to hear them.

Why there's no turning back - Part II

2006-01-23T13:36:00.001-06:00

Another quick thing I meant to mention in my previous post:

I am so surprised at how strongly I am drawn to the Church. I feel like going to Mass almost every day; I anxiously wait for the day that I have more time to volunteer and get involved, mainly because I just want to hang out at my new church and be around Catholics more; my Amazon wish list is overrun with books about Catholicism; the only blogs I read anymore are by Catholics (any suggestions for good Catholic blogs, BTW?); my husband and I are planning our next vacation at the local Catholic retreat and we're more excited about that than when we went to Europe; every time a problem comes up I feel like running down to my priest's office and talking to him about it (I suppose I should actually introduce myself one of these days...); etc.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. The cynic in me says that I'm just attracted to it because the concept of God gives me emotional comfort. But that's not it. I've stepped back and analyzed it as objectively as I possibly can, and it's something more than that. Yes, of course it's a great comfort if God exists -- but I openly admit that I'm pretty uncertain about whether or not that's true. But one thing I'm not uncertain about is how happy it makes me any time the thought of the Church comes up throughout my day (e.g. calling to check on some material they're supposed to send me, reading Catholic sites, even updating this blog). It's like Prozac in terms of its effect on my mood.

And that's another reason that there's no turning back. (How's this for irony?:) Regardless of what I end up believing about God, I don't want to lose this new, astoundingly fulfilling part of my life. I may be the most involved agnostic in the history of the Catholic church. :)

But can I still be smart?

2006-01-23T13:36:00.000-06:00

An interesting thing happened earlier this week that made me realize how susceptible to peer pressure I am in this religious quest of mine. I was at a playgroup, chatting with the mother next to me about politics and world events, and she casually threw out the statement, "obviously we all know that the Bible is a bunch of made up stories, not to be taken seriously."

My first reaction was almost a sense of guilt that I'd been gullible enough to believe these silly fairy tales -- I KNEW these Christians were full of it! This reaction was totally ridiculous on a couple of levels:

1) I have now done enough reading and research into the historical accuracy of the Bible (in particular the New Testament) that I feel pretty confident that I could take almost anyone to the mat who says it's not a reliable resource. 2) This is a woman who I've known for a while now and who I do not think of as being very intelligent. I've heard her ramble on enough occasions that I'd formed an opinion of her as an illogical thinker with a limited intellect. It's amazing that someone who I had such little respect for intellectually could make me feel insecure with a flippant, poorly-though-out comment (I am 100% sure that she's never put any critical thought into that statement and could not defend her position for a minute if questioned.)

On the way home I thought about why I'd reacted the way I did. Had she touched a nerve? Did I secretly think that all this Jesus/God stuff was totally baseless? It wasn't exactly that. I do have major doubts that still linger but I honestly find Christianity to be very compelling. I thought some more and realized that what bothered me is that I had no interest in standing up for my opinions and arguing with her for fear of seeming stupid.

In our culture (at least in certain non-religious circles), atheism is shorthand for being smart. Rolling your eyes at God and people who go to church is a great way to show everyone how scientific (i.e. smart) you are; and using God's name in vain and making profane jokes about Jesus gets you the extra bonus points of showing that you're *such* a logical thinker that you don't harbor secret superstitions about divine retribution. "No irrational fears here! I base my beliefs on science and logic only because I'm educated and intelligent."

And in this materialist environment it's easy to appear to intellectually one-up any Christian who you might be arguing with since atheism has the crutch of "proof" to fall back on -- because they limit their beliefs to that which can be measured by human-created instruments, atheists have the impressive-sounding credentials of being able to prove many of their beliefs on paper. Though Christians can make compelling, fact-based arguments of their own, at some point it does come down to the fact that their lives revolve around an entity that cannot be seen or measured.

I think this is one of the bigger intellectual blocks I face. Many Christian writers have posited that atheists have mental blocks against Christianity because they don't want to change their lifestyle or they're afraid of God's judgment or something. I don't think that's the real problem, at least it wasn't for me. The big problem is letting go of the "atheism = intelligence; Christianity = superstitious, weak intellect" mindset.

Those of you who run in mostly Christian circles may find this hard to believe, but anyone who knows many atheists will most likely agree that the emotional attachment atheists have to their beliefs is the feeling it gives them of being smart.

I think this is the big fight Christians have to face in the mass media: to break down the stereotype that atheists are just so logical and intelligent and emotionally strong that they don't need silly crutches like God to make them feel better.

Why there's no turning back

2006-01-17T15:23:00.000-06:00

Despite my despair at not seeming to be able to believe in God on a gut level, I've known for a while now that there's no turning back. I couldn't put my finger on why, but I knew that I'll either end up truly believing in God or keep searching my whole life, but going back to atheism isn't an option. Today I realized why.

While doing a bit of morning web surfing I read the story of that little girl in New York who was tortured and killed by her stepfather while her mother looked the other way. I thought about how much I hope the personal, caring God of the Bible exists, not so much for my sake but for hers.

And I was reminded of my old atheist days when I would read about stories like this and wonder why we all don't kill ourselves right now. I didn't mean it as a flippant, passing comment. I really thought about it and tried to come up with one good reason why I or anyone else shouldn't just kill myself this afternoon. If I'm going to die anyway and there's no afterlife or God or anything then why not just speed up the process? Sure, there may be some good times to be had in the future, but if there's no soul or sort of eternal "memory" then they don't matter. And, yes, my family would be devastated, but they'll eventually die too and all their emotions and feelings will disappear into nothingness as well, so that certainly doesn't matter. I never really came up with a good answer.

Christians are often asked to answer the question of the problem of pain: "What about pain? Why would your God let people suffer?" (to which they respond that it's an inherent part of free will). But atheists have to answer it too: "What about pain? It sucks, there's more of it in your future, so why not just kill yourself now?"

So today as I read that horrible story and thought of my life pre-religion I realized how silly it would be to reaffirm my old beliefs. As a true, we-are-just-chemical-reactions atheist just living your life is absurd. You're mocking your own "life is meaningless, there is no afterlife" beliefs when you try to find a more fulfilling job, get excited about a pregnancy, host a fun party, or do anything else for that matter.

If you're going to attempt to enjoy your life and live it to the fullest, which I fully intend to do, it only makes sense if you believe in God. And that's why there's no turning back.

An update

2006-01-16T18:01:00.000-06:00

I have 10 minutes before I need to take my babysitter home so I thought I'd check in here and read the comments to my last post. As usual, fantastic.

I also thought I'd give those of you who are wondering a quick update on where I am spiritually since it's been a while since I've talked about the big picture. A few thoughts:

- I am liking church a lot more than I thought I would. When I first started considering the whole religion thing I kept trying to think of a way to get out of having to go to church. It's now one of my favorite parts of the week. One odd thing is that I usually end up teary-eyed at some point in the Mass, though not about anything in particular.

- Oddly, I still don't feel any closer to God. I pretty much totally accept the idea of God and Jesus intellectually, but don't feel it in my heart. I don't feel ready at all to make a statement like "I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior." I could say it with the caveat "...if he really exists," but not by itself. Also, I still don't totally understand the whole Savior thing (i.e. why God couldn't just decide to forgive us for our sins without sacrificing his Son) but that's the subject of another post.

- I worry about the above. I feel like if I were going to "get it" I would have already by now. Throughout December I hardly even put much thought into it (hence the lack of updates on the blog). Hopefully I'll eventually get it. Maybe I'm just a slow learner.

OK, I am now late taking my babysitter home so that's it for this post. Just wanted to give an update.

I'm back!...With a question

2006-01-09T13:55:00.000-06:00

I'm finally able to steal a moment to update here after all the craziness of the holidays. Hopefully I can get back to weekly updates now.

Anyway, the good news is that I've gone to church every Sunday (except for one) since I found my new church. I love the place and can't wait to get more involved. Anyway, as I was looking around at the congregation this past Sunday I thought of some verse I'd read as part of a World History class in college that said something about women covering their heads in church. I couldn't remember if that was true or not so I found a searchable Bible online and came up with 1 Corinthians Chapter 11, which pretty clearly states that women are to cover their heads in church. Verses 4 - 6 say:

Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.

