Category Archives: Atheism

Census figures released last week show that 17.4% of the NI population (331,000) now have no religion an increase on the 10.1% figure 10 years ago. This is slightly more than the 16.6% of Presbyterians (316,000), the largest Protestant denomination in NI.

Northern Ireland Humanistssaid the figures show the non religious should now have aseatat the table at Stormont, and called for reform of compulsory Christian RE and worship in NI schools.

However, Dr Lois Lee, who is helping lead a new research project at Queens University Belfast (QUB) into the rise of global atheism, warned that caution should be used in drawing firm conclusions from the census figures.

While the census asked people whether they had any religion, she said, those without any religious affiliation were not necessarily atheists.

One thing that is relevant to the census is that saying you have no religion and being a nonbeliever are conflated and they are not the same thing, she told the News Letter.

It was possible that people who have no ties with religious institutions may still have a personal faith, she added.

On the census the key bit of data was about your religious affiliation are you affiliated to the church or do you have no religion? So that is about your identity and your relationship with a religious institution.It doesnt tell us anything about whether you are a believer or not.

She acknowledged, however, that in the UK if you say you have no religion you are disproportionately likely also to be a nonbeliever.

She added that some people who have religious beliefs say they have no religion because they have various reasons for havingparticular relationships with religious identities. So we shouldnt be reporting the census by saying that it tells us anything about non-belief.

Dr Lee lectures on secularism at the University of Kent. Together with QUB lecturer in cognitive anthropology, Dr Jonathan Lanman, they are leading the QUB Explaining Atheism project, to understand how and why atheism and agnosticism are growing across the world. The project has been granted 2.7m by the John Templeton Foundation over three years.

The core research will focus on Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, the UK, and the USA, with a wider team investigating Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Mauritius and Poland.

Dr Lee said the project will include strong agnostics in the same category as atheists because they are so similar.

A populartheory the team will test is that the rise of atheismis closely related to education levels.

The theory is that if children are exposed to more scientific education they will therefore become atheist, she said. We think there is good reason to think there are a lot more complex processes going on there, whilst we also think there is good reason to think education matters.

She says about half the UK population have no belief in God.

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Census Northern Ireland: Academic gives warning over figures showing rise in atheism - Belfast News Letter

As my colleague Stefani McDade reported earlier this week, Lifeway Research released a survey conducted for Ligonier Ministries. It concludes that a shockingly high percentage of American evangelicals hold beliefs about Jesus and salvation that every wing of the Christian church would define as heresy.

If these results are accurate, what does that mean for where American evangelical Christianity is headed?

To recap, the survey showed that evangelical respondents expressed a confusing and sometimes incoherent mix of beliefs. Most affirmed the Trinity, but 73 percent at least partially agreed with the statement that Jesus was the first and greatest being created by God the Father, which is, of course, the teaching of the heretic Arius.

Im generally a little skeptical of these sorts of surveys, since they often seem to filter out those who believe but cant articulate their beliefs in abstract terms. Im not sure that any of my childhood Sunday school teachers would have agreed with a survey statement that justification is by faith alone, even though they all believed that. That said, Lifeway seems to have accounted for and filtered through many of those research problems.

I suspect most of us, though, are not surprised by the results. Todays American evangelical Christianity seems to be more focused on hunting heretics internally than perhaps in any other generation. The difference, however, is that excommunications are happening not over theological views but over partisan politics or the latest social media debates.

Ive always found it a bit disconcerting to see fellow evangelicals embrace Christian leaders who teach heretical views of the Trinity or embrace the prosperity gospel but seek exile for those who dont vote the same way or fail to feign outrage over clickbait controversies.

But something more seems to be going on heresomething involving an overall stealth secularization of conservative evangelicalism. What worries me isnt so much that evangelical Christians cant articulate Christian orthodoxy in a survey. Its that, to many of them, Christian orthodoxy seems boring and irrelevant compared to claiming religious status for already-existing political, cultural, or ethnonational tribes.

