The Summer of 1977

In the summer of 1977, my family piled into our van and took a two week road trip to California. It was a great, once in a life-time experience. We got to see many amazing things as a family, and we had a great time.

While we were on the trip, this movie Chuck had told me about came out, and it was a sensation. I couldn't believe what I was hearing on the news that people were lining up for hours to see a Science Fiction movie. Of course, the movie was "Star Wars," and while we were in a drug store in San Francisco, I picked up a copy of the book to see what this thing was about. When we got back to Texas, we stopped at Chuck's house in Lubbock. By then I had read the book, and he had already seen the movie twice. He immediately took us out to see the movie, and I was blown away.

Star Wars was not traditional Science Fiction, though. It didn't speculate about our future, but took place "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." George Lucas even admitted that space travel and technology were just part of the setting for a classic hero's journey story. In other words, Lucas what not really very interested in Science Fiction, but just wanted to create an exciting, fun movie. This is why Star Wars had a much broader appeal than other Science Fiction like Star Trek. Although I was aware that Star Wars was not pure Science Fiction, I was so taken by the movie that I didn't care. This was the first movie I strongly cared about, and to my 14 year old mind, it was the best movie that had ever been made. (When "Annie Hall," a movie I had never even heard of, won the 1977 Academy Award for Best Picture, I thought, "What is wrong with these people?! Don't they get how great Star Wars is?")

Another thing about Star Wars that was new to me was that in the midst of a technological setting with space ships, robots, aliens, and blasters, there was a mystical element: the Force. I did not know what to make of the Force. At first, it seemed to be like the psychic powers I had encountered in other Science Fiction, but it was different in that it had a moral element. There was a light side and a dark side to the Force. Also, it was not just a power of an individual, but it seemed to be a power outside of and beyond the individual that aided the individual who cooperated with it. One man, with the Force as his ally, could take on a huge technological power.

Looking back, I see Star Wars as having an important role in my spiritual journey. It opened my mind to the possibility that the scientific and spiritual worlds might not be incompatible. I considered the possibility that if there were something like the Force, then ancient religion might be a primitive attempt to understand human experience of this Force, but such thoughts did not immediate lead to an interest in religion. I had no evidence that any religious people I knew experienced anything like the Force. Instead, my interests took a different turn.

Dystopia

Before going on to the Summer of '77, I want to mention that not all of the science fiction I encountered painted a rosy picture of the future. Concerns of devastating nuclear war, overpopulation, destruction of nature, and dehumanizing technology were reflected in some of the stories I read. These negative visions of the future introduced doubts in my mind that scientific progress would necessarily lead to good. I came to realize that science and technology could be used for evil as well as good, but my hope was that improvements in education would help the future turn positive.

Young Atheist

When I turned 10, our family started going to church regularly. This was a result of neighbors inviting us to their church. I started going to Sunday School, and it was a struggle to fit in, but I tried to learn the material in order to fit in and not appear stupid. Regardless, I soon came to see a conflict between the science that I loved and some of the things I was taught in Sunday School.

As I thought about this conflict, I came to the conclusion that science had given us a better picture of reality than was known by ancient religion. I chose science over religion, consistent with my overall preference for new things over old. In the same way I preferred an automobile to a horse and buggy, or an electric light over a candle, color TV over black and white, the Apollo spacecraft over the Mercury, or heliocentrism over geocentrism. Even in my short lifetime, I had seen that things were progressing, continually getting better as scientific knowledge advanced. Religion was part of the old knowledge that was surpassed by the new.

About this time I discovered Star Trek reruns and became and instant fan. In Middle School I got hold of any Star Trek related book I could, and I completely bought into the Gene Roddenberry vision of the future, where scientific and technological advances had solved all of our problems. My mind was always on the future, and I became interested in other works of Science Fiction. Anything that was old, classic, or even contemporary was uninteresting to me.

While looking for Science Fiction books to read, it didn't take me long to discover the prolific Isaac Asimov. While some of his books were a little too difficult for me in the beginning, I found plenty of others I could consume. I soon discovered that he wrote as much or more non-fiction than he did fiction.

Asimov had a doctorate in Chemistry, but he wrote widely on all kinds of matters of science, including what I like most, which was astronomy. I had at least a couple of books of his that were collections of articles on a variety of subject matter, and it was difficult to tell from their titles, what the subject was. I remember one article called, "The Judo Argument," in his book, The Planet that Wasn't, which turned out to be about arguments for the existence of God. I was happy to see that Asimov disproved several of the arguments that believers put forth for the existence of God. However, what surprised me was that in the end, Asimov said that it is not possible to disprove the existence of God either. It surprised me that someone whom I considered to be a great man of science admitted that he could not disprove the existence of God. Asimov himself was not a believer, but he did not side at that time with extreme atheists who unequivocally denied the existence of God.

