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A Quick Review and Recommendation of David Berlinksi’s The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” – Albert Einstein

As David Berlinski’s book illustrates with meticulous detail, science is impartial, but scientists are a whole other matter.

Berlinski, a Ph.D. from Princeton University, is a mathematician and self-declared secular Jew. It is from within the folds of academia that he levels his attack against some of his more bemused colleagues: colleagues who believe they have escaped the narrow-minded and fanatical realm of religious thought by fleeing to the narrow-minded and fanatical realm of secular atheism. Upon looking closely at this realm, as Berlinski does in his unflinching analysis, one will see how zealous these academics really are — not in serving science but in proving that there is no God (probably one of the most unscientific claims a scientist could ever make).

As he states in the introduction, “if science stands opposed to religion, it is not because of anything contained in either the premises or the conclusions of the great scientific theories. They do not mention a word about God. They do not treat of any faith beyond the one that they themselves demand. They compel no ritual beyond the usual rituals of academic life […] Confident assertions by scientists that in the privacy of their chambers they have demonstrated that God does not exist have nothing to do with science, and even less to do with God’s existence” (xiv). Science itself says nothing about God; indeed, it cannot, as the existence or nonexistence of God cannot be empirically proven in a scientific manner. Scientists without an agenda respect this fact, and it is why theological matters are absent from their work.

Scientists with an agenda are not silent about this, and they foray clumsily into the realm of theological dispute armed with nothing but their own prejudices.

One of the most memorable aspects of Berlinski’s analysis is how adamantly scientific atheists will cling to any theory that dismisses the existence of a divine creator regardless of its lack of evidence or even common sense. These theories exist largely as a way to avoid the acknowledgement of a creator, which the Big Bang Theory (the most popular and scientifically sound theory of the beginning of the universe) necessitates. After all, ex nihilo nihil fit is a principle not easily dismissed by science.

Much of his analysis centers on the many theories regarding the creation of the universe. The scientific material can sometimes be dense and a little difficult for non-scientists (like me) to understand. However, I never felt overwhelmed by the ideas he surveyed, as his writing is concise and avoids unnecessary jargon.

In his survey, he shows how the Big Bang Theory stands as the greatest threat to scientific atheism because the need for a first causer is undeniable: again, nothing comes from nothing. These so-call “new atheists,” however, have made it their professional goal to show how something comes from nothing.

This goal is not limited to the field of theoretic physics, however, as biologists (of course) have their own favorite theory to deny the necessity of a creator.

Evolution is one of the most tenuous theories that exist, but it has had amazing PR. It’s a common belief largely because it is so easy to understand and, indeed, master. As Berlinski asserts, “Darwin’s theory of evolution is virtually the only part of [atheist theology] commonly understood. It may be grasped by anyone in an afternoon, and often is. A week suffices to make a man a specialist” (219). It is also promulgated as fact rather than as theory (again, a very unscientific trend) by virtually everyone in the popular media and general (as in, non-scientific) academia — most especially by people who are not trained to determine the scientific soundness of its tenets.

Apparently, sitcom writers have the greatest stake in this argument, as evolutionist vs. creationist debates seem to form the butt of a number of jokes whenever Christianity is presented or mentioned. There’s no stronger medium than popular culture to train “the masses” to dismiss a theory before they’ve even thought about it. But do social trends suggest that evolution is widely accepted? Berlinski suggests that it is not: “‘Two-thirds of Americans,’ the New York Times reported, ‘say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools.’ But even among those quite persuaded of Darwin’s theory, ’18 percent said that evolution was ‘guided by a supreme being’” (219). I guess we can still retain hope.

And there is good reason to hope, as even a cursory review of the holes in evolutionary theory will make one wonder why it is so popularly believed amongst scientists. But, again, is it? Berlinski gives us our answer: “The facts are what they have always been: They are unforthcoming. And the theory is what it always was: It is unpersuasive. Among evolutionary biologists, these matters are well known. In the privacy of the Susan B. Anthony faculty lounge, they often tell one another with relief that it is a very good thing the public has no idea what the research literature really suggests. ‘Darwin?’ a Nobel laureate in biology once remarked to me over his bifocals. ‘That’s just the party line’” (192).

Berlinski analyzes the many flaws and holes in the theory over the course of several pages, citing about a dozen scientific sources.

What is remarkable about scientists who continue to tout evolution as fact rather than theory is how hostile they are to anyone who questions their fanaticism. And they are not merely bullying to those on the outside of the scientific community, but even against those who speak out against it within academia. Peer-reviewed journals have made it a clear rule to blackball any and all papers that challenge their supreme dogma. The advice of Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, says it all: “Avoid debates.” As Berlinski quips, “there is nothing surprising in any of this. I myself believe that the world would be suitably improved if those with whom I disagree were to lapse into silence” (220). This would explain why such a flawed theory has been allowed to continue for so long.

Aside from presenting a solid case against the scientific dogmas of the new atheists, Berlinski also addresses another major tenet: the effect of religion on society.

The idea that religion makes society worse is one that Dawkins, Hitchens, and the rest of their ilk love to harp on, often relying on their misreading and sometimes deliberate misrepresentation of the middle ages to make their case. However, as Berlinksi demonstrates, and as anyone with a modicum of common sense can see, society without God is much worse.