Several years ago, a combative atheist wrote that his fellow atheists should drop the word atheism because it gave too much weight to theism. The ultimate goal, he argued, was not to spread atheism but to emphasize that belief in God is so lacking in credibility that it doesnt deserves to be seriously entertained.

His arguments included no little sarcasm about the perceived stupidity of Christianity, along with strategies to move people away from their supernatural myths toward what he saw as realisma world without God.

That same atheist spoke at a recent pastors conference. He has appeared in videos by evangelical groups to accuse other evangelicals of being woke andin an unacknowledged, dizzying ironyof denying the sufficiency of Scripture. In his view, the dividing line between the sheep and the goats is the correct view on political causes, not belief in Christ or fidelity to the gospel.

I suppose the atheists strategy works in the long run. Theres no need to talk people out of believing in God or in preaching Christ and him crucified when the focus has shifted to politics. In that sense, theismand Christianity itselfindeed cannot be taken seriously enough to oppose.

Interestingly enough, the Lifeway survey shows no such lack of orthodoxy when it comes to ethical questions about human life or sexuality. Is that because churches do a good job of catechizing people in a biblical worldview in those areas? Maybe. Or maybe these issues are at the forefront because theyre often discussed in a political or cultural context rather than a strictly theological one.

Some who (rightly) see troubling trends in surveys like these would argue that we need more theology books and conferences, along with more small groups, on systematic theology in our churches. I wonder, though, if the problem is bigger than that. Maybe rather than an information problem, we have an affections problem. Maybe before we have a theology problem, we have a priorities problem.

The missing piece right now is not so much the ability to articulate doctrines but a more fundamental literacy of Scripture. My fellow systematic theologians often chafe at we need to get back to the Bible talk, pointing instead to an ignorance of the Christian creedal tradition and of church history.

We saw that kind of imbalance in evangelical scholarship a few years ago, when interpreting the Bible without reflecting on the Council of Nicaea led some theologians to reject basic Christian doctrines such as the eternal generation of Christ.

That concern is fair, but it doesnt go far enough.

New Testament scholar David Nienhuis makes the point that we have a generation of Bible quoters, not Bible readers. Sometimes even the most theologically inclined people know how to use the Bible in debate both inside and outside the church over controversies on gender, predestination, and so forth. But they dont know the difference between Melchizedek and Mordecai, between Josiah and Jehoshaphat. They see the actual storyline of Scripture as a minor detail.

The Bible does far more than answer questions posed to it by current controversies, and far more than just undergird doctrine. The Bible shapes and forms its hearers. The Word of God does not return void. It reorients our priorities and our intuitionseven before we know they need adjusting. We as the church and as families need many different ministries and giftsbut maybe Awana Bible memorization classes or Sunday school Sword drills are more important than worldview conferences.

When Jesus was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, he responded with Scripture. But he was not just using proof texts against false teaching. By citing those particular passages from Deuteronomy, Jesus showed that he knew what the Devil was up totempting him to seek food, protection, and glory from somewhere other than God, just as the Israelites had been tempted to do in the time of Moses.

The people of God had failed in the wilderness before; the Son of God would not.

Jesusthe only Son of God, begotten not made, Light from Light, true God from true God, of the same essence as the Father, incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Maryknew his Book and knew what mattered. If we dont follow his lead, we might have our values right-side up and our theology upside down.

Russell Moore is the editor-in-chief at Christianity Today.

Excerpt from:
The Rise of the Evangelical Heretic - ChristianityToday.com

Opposition to theism, and usually to religion

Antitheism, or anti-theism, is the philosophical position that theism should be opposed.[1][2] The term has had a range of applications. In secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to the belief in any deity.

