Thanks to Matt Nelson,[i] a Reasonable Catholic, for his excellent November weekend workshop and teaching this old Knight a few things. Mostly, Matt reaffirmed philosophy for evangelizing and living the word of God.

Defending Christian faith and especially the Catholic faith is not what it used to be. Christians are fighting indifference. So why is religion or in the case of Catholicism so unimportant to society today and especially Catholics who claim to believe in God? 

We must first identify what is indifference. Unfortunately, when dealing with religion there are three indifferences:

• Closed Religion Indifference

            Closed mindedness - typically atheists and agnostics.

Religion is considered absurd and usually you will not be able to hold a conversation regarding religion with these folks. If are able to engage in conversation, you may be able to reach out to them by showing logically how their arguments do not work.

• Open Religion Indifference

They consider Jesus was a great spiritual leader.  They have an open skepticism: picking and choosing what to believe from the Bible. They consider themselves more spiritual rather than religious. But for some, being spiritual is dancing naked in the forest while ingesting illicit drugs.

• Denominational Indifference

            Differences in Christianity—Catholics, Lutherans, Protestants, etc.

                        You can reach these individuals when you seek where we agree.

The greatest contention regards Protestant belief of Sola Scriptura (a belief that the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice), whereas Catholics also draw on tradition and other ancient scriptures.

If you jump into a time machine and go back to the early Christianity in its infancy. Who as a Christian will be comfortable worshipping on a Sunday, Catholic or Protestant? Read the writings of our early Christian Scholars from the first 700 years; early Christians were very much Catholic.

In all cases when defending the faith or evangelizing, one must walk with the people like Jesus did. He listened but eventually lead them with scripture and employed the Socratic Method (the use of constant questions that lead to answers). Eventually individuals either will come to a valid conclusion on their own or contradict themselves and will see the error of their logic and their ways.

Every Catholic should know Jesus / God in a way that is personal. Protestants are especially virtuous at this.

Evolving from our three Indifferences, the largest religious affiliation, and it is growing is NONE. Those with no affiliation what so ever. What’s depressing, is this demographic comprise our younger generation whose parents in most cases are soft in their belief of God and the need for religious worship.

• We are not teaching faith and, in my opinion, it is because leftism has taken hold. Marxism has relegated to teaching our children in schools and away from parents. Regrettably, this has also taught more and more generations, government will provide all, rather than self-reliance, personal responsibility and personal initiative which are fundamental in Christianity.

• When dealing with NONE, they are not convinced of the teachings of the Church as true.

• Spiritual advancement has not coincided with technological advancement. Due to advances in technology there is a false sense of self-sufficiency. If you want an answer on anything, you can find all answers on the internet; which is now located in your pocket. We could also argue, even though man has technologically advanced we have not advanced intellectuality because we have lost philosophical, logical (critical) thought and the ability to filter and glean information. Because we have instant information access, we have lost our need to retain information, information is extraneous. I hope most of you realize one must question and glean what is factual information within the internet and what is fake news.

• You can now choose your own identity, your own God. Relativism, the doctrine that knowledge and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context is now thought of truth, happiness and humanity’s well-being. Is this how mankind will survive?

We must force people to think logically through their positions: For example,

            If there is no God…

                        There is no reason to exist…

                                    Then we must be a freak of nature, a spontaneous creation…

                                                Then there is no morally right or wrong…

                                                            Then anything goes!

This forces us to ask:  Why do we follow man’s law and what is morally objectionable if anything goes?

If anything goes than you are willing to commit an assault, theft, rape, pedophilia, deceit, murder, etc. If you are a willing participant to any or all of those actions, then you must be willing to have those acts committed upon you without remorse or judgement.

If you lack moral resolve, what distinguishes you as a human rather than as an amoeba or a virus?  What differentiates us from animals? I hope it’s obvious, and it’s rational, moral thought. Hopefully when you ask the above questions, your subject will acknowledge that they will feel it is morally unjust for someone to commit a wrong against them. Thus, they have admitted and proved they have some ethical ground. So why that standard or morality and not others?  How do you decide which moral boundaries you are obligated to abide by? Is your answer money, is it a political leader, is it a sports athlete; why is it not Church?

There are many atheists, most notably Richard Dawkins, who on more than one occasion stated that teaching our children, with regard to religion, without evidence “as evil”!  Like many others, his belief that science is the way to truth. Similarly, Stephen Hawking claimed philosophy is dead.[i] 

Is philosophy dead and is science the answer? Philosophy may be lacking but not dead because philosophical debate begins and ends with logic; you need logic to create and conduct an experiment or conclude with scientific method. Many who claim science is the truth fail to use actual science or the scientific method but use feelings or blindly follow someone who claims to have used science without validating that person’s claims.

The Yeti Theory of God,[ii] a term I first learned from Apologist Matt Nelson[iii], can be simply stated as something to be discovered. Many proclaim there is no evidence for God. What kind of evidence are you looking for? Unfortunately, you will never find God with the scientific method. God is spiritual rather than physical. But when he returns in human form as documented within the Bible you will never recognize God unless you know him. You may have passed him by as you blindly marched past the child playing upon the Church steps.

Not all wonders of the universe have been discovered, nor will they ever be discovered with science. Using scientific method, it not only means proving but can be used to disprove or negate a premise with evidence. Do you have evidence that Jesus did not exist? Do you have evidence that disproves his miracles?  So, what is your evidence that God does not exist? 

How can something be created from nothing? This question is relative to the creation of the universe. Because scientific acceptance is that our universe was created with a big bang. It is absurd that our universe popped into existence. Physics/science “proved” you cannot create energy from nothing[iv]. So, what initiated or caused the big bang?