At a conference in 2007 titled “Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason, and Survival,” physicist Steven Weinberg declared in his address that, “religion […] is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil things. In speaking thus, Weinberg was warmly applauded, not one member of his audience asking the question one might have thought pertinent: Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for Zyklon B, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental ballistic missiles, military space platforms, and nuclear weapons? If memory serves, it was not the Vatican” (21).

Moreover, Berlinski argues, “The facts about the twentieth century are an inconvenience for scientific atheism, suitably informed thought may always find a way to deny them. The psychologist Steven Pinker has thus introduced into the discussion the remarkable claim that ‘something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler.’ The good news is unrelenting: ‘On the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture’” (21). Berlinksi does a wonderful job of showing just what that “shockingly happy picture” looks like when he includes two and a half pages of charts detailing the unspeakable number of human beings slaughtered by secular governments/societies in the twentieth century. After citing the millions of people killed (a figure that would have been almost double this tally had he included the number of human beings slaughtered worldwide by abortion**), he says with characteristic bluntness: “In considering Pinker’s assessment of the times in which we live, the only conclusion one can profitably draw is that such an excess of stupidity is not often found in nature” (25). You’ll be glad to know that Berlinski’s wit and humor always accompany his meticulous dismemberment of atheist claims (see below).

He concludes this section by saying that, “One might think that in the dark panorama of wickedness, the Holocaust would above all other events give the scientific community pause. Hitler’s Germany was a technologically sophisticated secular society, and Nazism itself, as party propagandists never tired of stressing, was ‘motivated by an ethic that prided itself on being scientific […] A sinister current of influence ran from Darwin’s theory of evolution to Hitler’s policy of extermination. A generation of German biologists had read Darwin and concluded that competition between species was reflected in human affairs by competition between races. These observations find no echo at all in the literature of scientific atheism” (27).

In the end, The Devil’s Delusion provides a compelling survey and analysis of the many flaws, prejudices, and assumptions of scientific atheism. It’s a fairly quick read, and one that is well worth the time.

Before I end, I wanted to readdress one of my favorite aspects of the book: Berlinski’s humor.

When I was debating my purchase of the book, I spent some time reading the preview pages on Amazon.com’s listing. Reading the following passage convinced me that this was a book I would enjoy:

“A little philosophy, as Francis Bacon observed, ‘inclineth man’s mind to atheism.’ A very little philosophy is all that is needed. In a recent BBC program entitled A Brief History of Unbelief the host, Jonathan Miller, and his guest, the philosopher Colin McGinn, engaged in a veritable orgy of competitive skepticism, so much so that in the end, the viewer was left wondering whether either man believed sincerely in the existence of the other” (3).

This passage is very characteristic of the type of witty and deprecating humor you will find in this book.

**He does, however, list abortion amongst the greatest horrors of the twentieth century later in the book (31): “The moral concerns that are prompted by biology? The list is already long: abortion, [human embryonic] stem-cell research, euthanasia, infanticide, cloning, animal-human hybrids, sexual deviancy. It will get longer, as scientists with no discernible sense of responsibility to human nature come extravagantly to interfere in human life.” 

Further Reading (similar titles that I’ve also read and highly recommend):

Hitchens, Peter (brother of the late Christopher Hitchens). The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith. Michigan: Zondervan, 2010.

Strobel, Lee. The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God. Michigan: Zondervan, 2004.

Weikart, Richard. From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Website of Interest:

The Discovery Institute

http://www.discovery.org/

A Reading List for Secular Deprogramming

I spent most of my life as an atheist, got most of my education — both secondary and post-secondary — at secular schools, and spent much of my free time watching whatever was popular in the media. I’m guessing this describes most people’s background as well, even those who were not atheists.

Such a background will, inevitably, lead someone to have some profound misunderstandings about the Catholic Church: about its history, its beliefs, and the reality of its current state. Chief amongst these misunderstandings are the following:

-the Middle Ages were a dark time of ignorance and superstition because the Church refused to educate people and shackled them with ridiculous rules that led to suffering and a loss of personal freedom

(because Hollywood and biased — or ignorant — educators told me so)

-the Crusades were evil because they were perpetuated by brutal religious zealots who slaughtered millions of innocent Muslims

(because Hollywood and biased — or ignorant — educators told me so)

-the Church is against abortion because it hates women    and/or

the Church is against female priests because it hates women    and/or

the Church is against contraception because it hates women

(because angry feminists tell me so)

-the Church encourages idolatry because Catholics worship statues, the Virgin Mary, the saints, and believe in “magic charms” like rosary beads

(because I don’t understand the nuances of these beliefs and practices)

-most priests in the Church today are pedophiles or there are many pedophile priests in the Church today

(because the New York Times tells me so, and this publication is the paragon of journalistic excellence and impartiality) 

… and most priests are pedophiles because they are forced to remain celibate by an evil Church that view sex as dirty and bad

(because my baser impulses and a degraded society that views sex as a “need” — paramount to the need for food, air, and water — tell me so)

When I became Catholic, many of these misconceptions, myths, and outright lies remained with me. I just accepted that they were things I would need to apologize for and accept as an inevitable aspect of a Church as old and as big as the Catholic Church.* But as I continued reading and studying Church history, theology, and current events, the lies of my secularist upbringing slowly began to deteriorate.

