My Journey From Catholicism To Atheism And Back

[Dr_Asik]

Back when I was in college, I was a practicing Catholic and read a lot of thomism. I was in love with Thomas Aquinas' work and thought he and Aristotle were basically right about everything. I thought I had found a solid system of thought that could basically make sense out of everything.

 

I was wrong.

 

I eventually found myself grasping at intellectual straws and I was so far from answering modern questions about the nature of reality, of time and free will and the beginning of the universe, that it was all a futile enterprise. Meanwhile I had placed much confidence in the institution of the Catholic Church as an infallible teaching entity, but it couldn't answer some tough questions I had. The main reason I eventually abandoned Catholic faith was the doctrine of Providence: I couldn't reconcile the idea of a God that cared and acted about in the world with the existence of blind universal physical laws and the apparent rarity of miracles.

 

From there I concluded that if God existed, then he merely set the world in motion with its laws and let it run carelessly. This was of course incompatible with everything about Christian faith. I stopped practicing and praying because, well, what's the point if God doesn't really do anything?

 

Then I put the existence of God in question as well, since after all it's not at all obvious that God exists, and there's not much point proving God exists if that doesn't change anything to our lives. I never really was positively an atheist - I couldn't affirm something like "God probably doesn't exist", but for all practical purposes I was.

 

That said, I wasn't done trying to find meaning to life and the universe, so I started wondering how to think about these in an atheistic, or, more to the point, naturalistic sense. Having read a lot of Aristotle helped me find grounds for ethics in human nature (as opposed to divine command), but ultimately, individual life seemed utterly vain. The best I could hope to achieve was to leave some meaningful legacy, but given that all life on earth will inevitably be erased in perhaps a couple of millions of years, and that even if we escape, the entire universe's destiny seems to be an eternal heat death, all is absolutely vain in a naturalistic perspective. As far as I'm concerned, in a short amount of time it'll be as if I had never existed.

 

That's not cool. Why do anything if it's absolutely in vain? Life in a naturalistic perspective seems to be about trying to forget about its absurdity and enjoy it anyway through fostering of positive emotions. I like positive emotions like anyone else, but I certainly wish there was more to life than the pursuit of that, I mean, it seems pretty animalistic and pointless. I don't see how I could be truly happy while consciously fooling myself.

 

So I read. Lots and lots. I won't talk about all I read because that would make this already long post unbearable. Among other things though, I read that from a neurological perspective, consciousness and free will are basically illusions. I also had the pleasure of discovering philosopher Alex Rosenberg (which I think everyone should read, both naturalists and Christians!), who fully and honestly embraces naturalism and goes down the rabbit hole of its absurdities as far as it'll go. Rosenberg brillantly shows that following naturalism to its logical consequences means that our whole intuitive perception of things, i.e. that I persist in time, that I have mental states, that I think about stuff, that events have causes, that some things are objectively morally wrong, etc., that's all illusory. There's not just no God, there's no you!

 

At that point I thought that if theism had seemed absurd, then naturalism was way worse. I also had the intuition that approaching Catholic faith solely through Medieval philosophy and dogma was perhaps not giving it a fair chance. So I took a new approach: History. After all, Christianism is about a historical figure called Christ, and the historical things he supposedly did.

 

A lot of utterly wrong ideas and misinformation floats in the intellectual air of our times. I had no idea that, for instance, the idea of Christ as a mythical figure had been effectively refuted by modern historians, or that Luke-Acts was remarkably accurate and irrefutably authentic in its depiction of characters and geography of the time. I eventually bought and read The Historical Jesus of the Gospels by evangelist scholar Craig S. Keener, which was the best and most recent book on the topic I could find. In this book, one of the leading experts in biblical scholarship argues that the synoptic gospels are basically reliable works of historiography, even on matters such as the Resurrection. I found that Keener was far from alone in defending this, although other scholars disagree (notably Bart D. Ehrman, which I find very sympathetic).

