Instead I think she doesn’t think she can say these things because it’s “not okay” for me to be both “right” and a “non-believer.”
Thus she echoes things she heard from who-knows-where about me not reading the right things, that “these atheist scientists are so obsessed with figuring everything out,” etc.
Do you think you would have any luck convincing her that a) figuring things out is generally praiseworthy, and b) if God wants you to believe, then you will eventually arrive at a renewed, stronger and more honest faith?
If a fair God wanted people to believe any particular religion, he would have to provide some evidence so that people could tell which religion they were supposed to believe. If he’s not going to intervene, and therefore tamper with free will, as they would say, then if you start out by having faith, you can only pick the right religion to have faith in by luck. So supposing you had started in a different religion, but God wanted you to be a Catholic instead, there should be evidence for you to conclude that Catholicism is right if you look. Having considered this, you cannot simply have faith that Catholicism is right until you have first satisfied yourself that there were sound reasons for arriving at it rather than any other religion (since a person with a different upbringing who experienced a similar “salvation” by God would surely have arrived at a different religion.)
It follows then that the sort of information you ought to be looking for is the sort that anyone who’s not already a Catholic would research, not works of apologetics that start out assuming a position of faith.
I think that’s the approach I’d use to try and convince people that what you’re doing is sound and intellectually honest. You might start out by asking if God wants other people to be Catholics, and if yes, how he expects them to choose.
This might be a suitable approach, though I think in the “schism,” she’s simply assumed from the start that I’m wrong. Moving forward, it never seems to matter what I say or do—many people who she respects and who are quite a bit older and more knowledgeable of theology exist. It’s easy for her to ride their coattails.
I would say that she’s in a situation of not owning her reasons, and thus she likes to exert the implications of what these other, older people think and recommend (raising our kids Catholic, me trying until my death bed to believe, etc.) but when pressed on any specific point, she’s unable to speak to the logic or implications because they are not really her arguments/thoughts.
This is also frustrating because, well, she’s my wife! It’s disappointing to have someone who respected your intellect and decision making retract their vote of confidence in favor of the views of others to the point where there’s really no open discussion going on anymore. She seems so scared of something (more in a sec) in conversations that she’s been quite prone to saying things I don’t even think she means.
Last night we were talking and she brought up how the OT prophecies came true in Jesus. I asked for an example and she said something vague about Moses and Jesus. I said, “Do you mean that like Moses led the Israelites out of slavery from their bondage in Egypt, Jesus leads us out of slavery and bondage to the evil one and sin?” She agreed that this was what she meant.
I then asked what she would say if I told her that archaeologists have never found any evidence to support anything like the Exodus portrayed in the OT and that some doubt that a figure named “Moses” even existed.
Her response was, “I don’t care what you think. You’re finite.” Then we got into a lengthy discussion of why she actually should care if she thinks that the OT/NT connection between Moses/Jesus is a basis for her belief. I think we may have resolved the discussion in her stating that it wasn’t really a basis for belief.
The same occurred when she vaguely said that the Bible and “those other people who wrote about Jesus” were all she needed. I asked who “those other people” where and what they said. She didn’t know. It turned out that her notion of these people actually came from me, and that she had internalized my statements as what the wrote being a support for Jesus’ authenticity.
In fact, this was my first seed of doubt. If what the gospels claimed about Jesus were true… I found it absolutely preposterous that if someone alive at the same time had the inclination to write about him, they would write only a few lines and state nothing of his miracles, deeds, fame, or the like. So, she obviously could’t have meant that, either.
I actually did bring up (before reading your comment) that I found it frustrating when talking to her that it seemed like we didn’t even agree on common starting points for approaching the world, and gave as an example her responses that, “I don’t need an explanation for everything to believe it.” I suggested that in every other area of life, she probably doesn’t actually believe that, stating that she would hope that an explanation exists for why her internal combustion engine provides power rather than explodes.
She ended up agreeing that evidence was, actually, important. So there was progress made.
I didn’t handle the discussion so well. It’s very difficult for me to be gentle but also defend myself. She got quite emotional. When I asked what bothered her the most, she said it was thinking down the road of our friends taking her kids through the sacraments and our kids not being able to participate (how to raise our two daughters is still quite a debated “hot topic”) and how monumental a celebration these things are.
