Long time no post

My last post was on October 12, 2010.  In the intervening 90 days, in addition to my normal and seemingly ever increasing professional responsibilities and domestic tasks, I have taken part in my first community play, enjoyed Thanksgiving with family and celebrated the birth of our Lord.  I haven't had much time to meditate and formulate something that I would feel confident in sharing.  Today I have some extra time on my hands since I am off of work due to winter weather (you have to be from the American south to understand this phenomenon).

Sadly, the last few days have been spent reading about the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords yesterday in Arizona.  In watching and reading the coverage of this tragedy I have been struck by the flurry of comments from some political commentators that this somehow resulted from the words of people on the other side of the political isle.  They say this despite by there own admission that, at least as of this writing, there is not one scintilla of evidence to support such convictions.

This viewpoint got me thinking about how many atheist and other non-believers use a perceived lack of tangible proof of the existence of God as a foundation for their non-belief.  I think a lot about how to respond to such non-believers.  I am by nature a logical thinker and as an attorney I am trained to seek proof and question everything.  So it seems natural to me that my need to continually seek God is satisfied, in part, by seeking proof that He exists. 

It is currently widely agreed that the universe was created by a "big bang."  While I won't delve into the hit-and-miss history of universally held scientific beliefs, I will for the sake of this post accept that the big bang theory is true.  Scientific atheist (used as a general term for all who do not believe in the existence of God and do so based on a belief that there is a lack of empirical proof thereof) see the creation of the universe and of mankind as a random act.  They base their entire belief system, and often their lives, on this one-in-trillions (or greater) chance that everything fell perfectly in place for the creation of life, the development of humanity and the perfectly supporting universe around us.  Yet, I challenge anyone to find another area of science where such a random chance happening is given any credence.  In my own profession, if a DNA test finds that it is 99.9% likely for a man to be the biological father of a child, science and the law deems him to be the legal father.  In criminal court, DNA is used to tie and exclude suspects to crimes.

If human DNA can identify people in terms of one-in-billions and the make-up of homo sapiens is but an infinitesimal part of the whole of creation, it begs the question of how scientific atheists rationalize their views on creation.  How can one accept that the universe as we know it was created by chance, but summarily dismiss that same chance when it comes to DNA (or any other scientific area).  Is it not, at a minimum, equally as likely that a mother and father in Wisconsin and a couple in Germany could produce offspring with the exact genetic pattern as it is that the universe was created to perfectly support human life?  How is it that the idea of two persons having the same DNA is so remote that it is dismissed by all but maybe the most fringe members of the scientific community, but chance on the much grander scale of creation is seen as perfectly acceptable?  

The reasons scientific atheists disregard chance in all but creation vary as greatly as the number of persons who hold this belief.  All we can do is pray for the soul of these persons and do out best to show them the Truth. 

"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui

Mr. Snuffleupagus and God

I am supposed to be getting ready for a 1/2 day hearing tomorrow, but am instead reading links I got from twitter posts over the last two days.  I was reading an article titled The Moral Dilemma of Agnosticism and was struck not only by the article and how it relates to my self-described agnostic wife, but by a comment to this article by someone going by the initials "smh" (posted on July 31, 2010 at 7:26 PM).  "smh" said:

I think that, while thoughtful agnostics hold their position in good faith (pun intended), the key weakness in their argument is the mistaken conflation of two different senses of "know" -- the factual and the personal. They are hardly entirely to blame for that, as far too many Christian apologetics make the same mistake, and treat God as an abstract logical point to be proved, or an empirical datum to be verified by observation and experimentation, rather than a person who encounters and is encountered.

This got me thinking about how agnostics in general, and my wife in particular, really see God as Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street.  As a kid¹, Mr. Snuffleupagus was a character on Sesame Street that Big Bird saw and no one else ever did.²  While I guess you can say I am fairly intelligent, I certainly am not on the level of deep thinkers as "smh" and the writer of the article.  However, I am constantly debating, for a lack of a better word, my wife about proof of the exisentence of God.  As with any good agnostic, she claims to want "proof" of the existence of God before she says she can believe.  Of course, much to my dismay, no matter what I try, I cannot "prove" God's existence in a physical sense.

