From Lisa to Anton

Anton,

Believe it or not, I understand your need for evidence. Remember, I moved to the Mecca for Mormonism. One of the issues I have with their faith is the lack of evidence because Joseph Smith based the religion on golden plates which only he saw, he translated, and then he put them back into the mountain from whence they came. Therefore, no one was able to look at them, touch them, translate them, etc. What evidence that has been found that he claimed to be ancient religious texts, per multiple experts at differing times and locations deemed to be old grocery lists.

That being said, I disagree with you on that all people blindly accept the faith of their parents, tribe, culture, etc. Obviously, many do. However, look at our families. You, for instance, do not blindly accept the faith of your parents. Your siblings and you probably have differing views on these types of subjects. Yes, my parents would call themselves Catholic, but are not necessarily active. I, for one, have one brother who I would term an agnostic. I don’t know if he would agree with that. One brother, who if asked, would probably call himself Catholic, but I do not know how much thought has been put into his faith. I have a sister who I honestly have not had a serious discussion with in years on almost any possibly inflammatory topic, especially religion. And then there is me. J I have done some soul searching at different times in life. I went to a Presbyterian college where, for the first time, I encountered prejudice against Catholicism. I ended up marrying a man who was raised very anti-Catholic. His father said, “She seems like a nice girl. Too bad you can’t marry her since she’s Catholic.” I then move to a place where almost 70% of the population is a religion different than my own. All of these times in life create a “need” for “evidence.”

The problem I see us having is this. If I present to you written historical evidence of the doctrines of my faith, you’ll say those are nice stories. If I present to you examples of the “supernatural” in my life, such as the times when I have felt an overwhelming need to pray and didn’t know why, but did it anyway, and the tree just missed the car that my best friend was in at that exact moment miles away or my brother safely landed the aircraft that almost crashed, again, hundreds of miles away at that exact moment, you would call it coincidence. If I present geographical evidence which coincides with written history, you will simply say the authors of the “nice stories” included geographical annotations to make their stories “more real.” If I say to you that the Catholic faith is the only faith which has a consistent, written, timeline from the time of Jesus, you will say, “Great. That still doesn’t prove Jesus is divine.” There is no evidence which could be presented to you which you would find acceptable because you have already “programmed” yourself to deny believing anything which could indicate a powerful being exists.

Besides all of the “evidential” reasons I believe, which you will throw out based on your belief structure, I have a KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) method of looking at life and God. I think this methodology can be applied to any religion that has a higher power. Every major religion I know has some form of the golden rule. Your flying saucer people probably wouldn’t fall into this category, but hey, I don’t count them as following a major religion. Think of a quadrant system with one axis being whether or not there is a God and the other axis as whether or not I believe in God. In one quadrant, I believe God exists and live my life accordingly AND there is a God. At the time of death, I’m likely going to be pretty happy. In the next quadrant, I believe God exists and live my life accordingly AND there is no afterlife. At the time of death, I’ll have lived a good life and then I’m done. The result is neutral. In the next quadrant, I do not believe in God and hold myself accountable to no one AND there is no God. Again, the end result is neutral, but I may not have been the best person I could have been during life. In the final quadrant, I do not believe in God and therefore do not hold myself accountable to anyone BUT there really is a God. Oops…not a great result and then I have eternity to pay for it. You may call this line of thinking childish because I have a dose of fear of punishment, but I don’t care. I think I’ll err on the side of caution.

What I think it all boils down to is this. You have a faith, whether or not you would admit it. That faith is that no one on this earth can convince you to believe in a higher power. As you stated in your e-mail, you are “just as intelligent, just as good, and just as committed” to your faith as I am to mine. However, your final statement to me, “I actually wish you success in this endeavor” tells me that as much as you cling to your faith, you don’t truly believe it in your heart. I, on the other hand, despite all of the rejection that you and others can and will throw at me, know that I have done everything I can to prove to myself that my heart is settled in the right place. I wish you success in your search.

Lisa