An old co-worker emailed me recently. He said he had been reading this blog, and he sent me links to other blogs written by committed Christians. Apparently, my co-worker is trying to convert me. (This is ok, by itself. He has every right to make his case, and there’s always the chance that I’ve been wrong all this time.)
He mentioned these three blogs:
The last of those is the most intriguing, and it inspired this post.
Unequally Yoked is written by a woman who grew up in an atheist household. In time, she began to question her beliefs. She studied Christianity thoroughly, and eventually became a Christian. (Specifically, a Catholic.)
I’m sure many would consider this to be a great example of the power of Christianity. Surely, they would say, the evidence supporting Christianity must be really massive! After all, it converted an intelligent girl who was raised as an atheist, and who made a thorough study of the topic before converting.
The only trouble with this idea is that I have exactly the opposite story.
I was raised as a Christian. (Specifically, a Methodist.) At first my faith was superficial, but starting in 6th grade I developed a deep and abiding faith. I wanted to live my whole life in dedication to Jesus Christ. But in time, I began to question my beliefs. I studied Atheism thoroughly, and eventually I became an Atheist. (Specifically, a Humanist.)
So now we have one girl who grew up as an atheist and then converted to Christianity based on the facts, versus one guy who grew up as a Christian and then converted to Atheism based on the facts.
And here’s the tragedy: One of us is wrong.
We can’t both be right! Either there is good reason to believe in God, or else there is no good reason to believe in God. And either way, whoever is right, someone has made a massive error in judgment. Because we’re not mild in our beliefs; we don’t each think that we simply have a 51% change of being right. She believes very firmly that God exists, and I believe firmly that no God has been proven to exist (and thus that we should disbelieve in God).
And yes, I did read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. It was nonsense.
This girl is clearly intelligent. So am I. (Sorry if that seems like bragging.) We’re both intelligent people. And clearly, we’ve both given this a lot of thought. But we’ve reached opposite conclusions.
And that leaves us with an obvious fact: It is possible for an intelligent person to think about an issue thoroughly, and still reach a very wrong conclusion.
And that’s just sad. Regardless of who is right or wrong (I’ll probably review these blogs later), it’s sad to know that such wrongness exists.
After all, if intelligent people can be wrong about religion, what else are they wrong about?