From Atheist to Catholic (‘Unshakable’ Rationalist Blogged Her Way Into the Church)

Fulwiler grew up a content atheist. Having a profound respect for knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, Fulwiler was convinced that religion and reason were incompatible. Not surprisingly, she was also emphatically anti-Christian and, especially, anti-Catholic. “Catholic beliefs seemed bizarre and weird,” she says.

Fulwiler would have been astonished to know that she and Joe Fulwiler, her husband, would come to embrace those “bizarre,” “weird” beliefs. On Easter 2007, they entered the Catholic Church with deep joy and a sense of coming home — and a blog aided their conversion.

Thanks to meeting and knowing my husband, I learned that belief in God is not fundamentally unreasonable. We met at the high-tech company where we both worked. Joe believed in God — something that, fortunately, I didn’t know for a while.

To me, belief in God was so unreasonable that, by definition, no reasonable person could believe in such a thing. I felt I could never be compatible with someone that unreasonable. Had I known that Joe believed in God, I would never have dated him.

It gave me pause. Joe is too smart — brilliant, really, with degrees from Yale, Columbia and Stanford — to believe in something nonsensical. I also met many of his friends. They, too, are highly intelligent — some with M.D.s and Ph.D.s from schools like Harvard and Princeton — and believed.

None of this made me believe in God, of course, but I could no longer say that only unreasonable or unintelligent people believe.

I have always been a truth-seeker, which is why I was an atheist. But I had a prideful, arrogant way of approaching questions about life and meaning. I now realize that pride is the most effective way to block out God so that one doesn’t see him at all. Certainly, I didn’t.

The birth of our first child motivated me to seek the truth with humility. I can’t emphasize this point enough: Humility, true humility, is crucial to the conversion process.

Most atheists are unchanged after their children’s births. Why were you so affected?

First, I had already begun thinking about the possibility of God’s existence. After our son’s birth, I wanted to know the truth about life’s great questions — for his sake. For the first time, I was motivated to seek truth with true humility. For example, I began reading, studying, and thinking about the great minds. Most, if not the majority, believed in some other world, some higher power, a god or gods — something. Even the great pre-Christian thinkers like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates believed.

Another avenue of exploration: I always revered the great scientists, including the founders of the significant branches of science. Very few were atheists. Indeed, some of the greatest were profoundly believing Christians.

It could be argued this was because they were steeped in the Christian culture and beliefs of their times.

That ignores a larger question I began asking myself: Is it really likely that great minds like Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Descartes and others didn’t know how to ask tough questions? Do these people seem to be men who didn’t know how to question assumptions and fearlessly seek truth? Of course not.

Eventually, but not at first. Religion wasn’t something we talked about. Joe was a non-churchgoing Baptist, which was fine by me. In fact, since I was an atheist, I considered not talking about God to be a good compromise. Our lives were completely secular — just like our wedding.

Definitely not! I wore a purple dress; we married in a theater with a friend officiating, using vows we wrote ourselves. The ceremony took seven minutes, then we all partied all night long. In fact, we didn’t even technically get married at our wedding: We did that at city hall a few days before.

I asked myself two questions: What is information? And: Can information ever come from a non-intelligent source?

It was a shocking moment for me because I had to confront the fact that DNA is information. If I remained an atheist, I would have to believe that all the intricate, detailed, complex information contained in DNA comes out of nowhere and nothing.

But I also knew that idea did not make sense. After all, I don’t look at billboards — which contain much simpler information than DNA — and think that wind and erosion created them. That wouldn’t be rational. Suddenly, I found that I was a very discomfited atheist.

No. But now I was a reluctant atheist. I had lots of questions but knew no one who might have answers: I had always consciously, deliberately distanced myself from believers. So, coming from the high-tech world, where did I go for answers? I put up a blog, of course! I started posting tough questions on my blog.

One matter stood out from the beginning: The best, most thoughtful responses came from Catholics. Incidentally, their answers were consistently better than the ones from atheists. It intrigued me that Catholics could handle anything I threw at them. Also, their responses reflected such an eminently reasonable worldview that I kept asking myself: How is it that Catholics have so much of this all figured out?

As I started telling Joe some of the answers that I was getting, especially from Catholics, his own interest in religion — and Catholicism — was piqued. We have always been a great team, so it was wonderful that we were exploring these issues and questions together, especially since we were so anti-Catholic.

Yes. I thought the Church’s views on most things, but especially marriage, contraception and abortion (since I was then ardently pro-choice), were simply crazy. Joe’s anti-Catholicism, while different, was stronger and more settled. He didn’t understand any Catholic doctrine or apologetics, so he fell into a stereotyped view of Catholics, thinking that they made idols of the pope and Mary, etc. Also, it never really occurred to him to take seriously the idea that Jesus founded one Church. He just assumed the way to pick a church is to find one that fits your personality.

Your conversion has impacted your daily life. What change, in particular, stands out in your mind?