In my discussions with my wife I have hit on the same concept as this article and "smh."  I ask her how she can believe that the Civil War happened because she can no more prove that it happened than I can prove God exists.  I can show you artifacts and writings of people who were around in the time of Jesus and His teachings, but I cannot make Jesus appear to her face.  In the same way she can only see artifacts and writings from the Civil War era, but cannot experience a battle for herself.  I have also tried to relate her lack of belief in other ways.  For instance, she hasn't the slightest clue as to how to make electricity or how it works (nor do I for that matter), yet she "believes" that every time she flips a light switch the light will turn on.

Those are my simpleton attempts at relaying, "the mistaken conflation of two different senses of "know" -- the factual and the personal."³  I will never be able to factually prove God exists, even to myself.  I can only know He exists because I have a personal relationship with Him.  It is through this personal relationship that I know He exists.  Oddly, my wife and I met on the internet and there was a period of time where she didn't know that I existed, at least with regard to what my physical characteristics were.  Yet she believed, I guess, what I told her and the images I sent her of me. 

Back to Mr. Snuffleupagus.  Only Big Bird "believed" he existed because only Big Bird had a personal relationship with him (her/it?).  The other residents of Sesame Street didn't have this relationship with Mr. Snuffleupagus and therefore didn't believe he (she/it?) existed.  It wasn't until Mr. Snuffleupagus appeared to other residents that they finally realized that Big Bird wasn't crazy this whole time. 

Too bad Big Bird didn't have the Communion of Saints and the Holy Spirit to aid him (her/it?) in convincing everyone of Mr. Sunffleupagus' existence.  I will simply have to pray that the Saints and Holy Spirit will guide me in my attempts to reach my wife and that God will open her heart to Him.  May God bless you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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¹I remember listening to the Catholics Next Door a while back and they were talking about re-runs of Sesame Street from the 70's being put out on DVD.  "Sesame Street: Old School" DVD's have a disclaimer that says "Welcome to 'Sesame Street Nostalgia.' I am Bob, your host, and I want you to know that these early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups and may not meet the needs of today's pre-school child."

²I wonder if that fact in and of itself was intended as a comment on religion by the creators of Sesame Street??
³I am truly in awe of people who can think at such a high level to be able to say things like that.

One day down

My channeling Bono act worked last night . . . no, I didn't pray to the tune of "Where the Streets Have No Name," I used the "hopeless case" inspiration to have a very nice prayer time. As you may be able to tell by the name of this blog, I suffer from what I have diagnosed as Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (and yes I am a doctor, just one a medical one). I have never gone to an MD to have it officially diagnosed (although I am considering it), but I do horribly suffer from the inability to keep my mind on track. I say suffer because it is either pride or fear that prevents me from getting it treated and it causes great stress for me in my profession.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Maybe I do have a little mind but I doubt any statesmen, philosophers or divines will adore it. Then again, who knows, maybe I have my expectations for this blog set too low. :) Anyway, I have foolishly been consistent with trying to deal with this problem without the intervention of medication. I have tried ginkgo biloba and it seemed to offer some relief, but I was inconsistent in taking it. Now I am back on, so let’s see if it pays dividends. If not, who knows, maybe I will venture off and become a pill popper.

Back to the story the point, prayer. I would repeatedly utter the words, "reach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case" anytime my mind would wander last night during prayer and it worked marvelously. That reminds me of my 9th grade English teacher. She used to tell us, a class full of 14 year olds, that if we had writer's block to write the word "sex" over and over and over on our paper until we could think of something to write. Believe me, at 14 it didn't take long for me to come up with something to write about but it wasn't something that was appropriate for my parents to read. In small town Arkansas I guess they had to take what they could find!

Ok, back to prayer. So that little trick worked. I have always found that I have what I would call a two (2) track mind. I could concentrate on something if I had something going on in the background to keep what I would call my "other mind" busy. Some of my law school buddies would pop Adderall during finals while I would O-D on Hendrix or the Blues Brothers. That was always the key, it had to be something familiar, had to be something I knew without concentrating on.

So, maybe if the U2 chants lose effectiveness I can employ my IPOD . . . I wonder if God likes Ben Folds?????