The word antitheism (or hyphenated anti-theism) has been recorded in English since 1788.[3] The etymological roots of the word are the Greek anti and theos.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines antitheist as "One opposed to belief in the existence of a god". The earliest citation given for this meaning dates from 1833.[4][2] The term was likely coined by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon[5]

Antitheism has been adopted as a label by those who regard theism as dangerous, destructive, or encouraging of harmful behavior. Christopher Hitchens (2001)[6] wrote:

Other definitions of antitheism include that of the French Catholic philosopher J. Maritain (1953), for whom it is "an active struggle against everything that reminds us of God".[7]

The definition of Robert Flint (1877), Professor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh was similar. Flint's 1877 Baird Lecture was titled Anti-Theistic Theories.[8] He used "antitheism" as a very general umbrella term for all opposition to his own form of theism, which he defined as

Flint wrote[8]

However, Flint also acknowledged that antitheism is typically understood differently from how he defines it. In particular, he notes that it has been used as a subdivision of atheism, descriptive of the view that theism has been disproven, rather than as the more general term that Flint preferred. He rejected the alternative non-theistic

Opposition to the existence of a god or gods is frequently referred to as nontheism, or dystheism, or misotheism.

Examples of belief systems founded on the principle of opposition to the existence of a god or gods include some forms of Atheistic Satanism and maltheism.

Christopher New (1993)[9] proposed an altered definition of the word antitheism as part of a thought experiment: He imagines what arguments for the existence of an evil god would look like, and writes

New's changed definition has reappeared in the work of W.A. Murphree.[11]

See more here:
Antitheism - Wikipedia

The Biden Administration discreetly launched an anti-Christian globalist grant program in April 2021 that was designed to subvert religious practice and instead ensure "dissent from religious belief" within the "context of intersectional identities."

The program, titled "DRL FY20 IRF Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals," has been called out by congressional Republicans who have noticed that the Biden Administration's defense of "religious freedom" is now "inclusive" of distinctly a-religious disciplines.

According to Fox News, Republican Study Committee (RSC) chairman Jim Banks of Indiana wrote a letter along with 14 other GOP to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken regarding the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labors (DRL) grant program "promoting atheism and 'humanism.'"

In the official letter, Banks noted that atheism "is an integral part of the belief system of Marxism and communism" and that "Americans rightly discern this as a part of the broader effort on the part of [Biden's] administration to promote radical, progressive orthodoxy abroad."

The GOP noted that any program like this within the United States would be unconstitutional and asked "how such a grant or cooperative agreement program advances the foreign policy interests of the United States." The Republicans remarked how foreign leaders could view this program as a type of colonization where America was trying to "shatter local religious and cultural relationships."

The grant program's official website states that is is a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) that will award one to two grants up to $500,000 through a competitive process to applicant organizations committed to "strengthening networks" and "advocacy" for atheism, humanism, and "non-practicing" religious pluralism in South/Central Asia and in the Middle East/North Africa.

Banks and the GOP wrote, it "is one thing for the Department to be tolerant and respectful of a wide range of belief systems" but "It is quite another for the United States government to work actively to empower atheists, humanists, non-practicing, and non-affiliated in public decision-making."

Banks on Twitter connected the program to Biden's larger radical leftist agenda and tweeted "The Biden State Department is promoting CRT, abortion and now atheism abroad. This is not what America stands for!"

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Biden's global initiative to replace Christianity with atheism faces ...

An interdisciplinary team of researchers have launched a new project to test popular and academic theories about why some people are atheists and others are not.

Explaining Atheism aims to better understand the growing population of atheists and agnostics in the world, correct inaccurate stereotypes, and give insight into the future of both belief and non-belief.

The project is being led by Dr Jonathan Lanman, Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Anthropology at Queens University Belfast, Dr Aiyana Willard from Brunel University London, and Dr Lois Lee from the University of Kent.

The core research team will investigate the causes of atheism and agnosticism in Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, the UK, and the USA, with a wider team of affiliated researchers investigating the topic in a further 13 countries across the world.

There are growing numbers of atheists/agnostics in countries across the world, said Dr Lanman. Our recently completed Understanding Unbelief programme looked beyond the stereotypes and helped to document some of the worlds rich diversity in atheism and agnosticism.

Now Explaining Atheism aims to answer the questions of why and how this growth is happening and consider what our answers might mean for the future of religion, atheism, agnosticism, and of our societies.

Dr Lee commented: These are not only academic questions but matters of public debate, policy and law. We are keen to engage the public and the media in our work and we have a funding initiative specifically for those working outside of academia in policy, documentary photography and film, the arts, digital media and data visualisation, education and beyond to help us make sure our work is not only exciting for academics but reaching and learning from wider audiences.