Back to what she’s scared of. It was incredibly interesting to me that this was what bothered her so much. When I doubted, I was scared (and still am) about not being aligned with the best explanation of “what is.” For whatever reason, it actually wasn’t difficult to walk away from religion at all if it was false. It’s more dealing with the emotional/social consequences and deciding when “enough is enough” on the research front. For her, I was just shocked that this is what had her so troubled.
And this led me to wonder if it really is mostly about community, experiences, relationships, wanting to provide imagined “snapshots” of parties and fun for our kids as they go through these various rituals, etc. I’m not sure what to make of this, but it might be my first experience with someone who literally has belief in belief.
I think she might be far more scared of not having the benefits she associates with belief rather than actually believing wrongly. For me, it was always (unless I’m fooling myself), the latter.
I feel that many of my comments have had pretty negative connotations regarding my wife. I’d like to at least add an addendum that I do care for her greatly and that she is one of the most other-aware, caring people I know. I’m a selfish a-hole compared to her and I can’t believe the level of forgiveness and tolerance she has for me and others.
And this led me to wonder if it really is mostly about community, experiences, relationships, wanting to provide imagined “snapshots” of parties and fun for our kids as they go through these various rituals, etc.
Yes, of course that is what it is about. Due to past survival advantages these social conventions and connections are tied to our sense of security. By trying to convince her that her faith is wrong, from her perspective you threaten her safety and the safety of her children.
Explicitly identify your goals and rank them. Do you want to achieve your own peace on the topic? Do you want to convince your wife that her faith is wrong? Do you want to stay in this marriage? Do you want your children to grow up as atheists? Ranking your goals is important; you may have to make short term compromises to achieve greater long term successes.
Identify behavior that will help or hurt these goals. If you want your wife to feel secure in the marriage you may have to avoid telling her why her religious beliefs are misguided. If you want to maximize your influence over your children’s beliefs you may have to negotiate with your wife; if they go to church with her then perhaps they also get matching rationality training from you.
Behave purposefully; have a goal in mind when you interact with your wife and with other people. When you have a goal in mind it is easier to avoid defensive reactions and much more likely that you will achieve the desired result.
By trying to convince her that her faith is wrong, from her perspective you threaten her safety and the safety of her children.
Indeed, though difficult to abstain from. I should keep this point in mind more, though.
Explicitly identify your goals and rank them.
This post and comments/discussion has quite renewed me in this area. Concretely, I am re-determined to read at least the core sequences and finish the initial books (and, consequently, goal) I set for myself HERE as well as finalize and “publish” (to blog or PDF) my statement of nonbelief started HERE.
The others are good questions—I’m assuming they are rhetorical, but I do want to stay in the marriage and would like to raise my children to be aware of trusted and proven tools of learning, universal truths, etc., without much about the supernatural debate at all, frankly. While perhaps difficult to do, this has struck me as the most reasonable and decent thing to do. I don’t want them to be “indoctrinated” atheists any more than I want them to be “indoctrinated” anything-elses.
When the time comes that they have the mental capacity and interest to pursue that question… let them pursue it. My hope for them is that they find their own answer that satisfies and is found with a reliable set of tools.
When you have a goal in mind it is easier to avoid defensive reactions and much more likely that you will achieve the desired result.
Thanks for that encouragement and for the comments in general.
I would say that she’s in a situation of not owning her reasons, and thus she likes to exert the implications of what these other, older people think and recommend (raising our kids Catholic, me trying until my death bed to believe, etc.) but when pressed on any specific point, she’s unable to speak to the logic or implications because they are not really her arguments/thoughts.
Reminds me of a family friend of mine, the wife of the most religious scientist I know, an astrophysicist who has more books on Christianity than astrophysics. I’ve discussed religion with her a few times, and it seems that her primary motivation for believing is a conviction that people like her husband know what they’re talking about.
If you haven’t already, you might want to bring up the fact that other religions and denominations also have their intelligent, experienced supporters, and taking it as given that the supporters of any one religion know what they’re talking about means concluding that the supporters of every other religion don’t. You have to be able to step outside the faith to give everyone their fair shakes. If she’s motivated more by her stake in the community, it might move her somewhat to consider that other communities believe differently, and go through a similar song and dance with different doctrines at stake. It might help get her thinking “there are other communities I could be part of if I didn’t believe what I believe now.”
