iacobusm Faith and Culture, Pro-Life

Random Selection Favors Religion, or, What Would Darwin Do?

I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Spes in Domino
               The Marriage, by Pietro Longhi, c. 1755

An Angry God

Random selection appears to have doomed its most enthusiastic promoters to extinction.

     I want to be clear that I am not taking issue in this post with the theory of evolution per se, or even with Darwin’s specific take on it in particular. Just as there is a “Spirit of Vatican II” that doesn’t concern itself overmuch with what the Second Vatican Council actually decreed, there is a Spirit of Darwinian Evolution that invokes evolutionary theory as a sort of charm that wards off the need for a Creator, but doesn’t feel the need to explain how. It’s that totemic use of evolution, with a quasi-mythical Darwin as its high priest, that I’m referring to here.  My whole point, in fact, is that if materialist atheists were actually to apply evolutionary theory to themselves, they would have to admit that unbelieving humanity is doomed.

Charles Darwin: Prophet of an angry god

   Let’s start with atheism itself. Atheism and the related materialist philosophy are often described as religions, or as quasi-religions.  There’s something to that.  For unbelievers, a dogmatic adherence to the tenets of their ideology often seems to play the role that religion and devotion to God fulfills in other people’s lives.  It certainly is the case that many of those who reject religious belief treat Darwinian evolutionary theory with almost religious awe, and have turned the man himself into something of a god (Darwin Fish, anyone?), or at least a prophet.  If he is a prophet, however, he’s a prophet in the mold of the mythological Greek prophetess Cassandra, whose prophecies were never believed.  The evidence is pretty clear: random selection likes religion, but is not a fan of atheism.
     Before I look into the matter more directly, I should provide a little context. In my years teaching in Catholic schools I often engaged in dialogue with young unbelievers who were enamored of proselytizing atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (if a messenger of good news is an evangelist, what’s the messenger of bad news? A cacangelist? Just a thought.).  In the course of these discussions, I came to an interesting realization: in Darwinian terms, atheism is a negative trait.  In strictly materialist terms, that is, based on the clear, straightforward evidence, if we all became atheists, humanity would cease to exist in short order.

Believe the Science


      I soon discovered that I was not at all the first person to come to this conclusion: I found a report on a site called Scilogs* about the work of German researcher Michael Blume, who says that

It is a great irony but evolution appears to discriminate against atheists and favor those with religious beliefs . . . Most societies or communities that have espoused atheistic beliefs have not survived more than a century.

     Blume’s research shows that not just atheist societies, but unbelieving individuals consistently undermine their own posterity:

Blume took data from 82 countries measuring frequency of worship against the number of children.  He found that those who worship more than once a week average 2.5 children [2.1 children per woman is the “replacement rate”, the minimum necessary to maintain a population at its current level] while those who never worship only 1.7 – again below replacement rate.  There was also considerable variation in religious groups . . . Those without a religion, however, consistently averaged less than two per woman below the replacement , whereas those with the strongest and most fundamental religious beliefs had the most children.

Other researchers come to similar conclusions, and not only on the replacement of populations.  On the most basic level, their own individual existence, unbelievers fall short of believers: statistically, those who are actively religious live four years longer.

Viruses of the Mind

What would Charles Darwin say?  It would appear that Evolution is an angry and capricious god indeed, as it has clearly selected its most ardent adherents for extinction.

Endangered species?

    The curious hostility of the process of evolution to the materialist worldview casts a bright light on a contradiction that lies at the heart of the project of atheist proselytization: even if you believe it, why would you want to convince other people? The Dawkinses of the world will reply, as the Blume post says, “that religions are like viruses of the mind which infect people and impose great costs in terms of money, time and health risks.”  This, it seems to me, actually defies reason:  as I ask my unbelieving interlocutors, is it logical to conclude that a world populated by those who think we are nothing but matter created by meaningless, random natural forces will be a better, kinder place than a world that is the home of people who believe we have been created intentionally by a loving God? Can we reasonably expect that those who believe that we are answerable to nobody and morality is just a social construct will be more loving and generous than men and women who are convinced that we have been commanded by a benevolent Creator to love one another?  It just doesn’t make sense.

