An prominent?

It's OK. Charles is just being an ape.

We were all born atheists--without the belief in a god. Being an atheist does not necessarily mean having a thoughtful understanding of the universe. Being an atheist is not armor against religious propaganda.

Still, I wonder if she truly believes in the Christian god, or if she only *wants* to believe? Even an atheist who becomes convinced of the likelihood of a higher power usually realizes the ridiculousness of naming any *particular* religion as truth.

Sad to see someone succumb to that kind of illusion. If religion is a crutch that she needs, though... Well, I just hope it improves her life rather than degrading it.

She is not very intelligent or creative at thinking if she has not been able to figure out how to find a moral compass w/o Catholicism. And, what a ridiculous institution to join to find one of those compasses.

Catholicism is a weird choice.
I guess if you're going to dive in, dive in with all of your appendages nailed to a cross.

I don't think Jesus ever flies through the air... Where did you read that bit?

Morality is NOT external from us. It comes from within. Her (and everyone else's) fundamental reason for turning to religion is wrong.

(In my opinion, of course.)

Her fatal flaw is believing that morality is external from us. No - morality is a practical application of rules designed to keep us from our tendency to fuck others over, and the retribution that arises if said fucking takes place over a sustained period. Like gods, morality is a human invention, but some people only find authority in it if it comes from some deity. That's probably the case with Libresco, and I think her choice to join the more authoritarian Catholic Church reflects that too.

Damn, forgot to make an edit: @ 8 should begin "Her atheism's fatal flaw..." not "Her fatal flaw..."

Of all the tomes to affix your moral compass, why does she look in the Iron Age? She did not pick Catholicism with an open mind but with cultural baggage.

"A nonbeliever who suddenly or finally changes their mind—atheism is wrong, an ape did create the universe—was never for a moment a nonbeliever."

Really? You're going to apply the same "no true Scotsman" fallacy that believers hoist on non-believer who deconvert? Really?

Or were you trying to be specious?

Astonishing: an atheist who religifies atheism and makes it a focus of their life turns out to be a jerkoff.

@8, amen!

I'm betting that this is the result of sweating out a biopsy.

@8: I think you said better what I meant to say... I didn't mean morality comes from "within" us like it radiates out from our bodies in a heavenly glow, but it kind of sounded like that.

Our morality comes from US accepting the social contract we make with other human beings. We shouldn't act morally simply because "God says we should", we act morally because we accept that it is a good thing to do to live with our fellow human beings.

A. She's not a prominent atheist, most atheists have never heard of her.
B. I would bet she never was atheist, she was a blogger for a religious website, this seems more like she created an atheist persona planning to do this all along. Typical blogger tactic.
C. Ultimately who cares? Does the media announce every time an unkown blogger switches their world view or has an awakening?

@ 11, her own words give her away:

“I had one thing that I was most certain of, which is that morality is something we have a duty to,...And it is external from us. And when push came to shove, that is the belief I wouldn’t let go of. And that is something I can’t prove.”

This is an admission of FAITH. One that was always present. It wasn't "hoisted" on her.

@ 14, I went to the article wondering if she was pregnant or had recently given birth. I've seen more than one free-spirited person suddenly find religion upon parenthood.

@ 15, agreed. Ethicist Peter Singer, best known as the author of "Animal Liberation," once wrote about how morality WITH religion is coercion; true morality has to come of free will. Most Christian sects try to claim that free will is a basic tenet of their religion, but I never saw how the threat of an eternity in Hell fit into that, especially when it comes from your creator.

@16: She's reasonably prominent. I was aware of her, largely since she was on the same network as Hemat Metha, who is usually wonderful and remains atheist and on Patheos.

And Charles? Really? No True Atheist? This is a bullshit cop out argument that the religious use against us every time someone loses their faith. This isn't a worthy argument to be encouraging. We lost this one, but we win may more.

She just happens to convert to the cult that her boyfriend belongs to? It seems this story has more to do with a woman giving up her individuality for the sake of her man, than it does with religion. Very sad.

@6: the Ascension.

So if she believes god gives morality, then before she converted she was out murdering and robbing and stuff, right?

And Charles? Really? No True Atheist? This is a bullshit cop out argument that the religious use against us every time someone loses their faith.

Well, come on. We're expected to assume that an argument with jungle fever as its foundation has credibility?

