Talking about the "things that matter most" on Sept. 17
4:00 - Pope Benedict XVI Arrives in Mainland England
Pope Benedict's much-debated visit in Britain began Thursday, and opened dramatically. The pope, in the words of The Guardian, "launched a blistering attack on ‘atheist extremism' and 'aggressive secularism,'" talking of the "damage that 'the exclusion of God, religion, and virtue from public life' had done in the last century.” We talk about the visit with our British Chaplain, Fr. Pat Egan.
4:20 – From Pro-Choice Atheist to Pro-Life Catholic
When she was 26, she had never once believed in God, not even as a child. She was a content atheist and thought it was simply obvious that God did not exist. She thought that religion and reason were incompatible, and was baffled by why anyone would believe in God. After a few years in the Bible Belt, she became vocally anti-Christian. Imagine the surprise to find her today, just a few years later, a practicing Catholic who loves her faith. Jennifer Fulwiler tells her story.
5:00 – Kresta Comments
5:20 - Finance Friday Part 2 of 10
Today we continue our 10-part series intended to fully explore the practical, political, moral and philosophical underpinnings of the financial meltdown of 2008. Our guide will be Dr. Max Torres and each “Financial Friday” we will be using as a base of discussion, one book written on an aspect of the financial crisis. Today, we look at Thomas Woods’ Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse.
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Jennifer Fulwiler -- Ex-Contented Atheist
ReplyDelete"But then I had this sort of moment of truth in college when I realized it's all for nought. ... Honestly, what brought it on was just thinking, and just realizing that we're all just random chemical reactions destined to extinction. And all these things that I think of as love and heroism -- and Bertrand Russell described it as 'all the labors of the ages,' he said -- are just destined to nothing. And it was a despair that's indescribable."
"After my initial dark period in college, it was pretty momentary. The only thing was... In general I was happy, I was content, but I couldn't sleep at night. I had insomnia, and I had to be very careful to always read until the last moment before I would fall asleep, or have the TV on. And that was kind of the echoes of that darkness that had once been so clear to me: is that if I were ever alone in a dark room with no distractions, those thoughts would come back -- that it's all for nothing, that we're all just ... everything that I think of as myself, as my accomplishments, it's just ... it's all going to evaporate. So I had pretty bad insomnia for that reason."
Geez, Jennifer. Get over yourself. Do you think you have more to offer than atheists like Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg, both of whom earned Nobel Prizes in physics? Or Maurice Ravel, my patron composer? They accomplished great things, apparently without a conceit that their work demands everlasting life.
And Al, about all your loves and purposes you want hanging around forever. Do you ever stop to think that some of those loves of yours might end up in Hell?
This is another display of Christian narcissism (yes, there is such a thing), alongside Dave Mangan and his miracle water pump, Joan Wester Anderson and her guardian angels, and Father Calloway's "if I'm only a monkey" obsession.