I just had to get this off of my chest.  It’s been nagging at me for a while now, and I thought I should get it out into the open so that there can be the start of a legitimate dialogue on the subject: it’s about how atheists engage in argumentation.  It has struck me that atheists often do not have very good, solid arguments that actually address the Catholic position: they simply play off shallow crowd sentiment and popular perception of religion, the “minimum standard” of empiricism, or a circumvention of actual points in favor of straw men.  This is not to say that Catholics and other Christians do not do similar things during debates at times, only that I always see popular atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins do this quite frequently.

Sam Harris

Professor Richard Dawkins

Shallow Crowd Sentiment and Popular Perception of Religion

You’ll notice in this clip of Sam Harris v. William Lane Craig that Harris simply makes emotional appeals in his attempt to “disprove” Christianity.  He says nothing of substance and only makes the standard non-believer’s appeal to mass suffering as evidence of God’s utter fakeness (didn’t’cha know?) as well as the supposed “impossibility” of transubstantiation, in the process dismissing Catholics as loons and morons.

He cares nothing for the explications of Augustine, and, more recently, of Dr. Peter Kreeft, on the so-called “problem of evil,” nor does he care for the rich exegesis of Scripture and long and rich theological tradition of the belief in transubstantiation.  Nope.  No sirree.  He is after the zinger.  The one line or two that’ll get the Internet fired up with irrational Catholic-bashing.  I suggest you watch the full debate.

Now, you will notice that Craig makes it known that Harris must meet certain benchmarks in order to make his case for atheism.  He must show that 1) Craig’s arguments are flawed—cast a negative pallor upon Christianity and Craig’s arguments—AND 2) put forward a positive argument FOR atheism.  Harris does neither.  He simply avoids Craig’s arguments and plays off of supposed “self-evident” truths about how stupid religious beliefs are.

Harris essentially latches on to something that appears “awful” or contradictory of God to do (“If you believe in the wrong god, you are doomed, in Dr. Craig’s universe.”) and then (metaphorically, of course) flaps his arms and exaggeratingly expresses his utter disbelief and disdain for the thing.  Imagine Harris, upon finding some doctrine or teaching or practice of Catholicism (like the Trinity or transubstantiation), yells really loudly in a drawn-out tone, “Hey guys [atheists, skeptics, agnostics, non-believers, et al]!  Look at how dumb this thing is!  I can’t believe any sane person actually believes in any of this mumbo jumbo. Haha!”

Harris, frantically flagging down his supporters so they can
all engage in a therapeutic religion bashing session together.

He allows his degrees and scientific background to speak for him, while playing off of a shallow and misinformed crowd hankering for its next superstitious idea to lambaste.  There’s only one problem, Harris: Catholicism is not a superstition or a myth: it is TRUE, and until you actually demonstrate otherwise, just cut the shenanigans.

Science Alone!

Another tactic atheists use nowadays is to demand that all knowledge must pass muster with *drum roll please!* the scientific method.

Here’s the problem with this worldview: atheists say that something must be proven via the scientific method for them to accept that that something is true.  There are two problems with this view:

1) The statement and standard, “I will only believe what science tells me is true” cannot itself be validated by science or by the scientific method.  Said another way, the statement, “The only true things are those which can be proven by science” can in no way be validated by precisely the only thing (supposedly) that can be trusted to give us accurate information: science.  How can atheists rely solely on science to lead them to truths if the only thing that can lead them to said truths cannot even tell them that it itself is indeed the only thing that can do so?  Methinks there’s a problem there….

2) The worldview is also circular in validation.  Atheists only accept scientific findings as true; therefore, anything outside of science is false.  This is obviously circular logic: I will only accept what science can prove as true, and science cannot prove anything outside of science; therefore, all things outside science are false.  Their worldview leaves no room for anything outside of science, but it was chosen essentially arbitrarily so as to rid themselves of the pesky reality of the supernatural.  Plain and simple: science can NEVER disprove God because He is, by definition, SUPERnatural: science can only deal with that-which-can-be-found-and-experimented-upon-in-the-natural-realm.