So what's the deal with this? Why do no women cover their heads in church these days? I have no idea who wrote Corinthians (maybe Peter?) or what the larger context is, so I might be totally missing something.

Thanks and happy new year!

Merry Christmas

2005-12-23T17:16:00.000-06:00

I want to wish everyone who reads this site, and especially those who comment, a very merry Christmas. The feedback I've gotten from this site has truly been life-changing. I may have eventually ended up on the same path I'm on now, but it would have taken months (if not years) longer without the valuable guidance and feedback you all have provided me.

With all the wonderful things this blog has brought in 2005, I can't wait to see what happens with it in 2006.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

I found a church

2005-12-14T12:14:00.000-06:00

My husband and I started looking for a church to join back in January of 2004. About once or twice a month since then we've gone to various churches in our area, mostly Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran. I think we've hit just about every Catholic church and most of the Episcopal churches in our city.

Last Saturday we went to the evening mass at a local Catholic church that a few of our friends highly recommend. I thought it was fine, there were plenty of things that I didn't care for (modern music, people in casual dress) but I started to realize that I just wasn't going to be able to find a church that was totally "me." On the way home my husband and I agreed that this would probably be the church we'd join. We weren't particularly excited about it but at least our long search would be over.

Then, Sunday morning, my husband suggested that before we pull the trigger we try one last church. A couple weeks ago I'd taken my regular commentor Steve G. up on his suggestion to help me find a church in my area and emailed him my location. He sent me back a wonderfully detailed email with his recommendations for the top Catholic churches in my area. There was one church that was far and away his favorite. I checked their website and decided that I wasn't interested for a couple of reasons.

But Sunday morning we decided to go ahead and give it a try since Steve seemed so convinced that it was the place to be. We thought of it as just a rule-out trip like we'd done with a few other churches that we were pretty sure weren't for us -- we'd just duck our heads in, glance at the literature and confirm that it was indeed not for us.

Interestingly, when we first walked through the doors I had a vague feeling of having been there before. I was pretty sure this was going to be it. We took our seats in the pew, my one-year-old son mercifully deciding to be quiet and just stare at the lights, and I started to look through the handouts we'd picked up. Those of you who read this post will not be surprised to hear that I read this one flyer (below) and leaned over to my husband and said, "this is it."

[CLICK TO ENLARGE. You may need to click once on the image once it's in its own window to enlarge it again if your browser automatically shrinks it to fit the screen.]

(Wouldn't you know, this is also the one day that I dressed casually to go to church. I had horrible morning sickness that morning, none of my nice pants were clean, and I decided to just go with the flow and dress in jeans and a shirt like everyone else does these days. Oops.)

I'll write more about what I liked about it later, but I thought that some of my regular readers might get a kick out of reading that flyer about dress code. Not only do I agree with its message, but I find it refreshing to see pastors who will boldly stand up for what they believe is right and wrong without fear of alienating their membership. (Many of the churches I visited seemed to wuss out on big issues for fear of people not wanting to go there anymore.)

I'm surprised at how excited I am to have found this church. It's really made an otherwise abysmal week much brighter.

A quick question about prayer

2005-12-08T21:13:00.000-06:00

My husband came home tonight and gave me some bad news about our business that we own: one of our biggest clients is considering leaving us. If this comes to pass it would be a huge challenge for us and mean a ton of extra work for him, which seems almost impossible considering how hard he already works.

I was thinking about this while putting my son to bed and realized that this is a good opportunity to practice praying. But I got stuck on the same issue that always keeps me from getting very far with prayer (other than the obvious fact that I'm not sure if I believe in God): are you supposed to ask God for things? Isn't that kind of bossing him around? I mean, what if it's part of God's plan that this client leaves us?

I don't think I'm ever going to believe that every single thing that transpires on earth is God's will, but I do think it's possible that at least some things are. And considering that I have no idea which of those things might be part of God's will and which aren't, I feel silly and unjustified expressing a request to God that things go a certain way.

What do most people do when they pray about difficult situations? Is it OK to ask for specific situations to turn out a certain way, or are you just supposed to ask God to give you the strength to help him implement whatever it is that is his will?

Any thoughts on this would be helpful, because I've never really been able to pray because of this issue.

Updates coming soon

2005-12-04T15:53:00.000-06:00

I've been sick for the past couple weeks, hit with the combo of a stomach bug on top of morning sickness, but I have lots of thoughts and will update soon. A couple quick notes:

- I've been really bad about going to church. I've got to make that more of a habit. I think once we actually decide on a church and join one it'll be easier to get into it.

- I finally finished Orthodoxy. It was...interesting. I liked it but think that it's more for wayward Christians than true atheists. More on that later.

- This morning we asked my mother if she wanted to go to church with us. She said that she didn't want to because she'd planned to spend the morning decorating the house for the holidays. Her quote was, "I don't want to waste my time with church stuff, I want to focus on Christmas today." Maybe for Christmas I'll buy her a clue. :)

Wishing Jesus happy birthday

2005-11-18T16:50:00.000-06:00

I've mentioned before that I still don't really "feel" God's presence. I've never felt like I have any sort of relationship with any higher power so I'm not even sure what that's supposed to feel like. I have a hard time keeping my inner skeptic at bay when I'm trying to pray or contemplate God. That voice that says, "You're talking to yourself" when I try to pray and "Are you really this easily brainwashed?!" when I agree with what I read in a C.S. Lewis book tends to be very mouthy.

In order to put that voice on mute and keep myself focused I often find myself clinging to a little bit of information that came from the most unlikely of places. When I was around 11 years old my dad, who is a hard-line atheist and vocally anti-religion, was playing with some astronomy software on his computer and thought that he might have figured out Jesus' actual birthday (he does believe that Jesus the person existed). I recently asked him to summarize his logic for this in an email:

It's unlikely that it was in December for a number of reasons, not the least of which is it's winter in the middle east and was probably cold as hell.

The three wise men were almost certainly familiar with astronomy (or, really, astrology). They would have been attracted by some sort of sign that was an astronomical phenomenon. It was not a supernova. None of the advanced societies of the day recorded one. Not a comet. Comets were harbingers of evil and doom. On April 6, 06 BC, just before the sunrise, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter all rose in a single file slanted line over the horizon. This would have attracted the notice of astronomers, and was in the Spring when it was more likely that shepherds were in the fields. I think this would also work with when historians believe the Census of Quirinius took place.

When my dad first proposed this all those years ago I didn't know exactly who Jesus was, I thought of him as sort of a Tooth Fairy kind of guardian figure, but I did know that he played some big part in many people's lives. I was still young enough that I didn't realize that my parents could be wrong about anything, so after hearing this I decided that I knew Jesus' real birthday, and that I was possibly the only person in the whole world who knew it.

When I would go to church with my friends or hear them talking about "knowing" Jesus I would think to myself that I knew him too. In my child's world, where birthdays are some of the most exciting days of your life, I felt like it might make Jesus happy that someone down here knows his real birthday. I thought that maybe I was even special to him because I would think of him on April 6 and wish him a happy birthday.

As an adult I've never bothered to research the accuracy of this theory. I don't really care if it's true or not. It provided me with a vague feeling of closeness to Jesus that I still reference today, a feeling that is the closest I've ever come to feeling God's presence. It's a long, long way from where I need to be, but it's a start.

Faith in humans

2005-11-14T10:46:00.001-06:00

I recently emailed my husband some of the comments here talking about discovering God through the Church as opposed to Sola Scriptura. I've mentioned before that he was raised Baptist. The comments I emailed him touched on one of the bigger stumbling blocks we're both facing when considering becoming Catholics. Here's an excerpt from his email:

[Referring to the second comment here.]
Great stuff. Thoughts:

1 - He says the Catholic Church is authoritative. I have trouble elevating humans over the written rules. To me that would be like saying "The Supreme Court is a higher authority than the Constitution." The Supreme Court's job is to interpret the Constitution. But the Constitution is the highest law of the land. Anything else would be dangerous and would render the Constitution void and pointless.