Before reading "The Judo Argument," I had assumed that the non-existence of God was an open and shut case for science. I agreed with Asimov that there probably wasn't a God, but I also agreed with him that to be intellectually honest, we must admit that God's existence was not disproven. Still, I retained my preference for the new over the old. In fact, I remember in 8th grade that a friend of mine was all excited about a book, The Hobbit, but I was completely uninterested because it was not about the future. I remember this same friend had also developed an interest in religion and wanted to talk about it, but I was not at all interested. By now I found the whole thing annoying.

However, things were about to change. It was 1977, and my best friend Chuck, who no longer lived in town but kept in touch with me by letter, was telling me about a new Science Fiction movie coming out. The SF movie and TV landscape had been pretty bleak since Star Trek ended in 1969, and I was skeptical that Hollywood could make a good Science Fiction movie, but I was going to keep my eyes open.

Early Memories

I will begin my story of my religious journey with some of my earliest memories. We did not often go to church when I was a child, and when we did, I did not like it because it was a strange place where I didn't know the people or the routine. I did not like religious art; it seemed strange looking to me. Depictions of Jesus I saw did not make him out to be someone I would look up to or want to be like.

My real interests were in the realm of science and technology. I liked jets, rockets, lasers, and astronauts. I had little plastic dinosaurs, and I learned all of their names. I had a book about science that had diagrams of jet engines and other machines, showing how they work. I had a children's encyclopedia, and I loved to look at the volume on science and nature. One of my favorite cartoons was "Jonny Quest." I wanted to grow up to be either an astronaut or a scientist like Dr. Quest.

I do remember that both of my grandmothers were regular church goers, and that one of them spoke to me once about Jesus. She said that if I believed that he died for my sins on the cross, I would go to heaven. I think up to that time I associated heaven and hell as the places good and bad people went to when they died. I knew that I wasn't always good, so this idea of believing in Jesus seemed like a good thing to do in case all of this was true, and I wasn't good enough to get to heaven otherwise. However, it seemed like some kind of loophole, and I wondered if I was doing the belief thing correctly enough to qualify.

Why So Religious?

I post a lot of religious material, whether on my blog, Facebook, or Twitter. I'm also working on a degree in Theology. I'm sure there are people who wonder why I'm so focused on religion? I will give a short answer in this post, and then I plan to write a series of posts giving the story of how I got here.

I believe in the existence of God, as he is described in the Christian faith, or more specifically the Catholic faith. This God is characterized by love, and it is out of love that he created the universe and us humans in it. The purpose of human existence is to receive God's love, and to respond back with love. Since God gives us freedom, he does not force us to receive his love, but allows us to reject it if we want to. This is the most important choice we can make in our lives because it not only determines the quality of our life in this world, but by receiving God's love, we enter into a life that extends beyond the grave to a relationship of love with him that lasts forever. Those who reject God's love, reject the very source of their life.

Over the last 31 years, I have been on a journey seeking the love of God, and have been richly blessed in doing so. It has been a dynamic process where my knowledge and belief about God has developed over the years. Some aspects of my belief, such as the Bible being God's Word, and Jesus being the Son of God, have been there from the beginning. Other aspects, such as the nature of salvation and the Church, have changed over the years. I have made many mistakes and wrong turns, but even when I willfully do the wrong thing, God is ready to forgive me and turn even the wrong turns into good. I plan to write about this journey to show how I went from not believing in God at all, to eventually becoming Catholic.

My desire in writing about these things is not to show off what I know or what I have done, but to tell others about something that has been good for me, and I want them to have too. Jesus tells his followers to freely give away what they have freely received. My hope is that if you are not interested in God, you will see something that interests you. If you are already a believer, I hope that I can share something that might help you in your journey. I expect that I will learn some things as I go through the process of writing. I also hope that I may learn from readers' comments, whether they be affirmations, questions, or objections, so feel free to comment.

Japanese Readings

I've been reading some things on the web related to Japan lately. First of all, there is a lot of talk about the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Catholic doctrine says that nuclear weapons and other weapons that indiscriminately kill innocent people are immoral. The best piece I read on this subject is The World's Most Dangerous Idea, which is not only concerned about the immorality of our use of those weapons against Japan, but it is also concerned about the fact that a large majority of Americans have thought it was the right thing to do. The idea that there are certain "ends" (such as victory in the war with Japan) that can justify the "means" of killing innocent people has continued to this day to the justification of abortion and euthanasia.