The Explaining Atheism project was awarded 2.7 million in funding by the John Templeton Foundation and will run over a three-year period.

The team launched the Explaining Atheism website which features extensive background information on the project, videos and emerging research findings, with more to come over the course of the project.

Dr Aiyana Willard said: We are excited to launch the Explaining Atheism website. It brings together short films explaining our particular approach to answering these difficult and contentious questions and also provides a number of resources for those looking to explore these questions themselves.

For more information, please visit the Explaining Atheism website http://www.explainingatheism.org and follow on Twitter: @ExplainingAthe1.

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Researchers to explore why atheism is growing across the world - Brunel University News

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Worry is a normal part of the human experience, though the level to which humans allow it to pervade our minds often exposes unfortunate truths about the state of our hearts.

Pastor Daniel Fusco of Crossroads Community Church in Vancouver, Washington, believes overt fretting is evidence of a deeper spiritual condition.

The problem with worry is worry is functional atheism, he said on his latest episode of the Youre Gonna Make It podcast. When we worry, we act like God isnt in control, [like] Hes not the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

READ ALSO: Just Do the Right Thing: Man Sparks Thousands of Reactions After He Finds Wallet in the Middle of Street, Teaches Daughter Powerful Lesson

Fusco continued, We [act like we] dont believe that all things will work together for good.

The preacher is also out with a powerful, new book, Youre Gonna Make It: Unlocking Resilience When Life Is a Mess, in which he discusses this dynamic.

When we choose to trust God, were also abandoning worry, he said.

Fusco knows times have been tough in recent years, highlighting the multitude of challenges stemming from the pandemic and other related crises. Mixed with civil and social unrest, navigating life and culture has perpetuated worries and fear for many.

Thats why Fusco is working to help people steer through times of uncertainty, recognizing God knows we are prone to worry but that we can find peace in Him.

God knows that were apt to worry, Fusco said. God knows that were worry warts.

Listen to him discuss these issues (and subscribe to his podcast):

He said worrying takes a profound amount of energy and that the Lord wants people to instead expend and invest that energy differently.

I can worry about a million things, Fusco said. Whenever I catch myself worrying, I say, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief I want to turn that worry into worship. I want to invest that energy differently.

Watch Fusco discuss these issues on CBNs Faith vs. Culture:

Fuscos invocation is a profound one, as it comes from Mark 9, where the Bible recounts the story of a demon-possessed boy whose father is desperate for Jesus to heal his son.

Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech, the man tells Jesus in Mark 9:17 (NIV), continuing in verse 18: Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.

That description alone is enough to instill worry and fear in the calmest of persons. And its clear the despairing father had fear but also hoped Jesus followers and Christ could heal his boy.

But, like many humans, this man seemed to have doubt and worry about whether it would be possible.

READ ALSO: Dire Projections For Christianity in America Over the Next 50 Years Could Have Far-Reaching Consequences For Politics, Family Life, and Civil Society

If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us, the father told Jesus, to which Christ, recognizing this lack of full faith, responded, If you can? Everything is possible for one who believes.

Thats when the grieving dad immediately responded, I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief! (Mark 9:24, NIV).

Jesus then healed the boy. The lesson, of course, is that we can fully trust the Lord and also ask for Him to relieve us of any of the unbelief holding us back.

Find out more about Fuscos new book, Youre Gonna Make It: Unlocking Resilience When Life Is a Mess and subscribe to the podcast.

This story originally appeared on Faithwire.com.

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Functional atheism: Popular pastor delivers gut-check on what worry really reveals - The Christian Post

In America, celebrity culture carries a great deal of weight and influence, especially among young people. When a famous person dons an ensemble, sales for the same dress or shirt often see a spike. Unfortunately, celebrities have a fair amount of influence in negative ways, too.

A 2014 survey found that 80% of teen girls compare themselves to celebrity photographs although almost half say (doing so) makes them feel dissatisfied with their own appearance. For better or worse almost always its for worse Americans see the pronouncements of celebrities as carrying a great deal of weight.

Even in matters of faith, celebrity beliefs are highly influential. When Madonna started to flirt with the Kabbalah Center, it meant a great deal to the organization, which is based on Jewish traditional mysticism. The Los Angeles Times reported, The centers assets grew from $20 million in 1998, the year after Madonna went public with her ties to kabbalah, to more than $260 million by 2009, according to the resume of a former chief financial officer and tax returns the center and affiliated organizations filed before becoming exempt.

While it shouldnt matter what celebrities say and believe when it comes to religious faith, their influence on their fans and the wider public is undeniable and quite significant. Which makes what Britney Spears said recently all the more troubling.

Since emerging from a conservatorship controlled by her father, the entertainer has made daily headlines as she unloads her feelings about the experience, and her sons with former husband Kevin Federline have done the same.

In response to an interview with her son Jayden on the situation recently, Spears was distraught, explaining on social media in a message directed toward her sons, It saddens me that not one of you has valued me as a person. Youve witnessed how my family has been to me, and thats all you know, Spears wrote. Like I said, I feel you all secretly like to say somethings wrong with me. Honestly, my dad needs to be in jail for the rest of his life. But like I said, God would not allow that to happen to me if a God existed.

She went on, I dont believe in God anymore because of the way my children and my family have treated me. There is nothing to believe anymore. Im an atheist, yall.

Moments of grief and tumult are the ultimate tests of ones faith and also when faith comes most in handy. A belief in a higher power is most tested at moments that seem deeply unfair. But for most people, it is that belief that there is, indeed, a God that helps them weather the storm theyre facing.

Spears pronouncement is childish and sends the message to her fans that a relationship with God is transactional and contingent on the behavior of our fellow man. Its easy to dismiss, but still not a message that the faithful want to see proliferated by someone with a platform as large as Spears, especially with young Americans already leaving organized religion in droves.

Thankfully, this week there was also more thoughtful commentary on faith by Shia LaBeouf.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor spoke about a recent feud with actress Olivia Wilde. The majority of the interview, however, centered on his recent conversion to Catholicism and was strikingly profound. That part was mostly ignored outside of his comments on Wilde, which were, in a way, also influenced by his new faith. LaBeouf shied away from fanning the flames more, saying, It is what it is every blessing to her and her film.

LaBeoufs most powerful comments on his faith came in response to a question about his mothers recent death. He explained:

My mother was full of fear in her last moments: asking the doctor what this tube was and what that machine did. She was frantic. She was deeply interested in God and spirituality her whole life, but she didnt know (God). Hence her last moments. Her greatest gift to me was to promote, in her dying, the necessity of a relationship with God. Not an interest, not just a belief, but a relationship built on proof as tangible as a hug. Her last gift to me was the ultimate persuasion for faith.

This open and powerful interview on deeply personal questions of faith should be making headlines. Instead, in most news outlets, were likely to just see more of the petty feuds, like that between Spears and her family, or more hot takes about LaBeoufs controversy with Wilde instead of deeper questions about his evolving faith and beliefs.

This is the way of Hollywood and the shallow and controversy driven media. For every Spears, there may not be a LaBeouf, but heres hoping that faithful celebrities like LaBeouf are able to break through the noise and not just talk about their faith, but actively live it.

Bethany Mandel is a contributing writer for Deseret News. She is a home-schooling mother of five and a widely published writer on politics, culture and Judaism. She is an editor for the childrens book series Heroes of Liberty.

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Why did Britney Spears turn to atheism and Shia LaBeouf to faith? | Opinion - Deseret News

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(Vienna, kath.net, March 2021) The original German edition of the unusual book, How I Became a Man: A Life with Communists, Atheists, and Other Nice People, was published in 2020. The first edition was sold out in a few weeks. The English edition is now available from Ignatius Press.

The author is a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Cologne, Germany. Son of a Russian father and a German mother, he spent his childhood and youth in the Soviet Union and stepped inside a Catholic Church for the first time at the age of twenty.