Community! There is nothing like it in atheism. I never understood what people meant by members of the Church being part of the body of Christ, but now I really get it. By being part of the one, holy Catholic Church, there is a palpable connection I now have with other Catholics, even people I don’t know. It’s been amazing to experience that connection and community.

Yes. I thought the Church’s views on most things, but especially marriage, contraception and abortion (since I was then ardently pro-choice), were simply crazy. Joe’s anti-Catholicism, while different, was stronger and more settled. He didn’t understand any Catholic doctrine or apologetics, so he fell into a stereotyped view of Catholics, thinking that they made idols of the pope and Mary, etc

So Joe's aversion to Catholicism was pretty similar to her aversion to theism--both picked up somehow along the way, ardently held because both were obviously right, and never questioned because both were obviously right, and the lack of any good answers to the unasked questions accepted as evidence that neither had any good foundation in fact.

I'm not sure. But I don't think it's a coincidence that the word God isn't anywhere in the Constitution, and that the two most important facets of the document pertaining to religion are 1) the government cannot make any law that establishes religion and 2)that everyone is free to exercise religion without state interference.

You're not using constitutional language in 1) above, but something that has come about by the "wall of separation" crowd. A more accurate summary of this in the light of the history of the Constitution would be: 1) Congress shall not through legislation favor a particular church or sect over others (because nothing higher than one of the signing states could have an official state church), 2) Nor can Congress through legislation prohibit the free exercise of a particular church or religious sect.

Here is how language was morphed to mean that if any level of government permits any religious activity or symbol it is "establishing religion." The relevant phrase in the First Amendment is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." This specific language was loosened by changing "respecting" to mean "with respect to" and "an establishment of religion (ie, a religious organization)" to mean "the establishing of religion." From there, people said that whatever applied to Congress applied to the entire federal government and whatever applied to the federal government should apply to all state, county, and municipal governments and that the First Amendment wasn't talking about a specific religious establishment but anything of any religious nature whatsoever. This totalitarian approach to government was the exact opposite of what the Founders intended by creating, through the Constitution, a federal government that would operate only according to specific and enumerated powers, leaving everything else up to the individual states as they saw fit, and to the people.

You're not using constitutional language in 1) above, but something that has come about by the "wall of separation" crowd. A more accurate summary of this in the light of the history of the Constitution would be: 1) Congress shall not through legislation favor a particular church or sect over others (because nothing higher than one of the signing states could have an official state church), 2) Nor can Congress through legislation prohibit the free exercise of a particular church or religious sect.

The wall of separation as Jefferson envisioned it meant that the government and its leaders were not Constitutionally bound to answer to any religious authority, clergy, church, etc.

They also included the clause in Article VI about there being absolutely no religious test to hold office.

The Bill of Rights is an enumeration of personal liberties. It doesn't refer to a particular church or sect, but to the individual. The government cannot force anyone to follow any particular religion, or prohibit free religious exercise.

Gee, nice try, but since the language itself doesn't allow that interpretation, you're out of luck; "an establishment of religion" is not referring to the activity of an individual. Here are the Amendments that are not directed specifically to an individual:

First Amendment: "an establishment of religion" (not an individual but an organization; "of the press" (again, not an individual, but a profession or an activity pursued by associations of individuals or the aggregate group of individuals who engage in activity collectively known as "the press"), "the right of the people to peaceably assemble (again, a group).

Second Amendment: talks about the people's right to bear arms, it's referring to more than just "individuals".

Ninth Amendment: refers to the people at large.

Tenth Amendment: the power of the states and people. Again, not a specific "individual right."

The wall of separation as Jefferson envisioned it meant that the government and its leaders were not Constitutionally bound to answer to any religious authority, clergy, church, etc.

You got that backwards. He saw that the government and its leaders were constitutionally bound not to give particular favor to a religious organization. Besides, this idea of a "wall of separation" is not itself Constitutional and never was.

Second Amendment: talks about the people's right to bear arms, it's referring to more than just "individuals".

Wow, that's a knee slapper. You might as well go lobby for the Bradys.

'The People' refers to every individual citizen in the country. The Constitution does not break anyone up into groups.

Second Amendment: talks about the people's right to bear arms, it's referring to more than just "individuals". Wow, that's a knee slapper. You might as well go lobby for the Bradys.

Don't read too clearly, do you? That may be part of the reason you can read "an establishment of religion" and think there's a verb in there. What part of "more than" do you not understand? I didn't say that it didn't refer to individuals (as probably the Bradys do). "more than" is not equivalent to "other than." If you recall, it was you who said that the Bill of Rights was referring to individuals. I pointed out that the BoR was referring to individuals and associations or groups of individuals and states. And then you come back with something so gratuitous as "you might as well go lobby for the Bradys." Red herrings don't win arguments; they only draw attention to the weakness of the argument of the one tossing them about.

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