Asymmetric Catholic

Link: http://www.nelsonguirado.com/index.php/religion/2006/12/19/road_to_catholicism_part_deux

I now continue the story of my conversion to Catholicism, the first post of which you may read here. I apologize for the delay. It’s just that I’ve been too emotional to blog lately-what with the whole Britney/K-Fed disaster and all. Anyways, I left off having concluded that introducing faith into my life would be of no practical benefit and I begin today by stating that I therefore decided to be religious.

Perhaps not a logical progression, but bear with me. People may be divided into two types: those who traverse their surroundings taking for granted the complex interactions that make up everyday life and those who walk around asking why things are the way they are. I, unfortunately, must include myself amongst the cursed second group; whenever my mind turned to religion, I focused on whether it was useful to society and the effect it had on its adherents. Arguments against God based of this type of thinking would be those insisting that people invented religion to better understand physical phenomenon (ignorance), cope with phychological faults (weakness), or control others (religion as opiate).

Pro arguments based on sociology make the case for religion by stating that religious people are healthier, happier, and give more money to charity; that religious institutions have improved human society by mediating its excesses; and that transmission of values is impossible without an objective morality. In other words, I lost track of the most important question: is it true? Whether it's true or, at least, whether it doesn't contradict scientific discovery or fundamental logic, should be the first consideration when judging any philosophy, it would seem, and I find it odd now to think that for many, a religion's fundamental validity is an afterthought, if, indeed, it's ever mulled over at all.

At the risk of eliciting snickers from the sophisticates amongst you, the catalyst for viewing religion as possibly true came from talk radio. I was driving one day listening to the excellent Dennis Prager, a “passionately moderate” talk-show host who still ranks as my all-around favorite, when a gentleman called to challenge Prager on the existence of God. “He’s got Dennis now,” I thought. “He’ll probably mumble something like, 'that’s just what I believe' or something.” Remember, I wasn’t raised religiously and went to secular schools my whole life. I simply wasn’t aware of any intelligent case for God. I do, however, remember laughing at a certain preacher (if you’re reading this, sorry) when he would come preach at UCLA.

To my astonishment, Dennis Prager set him back on his heals. “Did matter create itself before or after it existed?” he asked the caller. The caller, a non-dumb man, didn’t have an answer. That conversation sparked an interest into what many of you know as the Aristotilian/Thomastic argument for God from causality, the one that stumped Dawkins. I went to bookstores and libraries trying to find if scientists figured out where every thing came from. I was surprised to discover that nobody knew. I read about the singularity-that tiny point in nothingness that begot the universe.

“But where did the singularity come from?” I thought. I’ll continue the story tomorrow.

As demonstrated by this picture, singularities look a lot like AutoCad drawings.