I’m still studying, but I thought that I would be doing everyone a service if I provided a list of books that will help you overcome the secular brainwashing you’ve probably received at the hands of public education, the media, and people who just don’t know any better.

The list is not at all comprehensive, but it is a good start.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MIDDLE AGES

-Diane Moczar’s Seven Lies about Catholic History: Infamous Myths about the Church’s Past and How to Answer Them

(she covers almost all the major themes here, plus a few more: Galileo, the Inquisition, the “need” for the Reformation, the Church’s cruelty to Native Americans, and the so-called “Nazi Pope” — that last one really should have its own category, but I haven’t done much reading on it yet)

-Regine Pernoud’s Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths

-Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580

-Christopher Dawson’s The Dividing of Christendom 

-Thomas E. Woods’ How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization 

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CRUSADES

-Rodney Stark’s God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades

-Diane Moczar’s Islam at the Gates: How Christendom Defeated the Ottoman Turks

THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN AND THE CHURCH

-Alice von Hildebrand’s The Privilege of Being a Woman

-Peter Kreeft and Alice Von Hildebrand’s Women and the Priesthood 

(two of my favorite writers)

-Erika Bachiochi’s Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching

-John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body

(or Christopher’s West’s commentary and guide on the book, since it is rather long)

THE TRUTH ABOUT CATHOLIC WORSHIP

-Michael Coren’s Why Catholics are Right

-Scott Hahn’s Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Defend, and Explain the Catholic Faith

-Dwight Longenecker’s More Christianity: Finding the Fullness of the Faith

-Mark P. Shea’s By What Authority? an Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SO-CALLED “PEDOPHILIA CRISIS” IN THE CHURCH

-David F. Pierre, Jr.’s Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church

-(Article) Tim Drake’s “A Brief History of Abuse — And the Response to It.” National Catholic Register, April 25-May 8, 2010 issue

-Michael Rose’s Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church

-George Weigel’s The Courage to be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church

These texts should help you arm yourself against the onslaught of secularist thinking — a form of thinking that has even infected many people within the Church. But, as always, the most important thing one can do to gain wisdom is to pray and have faith. These two things will, more than any book, lead you to the understanding you need to fully love and defend our Mother Church!

*This is still something that must be kept in mind when confronted with the individual evils or misdeeds of Church representatives and members (as not everyone practices the faith the way it is intended to be practiced — if they did, the world would be a much better place). 

Catholic and Pro-Choice … Seriously?

Really … you seriously think you can support abortion and still be Catholic?

As someone who tries very hard to love my enemies and to not judge the sins and foolishness of others, I often find it nearly impossible to hide my impatience with people who claim to be Catholic while supporting abortion.

I’m sorry, and may God forgive me, but I really question both the integrity and the intelligence of such a person.

The first thing I want to ask them is whether they own a copy of the Catechism. If they say “yes,” then I want to ask them if they’ve ever read it. Because if they had, they would have seen that the official teaching of our Church does not mince words when it comes to abortion.

Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception — Luckily for us moderns, science has explained when this moment occurs, so there is no longer any debate about this (see my previous post on the scientific explanation of when human life begins: The God Cop Out). — From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life. – The Catechism of the Catholic Church 2270

And

“Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion [emphasis mine]. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable [emphasis mine]. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.” – The Catechism of the Catholic Church 2271

There are several more equally emphatic passages about this issue.

But just in case those incredibly bullheaded Catholics out there are somehow unimpressed by the official teaching of the Church, the wise authors of the Catechism included many footnoted references to the church fathers and the Bible. Thus, these wayward Church members would do well to look up the pertinent passages in such texts as the Didache and the writings of Tertullian, not to mention passages from Jeremiah, Job, and the Psalms (and these are just the passages alluded to in the Catechism).

Now, as someone who was pro-choice while considering conversion to the Catholic Church, I know what the common objections are to this clearly articulated teaching of the Church.

#1 is the issue of the mother’s health

#2 is the issue of rape and incest

#3 is the issue of poverty

Before dealing with each issue individually, let me first just provide the Church’s official answer to them, in case you’ve forgotten: Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. There is no clause after this that lists exceptions. This is because there is no exception that makes the taking of an innocent human life anything other than a grave moral evil.

Science and the Church both recognize the humanity of the unborn child.

Using genetics and simple biology, science explains how the unborn human being is not part of the mother’s body. This is obvious to even a science dunce like myself: separate DNA, (often a) separate blood type, (often a) separate gender = TA DA! a separate human being. Duh! (Pardon the somewhat obnoxious tone here, but I’m rapidly losing patience with people who cling to slogans like “My body, my choice,” which flout even a rudimentary understanding of animal biology.)

Using Biblical understanding and, dare I say, common sense, the Church also asserts the unique humanity of the unborn person.

With common sense and impeccable logic, the Catechism lays out its argument against abortion by beginning with a solid premise.

The murder of a human being is gravely contrary to the dignity of the person and the holiness of the Creator (2320).