God is Love (1 John 4:8)

    And not surprisingly, the empirical evidence agrees.  In addition to the demographic data above, anyone who has studied the history of Rome before and after the Christianization of the Empire, can attest to the humanizing effect of Christianity, and that it was that same Christian Church that civilized the barbarians who eventually overwhelmed the Roman state.  Modern day sociological evidence shows the same thing: religious believers (especially Christians) report higher levels of personal happiness (see here, for instance), are more likely to join community and voluntary associations (even non-religious ones), and are more likely to vote. As is the case with the data cited by Blume, the more devout the believer, the stronger the effect.  Arthur C. Brooks copiously documents the same results with a wealth of statistical evidence in his book Who Really Cares: believing Christians are much more involved in donating their time and talents for building up their societies, and are much more willing to spare their personal wealth to help others.   The Catholic Church alone has founded and runs thousands of hospitals, schools, and countless other charitable projects around the world. Is there any organization founded or run by atheists that even comes close? I submit that the reasonable view is the one that fits the evidence, not the one that contradicts both the empirical data and common sense.

     A final point involves getting beyond narrow materialist ideas of what constitutes reason and taking a more expansive (and more traditional) view.  Is The Truth about humanity more likely to be something that diminishes humanity, that tears down our societies, makes our lives meaner, and maybe even leads to our annihilation?  Or does it lift us up, does it promote flourishing societies and happy productive people?  Jesus Christ says “I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life” (John 14:6): doesn’t the evidence bear him out?

 

*The article to which I refer has since been removed.  You can find the same information, and more, on Blume’s own website: http://www.blume-religionswissenschaft.de/english/index_english.html

iacobusm Uncategorized

Evangelism, Free Will, and the Spiritual Works of Mercy

St. Paul in the Areopagus by Mariano Fortuny (1855-1856)

   We live in strange times.  Never in human history has it been possible for so many people to live lives so disconnected from reality. Former Nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Vigano has just released a remarkable meditation for Lent which touches on that issue.  He starts with a prayer from the Ambrosian Missal, which says in part:

Venite flentes, fundamus lacrymas ad Deum:
quia nos negleximus, et propter nos terra patitur:
nos iniquitatem fecimus,
et propter nos fundamenta commota sunt.
Festinemus anteire ante iram Dei . . .

Come weeping, let us shed tears to God: because we have transgressed, and because of us the earth suffers: we have committed iniquity and because of us its foundations have been shaken. Let us hasten to prevent God’s wrath . . .

Archbishop Vigano (ncronline.com photo)

“It is difficult for a man of today,” Archbishop Vigano remarks, “to understand these words of the Ambrosian Missal.” The idea that we owe any obedience to anything outside of our own will and desires has become foreign to us. The understanding that justice demands that we submit ourselves to God’s judgment is particularly difficult:

     The de-Christianized world and the secularized mentality that has infected even Catholics does not accept the idea of a God offended by the sins of men, and Who punishes them with scourges so that they repent and ask for forgiveness.

     We can see the mentality that Archbishop Vigano is describing everywhere today, even, as he says, in the Church. Not only is it a problem everywhere, it is a problem that undermines everything.  When we reject the truth of our relationship with God, we undermine the very concept of truth itself.  As St. Paul tells the Ephesians:

Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart;  they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness. (Ephesians 4:17-29)

     This “darkening of the understanding” makes it very difficult to carry on any sort of reasoned discussion on matters of importance.  When all that matters are feelings and desires, when disgreement (at least, disagreement with favored positions or practices) is ipso facto “hate,” real dialogue is impossible.

