{"id":82877,"date":"2020-02-13T21:04:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T04:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=82877"},"modified":"2020-02-18T21:53:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T04:53:36","slug":"how-can-any-intelligent-person-possibly-believe-in-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/02\/how-can-any-intelligent-person-possibly-believe-in-that.html","title":{"rendered":"“How can any intelligent person possibly believe in that?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"The<\/a>
An aerial view of Durham Cathedral (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I published the little item below in the Provo Daily Herald<\/em> way back in 2007:<\/p>\n

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Years ago, while a graduate student in Egypt, I was introduced by a friend to a chemistry professor at the University of Cairo.\u00a0 After a pleasant conversation, the professor asked what an American was doing in Egypt, studying Arabic and Islam.\u00a0 \u201cAre you a Muslim?\u201d he inquired.\u00a0 When he was told no, he asked, \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Such a question is, of course, a bit sensitive and difficult for anyone to answer who hopes to avoid offense or argument.\u00a0 So the answer was, simply, \u201cI\u2019m a Christian.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d replied the professor.\u00a0 \u201cYou believe that God has a son (which, of course, everybody knows is completely impossible), and that he sent his son to earth and arranged to have him killed in order to buy himself off?\u201d\u00a0 I replied that, while that was not exactly how I would have phrased it, I do in fact believe something along those lines.\u00a0 \u201cAmazing!\u201d exclaimed the Muslim professor.\u00a0 \u201cHow can any intelligent person possibly believe anything so obviously crazy?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Now a professor myself, I\u2019ve reflected on that experience many times since.\u00a0 The fact is that, however strange it may appear to a Muslim scientist (or to any other outsider), many people of extraordinary intelligence have been, and continue to be, believing Christians.\u00a0 Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Pascal, Kierkegaard, and C. S. Lewis are just a few who come to mind.\u00a0 And this is true of other faiths, as well.\u00a0 Brilliant men and women can be counted among the writers and thinkers of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism<\/a>, Hinduism, and all the great religions of human history.<\/span><\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, of course, there are also stupid, thoughtless, and ignorant people in every movement, people who believe on the basis of bad reasons or of no real reasons at all.\u00a0 But, while certain insignificant movements have drawn their ranks largely from the unbalanced or uninformed, every religious or ideological group that has appealed to large numbers over extended periods of time has contained elements that satisfied and seemed plausible to sensitive, intelligent, sane men and women.\u00a0 Otherwise, it is simply inconceivable that such groups could have survived for any lengthy period.<\/span><\/p>\n

This leads to an insight:\u00a0 If you encounter a religious group or an ideology or even an atheistic position that has attracted many people of diverse backgrounds for a considerable length of time, and you cannot see \u201chow any intelligent person can possibly believe anything so manifestly crazy,\u201d the problem is probably in you \u2014 at least as much as it is in the other person.\u00a0 You don\u2019t know or understand enough to make a judgment, for intelligent people undoubtedly do believe it.\u00a0 So long as you imagine that no \u201cintelligent\u201d person could honestly fall for such nonsense, you dehumanize those you disagree with, or you assume (and this is very common) that they are all, somehow, dishonest.<\/span><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t necessary, in considering another system of beliefs, to accept it.\u00a0 But it is necessary, if you truly want to understand it, to try to imagine how someone else could believe it, could find it emotionally appealing and intellectually satisfying.<\/span><\/p>\n

Critics often publicly wonder how any honest, intelligent person can believe in the Book of Mormon, the visitation of God and angels to Joseph Smith, or the divine potential of humankind.\u00a0 Yet, although their honesty and intelligence are frequently questioned by anti-Mormon crusaders, many such people do exist, some of them quite well-informed.\u00a0 On the other side, not a few Latter-day Saints vocally marvel that anybody who knows anything could be a Catholic, and cannot see how sane, intelligent people can possibly swallow doctrines like the Trinity.\u00a0 But the fact is indisputable:\u00a0 Many of the most brilliant thinkers in the history of Western civilization have been devout Roman Catholics, and, of these, many have written on precisely the issue of the Trinity.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the interreligous discussions and, yes, arguments that, for various reasons, are very likely to arise as Mormonism<\/a> becomes more and more of a public issue in the next few months and years, it would help if each side could grant the other to be, on the whole, sincere, honest, intelligent, and sane.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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