I then asked what she would say if I told her that archaeologists have never found any evidence to support anything like the Exodus portrayed in the OT and that some doubt that a figure named “Moses” even existed.
In cases like this, I think it’s better to find out what she expects, ideally something you don’t know about or something she doesn’t suspect you already know about, so that rather than justifying the data post hoc, she can take notice of what she would anticipate given her beliefs being true, and then find out whether reality agrees with that.
Last night we were talking and she brought up how the OT prophecies came true in Jesus. I asked for an example and she said something vague about Moses and Jesus. I said, “Do you mean that like Moses led the Israelites out of slavery from their bondage in Egypt, Jesus leads us out of slavery and bondage to the evil one and sin?” She agreed that this was what she meant.
Since I was exposed to many believers’ views on Christianity well before I started researching the religion myself, I was quite surprised to find out what the old testament messianic prophesies actually entail. Not only did Jesus never fulfill most of them even by generous interpretations, he never claimed in life that he was going to fulfill many of them. The doctrine of the Second Coming actually arose out of attempts to square the scriptural requirements for the messiah with all the things Jesus didn’t accomplish; the messiah has to do them, and Jesus didn’t, so it must be that he’s going to do them when he comes back.
If you bring this up with your wife, you should wait for a time when she’s more receptive to it. It won’t make much difference for her to find out if she hasn’t already made herself aware that she expects otherwise.
I’ve discussed religion with her a few times, and it seems that her primary motivation for believing is a conviction that people like her husband know what they’re talking about.
True, and since widespread refutation of theism isn’t happening (or accepted), there are always Swinburnes, Plantingas, Kreefts, and WLCs to point to.
It might help get her thinking “there are other communities I could be part of if I didn’t believe what I believe now.”
I actually brought this up last night. She could conceive of it being possible that had she been a different religion, she might be as passionate/convicted of that community compared to the current one, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so when I gave an example of a non-religious community with strong rituals and relationships. She said that it would have to be a community with a “purpose outside herself.”
...she can take notice of what she would anticipate given her beliefs being true, and then find out whether reality agrees with that.
Yes, probably a better approach than what I attempted.
I was quite surprised to find out what the old testament messianic prophesies actually entail. Not only did Jesus never fulfill most of them even by generous interpretations...
Well, as you stated below, this is neatly sidestepped by the second coming/afterlife. As far as I know, all or most of the things on that list are said to be occurring at the second coming, or more how I have heard it, are fulfilled in heaven.
If you bring this up with your wife, you should wait for a time when she’s more receptive to it. It won’t make much difference for her to find out if she hasn’t already made herself aware that she expects otherwise.
Indeed, or perhaps as nerzhin suggested, I should just refrain from talking about it at all.
Maybe if I pursue the activities in my “Edit/Update” section of the article above, particularly finishing off some of my reading list and writing my “story” out, it will have a greater impact on her than any direct confrontation/dialog. She’s stated that she doesn’t like all the “atheist blogs” I read and that I’m “unbalanced.” Perhaps were I to display willingness to read theological books, it would remove that objection… or it might reveal that the objection wasn’t real and that she’ll not be happy with my non-belief even if I fulfill such a requirement.
Do you think you would have any luck convincing her that a) figuring things out is generally praiseworthy, and b) if God wants you to believe, then you will eventually arrive at a renewed, stronger and more honest faith?
If a fair God wanted people to believe any particular religion, he would have to provide some evidence so that people could tell which religion they were supposed to believe. If he’s not going to intervene, and therefore tamper with free will, as they would say, then if you start out by having faith, you can only pick the right religion to have faith in by luck. So supposing you had started in a different religion, but God wanted you to be a Catholic instead, there should be evidence for you to conclude that Catholicism is right if you look. Having considered this, you cannot simply have faith that Catholicism is right until you have first satisfied yourself that there were sound reasons for arriving at it rather than any other religion (since a person with a different upbringing who experienced a similar “salvation” by God would surely have arrived at a different religion.)
It follows then that the sort of information you ought to be looking for is the sort that anyone who’s not already a Catholic would research, not works of apologetics that start out assuming a position of faith.
I think that’s the approach I’d use to try and convince people that what you’re doing is sound and intellectually honest. You might start out by asking if God wants other people to be Catholics, and if yes, how he expects them to choose.