Catholicism seems to be the choice of former non-believers because of all the comforting rituals and tradition. If atheists held a Tournament of Roses parade each Sunday to celebrate and reinforce non-belief, many more people would feel comforted by atheism.

damn, way to put a chill on my day:

"They not once felt to their hearts the chill of this icy understanding: the universe is an impersonal process, humans are not special, nothing exists after life. When you feel how cold this is, you will know it is the truth."

This just proves that religion is a choice - there should be no special rights given to any religion.

And, one does not get to decide to become a "smart Christian", in fact, I don't think that is possible.

Reverse evolution.

Eh, I fucked a black chick once. Nothing special.

I'm all in favor of basing beliefs on evidence. The evidence clearly shows that atheists sometimes do alter their beliefs. Therefore your statement that "there's no turning back" is what we in the evidence-based world like to refer to as "false."

I'm an atheist and there's so much to say!

First of all, I had never heard of this woman, but, then again, I don't go out searching for religion-vs.-atheism debates, because it's not like I'm searching for anything. My mind's made up.

And as Mudede mentioned, atheist-to-believer conversions are few and far between, but now there's this one atheist publicly becoming a Christian and she'll probably get paraded around as an example of how atheists are lost and seeking. Screw that.

I won't repeat the statements about the separation of morality from religion, or that morality is a constructed concept. I think @15 pretty much explained how I feel. I'll just add: What the hell IS morality? How about the "Golden Rule"? How about being fair, honest, patient, and forgiving with each other? How about Jesus's love-thy-neighbor rule?

Something's fishy when you go from disbelief to a very specific belief - there is one god, he has a name, he has this very specific history vis-a-vis humanity and the world, he's performed these particular miracles, he has a right-hand-man stationed in Rome who gives out his press releases, there's an afterlife and it happens to look like this, etc. I would believe her more if she became a theist, like many professional scientists. (And there are many professional scientists who are Christians, Muslims, etc.) But to pick Catholicism? And her only explanation is "morality"? I guess the other religions aren't "moral" enough, I take it?

And then (speaking of morality, whatever that is) the article says that she'll have to struggle with Catholicism's views on gays and contraception, not to mention divorce, women's rights - hell, there's a lot of things. For me, that's the funniest part about this. If you're free and clear from all this baggage, why do you voluntarily go back and pick it up? Why do you want to struggle with this?

All I'm saying: If a fat book deal and speaking gig come out of this, I'll have to wonder a little bit.

Morality comes from within?

Really?

So all the worlds moral systems follow the inclinations of human behavior, right? Well... no. They do exactly the opposite. They set a standard no man could meet completely, and then ask that it be met.

If morality came from within, why isn't promiscuity the norm, rather than a disturbing trend indicative of social decay? If morality came from within, why would anyone deny himself anything ever that he or she was capable of attaining without negative consequences? If I could escape the consequences of murder, I'd do it without qualm, right? Again, no. We call those incapable of recognizing the taboo against homocide psychopaths, not moral leaders. You people here have tried, convicted and sentenced a man, Zimmerman, for just such a murder without having any of the facts or giving him his legal rights based on just that taboo. I assume then that you recognize it, even in your perenially muddled states.

Come to that, why do we call a man honorable or ethical or moral for denying himself something he could have had on the grounds that it wouldn't be right. Why do we admire such a man, and denigrate the one who snakes his way through life (looking at you Mudede, Savage, Holden, Goldstein and the rest of the trash writing for the Stranger) on half truths and evasions and outright lies?

Morality could be said to be innately recognizeable, just as Truth (yes, capital T Truth whether your moral crippling enables you to see it or not) of any kind is. In that sense, and in that sense only, it may be said to come from within.

@26

It's called freedom of consciense, and it's an enumerated civil right within our Constitution.

As for the smart Christian crack, that could only come from someone of profound ignorance and illiteracy. My sympathies for your condition.

Because people who can't freely express their opinions or their faith can't be said to be free in any meaningful sense, we specifically protect that expression in the First Amendment. (Note- Separation of church and state is NOT included in that amendment, nor does the phrase appear anywhere within the Constitution. The notion may be well advised, but it is isn't fundamental in our system of governance.)

@31

Morality comes from an internal understanding of group dynamics caused by interaction with external beings. Moral systems tend towards following what is viable and sustainable, not necessarily what is universally "right" or "just" or "truth". Part of that likely comes from the evolutionary benefit of groups of people who don't needlessly murder other people and simultaneously coordinate to punish those who do. While that may seem a post-hoc rationalization, I've seen nothing to indicate it's an untrue proposition.

