Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Cosmos The In Lost

Home
Catholic
If You Practice It, You’ll Become: How the Pastor Became an Atheist

If You Practice It, You’ll Become: How the Pastor Became an Atheist

Last updated on: January 7, 2015 at 2:56 pm by Artur Rosman

If You Practice It, You’ll Become: How the Pastor Became an Atheist 2015-01-07T14:56:39-07:00 Artur Rosman

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Let the playah play, because nothing is outside the game.

“Nothing will come from nothing,” says King Lear, habitually plagiarizing a tradition that goes back as Parmenides. With this I will continue my engagement with confirmation bias and how it applies to recent news stories about about atheists and skeptics.

I will enlist the help of the story, “A Year After Giving Atheism a Try, Former Pastor Ryan Bell Admits: ‘I Don’t Think That God Exists‘” in my argument.

Habit is what habit does.

Freedom, choice, and will might be American staples, but the power of habit is starting to overtake them even on the NYT bestseller list. Consciously cultivated repetitive action whose aim is instilling something like the virtues has escaped the confines of Alasdair MacIntyre covers into the boardroom, bathroom, and beyond.

Simone Weil, somewhere in her writings, I believe in Gravity and Grace, turns against Pascal’s advice to the skeptic of going through the motions of religious belief (taking holy water, having masses said, and so on). Pascal contends that repeating these gestures will, “make you believe quite naturally.” I believe Simone Weil was wrong.

The “argument (if it can properly be called that) from habit” is the corollary to Pascal’s famous wager. It moves onto the practical plane by suggesting that beliefs are not only confined to the mind.

I don’t think I’m sticking my head out too much by thinking that at least in this key element of his argument Pascal fits more into the ancient and medieval scheme of things, rather than being the forerunner of modernity (See: Edward Oakes’ excellent essay “Pascal: The First Modern Christian“).

I’m thinking of the distinction Aquinas made in the Summa between fides informis and fides formata. The former is knowledge of doctrines, intellectual appropriation, and is a lower level form of faith than the latter, which is formed by participation in the divine life through love, charity, through putting the doctrines into practice.

Jean-Louis Chretien (in Under the Gaze of the Bible) unpacks the close bond between belief and practice using the nativity metaphor adroitly:

When my life and my spirit open today to this Word, something of this Word is born in me; there is a nativity of meaning, a new dawn of the eternal truth, a humble and small Christmas that is nonetheless a real Christmas. That of the Word which sought our listening and our response is engendered in us when we listen to it and respond to it, which moreover is the same thing.

Bursting Bubbles: Simone Weil is frequently wrong in constructive ways.

So far this sounds like it could be confined to the mind, the realm of fides informis (I believe the latter word in this Latin phrase refers to both mere information and lacking form). But then Chretien subtly shifts onto the shift in quotidian practices this appropriation should engender:

That the Word as a man was born in a stable and not a palace, be it a palace of culture, shows that no one is excluded from this possibility, that each of us may make of his spirit a Bethlehem, when he reads the Bible today according to the today that the Bible itself teaches and offers, one day’s Bethlehem, for this task is for each day. Origen notes precisely that this birth of God in us, and thus also this birth of us in God, can take place in each work and each thought…

The emphasis upon work is fundamental here, because Under the Gaze of the Bible is an extended commentary upon James 2:14-17, the biblical locus classicus of fides formata:

14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

This is where the Ryan Bell story comes into play. It shows that habitual thinking in a particular manner confirms a worldview.

When I first heard about his proposed experiment of abandoning all church practice I knew he would end up being atheist. How could it be otherwise? Bell took up thinking and living in an atheist way and it confirmed his new beliefs as reported in an NPR story cited by the Friendly Atheist:

After a year, Bell tells NPR’s Arun Rath, “I’ve looked at the majority of the arguments that I’ve been able to find for the existence of God, and on the question of God’s existence or not, I have to say I don’t find there to be a convincing case, in my view.

Liturgies have consequences.

By abandoning the liturgy of the church he did not abandon liturgy altogether. He merely took up an atheist liturgy with its own equivalents of taking holy water and having masses said. These only confirmed his new bias toward atheism.

Nothing comes from nothing and atheism comes out of atheist practice.

The Friendly Atheist confirms my suspicions:

I didn’t agree with his methodology at the time. I felt like he was just exploring an alternative option, not actually “becoming” an atheist. Hell, most atheists don’t even read books by Richard Dawkins or attend gatherings with other non-believers, so how would doing those things give Bell a real sense of what being an atheist was like?

What I don’t understand is the shock the Friendly Atheist registers in the following passage:

But he got a taste of what being an atheist was like much sooner than expected. Less than a week after announcing his experiment, Bell was fired by his Christian employers at Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary because, according to Bell, “They simply feel they cannot have me as a part of the faculty while I’m am in this year long process.”

This is only natural. Can you imagine the ostracism that would be heaped upon Dawkins, or even some small-time atheist, if they were to suddenly abandon their atheist beliefs?

Then again, they would also be compensated by entering into a new communion.

If you practice it, you’ll become.

Previous Post

January 6, 2015

Reenchantment: Atheist PZ Myers Attempts to Confess Bias, FAILS

Next Post

January 8, 2015 Will We Once Again Enlist Islam Against Western Extremism?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category #WhyRemainCatholic Abortion Advent Anti-Catholicism Arts Atheism Beauty Benedict XVI Bible Book Review Catholic Cinema Comedy Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey Czesław Miłosz Dariusz Karłowicz Devil Easter Eastern Orthodoxy Economics Environment Family Famous Atheists Who Weren't Atheists Guest Post Hans Urs von Balthasar HHS Mandate History Imagination Interview Islam Jean-Luc Marion John Paul II Judaism Just War Lent Literature Little Sisters of the Poor Liturgy Martyrdom Music News Paganism Patristics Phenomenology Philosophy Pierre Hadot Poetry Poland Pop Culture Pope Francis Poverty Prayer Protestantism Rabelais Race Remi Brague Rene Girard Russia Sam Rocha Science & Religion SCOTUS Secularization Sexual Abuse Sexuality Silence Solidarity Stratford Caldecott Synod14 Terrorism Top 10 Uncategorized Walker Percy War Weakened Edition World War II World Youth Day WYD Krakow

Select a Month July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which continent is experiencing the fastest growth in Christianity?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Africa Asia Europe Oceania