2 - I'd like to hear what this commenter has to say about the checkered parts of the history of the Catholic church. If a person is to follow the church, should it matter that there have been bad popes and bishops? My own feeling is that what keeps things on an even keel is that there are written rules which sooner or later you have to come back to and adhere to. And that militates for the idea that the written rules is the ultimate authority and source of wisdom.
To quote him:

*Each Generation of bishops was succeeded by another generation of bishops, and this continues until today.
*These successor bishops, with the successor of Peter at their head, are guided by the HS (as promised by Jesus) and responsible for ensuring, and protecting the truth of the faith from generation to generation. This includes guiding the faithful in the meaning, mode, and understanding of the words of scripture.
*The Church as lead by the Bishops, with the successor of Peter at the head is AUTHORITATIVE in the life of the believer

To me this idea of tracing the lineage is dangerous because if one evil person got into the mix (and surely that has happened - aren't all humans evil to some degree?) then are all appointments thereafter invalidated? What makes you think the lineage will ever get back on track? And how can you tell when/if it does?

These are good points, and they're issues that I'm also struggling with. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

"I think we're orthodox": My Sunday at church

2005-11-11T17:15:00.000-06:00

Whew! I've managed to get a couple of free minutes for the first time this week. Here are some off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts about going to church last Sunday:

- I did go with my family. In fact, my mother's (Catholic) brothers and sisters were in town so I went with a ton of family, and they were a big help with my one-year-old son.

- This was also the first time my husband had been to a Catholic service. He believes in God but hasn't been to church in years, and he was raised Baptist so the Catholic church is very new and different to him.

- It was hard to relax, but I managed. On the few other occasions that I've been to church I always feel like I have a neon sign floating above my head that says, "I NEVER GO TO CHURCH AND I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD." I stick out like a sore thumb because I don't know when to sit and stand, whether to sing from the lyrics in the book on the pew or in the daily program, and I don't know that "Our father who art in Heaven" line that everyone else has memorized. I'm always waiting for someone to spot me, to run up to me and forcibly remove me from this house of God (which actually almost happened one time when I was a kid at my friend's Baptist church -- but that's another post).

- So I sat down in a pew toward the front with my family. I got all settled in, prepared for incense and Latin and maybe some chanting (for whatever reason I always pictured chanting being part of a Catholic service.) We all stood to sing and the music began. Over some canned beatbox and synthesizer the choir led the congregation in a song that had lyrics like, "God is so awesome, His glory makes me soar on eagle's wings." I noticed that they were copyright 2002. I felt like I was at a John Tesh concert. I leaned over to my husband and whispered, "I think we're orthodox."

- I looked around at the other people in the pews. I was struck by how nice and, umm, intelligent they seemed. I know this is a horrible thing to say, but my whole life I've been brainwashed (or perhaps brainwashed myself) to believe that atheism was for the intelligentsia and religion was the easy answer for people who weren't very intellectual. (Awful admissions like that are why this is an anonymous blog).

- Another thing I noticed about the other people was how casually they dressed. Even my aunts and uncles wore jeans. Sometimes I think I am misunderstanding the concept of God, because I can't imagine believing in God and wearing jeans to his house of worship. If I were going to the Queen's house I wouldn't do that, and God is certainly more worthy of respect than the Queen. I don't mean to insult anyone who dresses casually at church, I just don't understand it. Clearly I'm just missing something.

- As I scanned the program I saw a notice at the top of one of the pages. It was from a nun who has been part of this church and is now leaving. Her tone was, frankly, pissy as she explained that had she been born "Ray" instead of "Rhea" she could be a Catholic priest but, since she cannot, she is leaving the Church to join the Celtic Church where she will be a priest. I found the one-sided nature of this note to be unnecessary and divisive and was surprised that this church's leaders agreed to include it in their program. As a non-Catholic it gave me the impression that there is not unity within the church and that there are large, unresolved issues. I worried for the Church that there may have been other non-Catholics there who were left with the same impression.

- The music wasn't for me, but the note was the final factor in alienating me from this church. I want a church where the tone is one of quiet reverence and reflection upon God. The modern music strikes me as borderline disrespectful. And I might find a discussion about the church's male-only priest policy interesting, but the one-sided, passive-aggressive note included in the program was just intolerable.

So next Sunday I am going to the other big Catholic church in town. This one has a wonderful reputation and I've heard nothing but good things about it. I'm optimistic but think that this one probably won't be it either -- my husband and I drove by it one time and I saw many, many people wearing jeans and shorts. I had no idea that people dress like that to go to church! I fear that jeans and shorts might indicate another "modern" church with Muzak and disgruntled nuns, but we'll see. I'll give it a try. And even if this one doesn't work out my plan for now is to stick with the Catholic church. I like what I see in the Catholic church more and more as I do my homework on Christianity.

----------------------------

UPDATE: I actually emailed the Bishop to tell him of my concern about the nun's note in the Sunday program and just now received his reply. I love it. Here's an excerpt:

"I have become familiar with the article that was in the bulletin of [the church] and Sister Rhea's desire to leave the Catholic Church. I am gravely disappointed and shocked by this news and the way in which it was communicated to the parishioners. There is no way in the world that I would ever justify her actions, nor can I justify the way in which it was communicated to the parishioners. I am sorry that you and others have been the object of her disobedience to God and to the Church. Please pray for her and please pray for all those who have been harmed by this scandal."

It is so refreshing to see a church that is willing to lead and make clear calls on things. So many modern churches have fallen into the "I'm-OK-you're-OK" good-vibe-fest mentality and are no longer willing to boldly say what they believe is right and wrong.

More and more, I think this is the church for me.

Time to go to church

2005-10-30T14:02:00.000-06:00

The comments to my last post led me to one of those "ah-ha!" moments where so many things fall into place. One of the bigger stumbling blocks I've been facing is the sheer density of the Bible. I just cannot get through that thing. I thought the way you should become a Christian is to sit down and read the Bible like a John Grisham novel and God will reveal himself to you through its words. So far the only thing that has been revealed to me is that I don't understand middle eastern Iron Age culture.

So I've been gravitating to books about the Bible (C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, et al). These books are the only things that have allowed me to have any understanding of the Bible (Old Testament in particular), so I've found myself hanging on each author's every word...only to realize that I am now putting my faith in some random dudes. What if they don't know what they're talking about? What if they're leading me astray? So then I go back to reading the Bible for myself, only to get bored and frustrated and put it down after a couple pages.

The whole endeavor left me with the sinking feeling that either I'm missing something or the tenets of Christianity are just too nebulous and complicated for me. I don't want to structure my religious beliefs solely around random writers' opinions, yet I can't drop everything in my life and start reading and researching the Bible all day every day.

And then I read the second comment to my last post. I think I might have actually said "ah-ha" out loud. This is the information I needed. I have avoided Christianity all my life to the extent that I even shunned academic investigations into the subject, so I didn't fully understand the distinction between Protestant and Catholic approaches, particularly regarding Sola Scriptura. I didn't realize that my mindset and approach to Christianity is a product of the (predominantly Protestant) American culture in which I live. I didn't really know that there's another way to go about it, an approach that involves discovering God and Jesus and the Bible through a religious authority rather than just opening the book for yourself.

If you had asked me what approach is more appealing to me a couple years ago I would have immediately answered Sola Scriptura (well, actually I would have laughed and said all of Christianity is silly, but if I had been open to anything it would have been the Protestant approach). I'm naturally distrustful of authority in the form of large institutions, and I would have thought that letting someone tell you what to believe is just asking for trouble.

But now that I've actually tried figuring out if God exists on my own and attempted to understand the Bible by just picking it up and reading it from beginning to end I see that I need help. To fully understand the stories and instructions of the Bible would take a lifetime of research and learning, and that's not an option for me. So I'd like to have some experts at my disposal who have devoted their lives to Christianity and can give me guidance on matters of God and the Bible. But not just anyone. It can't be someone who has kids and family and tons of social obligations but has just read the Bible a lot. I might be very interested to hear what that person has to say, but I couldn't accept them as a religious authority since they're in no better position to be an expert on the Bible than I am.

But a priest...that's interesting. That's someone who's life *is* Christianity. A priest has the time I don't to fully understand the Bible. He doesn't have PTA meetings and college savings worries and diaper duty and all the other distractions that come with having a family. He can spend his days wrestling with tough concepts, drawing on all the priests who have come before him for insight into difficult issues. I could base my beliefs on what a person like that has to say.