 

Nonetheless, it seemed reasonable to believe that Jesus actually existed and actually did the things that the Gospels say he did. This was a major and unexpected breakthrough in my quest and I'm still reading all I can on the topic.

 

Another major influence was William Lane Craig, who is a real philosopher with a deep understanding of various metaphysical topics, particularly the existence of God, the nature of time and how God carries out his Providence. In particular, Craig is known for having won every single one of his debates against atheists, in good part due to his superior mastery of philosophy (which your typical astrophysicist or biblical scholar lacks), and in good part due to his incomparable rhetorical skill in debate. I strongly recommend watching his debate against Alex Rosenberg.

 

Anyway, in reading Craig I found some answers or at least hints of answers to most of the questions I had been finding unanswered in thomism. This, combined with my discovery of the historical Jesus as well the deep absurdity of naturalism, led me back to Catholicism as the most credible and rational view of life. That said, I am much less interested in dogma than before, and having acquainted myself with recent research on early Christianity and Jesus of Nazareth, I now find some of the teachings of the Church to be quite remote from the original core of Christian faith and tend to take teachings of the Church with a grain of salt.

 

I'd like to note that both William Lane Craig and Craig S. Keener are Evangelical, and that Catholics would do themselves a favor by reading them anyway. I also think Catholics would do well by reading and understanding the best atheist and naturalistic thinkers of our time, as opposing opinions shouldn't be feared but embraced.

[Cherie]

Wow, thank you for sharing!

[Perigrina]

Are you familiar with the work of Edward Feser?  He is one of the leading contemporary neo-Thomists.  I think you might appreciate his journey from atheism: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2012/07/road-from-atheism.html

 

 

But I was still a theist for a time, though that wouldn’t survive my undergrad years.  Kierkegaard was my first real philosophical passion, and his individualistic brand of religiosity greatly appealed to me.  But the individualistic irreligion of Nietzsche would come to appeal to me more, and for a time he was my hero, with Walter Kaufmann a close second.  (I still confess an affection for Kaufmann.  Nietzsche, not so much.)  Analytic philosophy would, before long, bring my youthful atheism down to earth.  For the young Nietzschean the loss of religion is a grand, civilizational crisis, and calls for an equally grand response on the part of a grand individual like himself.  For the skeptical analytic philosopher it’s just a matter of rejecting some bad arguments, something one does quickly and early in one’s philosophical education before getting on to the really interesting stuff.  And that became my “settled” atheist position while in grad school.  Atheism was like belief in a spherical earth -- something everyone in possession of the relevant facts knows to be true, and therefore not worth getting too worked up over or devoting too much philosophical attention to.

 

[mortify ii]

An interesting story! I think sometimes we over complicate things with intellectual pursuits. Yes, God can be known through reason, but God can be known other ways as well. For me "theism" was the default position, I am a homoreligiousus by nature and simply conform to my nature when I worship God. If my physical thirst and hunger lead to realities then so must my spiritual thirst. The idea of a self sufficient universe is an absurd cartesian-newtonian myth. From this the idea of God as "watchmaker" came about, as if He were present at the beginning and then stepped aside, and yet we know that God is infinitely imminent. This very moment is preserved and upheld by Him. All we need is to sit still, focus on the moment, and know that He is God. 

[CatherineM]

And people wonder why I dislike philosophy. It's so easy to go down the wrong path. It's like trying to climb Everest without a Sherpa.

[Dr_Asik]

Are you familiar with the work of Edward Feser?  He is one of the leading contemporary neo-Thomists.  I think you might appreciate his journey from atheism: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2012/07/road-from-atheism.html

I'm aware of him but haven't read much. Thanks for the link, that looks like a much longer and more interesting account than mine!

 

And people wonder why I dislike philosophy. It's so easy to go down the wrong path. It's like trying to climb Everest without a Sherpa.

