Peter Hitchens: From Atheism to Faith

Here is a fascinating interview with author Peter Hitchens (brother of the even more well known Atheist writer Christopher Hitchens). He has a new book out, The Rage of Against God: Why Faith is the Foundation of Civilisation. He says he wrote this book because his brother wrote a book attacking religion (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything). So, this is a fascinating back and forth that very much reflects the whole Atheism vs. Faith debate in its current state.

In this interview he discusses his journey from avowed, militant atheist to believing Christian. Note the important role of art, this painting in particular, on his conversion.


It's a thoughtful and interesting interview. I commend it.



-t

Truth, Advertizing, and the Tim Horton's Way

Over on the Torontoist website there is an article about a tear-jerking Tim Horton's Ad that appeared during the Olympics:

Tim Horton's, for those of your living belong the 49th N Parallel, is a chain of coffee and doughnut shops nearly synonymous with Canadian identity. They are bigger (in Canada) than McDonald's. They even have a location at an airbase in Kandahar! Ironically, Tim Horton's went through a stage where they were owned by an American holding Company, however the have since repartiated to Canada.

Anyway, this ad is typical of the current Tim Horton's campaign: a true story that mixes Canadian nationalism with inexpensive coffee and confectioneries. Sappy, sure, but it's hard not to feel a little pride when you watch these ads. The problem, as the Torontoist Culture Club article points out, is that they are stretching the "based on a real story" tag. Actually, this is an amalgamation of stories. Karen Aagaard, the author, makes a good point. The reason they had the somewhat misleading tag "based on a True Story" is that this makes the narrative more compelling. But as in the case of James Frey's pseudo-memoir A Million Little Pieces, it does leave a bad taste in your mouth.

-t

Conversations with Culture Blog

The Diocese has started a new blog entitled "Conversations with Culture." As the tag line says, it's "about the intersection of faith and contemporary culture." Contributors so far include Michael Calderwood (writing about Avatar), Nancy Truscott (speaking of Divorce and the Holidays), John Hurd (Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the ROM), and Joanne Davies (living in an anxious age). Good stuff. I recommend it.

-t

God's Role in American Lives

A University of Toronto researcher, Scott Schieman, is publishing an article in the journal Sociology of Religion exploring religious attitudes among Americans. Specifically, he wanted to know to what degree Americans believe that God is directly involved in their lives. Here are some of his results:

• 82 per cent say they depend on God for help and guidance in making decisions;
• 71 per cent believe that when good or bad things happen, these occurrences are simply part of God's plan for them;
• 61 per cent believe that God has determined the direction and course of their lives;
• 32 per cent agree with the statement: "There is no sense in planning a lot because ultimately my fate is in God's hands."
• Overall, people who have more education and higher income are less likely to report beliefs in divine intervention.
• However, among the well-educated and higher earners, those who are more involved in religious rituals share similar levels of beliefs about divine intervention as their less-educated and less financially well-off peers.

According to Schieman: "Many of us might assume that people of higher social class standing tend to reject beliefs about divine intervention. However, my findings indicate that while this is true among those less committed to religious life, it is not the case for people who are more committed to religious participation and rituals." (Source)

82 Percent say that they depend on God's help and guidance in making decisions! Wow. Now if only 82 percent went to church! Figuring out what percentage of Americans (or Canadians, for that matter) regularly attend church in somewhat difficult, but one of the better studies ("Millennium Study," Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch, 1999) put the number for "Attend at least weekly" at 43% for Americans and 20% for Canadians. Most studies that rely on self-reporting come out with a number near that 43%, but recent studies have challenged the data. You can read a very good article about the problem of measuring church attendance here. The truth is probably that the number is less than 40% attend weekly, but no one knows the real number (except God and the choirs of angels, of course).

The implication is that the number of people who rely on God to help make important decisions is probably exaggerated, also. But the mere fact that most researches believe there is a "social desirability bias" inflating the numbers shows how powerful theism remains as cultural force. Americans think that God is important. Whether they live out the implications of that believe is another matter!

-t

Religious Literacy

It hardly needs saying, but a lot of people think they know more about God, the Bible, Jesus, etc., than they actually do. In fact, Religious Literacy has been on the decline in North America for a long time. I'm not just lamenting the fact that people don't understand the Doctrine of the Trinity, I'm speaking of the kind of basic knowledge that would seem to be part of the common cultural vocabulary.

Doug Cowling pointed me to a recent article in the National Catholic Reporter that points out that people's ignorance of non-Christian religions is just as bad:

“That paradox is this: Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion,” he writes. “They are Protestants who can’t name the four Gospels, Catholics who can’t name the seven sacraments, and Jews who can’t name the five books of Moses. ... One of the most religious countries on earth is also a nation of religious illiterates.”

Prothero blames the emphasis on emotionalism that began during the Second Great Awakening, which also provided the roots of evangelical Protestantism. In other words, if Jesus is my best friend, it doesn’t matter that I can’t name his 12 apostles. (source)

I remember once having a conversation with someone once who steadfastly held to a belief that was simply not true, historically speaking. The evidence was overwhelmingly on my side, but she kept saying that it was merely my opinion. I realized that it was because the issue had religious implications that she felt free to completely ignore the tools of rational discourse that are the foundations of western knowledge. Somehow, when it comes to faith, people are allowed to think whatever they want, even in those cases where they are simply being ignorant. Sigh.

-t