Alexander Krylovs life story is impressive. He studied history and economics, worked as a teacher, and directed the municipal youth groups in his city. Then he became the manager of a concert business in Moscow, which organized major performances. Later he turned to science, earned a degree, and at the age of thirty became Assistant Dean of the National Institute of Business in Moscow. In the year 2000 Krylov became a German citizen and worked at the Institute for World Commerce and International Management at the University of Bremen. In 2008 he received a professorship at the University of Management and Communication in Potsdam and became director of the West-Ost-Institut in Berlin.

Even though my professional career may seem varied and many-sided, in retrospect it turned out to be a continual path from an occupation to a vocation, Krylov said. In 2011 he entered the major seminary of the Archdiocese of Cologne, studied theology, and in 2016 was ordained a priest. He is amazed that there are people in the Church who fight for power and careers. There are plenty of opportunities for that in business and politics.

An interview with this extraordinary man follows.

You worked as a scientist. Ten years ago, you changed your life completely and went into the seminary. Why did you wait until now to break your silence about it?

Alexander Krylov: As a matter of fact, I tried then not to make a fuss about my entrance into the seminary, and my intention was to avoid an unnecessary report about a scientist who gave up everything. Fortunately, becoming a priest is not yet a heroic deed. I pursued my priestly vocation and thereby made my life even more beautiful and meaningful. Everyone who is in love is glad when he can do without something for love of another person. And so this change from a occupation to a vocation brought me lasting joy, too. For me it is not a topic that deserves special public attention.

But now you have written a book in which you tell about your childhood. What motivated you to do this?

Krylov: Even during the time when I taught at the university, again and again I would tell various anecdotes about life in the Soviet Union and was often asked why I did not write them down. My answer was always: I am still too young to write my memoirs. Even though in my book I tell about my childhood, it is not primarily about me, but rather about life and faith in an authoritarian society. In order to make it authentic and vivid, I so to speak loaned myself out and wrote down my personal experiences.

Between the lines the reader can also recognize some of the common problems today. Is this amusing book meant as a social critique?

Krylov: As a matter of fact I get a lot of feedback and letters from readers who recognize themselves, their own childhood, and even our current societal trends in the book. This shows that good and evil in the world are universal. Whether they live in the East or in the West, people need love and devotion, they have fears about their existence, and they are happy about little attentions. There are universal weaknesses, too. Greed for power, the desire to control other peoples lives, and also a susceptibility to ideologies. Every society is in danger when it starts to replace God with some moral ideas, even good ones.

You spoke in your book about the faith, which was forbidden in the Communist system. Who passed it on to you?

Krylov: The family plays an important role in this question. Our family was able to tolerate the political repression and all the difficulties of life only because of our faith. I was not deliberately raised to be a believer. God was simply always present in our life. I tried to show this in my book. But I also know many people from atheistic families who found their way to God. That makes me confident. If someone looks at the world with his eyes open and questions and seeks, he will find his way to God.

The title of your book is: How I Became a Man. What does it mean to you to become a man?

Krylov: My book deals with a process of growing up and with the desire to be grown up. The first cigarette, the first feelings of love, and the first paycheck do not make you a grown-up, but rather the awareness of being responsible for yourself, for your life, your decisions, and your neighbors. The title of my book addresses also the political situation at that time, for every authoritarian society treats its citizens like underage children; it prescribes what they should think and how they should behave. Thus, we can compare such a society to a kindergarten.

We get the sense that freedom is especially important for you.

Krylov: Thats right. This is due on the one hand to my faith convictions and on the other hand to my family. For I grew up with a certain discrepancy. At home I experienced one hundred percent trust and complete freedomin society, however, certain rules of the game and thought control. My studies took place during the period of perestroika; I too fought for freedom and even went once to the barricades. As someone for whom freedom is so important, I can say that genuine freedom can be found only with God.

From the media, though, one may get the impression that for centuries the Church limited peoples freedom.

Krylov: When I was a student, my first major was history. If you want to understand a historical epoch, a process or a decision, you must try to see it from the perspective of the situation at that time and their way of thinking. In the history of the Church there were many dark moments, but the Church was precisely the institution that led Europe to education and progress. It shaped our notions of freedom, responsibility, and solidarity.