This might be a suitable approach, though I think in the “schism,” she’s simply assumed from the start that I’m wrong. Moving forward, it never seems to matter what I say or do—many people who she respects and who are quite a bit older and more knowledgeable of theology exist. It’s easy for her to ride their coattails.
I would say that she’s in a situation of not owning her reasons, and thus she likes to exert the implications of what these other, older people think and recommend (raising our kids Catholic, me trying until my death bed to believe, etc.) but when pressed on any specific point, she’s unable to speak to the logic or implications because they are not really her arguments/thoughts.
This is also frustrating because, well, she’s my wife! It’s disappointing to have someone who respected your intellect and decision making retract their vote of confidence in favor of the views of others to the point where there’s really no open discussion going on anymore. She seems so scared of something (more in a sec) in conversations that she’s been quite prone to saying things I don’t even think she means.
Last night we were talking and she brought up how the OT prophecies came true in Jesus. I asked for an example and she said something vague about Moses and Jesus. I said, “Do you mean that like Moses led the Israelites out of slavery from their bondage in Egypt, Jesus leads us out of slavery and bondage to the evil one and sin?” She agreed that this was what she meant.
I then asked what she would say if I told her that archaeologists have never found any evidence to support anything like the Exodus portrayed in the OT and that some doubt that a figure named “Moses” even existed.
Her response was, “I don’t care what you think. You’re finite.” Then we got into a lengthy discussion of why she actually should care if she thinks that the OT/NT connection between Moses/Jesus is a basis for her belief. I think we may have resolved the discussion in her stating that it wasn’t really a basis for belief.
The same occurred when she vaguely said that the Bible and “those other people who wrote about Jesus” were all she needed. I asked who “those other people” where and what they said. She didn’t know. It turned out that her notion of these people actually came from me, and that she had internalized my statements as what the wrote being a support for Jesus’ authenticity.
In fact, this was my first seed of doubt. If what the gospels claimed about Jesus were true… I found it absolutely preposterous that if someone alive at the same time had the inclination to write about him, they would write only a few lines and state nothing of his miracles, deeds, fame, or the like. So, she obviously could’t have meant that, either.
I actually did bring up (before reading your comment) that I found it frustrating when talking to her that it seemed like we didn’t even agree on common starting points for approaching the world, and gave as an example her responses that, “I don’t need an explanation for everything to believe it.” I suggested that in every other area of life, she probably doesn’t actually believe that, stating that she would hope that an explanation exists for why her internal combustion engine provides power rather than explodes.
She ended up agreeing that evidence was, actually, important. So there was progress made.
I didn’t handle the discussion so well. It’s very difficult for me to be gentle but also defend myself. She got quite emotional. When I asked what bothered her the most, she said it was thinking down the road of our friends taking her kids through the sacraments and our kids not being able to participate (how to raise our two daughters is still quite a debated “hot topic”) and how monumental a celebration these things are.
Back to what she’s scared of. It was incredibly interesting to me that this was what bothered her so much. When I doubted, I was scared (and still am) about not being aligned with the best explanation of “what is.” For whatever reason, it actually wasn’t difficult to walk away from religion at all if it was false. It’s more dealing with the emotional/social consequences and deciding when “enough is enough” on the research front. For her, I was just shocked that this is what had her so troubled.
And this led me to wonder if it really is mostly about community, experiences, relationships, wanting to provide imagined “snapshots” of parties and fun for our kids as they go through these various rituals, etc. I’m not sure what to make of this, but it might be my first experience with someone who literally has belief in belief.
I think she might be far more scared of not having the benefits she associates with belief rather than actually believing wrongly. For me, it was always (unless I’m fooling myself), the latter.
I feel that many of my comments have had pretty negative connotations regarding my wife. I’d like to at least add an addendum that I do care for her greatly and that she is one of the most other-aware, caring people I know. I’m a selfish a-hole compared to her and I can’t believe the level of forgiveness and tolerance she has for me and others.
Yes, of course that is what it is about. Due to past survival advantages these social conventions and connections are tied to our sense of security. By trying to convince her that her faith is wrong, from her perspective you threaten her safety and the safety of her children.
Fortunately you are not constrained by WWJD and can engage in some instrumental rationality.
Explicitly identify your goals and rank them. Do you want to achieve your own peace on the topic? Do you want to convince your wife that her faith is wrong? Do you want to stay in this marriage? Do you want your children to grow up as atheists? Ranking your goals is important; you may have to make short term compromises to achieve greater long term successes.
Identify behavior that will help or hurt these goals. If you want your wife to feel secure in the marriage you may have to avoid telling her why her religious beliefs are misguided. If you want to maximize your influence over your children’s beliefs you may have to negotiate with your wife; if they go to church with her then perhaps they also get matching rationality training from you.
Behave purposefully; have a goal in mind when you interact with your wife and with other people. When you have a goal in mind it is easier to avoid defensive reactions and much more likely that you will achieve the desired result.
Indeed, though difficult to abstain from. I should keep this point in mind more, though.
This post and comments/discussion has quite renewed me in this area. Concretely, I am re-determined to read at least the core sequences and finish the initial books (and, consequently, goal) I set for myself HERE as well as finalize and “publish” (to blog or PDF) my statement of nonbelief started HERE.
The others are good questions—I’m assuming they are rhetorical, but I do want to stay in the marriage and would like to raise my children to be aware of trusted and proven tools of learning, universal truths, etc., without much about the supernatural debate at all, frankly. While perhaps difficult to do, this has struck me as the most reasonable and decent thing to do. I don’t want them to be “indoctrinated” atheists any more than I want them to be “indoctrinated” anything-elses.
When the time comes that they have the mental capacity and interest to pursue that question… let them pursue it. My hope for them is that they find their own answer that satisfies and is found with a reliable set of tools.
Thanks for that encouragement and for the comments in general.
Reminds me of a family friend of mine, the wife of the most religious scientist I know, an astrophysicist who has more books on Christianity than astrophysics. I’ve discussed religion with her a few times, and it seems that her primary motivation for believing is a conviction that people like her husband know what they’re talking about.
If you haven’t already, you might want to bring up the fact that other religions and denominations also have their intelligent, experienced supporters, and taking it as given that the supporters of any one religion know what they’re talking about means concluding that the supporters of every other religion don’t. You have to be able to step outside the faith to give everyone their fair shakes. If she’s motivated more by her stake in the community, it might move her somewhat to consider that other communities believe differently, and go through a similar song and dance with different doctrines at stake. It might help get her thinking “there are other communities I could be part of if I didn’t believe what I believe now.”
In cases like this, I think it’s better to find out what she expects, ideally something you don’t know about or something she doesn’t suspect you already know about, so that rather than justifying the data post hoc, she can take notice of what she would anticipate given her beliefs being true, and then find out whether reality agrees with that.
Since I was exposed to many believers’ views on Christianity well before I started researching the religion myself, I was quite surprised to find out what the old testament messianic prophesies actually entail. Not only did Jesus never fulfill most of them even by generous interpretations, he never claimed in life that he was going to fulfill many of them. The doctrine of the Second Coming actually arose out of attempts to square the scriptural requirements for the messiah with all the things Jesus didn’t accomplish; the messiah has to do them, and Jesus didn’t, so it must be that he’s going to do them when he comes back.
If you bring this up with your wife, you should wait for a time when she’s more receptive to it. It won’t make much difference for her to find out if she hasn’t already made herself aware that she expects otherwise.
True, and since widespread refutation of theism isn’t happening (or accepted), there are always Swinburnes, Plantingas, Kreefts, and WLCs to point to.
I actually brought this up last night. She could conceive of it being possible that had she been a different religion, she might be as passionate/convicted of that community compared to the current one, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so when I gave an example of a non-religious community with strong rituals and relationships. She said that it would have to be a community with a “purpose outside herself.”
Yes, probably a better approach than what I attempted.
Well, as you stated below, this is neatly sidestepped by the second coming/afterlife. As far as I know, all or most of the things on that list are said to be occurring at the second coming, or more how I have heard it, are fulfilled in heaven.
Indeed, or perhaps as nerzhin suggested, I should just refrain from talking about it at all.
Maybe if I pursue the activities in my “Edit/Update” section of the article above, particularly finishing off some of my reading list and writing my “story” out, it will have a greater impact on her than any direct confrontation/dialog. She’s stated that she doesn’t like all the “atheist blogs” I read and that I’m “unbalanced.” Perhaps were I to display willingness to read theological books, it would remove that objection… or it might reveal that the objection wasn’t real and that she’ll not be happy with my non-belief even if I fulfill such a requirement.