This is an exciting realization for me because a) it clears the way for me to make much more progress on my religious pursuit and b) I really wanted to be Catholic. I've wanted to be part of the Catholic church even before I thought I'd ever believe in God. My mother comes from a big Irish Catholic family and I feel like it's somehow in my genes (my mom actually had me baptized Catholic "just in case" -- the only time I've ever been in a church for a religious event with my parents).

So next week I am going to go to a local Catholic church that I've heard good things about. Because of major baby sleep issues and general laziness on my part I actually have not been to church yet since I started this religious investigation. In fact, I've rarely been in my life. I probably went about five times with the Southern Baptist friends I grew up around, then once after my husband and I got married (we were not married in a church), and that's when I was still in the phase of thinking that you didn't really have to believe in all that resurrection stuff to be a Christian.

So I am going to church next Sunday. It will be the first time I've set foot inside a church since I've started to think that Jesus' resurrection may have actually happened and he may have really been God incarnate. No more bringing in other books to read and yawning and staring off into space like I did when I was a kid. I'm serious now. I've been trying to resolve a lifelong spiritual crisis on my own with little luck and I need help. And I think the Catholic church, the church that my maternal ancestors have been part of for generations, might be just the thing I need.

A deal-killer?

2005-10-27T22:57:00.000-05:00

I finished my last book (the very excellent Galileo's Daughter) before any of my new Amazon purchases arrived, so I headed out to Border's and picked up Who Wrote the Bible. As I delve further into the Bible I struggle to put it into historical and cultural perspective -- all those years of sleeping in while my friends were in Sunday school have left me constantly thinking, "What on earth is this guy talking about? And who is this guy anyway?" as I try to get through its text. So I've found Who Wrote the Bible to be invaluable in bringing these cryptic texts to light for me. Suddenly all the different versions of stories and little contradictions in facts make sense.

But the book is not necessarily pro-Christian. It's not anti-Christian, but the goal is to present accurate historical information moreso than to uphold Christian traditions. (I should note that this author seems to be one of the few people who is actually balanced on this subject rather than having a hidden anti-Christian agenda.)

So far I've only gotten through the first couple of chapters where he's talking about the Pentateuch. As I was reading his riveting case for who the books' likely authors are, I realized that I am just never going to believe that Moses wrote these books. I am also never going to believe that all of these Old Testament stories are literally true. I think some of them were written for personal or political gain.

Personally, I can probably find a way to reconcile this historical data with Christian beliefs, but I'm not sure if that's contradictory to being a Christian. So my question to those of you who are familiar with the Bible is this: is this a deal-killer? Is there anywhere in the Bible that specifically says something like, "All the stories in this book are 100% true and you are not a Christian if you don't believe them." I know there are a lot of people who hold that opinion, but what does the Bible say?

Any verses you could direct me to would be helpful.

Signs from God

2005-10-20T21:47:00.000-05:00

I spent my free time this morning re-reading the comments to my last few posts along with that excellent How to Find God guide over at Chez Joel. This afternoon I went to run errands and decided to take the long way home to have some more time to think. As I drove around the scenic rolling hills of the beautiful outskirts of the city I pondered the question of signs. Where is my big sign from God?, I wondered. If he's so all-powerful and wants us to believe in him and can do whatever he wants, why doesn't he just give me one big sign and get this over with?

That brought me to a question that turned out to be a pivotal realization for me: What would I even accept as a sign from God? Here are some options I came up with, along with their likely effectiveness:

Lightning striking right in front of me right now. This would certainly be compelling. And for the next day or two I might be certain that it was the sign I was waiting for. But after a few weeks I could easily write it off as coincidence, just a freak act of nature.
A big sign on the side of the road saying, "Hi, Jennifer, it's me God. I exist!" Nah. I'd write it off as a prank, meant either for me or someone else.
The sky opening up and a chorus of angels appearing (or something else totally surreal). Ironically, I'd probably be most likely to write this off. I'd eventually rationalize it as a dream or hallucination.

Thirty minutes of intense thinking on this subject yielded few results. There was almost nothing I couldn't eventually rationalize or explain away. So in all this whining about wanting a sign from God, I never did take the time to ask myself what I would accept as a sign.

So I set out to define some parameters of what it would take for something to fall into the Sign From God category. And my thinking went something like this:

It'd have to be something big. BIIIIIG. Like not-of-this-earth big. Something like, I don't know, the cosmos. Something with seemingly infinite complexity, one of those things where the more you explore it the more you realize how much you don't know. Sort of like the physics behind the universe. And I feel like beauty would be involved as well. Probably beauty of a level that makes your jaw drop in wonder, like mine did that time I saw the NASA photo of the Orion molecular cloud that's a few light-years wide. And, finally, it would probably be best if it worked within some sort of system that I'm familiar with. Per the angels in the sky example above, if it were too surreal I think I'd write it off as hallucination.

Hmmm.

After pondering this for a while I started to think: maybe God overshot the mark. I could sort of see him thinking, "OK, I give you people quasars and galaxies and comets and shooting stars and supernovae and planets and stars all for your amusement (and you haven't even discovered a fraction of the cool stuff that's out there) and you use this as proof that I DON'T exist?"

Maybe I'm living in the midst of one big, massive sign that I just can't see.

Trying to see the light

2005-10-20T11:45:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week I was doing some thinking about this whole God thing as I was stuck in traffic. I was pondering once again the fact that I rarely if ever feel anything that I would describe as "God's presence," and that if he does exist I don't feel like I'm in touch with him at all. I had been making an effort to "see God" in the everyday world but wasn't really coming up with anything.

Then I looked up past the road construction, exhaust fumes and traffic and saw that somewhere behind all that the waning light of the sun was bursting through the clouds in a spectacular sunset. I took a picture of it with my phone:

I paused to try to enjoy the moment but the truck behind me honked because the light had turned green, and I needed to change the song on my Eminem CD that I had blaring. As I hurried through the light and got onto the cluttered freeway my view of the sunset faded away behind billboards and road signs. I thought of the dilemmas I've had about making yourself open to the possibility of seeing God and creating an environment conducive to feeling God's presence.

Imagine if I'd seen those same rays of light bursting through the clouds while sitting in a remote cabin in the mountains, or while on a hike around the lake. I think I would have felt in awe at the beauty of nature, perhaps taking a moment to close my eyes and open myself to God. But as it was I was stuck in traffic with some guy honking at me over the blare of my Eminem CD.

I think that all our modern conveniences -- air conditioned houses in the 'burbs, cars, malls, computers, ready-made clothing, etc. -- have put up a huge barrier between people and God. I think that being out in nature, seeing its beauty and feeling your own insignificance against its power, is an important aspect of staying in touch with your spiritual side. Our ancestors who lived without electricity or running water and who lived off of the land around them felt the power of nature every minute of every day, and their society was much more religious than ours. I don't think that's a coincidence.

So I need to remind myself here that it's possible that God's having a hard time getting through to me. He's offering some awe-inspiring sunsets, but I just can't see them through the power lines and exhaust fumes.

A plan

2005-10-14T23:28:00.000-05:00

I technically don't have time to update at all, but I wanted to say a couple of quick things:

- The comments to my last two posts have been truly mind-blowing. Thank you so much Colleen, Steve G., and Jeff. I think that if I ever do end up believing I will look back and be able to point to your comments on the posts from 10/1 and 10/5 as the catalysts that started pushing me in the direction of faith, just when I was starting to lose hope that I'd ever believe.

- I've mentioned before that I can pinpoint when my spiritual quest began in earnest: Friday, July 22 of this year. I had been meaning to look into the whole Christianity thing since it's important to my husband, and since I knew I didn't want to raise my child to be an atheist (or, worse, to be "spiritual but not religious"). But I just didn't know where to start and, frankly, wasn't all that interested in it.

I had taken my mom to an appointment with an aesthetician for her birthday and headed over to Border's to pass the time while I waited for her. When I walked in the door, it was strange. I immediately saw Strobel's book The Case For Christ and walked right over to it. What's odd about this is that I have always actively avoided the Religion sections of bookstores, assuming they're just filled with books like "Let's Cry About How Amazing Jesus Is -- For Teens!"

