This I Used To Believe
I really enjoy listening to NPR and This American Life… I actually pick up TAL from the free podcast most of the time. I am currently listening to the latest episode where this poor woman named Trisha was moved by the good works of a decent man (who happens to be a Christian):
This past Christmas a story swept the internet about a football coach at a Christian high school in Texas who inspired his team’s fans to root for the opposition: a team from the local juvenile correctional facility. Among the thousands of emails that the coach received in response to his actions, one stood out to him. Trisha Sebastian mentioned her loss of faith, and coach Hogan got a message from God that he was meant to bring her back. We eavesdrop on their phone calls.
Problem is, she sent him an e-mail. She was not just moved, but moved to action. She had a friend that had died of colon cancer a few years earlier and never could reconcile this with her Catholic faith (”very lapsed Catholic”). She also made the mistake of saying that she is “borderline agnostic”… a big mistake. After this admission, there was a protracted exchange where God “moved his spirit” repeatedly to witness to her about “the idea of God”. His first e-mail response to her even included the admonishment “I expect to hear back from you, young lady”.
They spoke on the phone and with permission Trisha recorded the call. It really went off the rails when Coach Hogan dragged Hitler into the conversation in the context of “objective good” and “objective evil”:
Hogan: If you say “Good” is only people’s opinion it stems from our own… [stammer]… you define true for you and I define true for me then how do you reconcile that with Hitler saying it is true that if we can eliminate Jews and other people on the planet then it will be a better planet because we are a superior race? And he of course he gets his world view from Charles Darwin.
Sebastian: Right.. Wait. Wait Wait…
And that’s where he pretty much lost her. I’m sure there was plenty of nonsense and weirdness before this, but she took a GIANT step away from him when he went there. There are so many issues with that asinine statement, it’s difficult to know where to begin.
- The concept of “race” to Darwin, Hilter, and modern science are very different.
- Hilter was a Christian (aka, Hitler was not an Atheist)
- Darwin was correct about Evolution (it’s a fact)
It’s a shame that we have to live with the legacy of Darwin’s relative ignorance about the similarities of men. At the time (150 years ago), class, geographic isolation, religion, and extreme differences in culture and skin pigment contributed to the classification of people as coming from different races. While evolution certainly was responsible for the genetic variations Darwin and others observed, we know now that there is common ancestry of ALL humans less than 8,000 generations ago. It certainly wasn’t the Tower of Babel, The Great Flood, or some other cataclysm that caused our differences.
I wish I had more time, more energy, and more knowledge (I am only a laytheist, after all) with which to explain and debunk Christian bullshit, but there are so many angles… if you aren’t happy with scientific comparisons, just compare to other religions. That should be enough to convince anyone that religion was made up solely by men at different, overlapping times all over the world.
Why would one be better than the next?
Trisha, I’m so sorry about your friend. The truth is that she had a groups of cells in her colon malfunction and go bad. In what sounds like a fairly serious cell breakdown, the cancer was virilent enough to cause the rest of her body to ultimately lose. Now, do you really think that this is a mechanism that God put in place to eliminate some people for reasons we can’t know? If so, why are there so goddammed many mysterious ways for the body to break down and die? Wouldn’t two or three be adequate? Is suffering necessary? Why have we been able to permanently eliminate some previously fatal diseases and maladies? Doesn’t it make more sense that it’s a product of millions of years of evolution and change…? And that sometimes the shit just breaks?
If god designed all this stuff then he didn’t do it very well really did he?
@Bunc
Indeed. With a little more thought it would seem that there must be no god at all. If there is, he is extremely lazy and incompetent.
Hugh: Thanks for your condolences. You can read more about what conclusions I’m coming to about God in this follow-up entry, if you like.
@Trisha Lynn
Absolutely! I think it’s fascinating. My own journey out of religion was circuitous at best. I am so much happier, productive, relaxed, and free intellectually as an atheist/agnostic/non-believer. I’m so glad you found my blog, and thanks for stopping by. I’ve added you to my blogroll…
Hey Hugh,
Haven’t said hi for awhile. I’m quite sentimental myself but it’s hard for me to get into the “he said she said” kinda stuff. But I enjoy your writings and perspectives so keep up the good work. Will continue to follow this site. your gb forrest
An atheist cultivates his own garden of morality. To be proud of your garden might be considered a most worthy goal. You can’t please everyone all the time, is a well known aphorism. Those who look at the few “weeds” in your garden, even though they greatly enjoy the rest of it, do not realize that what they consider weeds, you (and others) may consider to be some of your garden’s most endearing, exotic and ecologically balancing parts.
@forrest noble
As always, good to hear from you, Forrest. Your contributions are always valuable and enlightening. I particularly like the garden analogy. I’m trying to get to a place where I can write more, so friends like you have a reason to drop by more often.
It’s funny and it’s sad listening to this. Here is a soul-sick, grieving woman who wants to understand “why did my friend die?”, and clearly very much wants to believe. Coach Hogan feels called on to save her, but all he brings are half-assed arguments against “moral relativism” and the like.
Hogan handwaves away the burning question Trisha really cares about by saying no one knows why your friend died, and don’t believe anyone who says they do. Hogan thinks his platitude sounds wise, but it’s plain to hear that this offers Trisha no solace. If Coach Hogan were really trying to understand Trisha’s pain, he’d recognize that. Alas, Coach Hogan can’t relate to someone who sees “God’s ways are mysterious” for the hollow non-answer it is.
Unfortunately for Trisha, Christianity offers no deeper answer to her question. Its shallow answer to every mystery is “God did it”. Why did God do it? That’s a mystery. All it can do is answer mysteries with a bigger mystery and pretend that’s a solution, offer a feeling of understanding and pretend it’s true understanding.