Furthermore, just because God cannot be tested for scientifically does not mean that He is not real.  That’s like using a ruler to measure the temperature of a pot of boiling water and then claiming with certainty that trees can swim because the ruler isn’t giving you a darned temperature reading.

That darn pot....

There are many things that science simply cannot speak to, or if it can, we don’t employ it for that purpose in practical matters.  For example, science cannot adequately explain, beyond the hormones and chemicals involved, love and beauty.  Why the two have almost transcendent elements intrinsic to them is beyond the scope of science.  Additionally, let’s assume science could speak to love.  Even if it could, what good is it, really?  Ask yourself: does Dawkins really go home every night, and before even speaking to or kissing his wife, perform the requisite scientific test to determine if she still loves him?  Of course not!  The bottom line is that this sole reliance on empiricism is a self-fulfilling prophecy: science will never find God.  I only trust science.  Therefore, God is not real.  Juvenile reasoning at best.

Avoiding the Actual Topic at Hand

Finally, a last favorite tactic of atheists is the simple circumvention of an actual point in favor of a foray into foggy emotionalism or simple wrong-headedness.  Some examples are in order.

First, we have the Kalām Cosmological Argument, popularized by Dr. Craig, which proceeds thusly:

Premise-1: Nothing can begin to exist without a cause.

Premsise-2: The universe began to exist (some 13.75 billion years ago).

Premise-3: Therefore, the cause of the universe would have to be something transcendent and extraordinarily—infinitely—powerful.  This being is classically referred to as God.

This argument relies on the “hidden” premise of the definition of God, or at least of one of His attributes.  God, as He has always been classically understood by Catholics, is He Who Must Exist, He Who Is Being Itself, He Who Cannot Not Exist, Ipsum Esse.

So, what do atheists love to do in the face of this argument?  Simply ask the wrong-headed question: “Well, then who or what created God?”  The problem here is that atheists fundamentally misunderstand WHAT God is.  They view Him as just another trumped up being or a really, really, really, powerful creature.  This is simply not the case.

To ask, “What created God?” is as misguided and ignorant as asking, “Why can’t we have a five-sided triangle—in Euclidian geometry—with more or less than 180°?”  You can see why this is a nonsensical question: bound up in the definition, in the reality of a Euclidian triangle itself, is that it has exactly 180° and is three-sided: no more, no less.

If it were to have five sides, it would be a pentagon, not a triangle; if it were to have more or less than 180°, then it would lose one of its essential properties.  The same logic applies to God.  God must exist; it is His nature as much as it is the triangle’s “nature” to be three-sided and contain precisely 180°.

(Nota bene: this last line of reasoning also does not even speak to the impossibility of an infinite regress, a necessary fixture of metaphysics if God is removed from the picture.)

Dawkins has said:

“If you believe this is the only life you're going to get, it’s a precious life.  We should live to the full.  Where if you believe in another life, you don’t live this life to the full because you think you’re going to get another one.  That’s an awfully negative way to live a life.”

Here’s the problem: what Dawkins mistakenly believes (either willfully or out of ignorance, the world may never know) is that the afterlife is simply more of an Earthly existence, or perhaps that it is some kind of “cosmic do-over.”  He is fundamentally wrong on this point.  The afterlife is a quantum leap, so to speak, in degree of difference from Earth and this mortal life.

Jacob's Ladder

You can see all the ways Dawkins goes wrong in his assessment of the afterlife in this post regarding the nature of Heaven.  He simply avoids the necessary background study in Catholic theology and then makes bold, sweeping conclusions about the faith.  I suggest he study more of that which he is attempting to discredit and/or mock before he actually attempts to discredit and/or mock the thing.

So those were just some of the annoying bits of the ways atheists argue concerning God and religion.  Let me know what you guys think in the Comments section!  Did I miss anything?  Was I spot-on or nah?