In other words, if you want to know what God has to say on this matter, perhaps you should consult the list of ten commandments (note that they are not called “suggestions”) he provides for all people in Exodus 20:2-17 (and again in Deuteronomy 5:6-21). #5 is pretty straightforward (and wouldn’t ya know: the section in the Catechism where abortion is specifically discussed is under an article that is titled “The Fifth Commandment”; also, when Christ mentions the commandments in Matthew 19:18, you should note that he begins with the fifth commandment).

Logic:

Q: Is it a human being?

A: Yes.

= Then you can’t kill him or her.

Seems pretty simple to me.

[At this point, for the most thickheaded of the bullheaded Catholic abortion supporters, it may help if I say that obviously the Church makes exceptions for cases of self-defense and war — because I know that this is the first place you will go in your facile attempts to justify your position. But until I hear of a case where a fetus declared war or sought to maliciously attack its mother, I’m going to take the above argument at face value and accept it as a universal truth. You know, kind of the way that God wants us to — hence His inclusion of it in His ten commandments.]

From its premise, the Church reiterates its official teaching:

Because it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being (2274).

-Let’s stop for a moment because I need to reflect on the profound wisdom and generosity of the Catholic Church. The Church is so concerned about the welfare of human beings — of all human beings, no matter how marginalized — that it recognizes the dignity of the human person in even the tiniest embryo, just conceived and smaller than the head of pin. The Church recognizes that a threat to even the tiniest form of humanity is a threat to all of humanity. For this reason, it makes no compromises when it comes to which human beings are afforded the basic right to life. And yet it is for this uncompromising protection of all human life that the Church and its faithful members are criticized and maligned. The absurd irony of it all … is staggering!

Ok, let’s get back to my rant!

Where was I? Right, I was going to address the three most popular exceptions argued by Catholic pro-choicers (they’re common amongst non-Catholic pro-choicers as well, but this post is focusing on those poor lost souls who think they can legitimately be Catholic and pro-choice).

Confessions of an ex — er, “changed” Feminist

As I mentioned above, I was pro-choice when I began the process of converting to Catholicism back in 2006. I was pretty adamant about my belief in a woman’s supposed “right” to “do what she wants with her own body” (yup, I used that line many, many times). In fact, I almost didn’t become Catholic precisely because I didn’t want to change my opinions on this matter. I regarded all pro-lifers as mini-George Bushes: ignorant, bigoted, probably misogynistic, and definitely socially backwards (I should note that I no longer think of Bush as being any of those things, despite the fact that I still don’t really like him — but that’s another post for another day).

I cringed every time “pro-life,” “conception,” “sanctity of life,” or any of those other terms that conferred respect to the unborn human were used at Mass, during our catechism classes, or in conversations with other faithful Catholics.

But my undeniable, and still unfathomable, desire to be part of the Church (I’m guessing this is a post for another time too) compelled me to continue along the path upon which I had been placed. I figured I could be both because, after all, I was an intelligent person who probably knew more than these uneducated pro-life Bible-thumpers ever knew about life and ethics.

Perhaps I would even convert them to taking a more balanced, less extreme view of this subject (have you ever looked at a former version of yourself and felt the incredible need to smack yourself?! Needless to say, I’m having that kind of moment right now).

I saw the Church’s position on abortion as extreme because there were cases when “the procedure” (oh yeah, we pro-choicers love our euphemisms) — unpleasant as it was (and yes, we always like to throw in this little clause) — was necessary to avoid a greater evil.

For example, a fourteen-year-old girl from a horrible, dysfunctional family drops out of high school and gets into drugs: she’s living on the streets and is impregnated by her boyfriend who is just using her and has no real regard for her. He proves this by dumping her right away, leaving her homeless, poor, uneducated, and pregnant.

In my mind, I couldn’t see how God would ever want a baby to brought into such a tragic situation. The baby’s life would be ruined as would the girl’s.

Abortion seemed like the answer.

Now, this is the point when the secularist will shout out an emphatic “That’s right!” — I’ll deal with you in another post.

For now, I’d like to address the Catholic who echoes the secularist’s assertion. First of all — take a look at yourself: you’re agreeing with the secularist! What are you doing? Christ clearly said that we are to be in the world but not of the world (hence, why would you align your beliefs with anything that is “secular”?).

Ok, that’s a rather flippant comment (some secularists have important things to say), but I wanted to make an exaggerated point: God’s ways are not our ways. We do not see things clearly in this world (1 Corinthians 13:12). Where we see only pain, suffering, and heartache, God sees something else.

If you are Catholic, you believe in God. If you believe in God, then you believe He is the creator of all life (Colossians 1:16). If He is the creator of all life, then the life He creates within the womb of the homeless, deserted, fourteen-year old girl has a plan that only He can see.

No life is created in vain: “You knit me in my mother’s womb […] nor was my frame unknown to you when I was made in secret” (Psalm 139:13,15).

God does not make garbage. As such, we are not given the right to dispose of His human creations as though they were garbage, which is precisely (literally) what happens in an abortion.

