People who don't believe in God are broken

[PRmerger]

Yes, this reminds me of the story of the Eskimo who was “evangelized” by the missionary:

Eskimo~You mean that if you didn’t tell me about your God, and I led a good life, as I am, I would have gone to Heaven?

Missionary~Yes

Eskimo~But now that I know about your God there’s a chance I can go to hell?

Missionary~Yes

Eskimo~Then why in the name of goodness did you tell me about your God!!!

I don’t know what Missionary you have in mind in this example,Gaber, but what you haven’t presented is an example of what a Catholic Missionary ought to say.

 

[RPRPsych]

I’d start by saying, “Define ‘broken’.”

If you mean “broken psychologically”, the point can be argued both ways. Older psychological thinkers - especially strict Freudians - had a negative view of religion, considering it to be psychologically immature. (Freud once called religion “the universal obsessional neurosis of mankind.”)

However, in more recent work on well-being, psychiatrists like Robert Cloninger have spoken of five “levels” of personality development. People who deny the existence of God, or spiritual experiences (what we would term “atheists” or “agnostics”) would be considered stuck at “level 4”, the next-to-last level.

Ultimately, though, the question can’t be answered purely on psychological grounds.

I’d say all of us are “broken”, for sufficiently small values of brokenness. (“For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.”)

Besides, there are many reasons why a person can not or does not believe in God - and not all of them imply the same level of “brokenness”.

 

[PRmerger]

I have no sense in which I am broken.

Unless you can say you’ve never regretted a single thing you’ve done, then I don’t think what you’ve proclaimed above can be true, Sarah.

Unless you can state that each and every time you’ve lost your temper with your children, been impatient with your husband, decided not to go out of your way to help someone in need because you were in a hurry…

that this was your intention…

then you are indeed broken.

Just like the rest of us.

(And so you see, Reap, here’s an example of an atheist who doesn’t see herself as being broken, and thus the medicine of the Good News does not sound attractive to her.)

 

[PRmerger]

So now iis “self-righteous” people who don’t know they are spiritually broken?

Yes. If they understand they are spiritually broken, then, by definition they are not self-righteous.

I dunno–that seems self-evident to me.

I thin atheists examine their lives just fine.

Sure, some do.

They simply don’t have a rational reason to seek a cure for spiritual brokeness.

Until they examine their lives.

 

[atheistgirl]

and not all of them imply the same level of “brokenness”.

I don’t think they imply any level of brokenness.

Just normal human behavior, well within the range of normal human behaviors.

Some peoples behavior is better than others, more of the time or less of the time, and depending on the circumstances.

Normalness in the extreme

To describe what is perfectly normal human behavior, such as feeling a little impatient on occasions, as some kind of evidence for spiritual brokenness is just plain silly.

Even Jesus lost the plot in the temple

I guess He was spiritually broken too



Ridiculous.

Sarah x

 

[Contarini]

I have no sense in which I am broken.

In fact, I think I’m just about the most together person I know

My mind and body, from which my ‘‘spirit’’ manifests, are pretty well in tune, and I have no sense what so ever in which I feel any kind of poetic sense of ‘‘brokenness’’.

From what I’ve read, I’ve found the objections to the logical proofs just as credible, if not more credible than the proofs themselves, so I do see ever how anyone could ‘‘prove’’ God using reason to me.

But reading this thread made me think, perhaps that wouldn’t be the biggest issue for this atheist.

The biggest issue is perhaps, I don’t need God.

There is absolutely nothing in me, or my life, that I can see would benefit from there being a God - or I should say, believing or knowing there is a God.

I don’t walk around thinking I’m a ‘‘broken’’ person, or inadequate for some spiritual place after death, or that I’m a sinner, or in any way ‘‘bad’’ what so ever.

I’m fully human, and fully alive. And my body, mind, and ‘‘spirit’’ that manifests from them has no sense at all that there is something missing, damaged, or ‘‘broken’’.

I’m very in touch with my mind and feelings and ‘‘spirit’’, and I have not got even the faintest sense that there is somehow something ‘‘missing’’ for me.