Follow @DeionKathawa

Everyone has heard of the Ten Commandments.  They have been lauded, mocked, and ignored.  They are the bedrock of Christian morality and a subset of now-orthodox Jewish morality.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they most likely inform a decent chunk of your morality too (or at least of the society in which you live).

“Thou shalt not kill” is a pretty important one, and just about everyone agrees that killing is wrong except in cases like abortion or euthanasia, but I digress.  “Thou shalt not bear false witness” at least still applies in our cultures in terms of court proceedings and the oath taken therein to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God.”  “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt honor thy father and mother” are both pretty much universally accepted as well.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery” is basically ignored and derided as the result of—to us forward thinking and open-minded moderns—tiny-mindedness, jealousy, and general primitiveness of the ancient Israelites who were only concerned with keeping women as property and with no rights and on and on and on.  It is clear we no longer respect this very simple commandment when the Internet is littered with sites set up for the express purpose of facilitating adulterous affairs among married folk.

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods” are probably largely ignored and superseded in today’s day-and-age by the fifth commandment (adultery) and the seventh commandment (stealing).  The word “covet” is largely lost on modern-day society, and is indeed different from the actual acts themselves.  But this distinction—subtle though it may be—is lost on modern man, who is most definitely not in the habit of censoring his thoughts when they turn out to be evil or ill intentioned.

We now come to worst treated of the lot: the first three commandments.  All of these have to do with our relationship to God.  And guess what?  Today’s typical educated, liberal Westerner does not believe in God as Catholics understand Him.  Sure, they might believe in some kind of vague “Force” pulsating with vitality throughout the universe.

Analogous to God, who supposedly tweaked the universe into
existence--like this watchmaker.

Maybe they even believe in a Deistic conception of God, a kind of cosmic Watchmaker; a God who, after the universe was made, just let it all run like a human watchmaker does with his watches.  More likely, however, is that this typical Westerner disbelieves in anything beyond the natural realm, by definition, what we would call the supernatural—and this would surely include God.

Unless it can be empirically proven, they say, it is not real; therefore, God is not real: plain and simple.

We Catholics, however, do not have this problem.  We have a healthy dose of respect for the supernatural, and we see it at work in our lives (at least when we are paying sufficient attention).  I would like to propose a way that we can consolidate all Ten Commandments; that with this one conception of God’s Law, we will be in right standing with Him, the world, our neighbor, and ourselves.

The commandment is simple.  In fact, it is the First Commandment: “I AM the LORD your GOD… you shall have no other gods before me.”

Guess what fellow Catholics (and Christians)?!  This is it!  This is the mother lode that you were all waiting for!

This commandment is the “skeleton key” unlocking all that we need ever do in order to follow God’s Law and be in as good a standing as we ever can as creatures now predisposed to sin.

Think about it: God is the sovereign Author of life, death, the universe, the angels, morality, roses, coffee, sunlight, everything.  Sin is the free rejection of this fact.  All sin is a rebellion of our wills against the reality that we owe God our will, lives, thoughts, bodies, everything, because everything that we have—all that we are, even—is a free gift from Him who IS perfect Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.

Imagine it.  If we all were acutely aware at all times of the fact that this is who God is and what we are to Him, creatures full of sin (though now adopted sons of the Father and joint-heirs with Christ by His Passion, death, and Resurrection), we would never sin.  The idea of sinning would never be heeded with any seriousness, let alone acted upon.  We would recognize that to steal, snap at our mothers, rape, or whatever, are all affronts to God: He who is offended by all sins.

All sin is disorder.  When we are in order, we are doing the will of God.  Sin is a disordering of our persons; it is putting the creature or created thing before the Creator, He who should be praised above all, for He gave all things being. Sin is, simply put, an “idolization” of that-which-is-not-God; and what could be worse than to adore, venerate, and worship a mere created thing in lieu of the Creator Himself?

Essentially, all sin is, in some way or another, a placing of ourselves above and ahead of God, He who deserves all of our very selves because it is Him alone who is worthy of any adoration as the sovereign Creator of everything.  He holds all things in being; without His constant willing of all things to have their being there would be nothing.  As St. Augustine wrote, “These things [created things] kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee.”

St. Augustine thoroughly bossin' it up with his heart on fire for God.
He tried the zeal!

Pornography is the elevation of the naked form of human persons and their consequent sexual activity above God, who designed sex and the human person.  It removes love and goodness from the sexual act, divorcing it to invested third parties which seek to profit from the enslavement of men and women and the perversion of their sexuality; it is thus an affront to the Creator.

The Rape of Lucretia

Rape is the objectification of another person, placing one’s own selfish desires for sensual and carnal pleasures, as well as a disordered sense of power, ahead of the dignity of the raped.  S/He has this immutable dignity first and foremost because it is in God’s image and likeness that s/he is made.  Rape elevates power and sensuality above God and is thus an affront to the Creator.

Stealing deprives another of his right to have whatever it was that was stolen from him.  It is a lessening of another man’s dignity in his legitimate right to maintain his possession for the selfish furthering of our own ends.  It treats the person stolen from as less than a person made in God’s image and likeness and is thus an affront to the Creator.

To practice the illicit use of contraception is to place the pleasure of sexual intercourse ahead of one of the dual purposes of the act itself: bearing and rearing children.  It places selfish desires ahead of the God who designed sex to be selfless and is thus an affront to the Creator.

Abortion is a terrible evil because it robs a child of the right to life, a life given him by His Creator.  It makes man out to be a god, deciding if this or that person should live or not.  We have, at the time of an abortion, forgotten that we are mere stewards of the earth and our own lives, not the master of them.  Abortion taints Man’s purpose, elevating him above God on issues of life and death, and is thus an affront to the Creator.

Euthanasia is likewise an affront on the matter of life and death.  We have made ourselves out to be God, misusing our wills and rational natures in the pursuit of a perverted sense of the good.  We seek death for an elderly person and deprive them of the legitimate right to suffer and die with dignity.  Contrary to popular belief, suffering is not inherently wrong.  To suffer is to redeem, to sanctify, and to make whole once again.  Our own Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was not Himself above suffering; why should we be?  Euthanasia is an affront to the natural process of God’s Law for a person to suffer and atone in some way for the sins of mankind by uniting his/her suffering with the Cross of Christ and is thus an affront to the Creator.

Homosexual acts place sex above God, who created sex and the human person.  It is an elevation of a created good to the point of perversion and vileness—for it has been elevated far beyond its proper place.  We must never forget that sex is a created good, subordinate to God.  Homosexual acts are closed to the gift of life and do not proceed from genuine affective and sexual complementarity between the actors; they are a misuse of our sexual powers and are thus an affront to the Creator.

This movie was rife with fornicating teens.

Fornication is likewise offensive to the Most High because it disassociates the unitive, or lifelong, dimension of the sexual union from the procreative (because it is more often than not corrupted further by contraceptive agents and barriers).  Fornication treats the sexual act as that-which-is-to-be-desired for its own sake, or that which is good in itself.  Only God fulfills this desire in our lives.  Fornication places illicit, pre-marital sex before God who made the institution of marriage, sex, and the human person and is thus an affront to the Creator.

The list goes on forever and is as long as the possible sins that Man could ever commit. What is the underlying mechanism and commonality among the multitude, however?  It is that they all elevate Man or a created good above God, Him who deserves ALL of our attention, worship, and obedience.  Each and every sin is an affront to God because when we sin we mistake ourselves or a created good for God.  We confuse our relationship to the world and with God each and every time we sin.

St. Ignatius of Loyola (one of my personal favorites), at the outset of his Spiritual Exercises, also wrote on this principle.  (Just an aside, I probably love him more than is healthy for someone addressing the perils of placing something that is not God above God.)

First Principle and Foundation

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul,

The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created.

Hence, man is to make use of them as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he must rid himself of them in as far they prove a hindrance to him.

Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed free choice and are not under any prohibition.  Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life.  The same holds true for all other things.

Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.