I don't think I have a choice but to philosophize; the questions are there and one way or another I will end up with an opinion about them. Might as well be an informed one. :)

Edited June 1, 2014 by Dr_Asik

[marigold]

The best I could hope to achieve was to leave some meaningful legacy, but given that all life on earth will inevitably be erased in perhaps a couple of millions of years, and that even if we escape, the entire universe's destiny seems to be an eternal heat death, all is absolutely vain in a naturalistic perspective. As far as I'm concerned, in a short amount of time it'll be as if I had never existed.

 

That's not cool. Why do anything if it's absolutely in vain?

 

See, I always thought it would be sweet to have no consequences, no ultimate meaning, nothing to make objective mine or anybody else's existence. Take revenge, spend the money, eat the cake, and lie amid the daisies wiggling your toes, for tomorrow we die. 

 

It was the experience of lying awake at night with the awful feeling that it DID all have meaning that sent me running to the Church.

[Perigrina]

I'm aware of him but haven't read much. Thanks for the link, that looks like a much longer and more interesting account than mine!

 

 

Your account was plenty interesting.  And you are on the same forum as me so you win.   :hehe2:

[Ash Wednesday]

 

the entire universe's destiny seems to be an eternal heat death, all is absolutely vain in a naturalistic perspective. As far as I'm concerned, in a short amount of time it'll be as if I had never existed.

 

That's not cool.

 

I love this way of putting it. Dare I say it sounds very Lebowski, but I mean that in the best way possible.

 

Really enjoyed your writeup.

[Dr_Asik]

I love this way of putting it. Dare I say it sounds very Lebowski, but I mean that in the best way possible.

 

Really enjoyed your writeup.

Thanks, but I'm not sure I get the reference.

 

[Nihil Obstat]

I love this way of putting it. Dare I say it sounds very Lebowski, but I mean that in the best way possible.

 

Really enjoyed your writeup.

[Ash Wednesday]

Thanks, but I'm not sure I get the reference.

 

I liked your way of words, I'll just leave it at that. Welcome to PM!

Edited June 3, 2014 by Ash Wednesday

[Winchester]

It's not in vain, because the experiences of those who are alive, both now and in the future are apparently real. At the very least, the illusion of the continuity of consciousness creates experiences that feel real. That the universe may come to an end or to a point where life will be impossible in no way diminishes the lives lived up until that point. It could be argued that it makes it even more important to minimize the suffering in those lives, since they are truly brief. The absence of a larger, perpetual purpose does not render lower order purposes meaningless.

[Luigi]

Thanks, but I'm not sure I get the reference.

 

The reference is to the movie "The Big Lebowski." I've seen only clips from it myself.

[XIX]

Back when I was in college, I was a practicing Catholic and read a lot of thomism. I was in love with Thomas Aquinas' work and thought he and Aristotle were basically right about everything. I thought I had found a solid system of thought that could basically make sense out of everything.

 

I was wrong.

 

I eventually found myself grasping at intellectual straws and I was so far from answering modern questions about the nature of reality, of time and free will and the beginning of the universe, that it was all a futile enterprise. Meanwhile I had placed much confidence in the institution of the Catholic Church as an infallible teaching entity, but it couldn't answer some tough questions I had. The main reason I eventually abandoned Catholic faith was the doctrine of Providence: I couldn't reconcile the idea of a God that cared and acted about in the world with the existence of blind universal physical laws and the apparent rarity of miracles.

 

From there I concluded that if God existed, then he merely set the world in motion with its laws and let it run carelessly. This was of course incompatible with everything about Christian faith. I stopped practicing and praying because, well, what's the point if God doesn't really do anything?

 

Then I put the existence of God in question as well, since after all it's not at all obvious that God exists, and there's not much point proving God exists if that doesn't change anything to our lives. I never really was positively an atheist - I couldn't affirm something like "God probably doesn't exist", but for all practical purposes I was.