Is the Church implying that the plight of the young girl is trivial? Am I implying that I don’t care about her? Of course not. Indeed, in keeping to the wisdom of the Church, I am showing far more care over her than anyone who offers her abortion as a solution to her problems is. I am looking beyond her earthly, temporary troubles and thinking about her immortal soul.

Suffering, poverty, pain: read the Bible, study the lives of saints, the Church does not see these things as the greatest evils on earth. Indeed, it is out of these hardships that the greatest triumphs are enacted (ahem, the crucifixion is one MAJOR example of this).

The greatest evils are moral evils. And, as I’ve established above, abortion — the willful taking of an innocent human life — is a grave moral evil. It threatens something far more important than the life of the mother: it threatens her soul.

The threat is not limited to the mother’s soul, but also to the soul of the doctor who performs the abortion, the nurses who assist, the person who drove her there, and the society that sits approvingly or blindly and silently by as this goes on.

This is not something that should be taken lightly. After all, look at what happens to nations in the Bible that engage in infant slaughter (2 Kings 17:17-18) and to unrepentant murderers of human life (Revelation 22:15). These stakes are much higher than a difficult life.

And who says that a child born into such a situation would be doomed?

My conception was not so perfect — it wasn’t nearly as bad as the hypothetical one I just outlined, but it was still pretty rocky.

My “Quality of Life” at Conception:

My father was a high school dropout and a pothead (sorry daddy, if you ever read this).

My mother was a high school dropout, who had been sexually abused by her father for most of her life as well as emotionally and physically abused by her alcoholic mother.

They were not married when my mother got pregnant with me; they had no education and no job, and they had nowhere to live.

And, to make matters worse, if prenatal testing had been as popular in the late 1970s as it is now, they would have learned that I have an incurable genetic disorder about which most doctors don’t understand, so they paint the prognosis in the worst light possible (i.e., they tell the mother that their child will probably not live past two years old; I discuss this in one of my earlier posts, “Ignorance is Not Bliss“). It’s also an expensive disorder to treat.

My life-preserving medication, without insurance, costs over $2000 for a month’s supply. Obviously, it goes without saying, my parents did not have health insurance.

On paper, my life did not look worth living. At the very least, it looked like my mother, a victim already, was going to have an awfully difficult time trying to take care of herself and a sick baby.

Can you imagine what would have happened if my mother — young, naive, victimized, poor, and scared — had gotten her pregnancy results from a Planned Parenthood clinic? Do you think there would be any possible way that I would be sitting here now? (This is not to discredit my mother, who is a strong woman. But at the point in her life when I was conceived, this was not the case.)

I can just imagine the sort of “talking points” that would be used to convince my mother of the logic and practicality of “terminating her pregnancy” and taking care of herself.

By the grace of God, I am able to count myself amongst the other survivors of this abortion epidemic.

And despite the dismal prospects with which I was brought into the world, I think I turned out ok. Even though life was difficult, there was never a point when I looked around and said, “geez! It sucks that I don’t have a college fund or even food in the house or working electricity. I wish my mom had killed me in the womb so that I could have avoided these problems.”

And I had friends who were experiencing far worse things in their homes. And wouldn’t ya know: they never said that either.

We do not know what God has planned for the life growing within the womb. Even if that life does end up being unbearable, and we were somehow magically able to know this ahead of time, God has never given us the license to take innocent human life.

As for the “life of the mother” argument. Let’s put aside the fact that it is medically arguable whether this scenario is ever even warranted (ectopic pregnancies are one of those rare occasions when a procedure — not an abortion — is done to save the mother’s life and allow the embryo to die naturally), and consider the following.

There is nothing in the Bible, the works of the church fathers, or in the Catechism condoning or recommending the murder of innocent human life in order to save your own life. And yet this is precisely what our society and many Catholics are encouraging with that weak clause: “except to save the mother’s life.”

If you’ve found yourself using that clause, perhaps you should ask yourself: Do you really think God condones the murder of an innocent child — the mother’s own innocent child, no less — because of her need for self-preservation?

Do you think God condones sin because a person is afraid to die? because she is afraid to sacrifice herself for her child?

Are we supposed to save our own lives at any cost?

There are literally hundreds of references I could point to from the Bible, the church fathers, and the Catechism to answer the above rhetorical questions.

But to save time, let’s just look at what Jesus said about the preservation of our own lives at any cost:

For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? (Matthew 16:26)

Indeed, it seems to have been a major point with him, since he apparently stressed it to his disciples on many occasions:

For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, and cast away himself? (Luke 9:24-25)

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. (Matthew 10:39)

Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. (Luke 17:33)

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:25)

In the end, I think what the passages reiterate is the question that has been at the heart of this post: What is the point of saving your life, when you must sacrifice your soul in the process?

And the other “exceptions”…

As for rape and incest: do I really need to reiterate how this is a human being and that, despite what people seem to think, this human being is innocent of the crimes his or her father committed? Do I really need to express why I think it is socially criminal to think that it is legitimate or acceptable to punish the child with death?

When it comes to this issue, I find it to be deeply ironic that the same people who would vehemently oppose the death penalty for the rapist, accept and even encourage it for the unborn child.

Where there is life, there is hope. Regardless of the manner by which the child was created, the fact remains that he or she is a human being in the eyes of God (and medical science).

Another wonderful thing about God’s plan is that even for those mothers who are unable or unwilling to raise their children, He has provided adoption as the best alternative. There are literally millions of people on wait-lists that are one-ten years long, hoping for the chance to take in one of these so-called “unwanted” children.

Clearly, God has not given us the luxury of saying that there are no other options besides abortion.

The bottomline: God is pro-life. The Church is unquestionably pro-life.

So on what basis does the pro-choice Catholic think he can justify his position?

Or Maybe I’m wrong …

Archbishop Fulton Sheen famously said that you “cannot be Catholic and pro-choice.” In theory, I agree; in practice, I say that you can be whatever you want.

For this reason, I’ve decided that I want to be a swimmer. But I’m not actually going to practice swimming. I’m also not going to learn anything about swimming or work to remedy any of my misconceptions about swimming. I’m just going to call myself a swimmer and continue to run. Because running is easier. Maybe I’ll swim one day, but I won’t believe anything any swimmer or swimming coach says to me about swimming. What do they know, anyway? I’ve been calling myself a swimmer since I was a kid. I know what it means to be swimmer, so I won’t believe anything the experts about swimming have to say. Well, maybe I’ll believe some of it … if I find it acceptable to my preconceived notions and assumptions. I won’t actually challenge, inconvenience, or humble myself to actually become a swimmer.

But I am a swimmer.

Oh, and how dare you imply in any way that I am not a swimmer!

**I kid because I care. I nag because I care. I even slightly insult because I care. This issue is too important and too much is at stake for me to remain politely silent or to handle in a lukewarm manner.

I feel deeply blessed that I was truly unaware that there were Catholics who really thought they could be both Catholic and pro-choice. Had I known this, I wonder if I would have been open to change? It would have been easier to just add the label “Catholic” to my liberal, feminist “morals.” It was much, much harder to challenge myself to study and learn the reasons behind the Church’s position — to voluntarily open my mind and my heart to arguments I had maligned for so long.

It was even harder to admit that my opinion had changed.

And it was nearly impossible to publicly acknowledge my change of heart and mind (especially since I had been such a vocal pro-choice feminist for so many years) and begin to speak out against what I had recently recognized as one of the greatest horrors of our age — indeed, it is arguably the greatest horror of any age.

But, with God, all things are possible. And though the grace was, in the words of Flannery O’Connor, “painful,” I accepted it and allowed it to change me.

This is my challenge to all of you who consider yourselves Catholic and pro-choice.

————–

Further Reading:

-To affirm the humanity of those involved, the following site includes personal testaments from human beings conceived in rape and women who bore children from rape:

http://www.rebeccakiessling.com

-One of the most important Catholics of the last century, Mother Teresa, who witnessed unspeakable horror in India, still labeled abortion as “the greatest destroyer of love and peace.”

http://catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0039.html

-Pope John Paul II, arguably the most important Catholic of the last century, wrote extensively on this issue, including a crucial encyclical: Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life).

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html

The “God Cop Out”: A short rebuttal to common pro-choice rhetoric

Dear Pro-Choicers:

Quit pretending that the pro-life (or “anti-abortion,” whatever term you like best) argument is exclusively built upon religious ideology. It’s not, and you know it.

But, in case you don’t, let the following short note enlighten you, as you will see that at no point do I reference God or the Church.

Sincerely,

One of the many voices for the voiceless

In America today, there is only one group of human beings for which being human is not enough. The inconvenience of their existence has resulted in a legal loophole of shameful proportions. They’re small and invisible to the naked eye. Moreover, they are the victims of a dangerous rhetoric, which equates promiscuity and wanton disregard for the biological facts of motherhood with a form of “feminist empowerment.” They are in the way, so we define personhood in a manner that conveniently excludes them.

These human beings are, of course, the unborn. And despite being the most vulnerable, the most innocent, and the most in need of legal protection of any human beings on the planet, they are the least protected by contemporary society.

Ask yourself whether it is ever legitimate to categorize specific members of the human race as “non-persons”? If it’s morally reprehensible to kill a developing human being after birth, why is it morally permissible to kill a developing human being before birth?

And they are human beings, make no mistake about that.

The argument for when human life begins has long ago been settled by science (see below for references). Even prominent abortion supporters have accepted this fact:

-Faye Wattleton (the longest reigning president of the largest abortion provider in the world, Planned Parenthood) says, “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus” (Ms. Magazine, 1997).

-In his book Practical Ethics, contemporary philosopher and public abortion advocate Peter Singer asserts the following: “It is possible to give ‘human being’ a precise meaning. We can use it as equivalent to ‘member of the species Homo sapiens.’ Whether a being is a member of a given species is something that can be determined scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and eggs is a human being” (85-86).

There are more, but I think you get the point.

These admissions come only after years of denial were contradicted by geneticists and biologists. Actually, if they can “get away with it,” many abortion supporters still try to frame the issue around the claim that “we don’t know when a human becomes a human” (see the popular tactics used by counselors at Planned Parenthood for proof of this; groups like Live Action have done much to exposes these lies).

It would seem, then, that the abortion issue should be solved. Abortion kills a human being; thus, abortion is wrong and should be illegal. Seems pretty simple to me.

But this is not the case.

Exiled from the realm of science, abortion advocates turn to the realm of pseudo-philosophy to legitimize their stance. Instead of accepting that killing human beings is wrong, they rely on the arbitrary notion of “personhood” to support their argument.

The argument goes something like this, “Yes, the fetus/embryo is human, but it is not a person because _______.” The “blank” in the statement is filled by any number of characteristics that the abortion advocate believes the fetus/embryo is missing.

What a wonderful philosophy the pro-abort — sorry, “pro-choicer” supports. And they are in such wonderful company.

The “personhood” argument has been used at least two other times in modern history to legitimize the mass extermination of innocent human beings.

The Company Pro-Choicers Keep

1857: The U.S. Supreme Court declares that black people are not legal persons; that they are the property of their owners, who can buy, sell, torture and kill them at will.

Blacks “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit” (Chief Justice Roger Tancy in Dred Scott V. Sanford, 7-2 decision).

1936: The German Supreme Court, the Reichsgericht, refuses to recognize Jews living in Germany as persons in the legal sense. Genocide is legal (Ernst Fraenkel, The Dual State, Oxford University Press, 1941, p. 95).

The Pro-Choice Argument:

1973: U.S. Supreme Court rules that the unborn are not persons in the legal sense; they have no civil or human rights; they are the property of the mother, who can choose to kill them up to the day of delivery. Abortion-on-demand is legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

“The word ‘person,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn” (Justice Harry Blackmun in Roe V. Wade, 7-2 decision).

I have heard all manner of arguments attempting to prove the non-personhood of the unborn human being. Everything from consciousness to an awareness of self has been used to justify the murder of unborn people. The conditions for “personhood” (the “blank” to which I referred above) change all the time because there is no fixed definition. This is the danger!

Why is the pro-life community the only group of people who recognizes the danger of this thinking? Why isn’t the horror of using subjective, arbitrary, and mutable definitions to characterize which humans should live and which should die a matter of common knowledge?

Why doesn’t contemporary society recognize that the arguments behind abortion are essentially the same as those behind the legitimization of some of the worst human rights violations in history? Slavery (in America and in the past), genocide, the Holocaust, the suppression of the Native American population — these are just a few prominent examples of how being human wasn’t enough to garner human rights for certain members of society.  These are examples of how the garbage notion of “personhood” was used to justify murder.

When we look back at the societies during which such horrors took place, we often ask “Why did they do it?”, “How could they do it?”, and “Why didn’t anyone speak up?”

In the US alone, 40 million innocent human beings have been silently killed since 1973. It is murder on a scale unprecedented by any event in the past, and it is legal, accepted, and disgustingly commonplace.

When future generations look back, perhaps they’ll be thinking the same thing about our society: asking themselves what kind of society could complacently, ignorantly, arrogantly, and legally slaughter millions of innocent human beings every year. If our future generations are lucky enough to recognize the injustice of abortion, they will undoubtedly ask “why didn’t anyone speak up about this?”

Well, consider this one more voice of dissent.

—————————————————————-

References:

The matter of when human life begins is no longer a matter of debate:

-“Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo development) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”

“A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).”

Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

-“[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being.”

Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.

These are just a few select passages from a catalogue of hundreds of textbooks, all declaring the same thing: the scientific fact that a distinct, individual human being is created at conception. There are also hundreds of quotes and testimonies by medical experts supporting the same fact.

-In 1981, a United States Senate judiciary subcommittee received the following testimony from a collection of medical experts (Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981):

“It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive […] It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth
Harvard University Medical School

“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”

Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni
Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics, University of Pennsylvania

I could go on, but I’m hoping that a reasonable person will see clearly that this matter has been closed.

Further “Religious-Ideology-Free” Pro-Life Commentary:

http://secularprolife.org/

http://www.plagal.org/ (Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians)

http://godlessprolifers.org/home.html (Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League)

http://feministsforlife.org/

http://democratsforlife.org/

http://www.aul.org/about-aul/ (Americans United for Life)

There are many, many more, but most of the above sites and blogs list them for you. Go, search, learn!

Joseph Pearce’s “Literary Giants, Literary Catholics”: A few thoughts on the first few chapters

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.

-T.S. Eliot

Pearce, Joseph. Literary Giants, Literary Catholics. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005.

When I began Pearce’s book, I assumed it would merely be an overview of various Catholic writers and an exploration of how their faith influenced and affected their work. I was fine with this expectation, as I figured this would be an informative and light read for the holidays.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but after reading a few chapters, I can say that the book is so much more than just a light survey of Catholic writers. Using the examples of various authors, he shows how the cynicism and shallowness of the modern world and the secularist mindset is countered by faith in the traditional Catholic Church. He shows how writers who once embraced the degenerate mentality of their age — Wilde is probably the best example — were saved, spiritually and artistically, by the Church.

Essentially, what Pearce shows is that the Church did not (and does not) stand as the grand inhibitor of artistic genius; instead, she has been, and continues to be, an inspiration for human genius and for all that is beautiful and good.

I especially enjoyed his exposition on the Decadents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Essentially, what he shows is that writers like Eliot and Wilde were far more in revolt against the humanistic “rationalism” of the post-Enlightenment than they were ever in revolt against the traditions of the Church. The Decadents knew the realities of sin because they embraced it and reveled in it, for a short while. As with all thinking human beings who fully experience sin, the Decadents eventually recoiled from the realities of it. As Pearce declares, “having experienced the dire consequences of the real absence of God, they hungered for His Real Presence” (38). Pearce himself is no stranger to this, given his own misspent youth. As such, he knows the desolation that comes with living alone in this world, absent from God and the guidance of His Church. (It is also an education with which I am intimately familiar.)

Significantly, it is not the novus ordo Catholic Church — the Church of today’s “progressive” elites with its watered-down liturgy, its politically-correct social teaching, or its heterodox ideology — that these authors exalt; it’s the traditional and strictly orthodox Catholic Church. In other words, it is the true Catholic Church that attracted and fueled some of the greatest writers (as well as artists and a number of thespians) of the last century.

As Pearce points out, though, “unfortunately, the Church’s ability to win converts through the power of tradition seems to have been undermined in recent decades by the efforts of a new generation of modernists hell-bent, seemingly, on tampering with Catholicism’s timeless beauties and mysteries” (55). This is the “watering down” of the faith to which I referred earlier.

In 1964, Evelyn Waugh was not ignorant of this danger: “throughout her entire life the Church has been at active war with enemies from without and traitors from within.” This “active war” is raging today. Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI recently commented on this “war” in his homily last week in which he warns against the tyranny of relativism that threatens the Church. He also admonished so-called “professional Catholics” for whom the faith is no longer the precedent upon which their lives are based, but a mere pretense. These are the “Catholics” who want to change the traditional core of the Church so that it conforms to the ideologies of the day — to make the faith more palatable to the secularist mindset of our contemporary society.

Alec Guinness, another modern convert to Catholicism, also commented on this disturbing trend within the Church. Though he was originally an enthusiastic supporter of reform (as are all novice Catholics, as I well know), he later became an ardent opponent of it. He writes, “the Church has proved she is not moribund. ‘All shall be well,’ I feel, ‘and all manner of things shall be well,’ so long as the God who is worshipped is the God of all ages, past and to come, and not the Idol of Modernity, so venerated by some of our bishops, priests, and miniskirted nuns” (57).

I couldn’t agree more. The Church is a bulwark against the secularist tide of depravity and relativism that characterizes our modern world. Once this bulwark is chipped away to make it more “pleasing,” we weaken the foundations of the faith, and it ceases to be the faith. Indeed, it ceases to offer anything to anyone.

Above, I’ve commented on only a few of the subjects Pearce touches upon in the first 60 pages of his over 400-page book. Given the profundity of these chapters, I can only imagine what insights await me in the next chapters!

——–

Below, I’ve begun to compile a list of the Catholic authors and their works Pearce discusses in his book. I’ll be updating it as I finish the book.

–G.K. Chesterton: there are many, of course, but I’ve listed some of his fiction below.

—Manalive

—The Man Who Was Thursday

–Graham Greene

—The Power and the Glory

–Hugh Benson

–Come Rack, Come Rope!

–J.K. Huysmans

—A Rebours: I admit, I’ve never heard of this one before. The way I understand it, from Pearce’s presentation, is that the book is in the vein of Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, in that it shows the depths of man’s loneliness and despair in the modern world. As Pearce says, the novel demonstrates “that man’s pleasure were finite, his need infinite” (35).

–J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: of course! For me, and for many, this is an obvious inclusion.

–Evelyn Waugh

—Brideshead Revisited

–Oscar Wilde

—The Ballad of Reading Gaol: how can one not hear the plaintive cry for God in this poem?

“And thus we rust Life’s chain

Degraded and alone:

And some men curse, and some men weep,

And some men make no moan:

But God’s eternal Laws are kind

And break the heart of stone [….]

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan

And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?”

Indeed, this does not sound like the icon of sexual liberation that I was taught about in my college literature courses. This is not the proud, gay Wilde, thumbing his nose at the “establishment” and living a life of freedom, unchained from God and the “big bad” Catholic Church. Instead, this is a penitent, a man aware of his own sins and looking for guidance and forgiveness.

Indeed, three weeks before his death, Wilde would declare that “much of my moral obliquity is due to the fact that my father would not allow me to become Catholic. The artistic side of the Church and the fragrance of its teaching would have cured my degeneracies. I intend to be received before long” (37).

This may be common knowledge for those who have studied Wilde more thoroughly than I have, but for someone who only has a passing knowledge of his life and work, this is a revelation. As for me, I was taught to see Wilde as some sort of sexual revolutionary, someone who reveled in his sexual perversion. Yet here he is using words like “moral obliquity” and “degeneracy” to describe his sexual proclivities.

Once again, I am stunned by how much  is suppressed by certain professors and teachers who want to present an author in a particular way. As the product of largely secular education (with only two years at a Catholic college), I never knew about the above poem or of Wilde’s conversion. I can’t help but think that it’s because such aspects of his life are distasteful to the current politics of academia.

–T.S. Eliot

–The Waste Land: Pearce spends a few chapters on this. I haven’t gotten there yet, but his brief commentary on it in his early chapters is marvelous!