Follow @DeionKathawa

Have you ever been in a situation where you just did not want something to be true, and no matter how much evidence was brought before you, you would do whatever it took to ignore what was so plainly in front of you?  Maybe you had a vested interest in keeping whatever it was “false,” maybe you just could not bring yourself to accept the evidence, whatever; it really doesn’t matter why it happened, just that it happened.  I am not ashamed to say that I am part of this club; it’s an element of our behavior that makes us human: we have a hard time accepting new information and assimilating it into our existent worldview.  Now, I’m not saying that this stubbornness of not believing something based upon evidence presented plainly to one’s face completely and accurately describes our atheist friends, but its contemplation does bring up some interesting parallel scenarios.

Listening to the impassioned rantings nowadays of Internet and professional atheists alike, one gets the sense that they do not just disbelieve in God and disbelieve in the evidence and arguments provided for His existence, but that they really just do not want Him to be real!  It seems that they are willing to do and think anything to ensure that God “doesn’t exist” (as if their beliefs about His existence could make Him any more or less real).

The universe is too big!  Er, wait, or is it too small? I don’t know: it doesn’t matter!

Many atheists today will claim that the universe is simply too vast for God to care about us human beings and our well-being, beliefs, and actions.  “Why would this supreme Being care about a tiny speck of dust in the vastness of the universe?” is a very common inquiry.  As the Amazing Atheist once said in a video concerning the death of Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church: “Because God really cares about a bunch of primates on a backwater speck of a planet in the cosmos and where they stick their genitalia?!”

This strikes me as a false dichotomy though.  Theological complaints aside—specifically concerning the nature of God as Love Itself and the fact that from reality this stems all of the Catholic Church’s teachings on sex, end of life care, poverty, and a whole host of other issues (all worthy topics for future posts)—it seems as though the atheist’s position is merely one of stubbornness and not of reason; it appears internally inconsistent.  To prove my point, let’s take a parallel scenario and see where we end up.

Suppose everything in this new, alternate reality is exactly the same as it is now, except that our universe is only the size of our Milky Way galaxy, or even only as large as our solar system.  (This obviously calls for us to suspend our disbelief regarding the expansion of the universe and how science tells us that it actually needs to be this big for the force of gravity not to have collapsed the whole thing shortly after the Big Bang.)

Can anyone guess what the line from your typical aware-of-the-cosmology-debate atheist would be?  I have an idea: “Gee fellas.  You know what?  When I look at the universe, you know what I think?  I think that if the Christian God were real—this all-powerful, all-knowing, Supreme Being those whack-job Christians are constantly blathering on about—the universe would be bigger.  If He was real, He would have created a bigger, more majestic universe!”

Notice the problem: when the universe is too big, God is not real, because, well, why would this Divine Being care about lil old us, huh?  But, when the universe is too small?  Ah!  Isn’t this God I keep hearing about all-powerful?  Whaddup with this janky small-ish universe?  Shouldn’t He be proving to me that He is real with majesty and grandeur and whatnot?

It really seems to me that atheists are not thinking clearly when they say these things.  It seems to me that their responses are more akin to an emotional reaction whenever God is brought up and not grounded in any kind of sense.

You just wait and see: when we find aliens, you’ll realize that we’re not special at all.

Astronomers and physicists are obsessed with finding other planets with intelligent life.  It seems as though every other article I come across on my daily Internet strolling is about extraterrestrials and how we’re literally *this close* to discovering intelligent life *holds pointer finger and thumb really, really close together to demonstrate how close we really are*.  (No, for real though: it’ll be any day now, just you wait and see.)  This frenzy was even more fervent in the decades of old.  The Drake equation is a famous example. 

Developed by Dr. Frank Drake, an American astronomer and astrophysicist, it was designed to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy.  These scientists’ insinuations were that if we found extraterrestrial life, then the meaning of human life and intelligence would be of less value and importance: after all, we would simply be one among many, and this was not even accounting for the many other billions of galaxies in the universe at large!