I always assumed that every book in the Religion section is not something I'd be interested in. But for whatever reason I gravitated to The Case for Christ. I devoured it in two days (no small feat for a busy mom) and it completely changed the course of my life. For the first time ever, I actually considered the possibility that maybe Jesus was something more than just a nice guy with interesting things to say.

In the past few months since then I often wondered what would have happened if I had not seen that book in Border's that day. Just a week before I'd purchased a book for fun summer reading, Galileo's Daughter, that I was very excited about and was adamant about not getting anything else to read until I'd finished that one. Many times I've thought about how different my life would be right now if I had just stuck with my plans to read Galileo's Daughter instead.

Then, last week, after finishing every Lee Strobel book ever written, a summary of the Bible, and Mere Christianity I decided to give myself a spiritual break and go back to Galileo's Daughter. A funny thing happened after I got about 20 pages into it: I found it to be the most compelling case for Christianity I've come across yet. The stories of how Galileo personally balanced his beliefs as a sincere, devout Catholic with his passion for science kindled in me an interest in being a Christian that I had not yet felt.

It strikes me as interesting that even if I had missed Strobel's book and gone back to Galileo's Daughter, I still would have started on my path toward Christianity at the exact same time. It almost seems like it's part of some sort of plan.

Pills for spiritual crises

2005-10-05T22:15:00.000-05:00

I just came across this post from one of my favorite bloggers, Finslippy. My heart goes out to her because I know exactly how she feels. Exactly. I dealt with the feelings she describes in that post -- the sleepless nights, looking around at everyone else thinking, "How can you act like you don't know!", the total despair -- for seven years. Eventually intellectual laziness and getting a crazy job pulled me out of it, but I still fight those feelings occasionally. In fact, having a recurrence of these feelings is what threw me into an urgent search for religion.

Reading her post now, it strikes me as a good old fashioned spiritual crisis. It's bound to happen to smart people who aren't particularly religious. It says a lot about our culture that she was encouraged to see a psychiatric professional who diagnosed her with a syndrome and put her on medication to make her feel better. There was a time when she would have been encouraged to see a priest, which surely would have been a better call. Even if you're not Christian, what people in those situations need to do is have deep, intense discussions about the meanings of life and, most importantly, death. Taking a pill may make you forget for a while, but it doesn't change the facts of the situation, and the feelings will bubble up again sooner or later.

The heavy, heart-sinking feeling that Finslippy describes is what keeps me going in this little spiritual quest of mine, even when it seems hopeless. Because even if I never end up believing anything, I must find something that I can raise my son to believe. Even if I'm not sure it's true, it's better than the alternative. I never want him to feel that way.

An impasse

2005-10-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

I read one of many great, eloquent points in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity last night:

When you come to know God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others -- not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.

This resonates with me. I think that some people would disagree with this, but it sounds right to be that God will not -- or possibly cannot within the system he chose to create -- show himself to people who do not want to find him. For example: I know for a fact that loudmouth atheist Bill Maher is not going to have any glimpses of God any time soon. It could be because there is no God. Or perhaps it's because people like Mr. Maher have closed themselves to the possibility. To borrow Lewis' example, the likelihood of experiencing God as a cynical, anti-theistic person is about the same as the likelihood of learning about the stars while observing them with nothing more than reading glasses. You are your own instrument for seeing God. Whether you have the power of reading glasses or a massive telescope is up to you.

So this all sounds plausible to me. As I've mentioned, I've been frustrated lately that I've still never "felt" God's presence, even since I've been pursuing it in earnest. I'd slowly started to start to explain this to myself as, "I guess there isn't a God. Question answered." But then I came across this idea above. I believe now that I cannot rule out the existence of God until I have tried making myself the type of person to whom God can reveal himself by a) going to church regularly and becoming a part of the Christian community and b) trying to act Christ-like, even if I'm not sure I believe in him.

This sounds like a good plan. But here's the problem. When I hear that in order to discover God I need to make a leap of faith and sort of force myself to be convinced by assuming he exists and acting like he exists, it starts to sound sort of cult-like. It seems like I'm hearing, "Yeah, that's ok that you personally see no evidence of the God described in the Bible and don't feel on a gut level that he exists. Just force yourself to believe and then you'll see him!" While the C.S. Lewis quote above does ring true, so does this counter-argument that it's just an eloquent case for brain-washing.

I mean, don't Sciento1ogists and other shady "religions" use a similar argument? There is probably some person out in L.A. right now struggling to believe in Sciento1ogy and being told, "Just open your mind and act like all this is true and you'll eventually believe it."

So I'm at an impasse. I don't want to feel like I'm brainwashing myself into religion, that I'm so desperate for some sort of God to exist that I'm just going to act like he does until I believe it to be true.

So I turn to you readers: any insights here? Any suggestions? I'm excited to hear your thoughts.

How to Be Open-Minded 101

2005-09-25T20:23:00.000-05:00

In this article a documentary producer says, "If you made a movie about Darwin now, it would be revolutionary" because of Christian intimidation. Ah, so that explains all those conservative, Christian TV shows and movies that keep dominating pop culture.

Class, repeat after me:

- When people with Christians beliefs voice their opinions it's called "hate-speech" and is an example of "intimidation."

- When people with very liberal beliefs voice their opinions it's called "the truth" and is an example of "being open to new ideas."

Some people don't like preachy coffee cups

2005-09-25T20:12:00.000-05:00

Dear World: Could we please declare a moratorium on using the phrase "being open to new ideas" only meaning "not being open to any new ideas except those that involve gay sex"? It's getting old. Thanks.

So I recently came across the story about the Starbucks at Baylor that pulled a coffee cup from its shelves that has a quote on it that reads:

My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short.

This post is typical of the reaction in the blogosphere, throwing around the word "hate" when Christians express their opinions about homosexuality and, my favorite, decrying the cup censorship as an example of Christians not being open to new ideas. Reread the quote but replace the word "gay" with "Christian" and the word "someone" with "Jesus" and think about how the news coverage might be different if Berkeley had decided not to stock this cup. Oh, wait, there wouldn't be any news coverage. And any bloggers who got wind of it would certainly not accuse Berkeley of being closed to new ideas or call it a hateful campus.

If you're a gay man you can make fun of Christians publicly, call them ignorant and stupid, ridicule Jesus and deem Christian beliefs dangerous and wrong, but if a Christian says that he thinks a homosexual lifestyle is inappropriate it's hate speech.

Two of the couples that my husband and I count among our dearest friends are gay and the officiant for my wedding was gay, so obviously I don't have a big issue with homosexuality (although I don't think that two dudes getting married is the exact same thing as a man and a woman getting married). But as a person who is actually open to new ideas, I don't have an issue with my Christian friends who think that homosexuality is inappropriate. And, frankly, watching them get raked over the coals every time they simply express their opinions makes me increasingly sick of the hypocrisy and self-centeredness of the gay community.

I suppose to pacify the trolls I need to actually type out the obvious statement that gay-bashing is wrong and any sort of physical or mental abuse based on one's sexual orientation is wrong. But, just as nobody makes the case that simply saying that Christians are stupid is a dangerously slippery slope that could lead to Christian-bashing, nobody should make the ridiculous case that Christians not wanting to read preachy gay propaganda while sipping their lattes is a half-step away from gay-bashing. Maybe they're not open to new ideas, but neither is the gay community.

The right environment

2005-09-17T00:52:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest things I've been struggling with lately is that I still don't feel God's presence on a minute-to-minute basis...or at all, really. After I had my big realization in July that I could be a logical, reasonable person and still believe in God I kind of expected it all to instantaneously fall into place, for the credits to start rolling as the camera panned over a shot of me smiling peacefully while reading the Bible.

But that hasn't happened, and I've spent a lot of time wondering why.

First of all, I've realized that going from non-belief to belief is not an instantaneous event. Rather than being struck by spiritual lightning and falling to your knees, shouting, "I now believe!" I've come to understand that for most people it's more of a gradual process, littered with setbacks and ups and downs. I can accept that and it helps keep me focused on this process.

But, most importantly, I also have to consider my environment. If there is a God there are definitely certain environments that are more conducive to you feeling his presence. For example, sitting in unexpected traffic is certainly less conducive to getting in touch with God than, say, camping in the Rocky Mountains.