But it did so not out of political or other convictions, but rather out of our understanding of God. For our God is love and thus freedom, too. Look at our society today. Various aspects of our Catholic practice of the faith that were rejected are coming back as secular practices. Fasting out of a faith conviction is considered not cool, but instead we are called on to give up meat out of love for nature. Confession is considered outmoded. But we constantly see how admissions of guilt and remorse are expected in public, if someone says something politically incorrect. God and the faith are mocked extensively on television today. Instead there are new phenomena that are treated as sacred, and beyond any and all criticism. The commandments of God and the precepts of the Church do not limit our freedom, but rather protect it.

Do you find everything that the Church is doing today good?

Krylov: As a scientist I learned to perceive nuances in everything. Therefore it is important to make distinctions in discussing the Church, too. There is the Holy Church, to which all the saint and all the souls in heaven belong, also. And there are many people who work today on earth for the Church. Among these people there are, as everywhere on earth, sinners, dictators, schemers, and careerists. But we also have many, very many lay faithful and priests who are living a holy life today. In various encounters, in the confessional and also in everyday life, again and again I meet people who can be taken as examples of the faith.

In your book, you describe a society that preaches atheism and yet somehow keeps its faith. Today, fewer and fewer people in Europe believe in God. Can we compare these situations? Will the Church survive this time?

Krylov: The Church will survive, for one simple reason. Not because it is so good, and not because it does everything right, but because it was founded by Christ. I am not worried about the Church in itself, but rather about the souls of the people, who are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Mt 9:36). At that time, in the Soviet Union, the situation for believers was clearer. On the one side stood the atheists; on the other, the believers prayed in secret. Today, when many clergymen say that they do not believe in the Resurrection, and many religious teachers tell children that the sacraments should be stood only as symbolic images, it is much more difficult for people to get a good grounding. We are so fond of talking about structures or theories, but what is at stake is the salvation of concrete human beings.

You were once a teacher, journalist, manager, business advisor, and professor. Now you have become not only a priest, but also a writer to boot?

Krylov: For me, it was very surprising that a little book with my stories from the life of a naive child had such a positive reception from the readers. Before now I had written only scientific books and homilies and had serious doubts whether I should publish at all a book like How I Became a Man. Today, of course, I am happy about the positive feedback; I am especially glad, though, when people begin to reflect about their faith stories and to share with others their testimonies of faith. For the life of every single human being is much more exciting, more interesting, and more instructive than the best adventure novel. Pastors can confirm that.

(Editors note: This article was posted originally at kath.net in March 2021. This translation by Michael J. Miller is posted at CWR with kind permission of kath.net.)

How I Became a Man:A Life with Communists, Atheists, and Other Nice PeopleBy Alexander KrylovIgnatius Press, 2022Paperback, 162 pages

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Someone who seeks the truth finds God Catholic World Report - Catholic World Report

TERRY MATTINGLYContributing columnistIt isnt every day that one of the creators of a political thriller gets to ask its real-life protagonist to evaluate the novels plot.

But that happened when the late Billy Wireman, president of Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, handed the last Soviet Union leader a copy of The Secret Diary of Mikhail Gorbachev. The 1990 novel was written by journalist Frye Gaillard, based on a Wireman idea.

The plot: There were spiritual motivations behind glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachevs risky ideas to restructure Soviet life. But furious KGB insiders including a would-be assassin managed to steal Gorbachevs diary, in which he confessed his Christian faith.

Wireman wrote down Gorbachevs response after hearing the books premise: You must have been reading my real diary.

This faith question never vanished. No matter how often Gorbachev reaffirmed his atheism, he also stressed his respect for the beliefs of his Communist father and devout Russian Orthodox mother. His maternal grandparents hid holy icons behind their homes token Vladimir Lenin portraits.

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Gorbachev died on Aug. 30 at age 91 and his funeral was held in the Pillar Hall of Russias House of the Unions, after President Vladimir Putin denied him a state funeral. He was buried in the cemetery of Moscows Novodevichy Convent next to his wife, Raisa, who died in 1999 of cancer.

