Posted on 03/16/2009 1:24:55 PM PDT by NYer
‘Unshakable’ Rationalist Blogged Her Way Into the Church
Jennifer Fulwiler “always thought it was obvious that God did not exist.”
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.
Register correspondent Nona Aguilar spoke to Jennifer Fulwiler about the couple’s unexpected journey.
There is always a first step that leads to belief in God. What was yours?
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.
Why was that fortunate?
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.
What was your reaction when you found out?
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.
What caused you to consider the question more seriously?
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.
Was your husband a help in this process?
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.
No church 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.
Was there ever an aha moment that finally made you abandon atheism?
Several, but one in particular actually shocked me.
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.
Is that the point at which you began to believe in God?
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?
Was your husband helpful to you at this point?
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.
Both of you?
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.
For us it is just the opposite.
Ha ha. Welcome home.
Good for her, and God bless.
SnakeDoc
Anyone have a site on conversions that involved some aspect of internet communication, blogging, evangelization going on online, etc.?
Sound familiar?
Agreed.
I actually am reading two books that touch on this theme.
One is “A Grain of Wheat”, a collection by theologian Hans Urs von Baltahsar that contains a large selection of short aphorisms. Given to me by and strongly recommend by an eminent Catholic thinker and priest.
The second is “The Risk of Education”, by Luigi Giussani. Given to me by and strongly recommend by an eminent Catholic thinker and layman.
(Msgr. Luigi Giussani was the founder of the ecclesial movement of Communion and Liberation. At his funeral in February of this year, both John Paul II and then-Cardinal Ratzinger noted how deeply Giussani’s life revolved around education, and indeed much of his life and work can be summarized as a sort of pedagogical method, one that has been having a significant impact on Catholic education at all levels throughout the world. Much of that method is synthesized in Giussani’s small book, THE RISK OF EDUCATION.)
“Information” is the fly in the ointment that renders evolutionism untenable!
Despite her skepticism, she still possessed a certain openness and honesty and this is usually absent in atheists. Atheism is like a religion in itself. It is not just unbelief. It is a positive faith in the nonexistence of God.
Anyway, what does it really matter? She's found faith and God bless her on her continued journey toward the Promised Land.
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.
This was essentially the same intellectual path that I followed on my way back. The idea that DNA was created by the random action of weather and radiation upon dirty water just seems ludicrous to me. If that's what the data suggest, then we're obviously interpreting the data incorrectly.
I mean, imagine if a team of astronauts found a functioning digital calculator buried in a million-year-old stratum of the surface of Mars. Would they conclude the calculator was designed by some intelligent creature, or that the calculator was created accidentally by the effect of billions of years of weathering upon Martian stone? Would they try to find more finished artifacts, or would they start looking for fossil electronic devices demonstrating a gradual progression of calculator ancestors beginning with the first primitive transistors created by chance from the non-living minerals of Mars?
Of course not. The calculator in all its complexity and purposeful design would be seen rightly as incontestable evidence of the presence of intelligent life on Mars.
And yet a single biological cell is fantastically complex -- much more complex than any calculator...
"Sound familiar???" Yes indeed, dear marron. Still, I've never been an atheist in my life. So it wasn't a condition that I had to "outgrow." I started out "religious," from the tot stage forward. No religious view was then formed by any particular religious training/indoctrination. [Which I never had, BTW, after preparation for First Communion.] It just was, based on my observation of the splendor and order and beauty of Nature. It was all so magnificent, to my child's mind, that God HAD to be "behind it."
Then, the longer I lived and studied, I more I found out that my original "instinct" or intuition was absolutely correct.
BTW, I do agree with Mrs. Fulwiler's observation that Catholics are particularly good at formulating "answers [that] 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?"
Thank you ever so much for writing!
God bless her and her husband.
God is indeed great when the eyes of such an staunch atheist can be opened.
From one Catholic convert to another - welcome home.
Ping of interest. Of particular note is the bit about DNA.
You will find several here.
I am currently reading The Story of a Soul - the autobiography of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. It is not at all what I expected.
This was the part I thought might sound familiar to you.
Creation is considered a completed act of God. However we are not God and don’t live in God’s time. We are living inside the creation and view it while it’s unfolding. Hence the human view is one of the evolution of the world. That DNA evolved is not the question. It’s WHY it was created in the first place.
Beautifully said.
Just like the billboard description in the article above, there's a huge difference between a macroscopic object and a microscopic one. For starters, the latter is affected by far more number of fundamental forces, than the latter.
When you take two baseball-sized objects, the forces beween them would be negligible. When you take two atoms, you will have to take into account electic, perfect-elastic, nuclear, etc. forces between them. The entire game-plan changes in the microscopic world.
To that, add the billions of years, trillions of interactions each day of each year, additive, gradual processes, polymers like proteins that fold, and allow additions to their branches, etc., the entire situation differs from a "wind eroding a rock into a calculator" scenario.
Just because one can't comprehend these processes and to give up and declare that a god entity, or several such entities must have been involved in the design, gives a hint that the person might really have not been an atheist, in the first place.
Only deep, personal, divine intervention can ever convert a real atheist.
No, its what drives evolution. Diesel engines evolve; they evolve according to a plan. All it takes for a diesel engine to evolve from a lump of iron ore is heat and pressure and thousands of manhours of engineering. Older models give way to better models over time and again, all it takes is iron ore, heat, pressure, and thousands more manhours of engineering.
Anyhow, thats how I see it...
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