I fundamentally disagree that "morality can be said to be innately recognizable", because cultural clashes indicate that statement is false. Some cultures express a morality of paternalistic dictatorships, condemning and punishing women for acting as equals to men, sometimes with murder. Others are what I would term "more enlightened", but it's my personal bias which leads me to believe that. Those "enlightened" cultures tend to provide protections for others in society, enforced and supported by the society at large.

Can you truly call one of those things "Truth" and not be demonstrating a fundamental blindness to the differences in viewpoints of those around the world? Consider within the Slog, I fundamentally believe in the right for a person to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and others, yet that clashes with the view of many who post here. For them, the real and perceived dangers of the action outweighs the individual benefit or choice for engaging in the practice. Is one viewpoint "moral" and the other "immoral"? I cannot say, and I doubt you could put forth an argument that settles the issue without reverting to some axiom of your own making.

So yes, morality comes from within. However, it does not exist in a void. The genetics you are born with help shape your views, and those views grow to reflect the reality in which you live.

@ 31, morality comes not from "within" but from "reason." People may be inclined to behavior we call immoral, but there have always been consequences which have allowed reasonable people to conclude that it's better not behave that way. Thus was morality born, and thus it continues to evolve as we discover some things previously believed to be immoral (like having multiple sex partners, or sex partners of the same gender) actually are not.

fgsfds

@ 32, separation of church and state exists within constitutional jurisprudence, which has all the power and validity of the Constitution. It's not as solid as Jefferson, author of the same First Amendment you just cited, wanted, but it IS there.

/end of SB's threadjack

I have always been an atheist and I can't imagine ever switching sides. But about a year ago, I read some posts on her blog that made me a better human being - less cynical about believers, less smug about my own beliefs. She ran a kind of religious Turing test
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
where she had nonbelievers answer questions the way that they thought that real Christians would and visa versa for real Christians. It was a kind of contest to reveal which side could articulate opposing beliefs in the most convincing way. The Christians won. Hands down. It didn't make me change my mind, I still don't believe in god or an afterlife, in fact the fake atheists reasons for not believing were incredibly persuasive. But this was the only thing I have ever read or seen on the net ( and I have watched EVERY Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris debate) that challenged my deeply held opinions about religious believers.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyo…

Perhaps Libresco has a religious background, became atheist when she reached adulthood, and is now reverting back to Christianity (probably to please her Catholic boyfriend, among other reasons). Too lazy to read the article to find out.

@34 I generally tend to support the interpretivist argument for morality, but I don't think you can posit that opinion quite so strongly. Quite a few meta-ethicists (cf. Russ Shafer-Landau) have argued quite nicely in favor of moral realism. Ultimately, I would disagree, but I think that it's even more damaging to this former atheist's case since there has already been a lot of work written on external morality from nonbelievers. She assumes that the two are mutually exclusive.

I would argue that if someone feels no morality whatsoever within them... they may just be a sociopath.

I agree with Charles. The whole Anne Rice conversion reconversion is evidence.

Anyway, one of two things are going on:
1. Charles is right, the woman never actually was an atheist.
2. The woman wants to marry a Catholic, and Catholics can only marry other Catholics in a Catholic ceremony. She could be faking it. :)

@ 41, no. Catholics are allowed to marry non-Catholics within the church all the time. They just have to agree to raise the children Catholic. That's how it worked with my parents.

A theist is someone who has faith in a deity (any deity). An atheist does not have faith in a deity.

People switch from one group to the other one all the time.

The more I learn about quantum physics and black holes, the more I question my own atheism. One needn't have faith in only the christian god to be considered a theist, and one need not ascribe to all the christian tenets to be considered a christian.

@30, "I'm an atheist and there's so much to say!"

Unfortunately, that's usually the case.

I suppose that Charles was being ironic when he said "Amen!" to some comment. Except I don't think he's ever deliberately ironic.

In the spiritual world of the Homeric Epics, the afterlife is either something that doesn't quite exist or something nebulous, poorly defined, not-really-an-afterlife. Sure it seems the gods create a special little garden of pleasures for those particularly beloved to the gods or related to them, but even some such powerful heroes, Ajax for example, are depicted as, if anything, nothing more than shades. The Iliad is a story about glory, particularly undying glory. It is the hope of every noble man that his name and fame with persist long after he is dead, his only claim to life after death, or if particularly lucky--immortality.

It is the sentiment and fury that humans fill the cold world with, in life, that has meaning.

@6: Mohammad's "night journey" in which he flies to the "farthest mosque" on a winged steed.