      This curious state of affairs complicates the efforts at evangelization in various ways. For instance, a few years ago when I was the moderator of an online community a young non-Catholic Christian suggested that sharing the Gospel with other people and praying for them was impeding their free will.  Now, it would never have occurred to me that informing or attempting to persuade somebody, much less praying for them, somehow interfered with their ability to make free choices; on the contrary, without free will, such efforts are pointless. Nonetheless, I had heard similar questions from other young people as well. Most young people today (and many older ones as well) have been formed in a popular culture that teaches that simply disagreeing with somebody can be a “microaggression”, particularly if the alleged microaggressor holds more traditional views, and most especially if those views can be traced back to orthodox Christian morality.  How should we respond to this situation?

     The first thing, I think, is to stress that evangelization and prayers for conversion are an act of mercy. How? Since we are all ultimately held accountable for the things that we do with our free will, we try to save others from the consequences of bad decisions, which is to say, sin. It is, of course, merciful to save another person from sin (and, potentially, from eternal damnation). More specifically, I think we can profitably look at this question in terms of several of the traditional Spiritual Works of Mercy.

     Let’s start with free will itself. Even though our will is free, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t influenced by many things.  Not only that, we can’t make good choices if we’re missing essential information.  Let us suppose, for instance, that a friend is about to dive into a lake that has just been declared unsafe due to high levels of harmful bacteria. Informing him of the danger doesn’t violate his free will; in fact, it allows him to make a truly free choice, because it’s based on the truth, and not on a false belief that the water is safe. If it’s merciful to protect a friend from getting sick in this way, how much more so if we can give him information that can save his soul for eternity? This is the 2nd Spiritual Work of Mercy, “Instructing the Ignorant” (“ignorant” isn’t meant as an insult; it simply means someone who doesn’t know).

7th Spiritual Work of Mercy: Praying for the Living and the Dead (CNS photo/Jim West)

   We sometimes have the right information, but we may also have disordered desires (that is, attraction to sin) that lead us to do things that we know are wrong. Disordered desires such as greed, lust, envy, etc., pull our will away from what we know is right. Consequently, it often happens that a Christian who knows full well that a particular act, adultery for instance, is seriously wrong, follows his or her desires instead.  The consequences can be disastrous for such a person and for others involved in his sin.  It is merciful to point out these abuses of our will to each other, because in doing so we can sometimes bring a sinner back to right conduct. As an added bonus, we help ourselves as well, as Holy Scripture tells us:

My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)

This is the 3rd Spiritual Work of Mercy, “Admonishing Sinners” (and we are all sinners who sometimes require admonition).

    In the end, of course, none of us exercises our free will perfectly, and none of us can save ourselves: that’s why we needed Christ to die on the Cross for us.  For that reason we “Pray for the Living and the Dead” (the 7th Spiritual Work of Mercy). When we pray for the living, we are asking God not to override their free will, but to give them the Grace (His help and support) to freely use their will in accord with His Will, and not according to their disordered desires. We also pray for the dead in Purgatory who are being cleansed of the consequences of the misuse of their free will, that God’s mercy might ease their passage into His Presence.

     We hear a lot less about the Spiritual Works of Mercy these days than we do about the Corporal Works of Mercy (a reflection of materialist tendencies affecting even the Church).  That’s a shame, because in the midst of the greatest material prosperity that this world has ever seen we have a vast sea of spiritual suffering. The world is full of people, including me and you, whose choices are hampered by ignorance, whose desires are disordered, and who are desperately in need of prayers. Answering their needs isn’t an imposition: it’s an act of mercy.

iacobusm Faith and Culture

One H*ll of an After School Activity: Meet the Satan Club

Eminent Scientist
Satan in Dante’s Inferno, by Gustave Dore, 1861

An Angel of Light . . . Not

      Ah, I see the Satan Club is in the news again.  This time spreading light. . . . well, not light, exactly . . . but speading something in the Milwaukee area.  Don’t be alarmed, though, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel assures us that, despite their evocative name, the group “does not believe in a supernatural figure equal or similar to Christian definitions of Satan – rather, according to the Washington Post, the Satanic Temple [sponsor of the Satan Club] “rejects all forms of supernaturalism” and instead promotes “scientific rationality.” Right. Which is why they call themselves after that eminent scientist, Satan.