I love me, and I love being me

Maybe that’s my problem



Sarah x

Well, you’re definitely the sort of person Bonhoeffer wrote about from prison (he argued that the kind of human experience you describe was becoming more common and that Christians needed to stop basing evangelism on the assumption that there was some kind of “religious a priori”–a “hole” that only the Christian message could fill).

I am very happy for you.

Your experience is not mine. Of course, maybe my religion (not the version of Christianity I presently practice but the very strict version in which I was raised) is responsible for my “brokenness.” Or perhaps there are other reasons.

To me what you are saying sounds smug and arrogant. But that doesn’t mean that it is. I don’t know your heart.

I would tend to say that you have too limited a view of your nature and capacity as a human being, and so you judge yourself to be just fine by that limited standard.

But again, that’s a fallible, “broken” opinion from my own limited, “broken” perspective.

I’m not God. I’m in no position to explain why it is that you don’t need God.

Meanwhile, I rejoice in your happiness and I wish you well. What I do know is that from a Christian perspective the joy you feel in life, and the integrity and conscience that you have shown in various posts on this forum, are good and holy and come from God.

Bonhoeffer thought that it was possible to proclaim God as present not in the limits and weaknesses of human life but in its joy and fullness and strength.

Unfortunately, the Nazis got him before he worked out his ideas, and much of the “secular theology” done in his name in the 60s was pretty pathetic from what I’ve heard.

I don’t see how one can give an account of human nature that doesn’t have some account of brokenness. But I certainly think that Western Christians, especially conservative Protestants, have focused unduly at that end of things, and that we need to affirm even more strongly that, in Irenaeus’ terms, “human life is the glory of God” (sometimes translated as “the glory of God is a human being fully alive”).

Edwin

 

[atheistgirl]

To me what you are saying sounds smug and arrogant. But that doesn’t mean that it is. I don’t know your heart.

In real life, I’m just about the least smug and least arrogant person you could find (ok, even making that claim sounds arrogant )

I’m sorry that’s how I came across in saying I don’t feel a need for God. Perhaps I should have expanded a bit more and in that way it wouldn’t have sounded like such a harsh statement.

I would tend to say that you have too limited a view of your nature and capacity as a human being, and so you judge yourself to be just fine by that limited standard.

Perhaps. I don’t have a reference for another standard though. I can only look at my life, put it in the context of my family and in the context of what’s happening around me, and go from there.

It bothers me that children do go hungry, children won’t make it through their education never mind get a job; it bothers me parents skip meals to pay bills.

That’s why I’m involved in the various things I’m involved in (with many many many other great religious and non religious people I quickly add).

So I do what I can about it, in the practical ways that I can.

But I don’t see any of that as ‘‘brokenness’’. It’s just what it is. I see it as people, mixed with their environment and politics large and small, and it’s different every where we go. Some places there’s more opportunity than others. Some places are rich with resources, some places are barren. Some places are wealthy, some poor.

There will never be true equality, ever. I learned that a long time ago. But I see that as part of living, not as a broken reflection of some celestial perfection.

I’m not God. I’m in no position to explain why it is that you don’t need God.

I just don’t see a need. In fact, a God complicates things. I can understand this world we live in pretty good. If I were to believe in a God, especially a Christian personal God who loves and cares about His people, then not a whole lot would make sense to me anymore.

Meanwhile, I rejoice in your happiness and I wish you well.

Thank you, it’s for sharing and I wish you every happiness too

Bonhoeffer thought that it was possible to proclaim God as present not in the limits and weaknesses of human life but in its joy and fullness and strength.

One of the reasons I enjoy your posts so much, is I always have to look things up after reading them so I learn something new. Like I just did with Bonhoeffer

I don’t see how one can give an account of human nature that doesn’t have some account of brokenness.

I understand our nature as all natural drivers. Since we’re animals, we’re also given to unpredictability.
Modern living doesn’t suit us. We’ve evolved our technology and speed of things and living habits faster than our little brains were designed to cope with, or the space we need as animals.
I can’t swear I wouldn’t become unhinged if I had to live in a big town or city. I think a lot of our problems today, like crime, poor mental health, the various rages that afflict many, and physical ill health have their roots in the way we live in the 21st century.