That equation was developed in 1961, and after all this time, guess how much intelligent life we’ve found in the Milky Way, or anywhere for that matter?  Nothing.  Zip.  Zero.  Nada.

This is not to say that no such life exists at all, only to contrast it with the mentality of today’s scientists and intellectuals.  (I personally would not be shocked one way or another: the Catholic Church’s teachings will not be contradicted one iota if there is intelligent life out there in the universe or if we are all alone; it really does not matter.)

Now, the thinking is much less optimistic.  Many scientists nowadays are conceding that we may very well be alone in the cosmos, though the recent discovery of Kepler-186f—a rocky exoplanet about 500 million light years away, roughly equivalent in size to Earth, and in the “Goldilock’s Zone (not too close and not too far from its sun)—is sparking new optimism in the search.

But again, you will notice the internal inconsistencies with atheists’ views on the matter of extraterrestrial life.  When we are confident in the 1960s and 1970s that we will indeed find intelligent life in the universe other than human beings, well, isn’t it terribly obvious?  We’re not special!  God did not create all this for us, and we do not have a special place in the grand scheme of things; we share the universe with a bunch of other intelligent beings.  But now, when the prospects of finding such extraterrestrial life are much more dismal, well, isn’t it obvious?  God obviously cannot exist!  He is not even powerful enough to create more than one species of intelligent life: some “Intelligent Designer” this shmuck is!

Again, this smacks of hypocrisy and doublethink, and I really cannot wrap my mind around how atheists get through their days holding these so obviously contradictory views.

You know what?  God doesn’t help people who are being raped or anything like that, so yeah: if He was all-powerful He would.

This is always a fun one.  Atheists look at the state of the world around them and they see suffering, evil, and death, and it is ugly—and I agree with them.  From this dismalness, however, atheists see a lack of God—they see God’s nonexistence, whereas I see God and His Providence bringing good even out of the most horrendous of evils.  This is a fundamental disagreement between the two camps, and not an issue that I wish to concern myself with in this particular post.  (Is it a topic for another post?  Most definitely.)  The point of this observation of how atheists respond to the evil so very present in the world around them is to contrast it with how they view the Old Testament.  In modern times, atheists see God’s lack of intervention in the sufferings endured and evils committed by men as proof of His nonexistence, yet this contrasts interestingly with how they view the God of the Old Testament, YAHWEH.

I have yet to hear of an atheist who did not complain about, have a major beef with, or cite the Old Testament as rock solid evidence attesting to the cruelty of YAHWEH, and why this prevents any so-called “rational” person from believing in the Christian God: hence, why they do not.  Now, this post does not concern itself with the information present in the Old Testament and how it fits into Christian Tradition (again though, a post for another time), but I cannot help but take notice of the irony of the situation.  These same atheists who complain that God is so very distant and inactive in our modern times then turn around and viciously condemn YAHWEH when He is near and active in righting wrongs committed by the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and in the heathen nations in the land of Canaan: nations which offered children in sacrifice, committed horrible offenses like infanticide, and ran rampant in sexual immoralities in their frequent participation in orgies and homosexuality, among others.

The bottom line is that these peoples were not very… “wholesome,” and that’s putting it mildly.

The point is that the atheist complains when God is seemingly distant (like today), but also complains when He is active and near to His people during Old Testament times.  Sounds like a recalcitrant child to me, and not an über-rational secular humanist or however it is that they identify.

The fundamental observation is this: the atheist is determined not to believe in God no matter what.  The universe is too big; therefore, God’s not real.  The universe is too small; therefore, God’s not real.  We’re gonna find so much life in the universe; therefore, God’s not real.  We’re probably alone in the vastness of space; therefore, God’s not real.  God allows rape; therefore, God’s not real.  God punishes deeply evil and immoral nations in the Old Testament; therefore, God’s not real.

In what scenario will atheists concede that God is real, I honestly do not know.  It seems to me that the atheists have crafted a kind of lose-lose situation for God: He’s damned if He does and damned if He doesn’t.  I think it is more likely that the atheist—who professes to keep an open mind about God—is really more in the business of avoiding God.