I need to continue to remind myself that, even for those who have a firm belief in God, there are times and places that are much more conducive to experiencing his presence than others. And my cluttered, chaotic house with a teething baby who hates to sleep is not one of those places.

Fairly frequently I catch myself thinking, "Come on, if God existed I would surely feel his presence by now. This can't be real." But then again, I'm not sure if I'm really giving him a chance here. Perhaps my living room where SportsCenter is turned up so that it can be heard over my baby banging a wooden toy on the coffee table is not the environment where I'm most likely to have my first deep understanding of God.

Big hurdles: The Adam and Eve story

2005-09-14T13:42:00.000-05:00

Ever since I actually opened my mind to Christianity (rather than just vociferously describing myself as "open-minded," which I used to do all the time) I've found acceptable answers to some major hurdles to faith. Hopefully this post will be the first of many on this subject.

What about all that Adam and Eve stuff? No reasonable person could believe that's literally true, therefore the rest of the Bible must be suspect as well.

This was a big one for me. Especially when you approach the topic with a cynical, bitchy attitude it's easy to write this off as a bunch of silly stories. But when you calm down and actually open your mind and think, "ok, is there any way this could be true and/or be the inspired word of God?" a funny thing happens: it starts to seem plausible.

Do I literally think that two people named Adam and Eve were hanging out with God and talking snakes in a place called the Garden of Eden? Not exactly. But I think it could be true in a sense. For example:

When my son is four years old and starts asking questions like where babies come from I'm not going to open up a copy of Hustler and give him all the graphic details. I'm going to tell him something that's based in truth, but more appropriate and palatable to his four-year-old mind. I'll probably say something like, "When two people love each other very much a baby is formed, and it grows in Mommy's tummy" or something like that.

Is it the literal, scientific truth? Not really. But it answers his question sufficiently without overwhelming him or telling him things he's not ready to hear. I have a lot of nuanced reasons for not explaining sex in all its complexity to him, though his limited intellect couldn't understand that. He should just trust me that I know what I'm doing and will reveal information about the world to him as is appropriate.

Let's say for the sake of argument that there is a God and that a few thousand years ago he decided to hand down an inspired text to people to explain life and how they should worship him, one that would be accessible to people of all intellects, at any place and time on earth. Would it have made sense for him to start off with, "When I first created the universe it consisted mostly of photons and other massless particles like neutrinos…"? No. Just like I wouldn't answer my four-year-old's question about where babies come from with a complicated discourse on humans sexual mores, it's plausible that God told people the truth, but just framed it in a way that made it more palatable to them and the times they lived in.

What to expect in terms of updates

2005-09-13T23:23:00.000-05:00

I've been going through phases with this whole religious quest thing. Often I get in the mode where I realize that this is the most important endeavor of my life and spend every second of free time thinking and reading and posting about God. That usually leads to a sort of spiritual burnout where I need to chill for a few days and ponder only things like why Fox keeps moving the schedule for Arrested Development.

I often feel stress that readers to this site will think I've given up or stopped updating and stop reading the site. This is of particular concern with this blog since 90% of its purpose is for me to get feedback from people with interesting thoughts on Christianity.

So, I just want to reiterate how very much all the comments and feedback and suggestions mean to me. This week I'm not reading or thinking about religion as much so I don't have much to say, but please know that I'm reading all your comments and emails with delight and will be posting again soon.

And my posting will probably continue to be cyclical -- five one week then none the next. But please bear with me, because I'm going to need all the help I can get. :)

Too much information

2005-09-05T23:02:00.000-05:00

The biggest breakthrough I've had so far came when I pondered a relatively simple question: what is information?

One of the professors interviewed in Lee Strobel's The Case for the Creator made the point that we intuitively understand that information always comes from intelligence. No reasonable person would try to argue otherwise. If you suggested that the Rosetta stone was formed by erosion or that a billboard just naturally formed alongside the highway, people would not only laugh at you but probably question your sanity.

The more I thought about it the more solidly I was convinced that I believe that information always comes from intelligence, with no exceptions.

Around the same time I started reading up on DNA -- I managed to get out of taking biology in both high school and college so I didn't know much about it. The more I read, the more striking it became: this is information. And it makes sense. How else can a being replicate itself but with information?

When I put those two ideas together is the first time I truly believed in some sort of God. To get my son from a couple of cells at the moment of conception to the toddler who just grabbed my mouse and threw it in the trash must require information (and a lot of it).

My father always explained to me that people created belief in God because they couldn't figure out any better explanations for why things happened. They didn't know why the stars existed or how mountains formed, so they attributed it to some sort of supernatural being for lack of anything better to think. When I started exploring religion I assumed that if I came to believe in God it would be along similar lines of thought, a sort of, "well, I can't think of anything better so I guess I'll just go with the 'ol God theory."

But this changes things. I don't believe that life was created by intelligence because I'm grasping at straws. I believe that intelligence is behind DNA for the same reason I believe that intelligence (using the term loosely) is behind that Bud Lite billboard I pass on my way to the store every day: it's information.

As I've said in other posts, I think I'm most of the way there intellectually. Surprisingly, that part of it just fell into place almost immediately once I started exploring the subject. But I have yet to make much progress emotionally, and that promises to be the hardest part.

When Christians and atheists debate

2005-09-01T23:24:00.000-05:00

I sat down to work on a post but ended up spending all my free time reading this Christianity 101 debate on The Raving Atheist. Be sure to check out the comments from Frank, jb, and Steve G. If they don't have their own sites they really should.

Anyway, this discussion pretty closely mirrors my adult interactions with Christians and atheists:

- Atheists are particularly bothered by Christianity and get much more upset and flustered when discussing it versus other religions. Something tells me Seth and AK aren't making comments with the same tone regarding Hindus and Muslims.

- It's easier to find a calm, rational Christian who will engage in a friendly debate and walk you through his point of view than it is to find a calm, rational atheist. They tend to get nasty and flustered pretty easily in these sorts of discussions.

- By and large, atheists are just as, if not more, zealous about their beliefs than Christians. Just look at all the words dedicated to debunking Christian theories in this one discussion on this one random site. Why spend so much time talking about something you truly don't believe in? Are these people also burning up the Santa Claus forums and debating kids about what really happens in the North Pole? They often come up with an ulterior motive so they don't seem so ridiculous, usually something about wanting to change Christianity's bad influence on politics or culture or something, but obviously their pissy little comments on some dude's blog are not going to make anyone renounce God, so why do it?

That's actually the subject of the post I sat down to write. I don't have time to finish it now, but consider this a sneak preview of fascinating posts to come. I know you'll hold your breath.

The kindness of strangers

2005-09-01T22:29:00.000-05:00

After a shocking trip to Babies R Us I decided to get on the free message board Craigslist this afternoon to see if I could find a used stroller that wasn't totally overpriced. I happened to see the link to the New Orleans section and clicked on it just to see if anyone was posting.

Check out the Housing section. There are thousands of posts from today alone.

Sometimes I need a forceful reminder that people don't totally suck after all.

More thoughts...

2005-08-31T22:27:00.000-05:00

A quick update to my post about some of my early experiences with Christians. I was totally exhausted when I wrote that and threw it together very quickly so I missed a couple of the major points I wanted to make:

A key thing to understand about my early experiences (and the major take-away for Christian parents) is that the children I grew up around definitely knew to be kind and understanding to those who weren't familiar with the message of the Bible. The problem was that since I was so much like them in so many ways they assumed that I'd had the same upbringing as they had. These kids just took it for granted that every middle-class suburban kid knew the different between an epistle and an apostle and had heard about Jesus and what he came here to do. So, looking back, I realize that they treated me so unkindly because they thought that I knew all that they knew about the Bible and its message but just chose to reject it. They probably thought I didn't own a Bible because I threw mine away or something.

Of course ideally they still should have treated me with kindness, but they were just kids and they saw my indifference toward Jesus as a direct insult to someone they loved. I think that seeing it from that point of view makes their reaction more understandable. And, not surprisingly, most the bad experiences I've had with Christians came from childhood. I've found the majority Christians I've met as an adult to be welcoming and positive.

I meant to add that to the last post to make it clear that I understand that a) just because I had some bad experiences with Christians doesn't mean the religion itself is bad but, more importantly, b) I don't think the treatment I received was quite as bad as it seems when you consider the situation as the other kids understood it.

What on earth is an "Evangelical/Holiness Wesleyan"?

2005-08-31T15:57:00.000-05:00

I did one of those silly internet quizzes on what my theological worldview is. Here are the results. I have no idea what they mean.

--------------------------------------------

You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

71%

Roman Catholic

61%

Neo orthodox

57%

Classical Liberal

50%

Reformed Evangelical

39%

Emergent/Postmodern

32%

Fundamentalist

25%

Modern Liberal

18%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

14%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

Growing up atheist in a Christian town

2005-08-30T15:16:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about how it is that I've spent my whole life surrounded by Christians but yet did not once consider opening my mind to what the Bible has to say until a few weeks ago. There are a lot of reasons but one of the biggest external factor was my childhood experiences. I learned early on from my parents that going to church and believing in God was something for other people, not for us. And my early experiences with Christians confirmed this idea.

When I moved to the suburbs of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area when I was eight years old the first questions all the children at my new elementary school asked me was what church I went to. I was initially caught off guard by the question and stammered something about us not having found one we liked yet. But after a few months of living there it became clear to everyone that we were just not churchgoing people, and it made it harder for me to make friends.

Even after I'd made friends and was no longer the new kid I still suffered frequent jabs such as being told I was going to burn in hell or that my parents were bad people -- and that was what my friends said.

When I was ten a group of my friends started going away to a cool Christian summer camp each year and I tagged along with them. I'd read on the list of things to pack that you were supposed to have a Bible. My family didn't own a Bible but I managed to dig up a copy of the New Testament that some religious group had given out at my school a couple months before. Little did I know what sort of reaction this would bring when I got to summer camp.

"Stupid," "Satan-worshipper," and "disgusting" were some of the words that my camp counselor and the other girls in my cabin used to describe the fact that I didn't have my own Bible to bring (sometimes to my face, sometimes just talking loudly so that I'd overhear). My camp counselor told me the only way to make up for being such a bad person was to get saved. My deer-in-the-headlights look belied the fact that I had no idea what she was talking about. When she clarified and asked if I was willing to accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior I just said, "I'm not sure." I had no idea who Jesus was or what was involved in this lord and savior business.

That turned out the be the "I'm not sure" heard 'round the world, or around that camp, anyway. None of the girls associated with me for the rest of the week and the friends who I'd come with tried to distance themselves from me. Meanwhile, I was just bewildered by the whole thing.

What's interesting is that the girls in my cabin would excitedly talk about the mission trips they'd taken to various places in the world and how good it felt to spread the word of Christ to the native peoples of various countries. These kids understood the concept of being kind to those who weren't Christians and knew to act as ambassadors of Christianity when traveling in third world countries. But it never occurred to them to apply that concept to people in their own country, let alone their own cabin at camp.

Not once in my childhood did another kid take interest in the fact that I wasn't a Christian and calmly offer to tell me about their beliefs. I think they assumed that I'd heard the message and just chose to reject it. Little did they know that I didn't know who Jesus was supposed to be until I was 12.

I think this scenario is probably much more common today than it was when I was a kid. Atheism is more widespread now and I personally know of a lot of families that don't own one Bible. The kids in these families don't hear anything positive about Christianity at home or in the media, so their only chance to hear the other side of the story is from friends who are Christians. And if they're treated with scorn by the churchgoing crowd it only serves to cement the "us vs. them" mentality and makes it much harder to overcome later in life.

I hope that churches are starting to understand this, and I hope they're starting to teach children that they need to act as ambassadors to Christianity in their home town as much, if not more, than when they're on mission trips.

In hope of happy endings

2005-08-22T22:26:00.000-05:00

I had a sad moment tonight. I was reading a study of some feral children who had been raised by animals in India. These two girls were discovered when they were young adults and brought back into civilization. They were able to come a long way from acting like wild animals, but the one thing they were never able to grasp was language. Similar studies with other feral children have confirmed the theory that if you do not acquire language skills as a child it's impossible to learn it as an adult.

Sometimes I think the same is true of belief in God.

To feel on a deep level that the world and its people are a product of something more than just platetectonics and natural selection seems to require synapses that I just don't have. Intellectually I am convinced of intelligent design, but it's a concept that I can't wrap my mind around emotionally. I remind myself to look around and see God in the world but I end up just seeing traffic and the grocery store, nothing more. I don't feel God's presence right now, just the chill of the air conditioner.

I have read so many stories of skeptics who became Christians that at the beginning of this adventure I kind of assumed that that's how it would end. I mean, everyone who goes looking for God with an open heart finds him, right?

But I'm starting to worry that that's not how it'll end for me. Maybe, like the feral children trying to learn language, I'll always be a reluctant atheist, trying to find God but just not seeing him anywhere. It makes me so sad to picture myself as a 60-year-old, saying, "Yeah, I really did try to believe in God. I researched and prayed and opened my mind and wanted it more than anything. But I just couldn't force myself to believe." At least I'd never need to worry about the story of my life getting overplayed on the Hallmark channel.

Anyway, maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I need to get involved in a church. But I keep having to fight the disheartening feeling that this whole thing might have a horribly lackluster ending.

This might be true

2005-08-17T13:51:00.000-05:00

It was about this time last year that my husband and I agreed that we should start going to church. I was pregnant, and it was becoming increasingly important to me to figure out my religious beliefs the closer it go to the baby's due date.

I planned to find a nice church to join, hopefully with lots of other young families like ours. I even planned to work on my faith and try to come to some sort of peace with the concept of intelligent design. It never even occurred to me to believe in Jesus. Not once. I didn't even think that that was what modern Christians were supposed to do. I thought we all agreed that all those stories were pretty far-fetched and we should just think of Jesus as a nice guy who had interesting things to say. I honestly thought the only difference between most Christians and non-Christians was that Christians just really liked what Jesus had to say and wanted to talk about it once a week.

Then a few weeks ago on Friday, July 22 I was passing time in Borders while my mom was getting a birthday massage and I happened to see The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. I started flipping through it. I couldn't put it down. I read late into that night, called a babysitter to help me with my son Saturday during the day so I could read, and continued devouring every page until the wee hours of Sunday morning. It was around noon on Sunday when I'd finished it.

I set the book down and fell back onto my pillows, staring straight ahead. I couldn't believe how much my worldview had changed over the course of one weekend. There was suddenly so much more at stake. My search for religion was no longer an interesting little thought exercise, my evaluation of churches no longer centered around how easy it was to park.

A bit in shock, for the first time in my life, I looked over at the Bible on my nightstand and thought, "This might be true."

Thanks for the comments

2005-08-17T13:49:00.000-05:00

Thank you so much to those of you who have commented on my last post. One of my hopes for this site is that I'll get feedback and guidance from Christians. So this is possibly the only blog on the internet where unsolicited advice is welcome.

And I will absolutely keep updating, regardless of where my journey takes me. I want to be honest here. I want to give Christians and atheists alike a glimpse into the struggle of trying to find God when you've been raised to believe he's as real as the Tooth Fairy. It's hard work. And it's often not pretty. But hopefully there's a happy ending.

OK, I'm convinced. Now what?

2005-08-15T14:58:00.000-05:00

I need to get some sort of Cliff's Notes version of the Bible sometime this week.

I've been devouring books on religion for a couple of months now and am intellectually convinced of the following things:

Some sort of intelligence created the universe.
There is good reason to believe it is the God that the Bible talks about.
Once you truly believe in God it's pretty easy to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. The evidence there is pretty compelling.

All of this makes sense logically but, as I mentioned in my first post, my heart has yet to catch up. I've tried praying but can't stop the voice in the back of my head that says, "I am talking to myself here. This is crazy." I think I have truly opened my mind and my heart to the possibility of believing in God, so I'm not sure what to do next.

In some of these books the authors talk about how enriching it is once you finally believe. I get really frustrated and pissed that I haven't been able to make it happen for myself. Last night I thought, "This is so hard! If only God had given people some sort of written instructions for how to believe in him!"

Oh, yeah. I guess he did.