     I first heard about the Satan Club several years ago, when they were bringing their special kind of joy to Portland, Oregon.  They’re still up to their old tricks, posing as an angel of light when, in truth, they are something very different.  In honor of Satan Clubs everywhere I’m republishing my original post, called “One H*ll of an After School Club.”

 

There’s A New Club In Town

      Here’s some happy news: the Nehalem Elementary School in Portland, Oregon, has approved a “Satan Club” for its young (i.e., pre-teen) students.  The club is sponsored by a group going by the felicitous name of The Satanic Temple. Does that, or does it not, sound uplifting?

     I don’t doubt that there are some people who do consider it good news that there will be a club upholding the Prince of Darkness as a role model for youngsters.  In particular, some of a more secular bent may appreciate that this puts those of us in with, shall we say, more traditional religious views, in something of a bind.  After all, aren’t we always carping about religious freedom, and complaining about efforts to exclude religious belief from the public square? Don’t we claim that government has no business deciding what is legitimate religion and what is not?  Are we not, in fact, hypocrites if we try to prevent the satanists from sharing their enthusiasm for Lucifer with the boys and girls at Nehalem Elementary School?

 

Keeping The Satan In Satanism?

     The answer is, I think, simpler than it might at first appear.  We absolutely ought to oppose as strenuously as we can anything as poisonous as a “Satan Club” in schools, especially for pre-teen children, and no, there is nothing whatsoever hypocritical about it.  Consider the following:

Charming Devil
Charming illustration from “Educatin With Satan” website

     The satanists themselves make it clear that they are not really a religion.  For instance, The Satanic Temple is also trying to install an after school club in the Seattle, Washington area. The Seattle Times (story here)  quotes Tarkus Claypool, campaign manager (um, “campaign manager”? Since when does a religion have a campaign manager?) for the group in that area, as saying: “We don’t worship a deity . . . We only see Satan as a metaphor for fighting religious tyranny and oppression.” This is a fairly common trope among Satanists, one you might have heard before.  There was a similar quote in the original Fox News article about the Oregon Satan Club.  That quote has since been removed, perhaps because the spokesperson in Portland also added that most satanists are really atheists, which tends to undercut even further their claim to religious status.

   So, if the satanists don’t really believe in Satan, what is the purpose of their club? “Our curriculum is about teaching them logic, self-empowerment and reasoning”, according to Claypool,  “The most Satanic thing about it is in the healthy snack — we have an apple.”  Finn Rezz, speaking on behalf of the newly-approved Nehalem group in Oregon, adds that, in addition to “science and rational thinking”, the club will promote “benevolence and empathy for everybody.”

     If only that were true.  After all, if all they want to do is to promote rational thinking, why not a “Reason Club”? Why not a “Science and Empathy Club”?  Those are perfectly legitimate viewpoints. Why not even an “Atheists Club”?  However much we believers might dislike it, the same laws that allow Christian clubs on school grounds also protect the nonbelievers.  The Satanic Temple has chosen a different route, however, and their choice of the Prince of Lies as their public persona tells us what they’re really about; it has nothing to do with reason or benevolence.

 

The Devil Is In The Details

     To begin with, let’s talk about Satan.  He has a track record: he’s been a public figure, so to speak, for millennia.  If you were to go out on the street and ask people at random what the Devil represents, what responses will you get?  Most people will, of course,  answer “evil”, “sin”, “death”, “corruption”, etc.  How many do you think will say “a metaphor for fighting religious oppression”?  There may be a few, perhaps, but a very few indeed. No, Lucifer’s image has remained true what it is in Scripture, the source that introduced him to us.  There we read:

 

He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. (1 John 3:8)

He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

 Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

 

Image from the “Educatin With Satan” website

     How rational is it to hold up as a paragon of “reason” a figure who is the enemy of truth, a born liar who hides his true nature?  How appropriate a personification of “empathy and benevolence” is someone known as a murderer who seeks to “devour” the unwary?  My purpose here is not to make a Biblical argument against the Satan Club, I’m simply pointing out who and what its patron has always been known to be, and what he actually represents. One doesn’t need to believe in the truth of the Bible to recognize that Satan represents the exact opposite of what the Satan Club claims to promote.

