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<\/a><\/p>\nLast week, I really enjoyed the conversations sparked by my post on seven common atheist misconceptions about Catholicism<\/a> (inspired by Jen\u2019s post that covered the vice versa\u00a0problem<\/a>). \u00a0\u00a0This week, I want to highlight some of the resources and clarifications that people contributed to the post. \u00a0I should have a guest post or two going up soon in response to atheist questions about how Catholics read the bible, but I\u2019d welcome more contributors. \u00a0Check out this call for\u00a0exegetical guest posts<\/a> for details.<\/p>\n Or, if exegisis isn\u2019t your style, but you want to help make your religion a little more\u00a0understandable to all us atheists, take a cue from Julie at A Room with a View. \u00a0She\u2019s been looking through the comments of the post that asked for challenging questions for Christians<\/a>, and she\u2019ll be taking a crack at a few of them here, so watch this space\u00a0and think about whether you want to join her.<\/p>\n A lot of the misunderstandings seemed to be rooted in some misunderstandings of how technical and specific Catholic prohibitions are on certain behaviors. \u00a0Luckily, this week, Simcha Fisher of I have to sit down<\/a> wrote a very helpful piece about Catholic approaches to avoiding pregnancy<\/a> (specifically using NFP<\/a>). \u00a0Simcha does a good job explaining how the Church can provide general guidelines for moral behavior, but it would be counterproductive to try to make exhaustive lists of acceptable and unacceptable actions.<\/p>\n In plenty of ways, the whole thing is an extension of Aristotle\u2019s idea of practical wisdom<\/a>. \u00a0The purpose of Catholic morality isn\u2019t to give you an answer key to look up the right answers to all moral\u00a0quandaries; the real goal is to inculcate the right kind of attitude and experience to lead you to pick out the right answer and understand why it\u2019s right. \u00a0It\u2019s a lot harder, but a lot truer than the list-of-answers approach.<\/p>\n Mind you, some religions are quite rule-based (and I tend to personally find them a lot less compelling). \u00a0NFQ \u00a0wrote an interesting post this week on the technicalities of the Jewish Sabbath in the polar regions<\/a> where sunset may not occur for months. \u00a0The workarounds are baffling and seemingly arbitrary. \u00a0If anyone has a decent apologetic argument about these laws and their\u00a0apparent\u00a0incompatibility with the natural world, I\u2019d love to hear it. \u00a0As it is, I agree with NFQ that this kind of quirk makes\u00a0Judaism\u00a0(and Christianity as well) seem less plausible to me.<\/p>\n A lot of people correctly pointed out that many of the misconceptions I was trying to debunk weren\u2019t just myths about Catholics, but in fact were myths about almost all Christians except the\u00a0fundamentalist\u00a0evangelicals (who apparently have a really good PR team). \u00a0So, to make up for my omission, I want to highlight a post by Richard Beck of\u00a0Experimental Theology<\/a>, a Christian of I\u2019m not sure what denomination. \u00a0He presents a pretty understandable (even to laypeople) of why he\u2019s a\u00a0universalist<\/a>\u00a0and thinks that position is\u00a0perfectly compatible with God\u2019s mercy and God\u2019s justice<\/a>. \u00a0Here\u2019s a quick excerpt:<\/p>\n One root of the problem with the traditionalist view is this notion that God is schizophrenic. God is like Gollum in\u00a0The Lord of the Rings<\/em>. God\u2019s got this loving side and this justice side. And you get either one or the other. If you accept Jesus into your heart you get the loving side and skip the justice side. Conversely, if you reject Jesus you get the justice side and miss the loving side. But you never get both at the same time.<\/p>\n To be quite frank, this whole notion that God can\u2019t love you because his justice has to be satisfied is, well, nice words fail me. Maybe you have to be a parent to really get this, but\u00a0my love for my kids is the same as my \u201cjustice.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0If my son throws a ball through a neighbor\u2019s window it\u2019s neither loving or just to let him just walk away. My love and my sense of justice aren\u2019t battling it out inside of me to determine which side of me my son will experience. No, it is\u00a0both<\/em>\u00a0loving and just\u2013and this is the key\u2013to get my son to walk over to the neighbors, ring the doorbell, and face the music.\u00a0Love and justice are the same thing<\/em>. This is the great insight at the heart of the theology of George MacDonald.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I found it pretty compelling (but, of course, I loved\u00a0The Great Divorce<\/a><\/em>, which seems pretty similar). \u00a0If you need\u00a0a crash course in the\u00a0common disputes in Christianity about who gets saved<\/a>, Timothy Dalrymple had a great summary at Patheos.<\/p>\n This week, a new study from the Public Religion Research Institute drove home the point that an individual\u2019s views, for better of worse, may not much resemble those of the church they affiliate with. \u00a0According to the PRRI\u2019s surveys:<\/p>\n Catholics are more supportive of legal recognitions of same-sex relationships than members of any other Christian tradition and Americans overall<\/strong>. Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43%) or allowing them to form civil unions (31%). Only 22% of Catholics say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple\u2019s relationship.<\/p>\n When same-sex marriage is defined explicitly as a civil marriage, support is dramatically higher among Catholics.<\/strong> If marriage for gay couples is defined as a civil marriage \u201clike you get at city hall,\u201d Catholic support for allowing gay couples to marry increases by 28 points, from 43% to 71%. A similar pattern exists in the general population, but the Catholic increase is more pronounced.<\/p>\n Beyond the issue of same-sex marriage, Catholic support for rights for gays and lesbian people is strong and slightly higher than the general public<\/strong>. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Catholics favor laws that would protect gay and lesbian people against discrimination in the workplace; 63% of Catholics favor allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly in the military; and 6-in-10 (60%) Catholics favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Oh, and did I mention:<\/p>\n A majority of Catholics (56%) believe that sexual relations between two adults of the same gender is not a sin.<\/strong> Among the general population, less than half (46%) believe it is not a sin.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n (h\/t First Things<\/a>)<\/p>\n I\u2019d hate to leave out atheism from any list of beliefs that have the dual misfortunes of being often strawmanned and frequently ending up with leaders who closely resemble those strawmen. \u00a0Alex Knapp did a rundown of bad arguments for atheism<\/a>this week that\u2019s worth looking over. \u00a0Not all of the argument he skewers are entirely invalid, but even the best ones are often lazily defended, so it\u2019s good to have a read through and tighten up our logic.<\/p>\n If you found these quick takes through Jen\u2019s blog, I\u2019d like to recommend you also take a look at the two pieces I wrote in response to her criticism of an atheist awareness week<\/a>. \u00a0The first focuses on reasons why atheists need to be visible as atheists<\/a>, the second focuses on what prompts \u2018nasty\u2019 atheism and how to curb that kind of rhetoric<\/a>.<\/p>\n But hey, if you wanted to skip all that intervening nuance and get down to the toughest questions about religion, perhaps you should check out this professor\u2019s comment from the Overheard at Yale Div School<\/a> blog:<\/p>\n \u201cAny faith tradition worth its salt will tell you what to do with your food, your time, your genitals, and your money. Otherwise it\u2019s not a real religion.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Glad all that\u2019s cleared up now.<\/p>\n\n
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