"It is...Our will that Catholics should abstain from certain appellations which have recently been brought into use to distinguish one group of Catholics from another. They are to be avoided not only as 'profane novelties of words,' out of harmony with both truth and justice, but also because they give rise to great trouble and confusion among Catholics. Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: 'This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly; he cannot be saved' (Athanasian Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim 'Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,' only let him endeavour to be in reality what he calls himself." -- Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum 24 (1914)

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Is Richard Dawkins leading people to Jesus?

Winning souls for Christ!
My schoolfriend Michael – an atheist for decades – rang me the other night and told me he'd returned to the Catholic Church. "And you'll never guess who converted me," he said.
"Your wife?"
"No! It was Richard Dawkins!"
He explained that he was, and is, a huge admirer of Dawkins the biologist. (I'm with him there: I read The Blind Watchmaker when it first came out and was blown away.) "But then I read The God Delusion and it was… total crap. So bad that I started questioning my own atheism. Then he started tweeting."
Like a loony on top of the bus, no?
"Exactly!"
Funnily enough, this is the second time in a week that I've heard of Richard Dawkins leading someone to Christ. Let me refer you to an article in The Catholic Herald by Francis Phillips:
Judith Babarsky, an academic … having only a “surface level” understanding of Christianity as she admits, was recommended Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion to read. She writes that when she began, she thought she would read “a logical, sceptical, nay scientific critique of religion.” Instead, she was surprised to find “strings of pejorative adjectives pretending to be argument, bald assertion pretending to be evidence, an incredibly arrogant attitude and a stance of moral equivalence incapable of distinguishing between the possible strengths and weaknesses of different religions…”
Indeed, Babarsky found Dawkins’ arguments so unsatisfactory, coupled with his own atheistic and fundamentalist stance, that they prompted her to examine for the first time what Christianity was all about. Her examination was to lead to her conversion to Catholicism. “In reading to refute Dawkins as well as educate myself … I discovered the God-man Jesus Christ. Not only did the Catholic view resonate with me emotionally but … it was intellectually honest.”
Here is a link to Babarsky's original article, with its uncompromising title:
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might conclude that Prof Dawkins secretly converted to Christianity decades ago, and then asked himself: "How can I best win souls? By straightforward argument, or by turning myself from a respected academic into a comic figure fulminating against religion like a fruitcake at Speakers' Corner, thereby discrediting atheism?"
Hmm. Let me throw this one open to the floor.

1 comment:

  1. Though there are number of companies that offer Kitchener limo service throughout the world but their price may vary. If you do a little search before hiring a limousine will make your event just perfect.

    ReplyDelete