Catholic moral theology tends to be more clear and uncompromising on these types of issues than what most people are used to thinking. There is another aspect of Catholicism that is probably even more foreign to most people, and that is the idea of redemptive suffering. Although most Christians believe that Jesus suffered on the cross to accomplish human redemption, most Protestants do not embrace the idea that the suffering of Christians can have a part to play in redemption. The Bible passage that most clearly illustrates this is Colossians 1:24, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church..." (ESV). I found the long article, 'The Catholic Holocaust of Nagasaki—"Why, Lord?"' to be a beautiful story of how redemptive suffering transformed lives in the aftermath of the bombing of Nagasaki, which was the most Catholic city of Japan.

Finally, I just read Sandro Magister's column called 'Why Christianity Is "Foreign" to Japan,' which includes an essay by Kagefumi Ueno, the Japanese ambassador to the Holy See, on the differences in Japanese and Western approaches to religion. The essay is very informative and shows some real differences in belief. However, it appears to me that some of the perceived differences are more a reflection of Western culture than actual essential Christian doctrine, which gives me hope that a presentation of the Catholic faith, properly inculturated, would have more traction in Japan, as it seemed to have in the days of St. Francis Xavier.

Thoughts on Gay Marriage

This story on Rosie O'Donnell's protest marriage has prompted me to make some brief comments on the subject of gay marriage. Proponents of gay marriage usually characterize those who oppose it as homophobic and hating. They say that they are doing nothing to damage heterosexual marriage, so they should have the right to do whatever they want. Here is why such a statement is false.

My opposition to gay marriage is based on the idea that the family is the fundamental unit of society, and that the health of the family is essential to the health of society. Anything that undermines the family also undermines our society, and threatens the eventual collapse of society. The importance of the family is based on its traditional definition. A man and a woman commit themselves to a life-long bond, and it is in this context that children are conceived and raised by their natural biological parents. (There are exceptions such as children who are adopted, and couples who cannot have children, but these exceptions are rare enough that they don't seriously affect society. Also, I will say that although many adoptions work out wonderfully, that doesn't mean that all else being equal, it would not have been better for those children to be raised by their natural parents.) Such families have for thousands of years provided the foundation of the civilization that we have inherited.

Over the last few decades, the family has been seriously undermined through easy divorce, and now faces greater erosion through homosexual marriage. These changes are result of greater focus on the needs and desires of individual adults rather than the needs of children and society. The changes are justified by citing studies that show that children are not adversely affected by divorce, or don't need to be raised by their biological parents, but there are also studies that say the opposite. It appears that the purpose of Rosie O'Donnell's protest marriage was not to create a permanent stable environment for the raising of children, but that it was a throw-away marriage in order to make a point.

How does gay marriage undermine the family? It does not produce a family where children are conceived and raised by their biological parents. Divorce is a similar problem because even if the children are conceived within a family, tragically the family does not stay together, and the children suffer some amount of separation from one of their biological parents. In a gay marriage, it is impossible for the married partners to conceive together due to the deepest biological structures of our sexuality. The best that can be hoped is that through some donor or surrogate process, children can be conceived who are raised by one of their biological parents combined with a partner to whom they are not biologically related. It is interesting that in the currently running movie, "The Kids Are All Right", the children raised by lesbian mothers who are evidently "all right" still have a desire to know their biological father.

The deeper issue is the prevailing attitude that individuals should have the freedom to be and do whatever they want with little attention paid to the common good. Traditions that formed the foundation of our society are considered expendable. People think that they can remove the foundation and that the structure will continue to stand. I think that is very unlikely.

Scientist-Clerics

I'm taking a class on Religion and Science at University of Dallas. While doing some research for my paper, I ran across this cool little article on Wikipedia: List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics. The bulk of the article is just an alphabetical list of these scientist-clerics with short descriptions of what they did. The article begins with an introduction, from which this is an excerpt.

Many great scientists throughout history have also been Roman Catholic clerics (or can it be said that many Roman Catholic clerics were also scientists), including many of the most prominent scientists in history. These include such illustrious names as Nicolaus Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Roger Joseph Boscovich, Marin Mersenne, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Nicole Oresme, Jean Buridan, Robert Grosseteste, Christopher Clavius, Nicolas Steno, Athanasius Kircher, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, William of Ockham, and many others. Hundreds of others have made important contributions to science from the Middle Ages through the present day. These scientist-clerics should give pause to all those who consider science and religion to be incompatible.

Some of you may ask, "what is a cleric?" It's just a word for a member of the clergy. In the Catholic Church, many of them are priests, but there can be monks or friars who are not ordained who are considered clerics. Also deacons are clerics as well as members of what were known in the Middle Ages as minor orders. For example, Copernicus took minor orders, but never became a priest.