 

“By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them”

     In fact, their choice of the universally acknowledged personification of every evil as their public face brings to mind another applicable scripture passage: “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit.” (Matthew 7:16-17).  Again, that’s just common sense, isn’t it? And what are the “fruits” the Satan club displays? Do the satanists act like people committed to reason, love, and kindness, and do their own self-explanations emphasize any positive message of their own . . . or are their fruits of a different kind?  Let us look again at what they say about themselves.  Seattle satanist Tarkus Claypool says of the Satan club, “It’s designed to be a counterpoint to the Good News program.” Portland Oregon’s Finn Rezz says that their Satan club “will be held on Wednesdays once a month at the same time as the Good News Club.”  In fact, if we look at the FAQ page from the satanists’ “Educatin With Satan” website, we find that they really have more to say about this “Good News Club” than they do about their nominal patron demon, and certainly more than they do about reason, science, benevolence, and empathy put together.  In several places they cite the Good News Club as their reason for being, and they even advise those who might wish to establish a Satan club (my bold):

 

Please keep in mind that The Satanic Temple is not interested in operating After School Satan Clubs in school districts that are not already hosting the Good News Club. However, The Satanic Temple ultimately intends to have After School Satan Clubs operating in every school district where the Good News Club is represented.

 

Good News: What’s Not To Like?

    What are these Good News Clubs that so exercise the good people at the Satanic Temple? The Good News Clubs are a ministry of the Child Evangelism Fellowship.  From CEF’s website they appear to adhere to a fairly traditional Evangelical Protestant understanding of Christianity.  They describe the purpose of their Good News Clubs as follows:

 

CEF Website
Photo from the CEF website

Our ministry teaches morals and respect for others, helps build character, strengthens families, assists schools and encourages children. We frequently receive comments of support from school officials, bus drivers and parents which complement the positive change in the behavior of the boys and girls who attend Good News Clubs. Our mission is to serve the children, their parents, the school and the community.

 

They also give a succinct explanation of their methodology:

. . . trained teachers meet with groups of children in schools, homes, community centers, churches, apartment complexes, just about anywhere the children can easily and safely meet with their parent’s permission. Each week the teacher presents an exciting Bible lesson using colorful materials from CEF Press. This action-packed time also includes songs, Scripture memory, a missions story and review games or other activities focused on the lesson’s theme.

     As with all CEF ministries, the purpose of Good News Club is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.

 

Here and in numerous other places they emphasize that they only meet children with their parents’ permission, and do not seek to supplant their family’s church. Also, while they are straightforward in proposing sin as something that infects everyone, at the same time they emphasize Christ’s saving love and forgiveness: “Now, because of what Jesus has done for you, you can have your sins forgiven. Read on to see how!”

 

J’Accuse!

     Most fair-minded people, even if they take issue with the Child Evangelism Fellowship on some points of theology and ecclesiology, would have a hard time objecting to this program. Perhaps you won’t be surprised that the Satanic Temple doesn’t take a positive view.  On their FAQ page they say:

 

[T]he twisted Evangelical teachings of The Good News Clubs “robs [sic] children of the innocence and enjoyment of childhood, replacing them with a negative self image, preoccupation with sin, fear of Hell, and aversion to critical thinking . . . ” 

 

Forgive me for observing that this angry, accusatory smear seems neither rational nor objective, nor terribly benevolent or empathetic.  In fact, it reminds me of nobody so much as the Satan Club’s standard bearer, of whom I observed in an earlier post (“‘Choice’ and The Father of Lies“):

 

For this reason he is called “the Devil”, from the Greek διάβολος (diabolos), which means “slanderer, perjurer, false accuser, and can also mean “deceiver, one who misleads”.  It derives from the verb διαβάλλω (diaballo), whose original meaning is “drive through”, or destroy.  Satan seeks to destroy us, eternally, by using falsehood and deception to separate us from God.

 

Rational thought and benevolence: Seattle area Satanic Temple members (Seattle Times photo)

     Isn’t that just what the Satan club is about?  They pose as “angels of light” with their talk of empathy and science, but it’s clear by their own words and deeds that their true agenda is to disparage and harass a particular Christian group, and separate Christian children from the religious beliefs of their families; the only plausible reason to choose as their public face Satan, the personification of mindless hatred, untruth, and evil from the Christian Scriptures, is to taunt and insult Christians; their stated policy is to form their clubs only where they can target the Evangelical Christian “Good News” clubs.  Clearly, their purpose is not to promote a religion in which they assure us they don’t believe, and they manifestly don’t model the virtues they claim to advocate.  They are in reality a hate group dedicated to denying Christian students the right to exercise their own right of free expression in their own clubs.  Far from being hypocrites, we have solid legal and moral reasons to work to deny them access to public facilities.

 

iacobusm Uncategorized

Looking for God in All the Wrong Places

 

       Image from Pixabay.com

There’s an old joke about a police officer who was walking his beat one night when he came upon a man, apparently drunk, crawling around on his hands and knees on the pavement under a streetlamp.

     “What are you doing?” asked the officer.

     “Looking for my keys,” came the reply.

     “Where’d you lose them?” returned the constable.

     “Over there” answered the other, gesturing toward a shadowy area outside the halo of the streetlamp.

     “Then why are you looking here?” demanded the bemused policeman.

     “Well,” said the man, looking up at the officer, “the light’s better here.”

     I am sometimes reminded of the unfortunate man under the streetlight when I am engaged in discussion with atheists.  It’s not that they are intoxicated, but that they insist on conducting the search for God where He cannot possibly be found, using a method that is guaranteed not to find Him.

     Most atheists I talk to are materialists, who insist that we can’t reasonably argue for the existence of God unless we can detect his presence using the tools of science.  This is, of course, a very narrow and limited understanding of “reason” (and one for which they have a hard time coming up with a reasonable defense).  They either can’t or won’t accept that the Creator of the universe must logically be outside his creation (just as an artist cannot be inside his own painting). Science can only detect things that are part of the natural universe.  If God is truly God, then finding Him through scientific inquiry is as useless as looking for lost keys thirty feet away from where you know you dropped them.


Unless, of course, you don’t want to find anything . . .

 

iacobusm Uncategorized

What Do you say to a God who permits bone cancer in children? Ask Chiara Badano

 

 

Blessed Chiara Badano (Davide Papalini / CC BY-NC 2.0)

 

“I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’” he began.

“’How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault . . .It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil.

     The quote above from actor and public atheist Stephen Fry appeared in my post earlier in the week on the Feast of the Presentation (“The Presentation: Sufering and Joy“). Fry had been asked what he would say if, by chance, he should find himself face-to-face with the God he had rejected.  I responded that, to an atheist who believes that there is nothing else beyond this world, physical suffering is the worst thing that can happen, but faith in Christ offers us so much more.  Faith can bring us joy, “sometimes in the face of intense suffering, sometimes even through [our] suffering” if we join our pain to the suffering the Christ. I had offered the example of a relative, one of my father’s sisters, whose radiant faith “allowed her to be a support to everyone else as she lay dying of cancer.”