“The atheist can't find God for the same reason that a thief can't find a policeman.”

-Author Unknown

Follow @DeionKathawa

You guys all know what I’m talking about right? You’re maybe watching the news when it cuts to commercial. Then, an overhead sweep-in camera pans onto an immaculately made bed, with perhaps a gorgeous woman lying upon it—apparently asleep—as rather soothing and contemplative music plays softly in the background. Then, an authoritatively powerful and masculine voice sounds from off camera right: “Get the rest you deserve. You deserve a Sleep Number® bed.” Now, because I am a rather eccentric person in some regards (I mean, I am writing this blog after all), I tend to notice things about commercials (or at least with this one) that many others do not. I have discerned a connection between this commercial and Man’s sinful state. “Impossible!” you say. “You must be really reaching now, Deion; you don’t honestly expect us to believe that a bed commercial gave you some kind of special insight into the fundamental nature of Man-as-sinner, now do you?” Ah, but this is precisely what I mean. Don’t believe me? Read on and see for yourself: “and do not be unbelieving, but believe” (John 20:27).

(Yeah, yeah, I know that verse is taken from the story of Thomas and the Resurrected Christ, when Thomas expressed his doubt to the other disciples that Jesus had indeed risen. You’re probably wondering why I shamelessly made use of such an important line from Sacred Scripture for seemingly no other discernible reason than because I have a penchant for trivialization… and perhaps a smidgen of pride—and a dash of folly. Well, so am I; so just go with it!)

Anyway, back to how the bed commercial relates to Man-as-sinner. It is no secret that, in the Gospels, Christ demands of us true repentance. He wants us to be moved to take on a new life, complete with new habits and thoughts and desires. He is never more plainspoken in this regard than when He says to the crowd, “‘If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’” (Luke 9:23). Christ demands that we die to ourselves each and every day and follow Him in love and obedience. He demands that we lessen—our wills, prejudices, meanness, bitterness, and on-and-on—so that He can increase in us. St. John the Baptist said this far before I write it now, and much more plainly and clearly: “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Now, in contrast, what do these commercials tell us we need to do? They promise a “perfect night’s sleep,” “the best sleep you’ve ever had,” and (my personal favorite) “when you wake up and your back doesn’t hurt at all: wow!” (Note: what I say in the rest of this post has nothing to do, and is no way targeted at, those who actually have back problems, and may you all experience God’s tender healing and mercy.) I just really cannot stand that last quote! The commercial is literally indicative of the state of our entire society! We shirk hardship, reject pain and suffering, and seek only the easiest and shortest way to complete any given task (when we can even muster up the will to get off of our computers and phones and actually start said task!) Our sex is guiltless, string-less, loveless, childless; our elderly are “put down” in their frailty and infirmity—their utter vulnerability—not to lessen their suffering, but to lessen our having to be a part of that same suffering; and our children are made, not conceived in an act of total self-giving love, but in cold, economically viable business transactions among three consenting adults and a lab. Let’s just face it and own up to it: we are “all-in” on the business of minimizing suffering. Suffering is seen as a mark of failure, of shame, and it is to be avoided at all costs.

And guess what? I would be inclined to agree with that sentiment, if not for one small problem: Jesus. As tempting as it is to listen and give myself over to the message of a cleverly crafted, 21st century commercial advertising a product designed to make my life more leisurely, made by a corporation whose primary concern is their bottom-line, I cannot—in spite of myself (imagine that!)—seem to shake Christ’s words from my mind. I think (and I could very well be wrong here; you guys be the judge) that the Son of God ought to be heeded well before a mattress company is!

“The Sleep Number® conforms to you.” –some guy named Greg (probably). Again, the height of folly in our modern society, embodied in a freakin’ two-minute commercial! Gone—it seems—are the days where we conformed to others, when we genuinely cared for and worried about our friends and neighbors, when we would put such high-minded things as morals and the common good before the ravenous desire for comfort by our bodies. This commercial makes truly evident to me just how far our society has fallen from the ideal that is the Kingdom of God. There is no such thing as a self-centered existence that also aligns with God! For Christ Himself said:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” (John 12:24-25)

Christ is saying, somewhat paradoxically (and the Church absolutely eats this stuff up: true God and true man, Virgin Mother, death brings everlasting life, etc. etc.), that unless we live outside of ourselves—lives rooted in His eternal kingship, lives of love and obedience—we will die. We will remain grains of wheat, never to realize our true destinies as divinized (made more similar to God) sons and daughters of God.

None of us are long for this world, and it would pay dearly for us to remember that. Earth is not our true home: we were created for something far more wonderful and awe-inspiring. We must shake the fog from our eyes and tear away the glamorously gilded veneer of the modern world that so audaciously promises us heaven-on-earth. It is an effort doomed to perpetual failure, my friends. Heaven is where God is, and it is achieved only by conforming ourselves to God’s only begotten Son, Christ Jesus, “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation… the beginning, the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:15, 18b), and principally by God’s grace, for we can do nothing apart from it.

(I would also like to add a small note about my choice of company with whose commercial’s I have chosen to malign in this post. Really, any mattress company would have been acceptable. I know it seems like I have an ax to grind with Sleep Number®. I really and truly do not: they were simply the first corporation (that also sold mattresses) that popped into my head.  And for all you company execs, employees, sympathizers: take this as a mark of the effectiveness of your marketing teams, give them a raise, and, for the love of all that is good and holy, don't sue me!  It could just have easily have been TempurPedic®, after all.)

Follow @DeionKathawa

For starters, I would just like to say that I am overjoyed that you are reading this blog. I believe that the time you spend here will be time well spent. I hope you leave having learned something, and that you continue to come back if you have. (And if you don’t, come back anyway: I’m sure something that I write will eventually make sense!)

As to why I decided to write this blog. I was, in part, inspired by what I saw around me every day. I saw friends, people on the news, and complete strangers seemingly struggling with questions and grappling with existential crises that I, by the grace of God, had found answers to. I did not want to see these people continue to struggle so mightily with these crushing doubts. I wanted to help.

I also cannot deny that I have always had a penchant for writing. The practice has always soothed me, brought me comfort and clarity, and has always had a certain draw over me. Most people that I know aren’t terribly fond of writing (you guys know who you are!); they would prefer to spend their time solving math or physics problems, writing code, or some other thoroughly non-writing activity; just the thought of those makes me shudder.

Finally, I must give credit where credit is due. I have God to thank for instilling in me the zeal to share my faith, the will to carry it out, the intellect to make this blog any good, and for His grace which allows me to persist in this life at all. He has thoroughly inspired me: and how could He not? He is my Creator, my Redeemer, and my Sanctifier. He is my origin and my end; He is the reason for my existence and the object of my ever-striving love. He alone is the purpose for which I live—all else is fanfare and extra.

Now, for the purpose of this blog. I will not bore you with lofty notions and high-minded idealism. (Who am I kidding? I’m totally going to do that!) My hope is that this blog, above all, informs you, dear reader. I hope it inspires you to look deeper, live more deeply, and, above all, love to the fullest. I hope it causes you to seek your origin, your identity, your purpose, and your end. What are my answers to you if I were asked these questions? My origin is the Father, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and myself; my identity is an adopted son of the Father and joint-heir with Christ, His Beloved Son, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God Incarnate; my purpose in this life is to know, love, and serve the Lord; my end is the contemplation of God, face-to-Face, in Heaven, my true home. I write these things with utmost confidence. This leads me to realize that there is another hope that I have for this blog: I hope that this blog aids you on your own personal journey and encounter with Jesus Christ, the Logos of the Father, Who will give you assurances to these four most important questions if you but seek Him sincerely and ask Him with confidence.

(And by the way: I’m sure you noticed that there is actually no hint of megalomania anywhere in this post. I know, I know, I didn’t technically tell the truth; I’ll try not to make it a habit.) Well, let’s get to it then!

Follow @DeionKathawa