Answering Hitchens's Impossible Question

Let's start the year with a religious post and attempt to address the late Christopher Hitchens's "impossible question."

The question is, "I challenge you to find one good or noble thing which cannot be accomplished without religion." Or name something good a believer can do that an Atheist cannot.

I found two answers by Christians on YouTube here and here. There is one by W. L. Craig on the internet somewhere.

Years ago, I read Prof. Dawkins's The God Delusion where he suggested that we create a believing machine to get around the obvious answer to this question: only believers can believe in God, only believers can love God with all their heart, soul, and strength. According to Dawkins, the machine could believe in God for us so we can go about our business. Prof. Dawkins also derided parents who taught their impressionable children about any religion, especially Christianity with its belief in hell: it is on par with physical child abuse.

From this alone, I can report that no Atheist, or non-theist could believe or teach positively about the Judeo-Christian God, the only living and true God.

But is this good?

I'm part of a non-denominational Habitat-for-Humanity-like apostolate called Good Works in a poor part of PA. At the beginning of the work day, we have a small talk that comes from the Bible and ask for prayer requests. We then pray together with the home owner before we work at the worksite. If someone is not Christian, they can come to the work site after this. From my observation, the Christians show up more often than the non-Christians to work on the houses.

St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta always made it a priority to pray and attend mass before helping the poorest of the poor, to take scheduled breaks for this throughout the day. I'm not Mother Theresa, but it says something that belief in God motivates more consistent and harder work for the poor who are Jesus in disguise (Matthew 25: 31-46).

However, this does not actually address the most important action: loving God Himself. Love requires action. We do this by receiving Jesus bodily into ourselves in the sacrament of Communion and being forgiven in the sacrament of Reconciliation. No non-theist would ever do this in Truth, only mock and/or invert it.

I wonder why debaters against Hitchens didn't say this type of answer every time? Where they afraid that Hitchens would shoot them down? Could it perhaps be that most were Protestant, who believe in sola fides? Love requires more than faith; it requires works, some only Christians can do.

The Host Part III

In the last post on The Host with Saoirse Ronan, the concept of the soul was introduced. In this post, I would like to look at another aspect of the soul, freewill.



***Spoilers Alert!*** There was a whole bunch of will assertion in this movie, especially in Saoirse Ronan's characters (two persons together for most of the movie).

But first, backing up further to see the larger view, the alien race that took over Earth was pushing their agenda to keep the native people from destroying themselves and their environment (as was mentioned in the first post). Unlike the Ender's Game movie, the reason for the takeover was not for land or resources, but to essentially save the planet by inserting an alien world government and populace (that sure sounds familiar).

This scenario of the movie seems forced. Why would a peaceful alien species who values non-violence forcefully take over people against their own will? Do they see themselves as the doing the right thing (good means and ends) or simply the necessary thing (good ends matter only, not means)? Do they really believe in free will?

This last question seemed to be a shock to the aliens. There was never reported to be a human that still asserted his or her (free) will after becoming a host. This is why Saoirse Ronan's alien character was alarmed and kept secret (for most of the movie) the fact that her host was asserting herself.

Perhaps the aliens did not believe in free will. I've argued before that if there is no free will (no God), there is no morality. If they did not believe, the alien actions would not have to be justified, since it's just those whom blind processes (nature) determine are stronger who get to decide (determinism). However, the hosts did assert their freewill, therefore, there are good and bad means (means matter).

The aliens who became friends with the humans realized that there was a right-and-wrong that the humans had at least a grasp of. This realization was attractive to them.

This attractiveness seemed to be ultimately an attractiveness towards God.

Response to Atheist

I just had to repeat this comment that I posted here. It is the Holy Spirit.
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"God has just done too good of a job of hiding for me to have any belief in him."

God came out to play when Jesus was incarnate. After He left to the Father, the Spirit was given to the Church that He established. Want evidence? Just look at the blog you're on now. God's evidence is the presence of the Mystical Body of Christ (the Church) bringing you the Good News and a Doctor for what ails you and the world. It's a place for sinners to receive absolution for their sins.

God bless you Anonymous.

Gerry