     One might observe that I didn’t address Fry’s point about the suffering of children in particular.  My aunt, after all, had lived a full life, and died at a time of life where we expect that our end is near.  My immediate answer to that objection would be to offer the example of child saints who joyfully accepted death and suffering for the sake of Christ.  The twelve year old martyr St. Tarcisius, for instance, who gave his life to prevent the desecration of the Eucharist by a Roman mob, or his twentieth century Chinese counterpart Little Li, killed by communists for her Eucharistic devotion.  The fourteen year old St. Dominic Savio, whose death was probably brought on by pleurisy, also comes to mind.

St. Tarcisius (myfirstcommunion.com)

     Fry mentions bone cancer specifically, of course, as an example of suffering that is especially intense and lingering. It’s a curious thing, but just this morning when I was researching a different topic, I came across an account of Chiara Badano, who was beatified by Pope Benedict twelve years ago and whose cause for canonization is ongoing.  Eighteen year old Chiara died in 1990, having suffered for two years . . . from bone cancer.

     Our atheist friends might call that random chance, but it happens that Chiara provides a real life answer to Stphen Fry’s hypothetical question.  The key is the role of faith in her life. Chiara deepened her faith through involvement with the Focolare movement, which her family joined when she was nine years old. When she became ill a few years later, that faith transformed her suffering, and her suffering informed her faith. She echoed St.Paul’s assertion that “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body” (Colossians 1:24), saying: “there’s only one thing I can do now: to offer my suffering to Jesus because I want to share as much as possible in his sufferings on the cross.”  As was the case for St. Paul, and for the aunt I mentioned above, her suffering wasn’t pointless at all, but was offered for the benefit of others. Focolare’s account of her life recounts what happened when friends went to visit her in the hospital:

“At first we thought we’d visit her to keep her spirits up,” one of the Gen boys said,
“but very soon we understood that, in fact, we were the ones who needed her. Her life was like a magnet drawing us to her.”

This is the transformative power of faithful suffering.  If we let him, Christ can transform our suffering into a powerful force for the good of our fellow men and women.

     Not only that, there are rewards for the sufferer as well. Our faith teaches us that when we join our sufferings to Christ’s, we never suffer alone.  Before she died, Chiara described what happened during one especially painful medical procedure:

When the doctors began to carry out this small, but quite demanding, procedure, a lady with a very beautiful and luminous smile came in. She came up to me and took me by the hand, and her touch filled me with courage.
   In the same way that she arrived, she disappeared, and I could no longer see her. But my heart was filled with an immense joy and all fear left me. In that moment I understood that if we’re always ready for everything, God sends us many signs of his love.

Blessed Chiara Badano

     The Stephen Frys of the world will dismiss Blessed Chiara’s account as fantasy, but no evidence will convince those who choose not to be convinced.  The evidence is on Chiara’s side. The evidence is not only in her words, but in the testimony of her friends and relatives whose lives she enriched.  The evidence is in her abundant joy in the face of excruciating physical suffering.

     In truth, even the most ardent materialist will admit that suffering, at least in some cases, may be worthwhile: the pain we experience to condition our bodies for an athletic endeavor, for instance.  Most will even concede that taking on hardship for others can outweigh the suffering involved, as in the case of a parent who sacrifices for his or her children, or even a soldier who trades his own life for the protection of his fellow citizens. How much more worthwhile when the reward is eternal joy, not only for ourselves, but for those whose lives and spirits are uplifted by our sacrifice?

     Bone Cancer is a terrible thing, and it’s hard for us to see the suffering it causes, especially in children. But the power of Christ is much more powerful than even the worst suffering this world has to offer. Just ask Blessed Chiara Badano.

O Father, fount of everything good, we give you thanks for the wonderful testimony of Blessed Chiara Badano. Filled with the Holy Spirit and guided by the radiant light of Jesus, she believed firmly in your infinite love, and wished to return it with all her strength, surrendering herself in complete trust to your paternal will. We humbly beseech you that you may also grant us the gift to live with you and for you, and ask you, if it be your will, for the grace… through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

(from Blessed Chiara’s prayer card)

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God’s Existence isn’t a Dark Matter

Once upon a time I taught in a (more or less) Catholic high school.  Occasionally I was called upon to teach religion to the bright-eyed young men and women of the 9th grade. At the time the so-called “New Atheists” (Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, etc.) were in vogue, and so class usually contained two or three students eager to try out the  latest anti-Christian tropes that they had picked up online or wherever it is that aspiring atheist proselytizers hang out.  Needless to say, we had many a lively discussion. A number of these discussions became blog posts.

     In the course of these conversations I became aware just how much our educational system and our cultural institutions have become imbued with an unspoken materialist  orientation. Virtually all my students, even professed Christians, seemed to take it for granted that a transcendent God who cannot be measured or detected with scientific instruments could not be shown to exist.

     I realized that I would need to help them expand their understanding of how we acquire reliable knowledge beyond the things that science can measure.  My first step, however, was to demonstrate that even science has much more subtle ways of understanding reality than they had been led to believe.  In the post below I enlist NASA and modern cosmology to show that belief in God is at least as reasonable as many “scientific” concepts that are accepted almost without question.  

     We begin with the proposition that cosmological science offers a good illustration of some ways in which we apply reason to our world and experience.  You may occasionally hear in the news, for instance, reports of planets discovered in other solar systems.  We do not now have any instruments capable of “seeing” the planet itself; instead, we detect it by observing its effects on other things, such as the miniscule wobble its gravitational pull causes in the star it orbits, or the very slight changes in the light we observe from the star as the planet passes in front of it (read more here).  

Nasa graphic of the Big Bang theory from “Dark Energy, Dark Matter”

   On an even grander scale, consider the question of “Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy.” Over the past century, scientists have formulated what is known as the Big Bang Theory to account for the fact that the entire universe appears to be expanding at a consistent rate.  At the same time, they have calculated that in order for the universe to do what it seems to be doing, it needs to contain much more matter and energy than we can detect – many times more.  As the NASA publication “Dark Energy, Dark Matter” explains (my italics):

More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe’s expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 68% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest – everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter – adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn’t be called “normal” matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe. (full publication here)

Notice that physicists say that more than 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is completely undetectable, and we may never be able to detect it.  There is no direct evidence of the existence of Dark Energy and Dark Matter, and yet they are sure it is there, only because of the effects we observe on other things.
    Much of the evidence for God’s involvement in our world is of a similar sort, at least for those who have not themselves had a direct experience of God.  Like Dark Energy, God cannot be measured with scientific instruments, but his effects are very clear.  Consider the case of Bernard Nathanson, an atheist doctor from a Jewish family who was one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).  Nathanson himself performed or presided over tens of thousands of abortions until he was convinced by ultrasound images of the humanity of the unborn.  

Deeply disturbed by his involvement in the taking of so many innocent lives, Nathanson, still an atheist, became active in pro-life activities, where he encountered many committed Christians.  He noticed something different about his religious friends, which he eventually recognized as what St. Paul called “The Gifts of the Holy Spirit”: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).  It was clear to him that the difference he saw was due to the religious dimension of their lives, the visible effects of their relationship with God.  He eventually converted from atheism to Catholicism.


Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520 from “Dark Energy, Dark Matter“

     Literally millions of people have come to Faith in the same way over the last two thousand years.  Like Nathanson, they were first attracted by the effects they saw in others, and after embracing Christ, found the same changes in their own lives.  They very reasonably based their faith on the real results they saw in others, and that they experienced themselves.

     That, by the way, is a significant way in which belief in God is different from a belief in Dark Energy or Dark Matter.  Nobody has ever had a personal encounter with Dark Energy, or seen a miracle performed by Dark Matter; countless people throughout the ages have had direct experiences of God, or witnessed His miracles, which continue up to the present day.  One might say that, when we examine the evidence of the world around us, belief in God is actually quite reasonable.

(Feature image above: “Ancient of Days” by William Blake, from Europe a Prophecy, 1794)