With Lent starting tomorrow, I’m reminded of a string of what has to be my favorite posts in all of Et Tu?: Lent 2007. You were sick, pregnant, and not yet fully Catholic, although I think your heart came home long before Easter 2007. These are such great testimonies, I love them all. I’m so excited to go through and re-read them. Don’t be surprised if you get some comments on a few of these two-year-old gems. Thank you for sharing your journey, then and now.

xoxo

I said *a* main reason. That seems to be what Genesis is trying to convey, so I was questioning that.

And, indeed, I can see how from your side of the divide this seems like a travesty, an articulation of pure ego from a person gone mad, but I urge you to consider your own position. You may come to the conclusion that life has no meaning if there is no God. And that is good, as it shows you have intellectual rigor and hoensty. But if that is true, then it follows that your cogitations and their articulations have no more meaning than the wind rustling through the trees. I take this from Lewis’ “Is Theology Poetry” and also an argument that uses similar reasoning: http://ravingatheist.com/archives/2006/07/more_than_matter.php

That in mind, it definitely is a form of pride for you to argue against any proposition as one of the grounding axioms of your belief-set is a proof against all proofs. How can a creature who recognizes the meaninglessness of the very substance of their being even think that what they say makes any difference or has any meaning in any context whatsoever? Can the mere movement of the axons in your mind produce meaning? No? Then why act like they do…

You think I like being an atheist?

There is a joylessness to it, as I well know. When I was coming over to theism (and eventually to religion thereafter) one of the pricinple things that motivated me was a desire for a truth that wasn’t so dismal. This may seem to undercut the pure rationality of my choice, but pure rationality, just like other ‘goods’ becomes a false idol when not in servitude of God. The higher cannot stand without the lower, your emotions will make up a percentage of your reasoning whether you like it or not. In the end, I factored in that certainty, clarity of moral vision, and belief in doing things for objective good rather than mere advantage created health, organized personality, and were explanatorily fecund enough to satisfy my intellect.

I cannot understand how an intelligent, well-educated adult like Jen who was never conditioned to even believe in God let alone Sacred Scripture could now believe that this collection of ancient Jewish tribal folklore has God as its author.

I know where you’re coming from. I used to listen in on my college roommate’s Bible studies and think (or sometimes say), “You have GOT to be kidding me.”

But, first of all, the Catechism specifically says that the creation story is symbolic: “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work’, concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day.” (CCC 337)

Around the same time I started looking into Christianity I developed a fascination with oral story-telling traditions. I think it’s really neat how certain stories that are even thousands of years old can be passed down from one person to another (e.g. the stories Tudor Parfitt recounts in his fascinating book Journey to the Vanished City). When you think about it, though, you just can’t pass along great scientific detail without literacy. Imagine trying to recall your college physics class if you were never able to read anything or write anything down. So societies with low (or nonexistent) literacy rates rely heavily on symbolism to get the big picture across. And these are some of the takeaways we’re supposed to have from the creation story (from the Catechism):

- Nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator.
- Each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection.
- God wills the interdependence of creatures.
- Man is the summit of the Creator’s work.
- There is a solidarity among all creatures arising from the fact that all have the same Creator.
- Etc.

This doesn’t seem that crazy to me.

Yes, substitute a natural, undercutting reason for belief in the inerrancy of the book, and by doing so set up a nice little straw man to stroke your own intellectual pride and self-importance…

????? I’ve never understood — even when I was Catholic — why atheists are always accused of pride. I don’t get it. And self-importance? Anon, you’re the one who believes that you are made in the image of God. You’re the one who believes that you have an immortal soul. You’re the one who believes that the God who created the whole universe cares about little itty-bitty you.

Lay off your criticism, and show your newfound belief system is more than just an axe to grind.

Against whom or what? You think I like being an atheist? You think I like the idea that my loved ones are gone forever and that eventually I will be, too? I came across this site because I googled “reluctant atheist.” I stayed because I am intrigued by the fact that Jen and I are on the same path only going in opposite directions.

Darwin wrote:

… not only did Augustine consider the idea of a flat Earth silly, and believe that the earth was created long before 4000 BC, but it wasn’t even considered controversial and surprising that he did.

But the Old Testament was written about 800 years before Augustine was born. And Genesis was based on oral tradition that was hundreds of years old before it was written down. Even the New Testament was finished 250 years before he was born.

It wasn’t till the historicism of the early enlightenment that folks like Bishop Usher (an Anglican bishop if memory serves) started trying to use the Bible to calculate the age of the Earth.

This is the year 5767 in the Hebrew calendar. 5767 years from what? From the date of Creation.

It’s one thing for people raised in a bronze age hovel to appreciate the Iliad, but for a well educated modern person raised to be ignorant of all great culture… Well, it’s shocking.

If any honest reading of the Bible posits a flat Earth with a sun that revolves around it, then St. Augustine living from 345-430 AD was already a “modernist” who discarded the “plain meaning” of the Bible for “modern science.”

However, returning to reality, not only did Augustine consider the idea of a flat Earth silly, and believe that the earth was created long before 4000 BC, but it wasn’t even considered controversial and surprising that he did.

Judaism and Hellenistic science (which included an understanding of the spherical Earth) had already reconciled their differences by 200BC, at which time Judaism was a hot, expanding religion in the Mediterranian world, with many Hellenized converts.

It wasn’t till the historicism of the early enlightenment that folks like Bishop Usher (an Anglican bishop if memory serves) started trying to use the Bible to calculate the age of the Earth.