@42 You're quite right. Both parents have to swear they'll raise the children catholic (well, at least it was so 30 years ago). In practice, muti-faith arrangements exist, and no-one will be chided out if the childrens are not indeed raised catholic.

Atheism is easily abandoned. Rejection of belief is not a substitute for belief. Human beings are wired for religion; religion is the result of evolution. And therefore atheism is kind of a joke. Unfortunately, religion is kind of a joke too.

She converted because she's in love. It does not bode well.

Now I'd like to see how she feels about the crimes of the Catholic church?

As fat as her being a prominent atheist, well, I'm firmly ensconced in the "movement," and I've never heard of her. She's about as prominent as I am.

thank you, @46.

As an atheist myself, I can understand an atheist getting fed up and joining a United church or something, just to be around people who believe in some benevolent higher power. But I can't understand how anyone at this point in history, believer or non-believer, wants to be Catholic.

@6 -- Jesus ascends bodily up to heaven after he's resurrected. He flies through the air up into the clouds.

Catholics don't believe that an ape created the universe. Pope John Paul XXIII affirmed the legitimacy of evolution as a scientific theory.

@51 Catholicism has a lot to offer. It's about forgiveness and acceptance and doing good things for other people. Yes, atheists can be forgiving and accepting too, but perhaps it's like this: Ms. Libresco says she's always been committed to morality. Perhaps she finds that Catholic tradition complements the kind of moral person she wants to be.

@49 I imagine that the way Libresco feels about the crimes of the Catholic church is the same way that other Catholics feel about the crimes of the Church:

1. That the Crusades were a long time ago and that a whole lot of other crazy stuff went down during the medieval period too.

2. That the Church hierarchy betrayed the victims, themselves, other Catholics, and society by covering up sex crimes committed by priests.

3. That the Church will eventually get a clue with respect to birth control. (This belief is more common among northeastern U.S. Catholics than elsewhere.)

Yes, the Catholic bishops say extremely conservative things, but the Catholic VOTE has historically gone liberal.

Gee... the "geeky atheist who picks fights with her Catholic boyfriend" has gone and adopted her boyfriends' religion? Color me surprised.

You put this under the wrong heading, Charles. Although a telling tale, but it has nothing at all to do with god, religion or atheism.

It does, however, have everything to do with a different topic of interest for you: love, sex, and the strange mental knots we'll willingly twist our thinking into just to help satisfy our addiction to those two powerful, all-consuming drugs.

Funny that I've never heard of one of the most prominent atheist bloggers on the internet.

@ 52, John Paul XXIII? I thought there were only II of them.

@54: +1

No other possibility even occurred to me after reading the details.

Rather than suggesting either that morality comes from within OR that it represents some imposition of an impossible standard on the human from without, Seattleblues, I would offer, rather, that it's inherently inter-subjective (that is, no moral question is even posed, let alone answered, until there are multiple organisms whose futures are inextricably linked). It arises from within in that both instinct and reason play a role in determining moral principles, and that it does, in fact, arise from natural inclinations . . . but often in the interest of both satisfying those inclinations in the longer term (which sometimes requires postponing or even forswearing short-term satisfactions), and/or satisfying those inclinations for the greatest possible number of organisms (which tends, for a social species, to come back around to satisfying the inclinations of the individual).

If morality came from within, why isn't promiscuity the norm, rather than a disturbing trend indicative of social decay?

Evolutionarily speaking, promiscuity frequently leads to males neglecting progeny they cannot be sure are theirs.

If I could escape the consequences of murder, I'd do it without qualm, right?

If you acknowledge no social contract recognizing the foundational value of life, then you forfeit the protection of any such contract. So again, your self-interest is served by the contract.

Because people who can't freely express their opinions or their faith can't be said to be free in any meaningful sense, we specifically protect that expression in the First Amendment.

I'd go yet further, and say that people or groups who can't freely determine their own moral codes have no meaningful right to free exercise of religion (or irreligion, the freedom of which is a necessary corollary to freedom of religion).

well...we can suspect but we cannot judge..I am a Catholic, and I am happy she converted to the Catholic faith, sorry to say this guys, it's normal to state your emotions, she's a Catholic now, that's the point, no more suspicions in her decision, not unless, like Anne Rice will go back again to atheism..there you can decide her if she faked it or not.

Hi, my name is Mike and I am currently working on a book called, 'How to Debate Atheists.' I have completed the first three chapters and would appreciate any feedback.

http://mikemanea.com/unapologetics/how-t…