Regardless of the geopolitical realities of that era, there was something going on inside Gorbachev, said Gaillard, writer in residence at the University of South Alabama in Mobile and former Southern editor of The Charlotte Observer. He is the author of 30-plus books, including A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, which won the 2019 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Prize.

Why did he do it? Thats the question that wont go away, Gaillard added. Thats what has fascinated people for decades and it still does. We may never know now that hes gone. ... But all that speculation about his beliefs is at the heart of the book.

Gaillard traveled to the Soviet Union before writing The Secret Diary and filled many notebooks with information and images from Soviet and American insiders who, in private, were asking similar questions about Gorbachev. Russian Orthodox leaders believed his mothers faith was crucial. Probing those roots in southern Russia, Gaillard found that people who had long known the extended Gorbachev family held similar beliefs.

In a pivotal scene the novel was recently republished a stunned investigator discovers Gorbachevs private diary and photographs its scandalous contents.

Gaillard has the Soviet leader write: Ours is a country with a Christian heart that realization must serve as a cornerstone of reform. ... Do I still believe in Lenin and Marx? The former, maybe; the latter, no. But a new kind of certainty is emerging. I am beginning to understand the old Russian saying, What good is a road that doesnt lead to a church?

Later, critics asked why he wanted to separate atheism and the doctrines of socialist revolution. For a millennium, replies the books Gorbachev, Russian mothers have breathed certain values into their sons that God, in fact, created the world, and that we must see his image in every human being. And yes, comrade, I have come to realize that I do believe it.

The real Gorbachev, in a 1989 Vatican summit with Pope John Paul II, thanked the pope for his prayers and explained that he realized politics was not enough.

We are undergoing major changes in the spiritual sphere. ... Considering the events of the past years I see that democratic measures alone are not sufficient, said Gorbachev. We also need ethics. Democracy can bring evil as well as good. It is what it is. It is very important to us to establish a moral society with such eternal universal human truths as goodness, charity and mutual help. In light of the changes taking place, we believe that it is necessary to respect the internal world of our religious citizens.

The logical assumption, said Gaillard, is that Gorbachev as a political calculation or for heartfelt reasons had concluded that Mother Russia had a soul.

This man was smart, and he knew Russian history, he said. When he challenged the foundations of Soviet power, he had to be thinking about the role of Russian Orthodox faith in that culture. But did he also have personal reasons for believing that?

Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.

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On Religion: The faith questions that haunted the life of Gorbachev - GoDanRiver.com

I became an atheist early in my recovery and it remains an important part of my life to this day. I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in my twenties. Dealing with psychosis was confusing and frightening but when I tried medication everything changed. I had always been skeptical but when I experienced hallucinations that were spiritual in nature I was left with a lot of questions. A moment of clarity came when the anti-psychotics kicked in. My hallucinations arent real and neither is god. I was always looking for an explanation. I just never considered the explanation to be a mental illness. My diagnosis came with some relief this is treatable.

That moment of clarity flipped a switch and I declared myself an atheist. Years of suffering came to an end with a simple solution medication.

But what if that moment never came? What if I never had a mental illness? Would I still be an atheist?

First of all, my husband asked me this question and it is so hard to picture. My mental health symptoms started in early childhood so I really dont know any different. I am not my illness but it is still an important part of me. It often explains why I do the things I do.

My journey to becoming an atheist may be a little unique, but I still believe even if none of the mental health issues happened, I would still be an atheist.

Im a curious person its always been in my nature to question. I questioned the existence of god in childhood and the judgmental people in the town where I grew up definitely made me question the goodness of Christianity. Mental illness or not, I always knew I didnt want to be like them. Questioning at that time came with a lot of guilt and fear but I feel no matter what I would have ended up with the same conclusion I am an atheist.

Were there any specific events that led to your atheism? If those events hadnt happened, do you still think you would be an atheist?

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Atheism and Recovery What if I didn't have a mental illness? - Freethought Blogs