Where I live atheists are culturally dominant in the extreme. There are very aggressive antitheists teaching in public schools, serving in public office, making policy, often in the midst of enormous conflicts of interest, and anyone who says anything about it, even tentatively, runs a risk of physical, financial or political harm.
I grew up atheist. I was reared to sneer, play pranks, and swear at anyone talking religion around me, as long as it wasn’t in school or court or anything. As I grew up and became part of a more and more dominant group, I became self-satisfied, no longer questioning anything. But all kinds of clues eventually, slowly, inch by inch, led me from atheism through many other belief systems to Christianity. I used to say all the things most antitheist debaters say to me, and I stopped saying or believing those things because they aren’t true. For example, the blame-everything-bad-in-history-on-religion-especially-Christianity cycle shattered upon a cool and no-holds-barred study of actual history. The equate-religion-with-repression set of arguments fell apart upon the rocks of the real way we were treating those who dissented versus how religious folks did. And the arguments that believing in God was somehow inherently irrational because it was possible not to collapsed when I tried to come up with any worldview that was provable without resort to the unproven at any stage. These are just some of the reasons I jumped ship. There is a lot more.
As I tried to share my thinking process with friends, I saw their other side. Peopel I had seen as warm and gentle suddenly turned raving, hissing, and otherwise extremely hateful. As this slowly disillusioned me with one good friend after another, I met Christians adn saw how much they quietly do for others, even for those who mock them. I remembered all the kind Christians in my life who had helped me while I made fun of them and who always said they loved me.
I have no hate for anyone. When I seek to help people to find a good thing (truth, heaven, life e.g.) and avoid a bad thing (illusion, hell), knowing they will try to make me sorry but knwoing I have to try because I care about them and so does God, it takes a real mustering of courage. When they then approach me later and sneer, give me hate stares, ask me whether I’ve ever heard of (fill in the blank) and then scream at me non stop when I begin to reply, then run, and these are neighbors, people I can’t avoid, and then I hear that they are telling one another that I have stopped thinking and it’s sad, I can deal with it. But when they accuse me of having no motive but hatred, and then won’t give an example that answers the question, well, if I get snide in return, I don’t mean to. It’s just frustration.
, whereas he is very clearly in what might be called the “Tridentine” & scholastic tradition (This difference is behind a lot of the Council’s theology). But that as they say is another kettle of fish.