So I picked up the Bible I bought last week (the first I've ever owned) and started reading. Wow, that's some dense stuff. And it's LONG! It would take me like, I don't know, decades to read the whole thing. So I'm looking for some sort of summary that will give me the basic gist of what the Bible says about how I'm supposed to seek God and Jesus or whatever.

Then I found myself thinking, "If there were only a place where I could go and talk to Christians and have them explain this stuff to me!"

Umm, yeah, I guess there are places like that.

This realization that the Bible and churches might actually serve a purpose has been a big one for me. My whole life I've obviously been aware that these things existed but thought of the Bible as a collection of fairy tales (sorry, it's true) and thought of church as having a purely social function. It's like I'm seeing these things for the first time now.

If you had told me two years ago that today I would be open to the possibilities that Bible is a truthful book that I might use to guide my life and that going to church might help me get in touch with God, who exists, I would have probably collapsed from shock. No. I *definitely* would have collapsed from shock.

So I've come a long way, but I still have a long way to go. I worry that this spiritual journey is going end in a dead end. I've gone as far as I can intellectually, and now it's time to believe emotionally. But that's not something I can control. I can think and rationalize and analyze all day long with absolutely no impact on my heart, and that's the big battle that needs to be won.

Wish me luck.

The luxury of atheism

2005-08-12T10:19:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine from high school stopped by last night to catch up over a glass of wine. She's in town briefly before going back to grad school to become a psychiatrist and was telling me about her summer job working in a home for troubled children.

This particular home is for kids who have been taken away from their parents but are not ready to go into the foster system because of behavioral or mental issues. Their stories are some of the saddest I've ever heard. I won't burden you with the details, but suffice to say that many of these kids have experienced the worst kinds of trauma life has to offer. And what was even more troubling is that this home serves a rather small city. I cannot even imagine the tales from homes like this in Chicago or New York.

As she was telling me the types of therapy the social workers use to help these children, it occurred to me that this sounds like the perfect place for religion. Now that I've been studying Christianity and know more about what it actually teaches, it seems like the message that God loves all people and that Jesus is on your side would be perfect for these kids. So I asked what sort of church/religious program the home includes.

She shrugged. "They can go to church on Sundays if they want," she said. "But we don't push that. We don't feel like it's right to impose religious beliefs on them."

Really? It seems to me like that is quite possibly the only thing they need.

It's easy to shrug off the concept that God loves you when you come from a relatively stable home and have parents who love you. You get a sense of self-worth and reason for being from your family, so you have the luxury of not needing to worry about whether there's a God who cares about you too.

One of the things that's most psychologically dangerous about this atheistic mindset is that it means that humans are the highest power in the known universe. And these kids have been told by the humans who know them best -- their parents -- that they're worthless, despicable and unworthy of love. I doubt it's much help to them when the social workers tell them that they're actually great people. After all, the social workers don't know them as well as their parents did, and their parents cast them aside like old trash.

I'm sure that the ultimate reason behind not "imposing" God on these kids is the politically correct train of thought that nobody can say for sure whether one religion is more true than another, so it's not right to tell anyone that the Bible is the word of a God who exists when it may very well be false. But what the people who run this home seem to be missing is that it doesn't really matter whether or not the Bible is 100% true. Tell them anyway. If you don't believe it personally, lie.

The kids in homes like this have almost no hope of ever doing anything with their lives. 95% end up in prison, mental institutions, or worse. You can say with near certainty that each kid is going to have a horrible life and die young. But do the social workers tell them that? No. They lie. They give them a message of hope that they can be anything, do anything and the sky's the limit. They do it because it's so good for the kids to hear such positive thoughts about their future -- and, besides, there's always that 5% chance that any one of the kids will beat the odds and turn his life around.

So why not just tell them to turn to the Bible for comfort and believe that there's a God who loves them unconditionally, even if you don't believe it yourself? It would be such a powerful message of comfort for a child who has been beaten down physically and mentally by the humans who were supposed to love him most. And, like the odds of them turning their lives around, you may think it's unlikely that what you're teaching them about religion is 100% true, but telling them anyway is the right thing to do.

Whoever supports not making Christianity a major component of these homes cannot have ever known what it's like to feel completely unloved. These social workers can go home to their spouses and children and take comfort in knowing that they're cherished and needed. Whereas the kids are left to lie in bed each night alone, feeling loved by no one. But at least no one imposed their religious beliefs on them.

Christians and conflict of interest

2005-08-11T18:04:00.000-05:00

I just came across Christopher Morris' Boston Globe editorial (via Anchor Rising) in which he suggests that Catholic judges have a conflict of interest when it comes to Roe v. Wade.

It's ridiculous to cite conflict of interest based on religion alone since all people have deeply held opinions about what is right and wrong. Does a liberal judge not have his own strongly-held morals that might influence his opinion (to say, declare it unconstitutional to say "God" in the pledge of allegiance or to mysteriously find rights to gay marriage in centuries-old constitutions)?

It's unfair that Christians constantly have the conflict of interest card pulled on them just because a) they actually admit to having a belief system and b) it's clear, predictable and written down. The fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, I-know-it-when-I-see-it value system of the atheist left leads to convictions that are as strongly held as the most devout Christian's, the only difference being that they're based on individual opinions rather than time tested scriptures.

But that's beside the point.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and assume that Morris leans left politically and is pro-choice. He seems to have skipped the class in the 6th grade where the rest of us learned about the Constitution and the Supreme Court because, like most liberals and abortion supporters, he seems to think that Roe v. Wade is what makes abortion legal and that a pro-life justice could not defend a position that supported Roe.

But, luckily, Roberts probably understands that as a Supreme Court Justice all he'd have to do is read the Constitution and see what it says. He could easily be against abortion but find that the Fourteenth Amendment was indeed implying a right to terminate a pregnancy at any point in gestation, thus supporting Roe. If that's what it says, that's what it says. No moral judgment involved.

I suspect that the bishops Morris was referring to were unhappy with Kerry because of his support for abortion, not his opinion on Roe v. Wade. If they were, they need to join Morris in a Constitution 101 class at the local community college where they can all learn together that your opinion about whether or not abortion should be legal and your opinion on the Roe ruling can (and should) be two separate things. One is a question about when life begins, the other is a question about what is written down in the Constitution.

But, ultimately, I think that this is just a case of projecting onto others those traits which you recognize in yourself. Judicial activism is a much more typical characteristic of the "spiritual but not religious" crowd on the left. Notice that when Christian and conservative groups wanted to ban gay marriage they were proposing a constitutional amendment, i.e. following the set procedures for how you go about making changes to the laws. Just getting some judges to suddenly discover it in the Constitution would have been much easier, but that's not typically how they operate. Christians are comfortable with the concept of following laws. They understand at an early age that when it comes to laws, whether they're God's or the country's, your personal opinion doesn't matter. There is a system in place designed by God in the spiritual world and by the government in the material world, and if you want to make changes you need to work within that system.

You don't generally see that sort of deep understanding and respect for laws on the left, possibly because of the disconnect with religion. Everything is subjective, rules were made to be broken if it doesn't sound right to you personally, so it's okay to go around the system and "find" things that don't exist in the laws as long as you're doing the right thing.

Morris and his ilk need to stop the melodramatic hand-wringing about Christian conflict of interest and admit that these folks are much more likely to have respect for the system than people who think that humans and their opinions are the highest force in the universe.

All the labors of the ages

2005-08-10T17:53:00.000-05:00

I was raised to believe that God does not exist. When I was about 11 years old, for the first time, I realized what that meant. To quote atheist Bertrand Russell:

That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collections of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave.

That all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction...that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried.

All these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand...Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

About two years ago I decided to actually do my own research and try to come to my own conclusions about God. I realized that despite my mantra of being "open-minded" about religion I was actually quite closed to ideas that didn't fit with my atheist worldview.

So here I am. Two years and a lot of research later I'm still not sure what I think. I've uncovered a lot of information and philosophical perspectives that I certainly was not told about as a kid and am still trying to process it all. After educating myself more about physics and biology I now believe intellectually in some sort of intelligent design, but my heart has yet to catch up. To be totally honest with myself, I'm still functionally an atheist. But I want to believe. My logical mind tells me some sort of creator exists. Some deep gut feeling tells me God exists. But I have a long way to go.