Side note: I will add to the above paragraph with more information in the near future.

Once you force the indifferent individual to think through their position and you have proved the validity of your arguments, they may be ready and open to further discussion. Be ready to talk about faith and how God lives in your life. Be warned, faith is a foreign concept; they have faith but it is misdirected.

There are many things in our universe you cannot see with a telescope or microscope. There are many things you cannot quantify with science. LOVE, is one! Be warned the definition of God’s love is misused and abused in today’s vernacular. Read my chapter entitled Evil Never Sleeps in my book The Naked leftist for a greater insight for this subject.

Many individuals declare Church is a waste of time; they get nothing from it. I am not sure who created the adage “what you get out of an activity is what you put into it” but those words should be frequently dusted off. When you golf, you tee up and drive the ball. If your mind and body are not one, you do not know where your drive will land. Just as golf, in church your mind and body shall be one. Especially concerning the Eucharist or Communion, the Eucharist feeds us physically and spiritually. Be cognitive, cogitative to that Sacrament, think, pray deeply of its meaning. The Eucharist is not a symbol as proclaimed by Protestants. Additionally, all Christians have an obligation to read the Bible daily. Venerate the scriptures like you venerate the body of Christ.

The Bible is not merely a book, nor is the greatest story ever told an encyclopedia, it is a library, a collection of ancient works. You cannot take a sum of its parts and make it whole. You must read the Bible in its entirety. You must know, understand the Bible’s origin.

This brings us to the question, should the entire Bible be taken literally?  I personally don’t think so. There is history, poetry, parables, subtext, joy, sadness, even humor, why should there not be a rhetoric of the period (elevated language) contained within Biblical passages?  In the Book of 1 Samuel, David slaughtered the Philistines. Did David personally kill ten-thousands (1Sa 21:11)? In 1Ch 18:1 the Bible speaks of David crushing the Philistines. Did he kill every man, woman and child or is this elevated language with the writer speaking in the vein of “I crushed that math test?”  It was metaphorical; same goes when your baseball team wins a hard-fought game and you exclaim “we kicked ass.” Did you really kick ass or did your self-worth elevate your language?  David did not kill thousands, he inspired his early Israelite followers to defeat the wicked Philistines. The Bible can be understood without literally word for word.

Misinterpretation of the Bible is not religion’s fault but of the reader. Bad priests or clergy also does not mean bad religion or more aptly a bad Church. We don’t abandon Peter for Judas. Throughout history of mankind there has always been corruption. Why would it not be found in religion? Man is involved; you find corruption at home, at work, in school. Are any of these institutions bad? Why not point out the individual rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water?

Speaking of throwing babies out with the bathwater; Why do many condemn to death the unborn innocent for the sins of a rapist father? Or for that matter any abortion!

The left justify abortion, the killing by making the Baby or what they refer to as illness, a mass of cells as less than human. But science confirms that the fetus is a human and alive. Hypocritically, they condemn and vilify those who kill an animal.

What if the unborn baby could make the choice to abort the host and survive? What if your mother aborted you?

The Church is perfect, man is not. A Church is not composed of Saints but of males and females. They, we are sinners. Examine the early lives of Saints, they were not Saintly, most were sinful in their early lives. The Church welcomes sinners, its survival depends upon it to some degree. Parishioners do not come to church exalting their perfections but to proclaim their imperfections. They come to hear truth, forgiveness, hopefully one day they will become Saints. None of us are righteous. It is false and sinful to believe we are self-righteous. That is why I or we should go to church, to proclaim our grievous faults. Seek forgiveness and gather strength to do God’s will. Seek and ye shall find for it is right and just.

If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything!  Relativism: the acceptance you can believe whatever you want. If I so choose, I can declare to be a 7-foot Chinese lesbian female (I am a white, 6-foot heterosexual, masculine male). The only way to combat this line of thinking is the Socrates Method, ASK QUESTIONS!

So why do we not want to offend our fellow man and corresponding females? I believe many have a false sense of the definition of LOVE and being judgmental. News Flash: We are all judgmental, even Saintly people judge. You judge your food, your clothes and yes you judge if you witness a most grievous trespass upon you.

When our youth proclaim loudly “you cannot judge me,” they have already self-refuted their argument. By conveying that illogical statement, you have already imposed your judgement on someone else.

Only God can judge wholly and knows what is in the heart and minds of men. Within The Naked leftist I stated:

“Being judgmental is another biblical condition that conservatives are accused of willy-nilly by leftists. Biblical justice means equality before the law.

"You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly." Leviticus 19:15

Matthew 7:1 states:

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged.”

Jesus’s words sound unshakable, concise until you read the next verse:

“For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”

Well, not so clear anymore. Jesus did not say you should not judge, but when you judge, judge fairly with righteousness. He reaffirmed Leviticus.

In John 7:24, Jesus confirms to Matthew, “judge with righteous judgment,” when passing judgment on others. This is repeated in John 8:4 when the scribes and Pharisees brought forward a woman accused of adultery. Jesus protected her with righteous judgment from being stoned to death, for where there is one adulterer there is another sinner as well. In the end, Jesus told her to “go and sin no more” (also examine 5:14). There is a profound difference when you take passages in their entirety rather than a selection of words.”

We cannot judge the heart, but we can and should judge a person’s action. When you do judge, judge diplomatically, empathetically, they may become a better person, as will you.

If you care to read more about my thoughts on religion, purchase a copy of The Naked leftist.