 

That said, I wasn't done trying to find meaning to life and the universe, so I started wondering how to think about these in an atheistic, or, more to the point, naturalistic sense. Having read a lot of Aristotle helped me find grounds for ethics in human nature (as opposed to divine command), but ultimately, individual life seemed utterly vain. The best I could hope to achieve was to leave some meaningful legacy, but given that all life on earth will inevitably be erased in perhaps a couple of millions of years, and that even if we escape, the entire universe's destiny seems to be an eternal heat death, all is absolutely vain in a naturalistic perspective. As far as I'm concerned, in a short amount of time it'll be as if I had never existed.

 

That's not cool. Why do anything if it's absolutely in vain? Life in a naturalistic perspective seems to be about trying to forget about its absurdity and enjoy it anyway through fostering of positive emotions. I like positive emotions like anyone else, but I certainly wish there was more to life than the pursuit of that, I mean, it seems pretty animalistic and pointless. I don't see how I could be truly happy while consciously fooling myself.

 

So I read. Lots and lots. I won't talk about all I read because that would make this already long post unbearable. Among other things though, I read that from a neurological perspective, consciousness and free will are basically illusions. I also had the pleasure of discovering philosopher Alex Rosenberg (which I think everyone should read, both naturalists and Christians!), who fully and honestly embraces naturalism and goes down the rabbit hole of its absurdities as far as it'll go. Rosenberg brillantly shows that following naturalism to its logical consequences means that our whole intuitive perception of things, i.e. that I persist in time, that I have mental states, that I think about stuff, that events have causes, that some things are objectively morally wrong, etc., that's all illusory. There's not just no God, there's no you!

 

At that point I thought that if theism had seemed absurd, then naturalism was way worse. I also had the intuition that approaching Catholic faith solely through Medieval philosophy and dogma was perhaps not giving it a fair chance. So I took a new approach: History. After all, Christianism is about a historical figure called Christ, and the historical things he supposedly did.

 

A lot of utterly wrong ideas and misinformation floats in the intellectual air of our times. I had no idea that, for instance, the idea of Christ as a mythical figure had been effectively refuted by modern historians, or that Luke-Acts was remarkably accurate and irrefutably authentic in its depiction of characters and geography of the time. I eventually bought and read The Historical Jesus of the Gospels by evangelist scholar Craig S. Keener, which was the best and most recent book on the topic I could find. In this book, one of the leading experts in biblical scholarship argues that the synoptic gospels are basically reliable works of historiography, even on matters such as the Resurrection. I found that Keener was far from alone in defending this, although other scholars disagree (notably Bart D. Ehrman, which I find very sympathetic).

 

Nonetheless, it seemed reasonable to believe that Jesus actually existed and actually did the things that the Gospels say he did. This was a major and unexpected breakthrough in my quest and I'm still reading all I can on the topic.

 

Another major influence was William Lane Craig, who is a real philosopher with a deep understanding of various metaphysical topics, particularly the existence of God, the nature of time and how God carries out his Providence. In particular, Craig is known for having won every single one of his debates against atheists, in good part due to his superior mastery of philosophy (which your typical astrophysicist or biblical scholar lacks), and in good part due to his incomparable rhetorical skill in debate. I strongly recommend watching his debate against Alex Rosenberg.

 

Anyway, in reading Craig I found some answers or at least hints of answers to most of the questions I had been finding unanswered in thomism. This, combined with my discovery of the historical Jesus as well the deep absurdity of naturalism, led me back to Catholicism as the most credible and rational view of life. That said, I am much less interested in dogma than before, and having acquainted myself with recent research on early Christianity and Jesus of Nazareth, I now find some of the teachings of the Church to be quite remote from the original core of Christian faith and tend to take teachings of the Church with a grain of salt.

 

I'd like to note that both William Lane Craig and Craig S. Keener are Evangelical, and that Catholics would do themselves a favor by reading them anyway. I also think Catholics would do well by reading and understanding the best atheist and naturalistic thinkers of our time, as opposing opinions shouldn't be feared but embraced.

This really speaks to me. Thanks so much for sharing.