But again, I don’t see that as a form of ‘‘brokenness’’ even though that’s such a poetic way of describing it. It’s just what happens in those conditions.

Is a horse broken, because it’ll sometimes buck?

Is a domesticated dog broken because it’ll sometimes bite?

Not at all. It’s in the nature of the beast all along. It just takes certain conditions to bring it out.

Just like us.

Sarah x

 

[PRmerger]

The “proof” didn’t make God happen.

This is quite Catholic of you to say, Gaber.

If it did, anyone reading it would see God, or at least understand that God IS. No “proof” has accomplished that in the sense of 2+2=4, or there would be no non-believers out of the many who have read it.

Are you aware that even though there are a multitude of scientific “proofs” for the benefits of immunizing your children, that there are still some people who, despite reading the proofs, still refuse to come to the truth of the benefits of immunizing your child?

Your reasoning concludes that because there are immunization-deniers it therefore discredits the scores and scores of data that we have that proves the benefits of immunization.

Are you ready to deny the proof of the benefits of immunizing your child because there are some people who are adamantine that they’re going to “catch” autism from a vaccine?

 

[PRmerger]

It prepares the way for vision, it by iteswlf is not vision itself, being included in it.

Indeed.

Reason gets at the heart through the head. The head is important precisely because it is a gate to the heart.

 

[PRmerger]

I would tend to say that you have too limited a view of your nature and capacity as a human being, and so you judge yourself to be just fine by that limited standard.

I think this is a trenchant point.

A number of metaphors come to mind,
(borrowing from some Catholic apologists, Scripture and great theologians, of course)

• When one has become inured to driving around with flat tires, she does not realize that “from the beginning it was not so”–we were meant to be driving around on fully inflated tires.
• When one has never experienced eating at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, eating out of the dumpster seems just fine, thank you very much. “I’ll take this can of pork n beans–you can have whatever you have there in that old Wedding Feast. I don’t need no stinkin’ Lamb.”
• When one has never experienced Supernatural Goodness, natural goodness seems absolutely adequate.

 

[atheistgirl]

I would tend to say that you have too limited a view of your nature and capacity as a human being, and so you judge yourself to be just fine by that limited standard.

In what sense do you think my nature is being limited by not believing in any Deity.

I can’t think of anything in my nature that would essentially change or be expanded, or be improved, by such a belief.

I would still be me wouldn’t I? I would still do all the things I do now - maybe some new ones like going to Bible reading and Church but I can’t think of what way my nature would be changed.

In fact, thinking about it, my nature would be worse, because instead of knowing the perfectly ordinary, normal, things I do, are just that, well within the normal range of human emotions and experiences, the Church says some might be a lesser sin or a greater sin of some kind.

So I’d walk now walk around thinking, no, the reason for this or that is now not a perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary human response, well within the bounds of acceptable human behaviors, I’d be convinced the reason is because somehow I’m a broken human being; when in fact my particular response would have been some order of magnitude more gentle than throwing people out of a temple and thrashing their goods.

I honestly do not get it.

There is normally an upside to freeing yourself from limits. I know that to be true in education for example. Travel is another great expander of the mind, and can free people from all sorts of prejudices while thrilling them at the great richness and diversity of this earth.

I honestly can not see a single upside to believing in a Deity.

Bad things continue to happen, prayers don’t get answered, and so on, but now, I would have to believe, or if I believed, I would have to say God did answer my prayer, just not in the way I expected, and bad things happen because people are broken.

The day to day living experiece and outcomes would be exactly the same.

Only now there’s a Deity, an all loving, all knowing, all caring, all kind, Deity, in the equation, that needs an explanation and excuses to be made for.

Sarah x

 

[Cormacnl]

To get back to the original question and add so more questions-

Were people in ancient Greece who didn’t believe in Zeus & Co broken?

Were people in ancient Rome who didn’t believe in the Gods of the day broken?

 

[PRmerger]

To get back to the original question and add so more questions-

Were people in ancient Greece who didn’t believe in Zeus & Co broken?

Were people in ancient Rome who didn’t believe in the Gods of the day broken?

Indeed they were. :sad_yes: