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Taking our cue from his new book One Less God Than You, we ask author and apologist John DeRosa how to respond when we are told that religion is for the weak-minded! Also, Cy does some role-playing as a German atheist…
Cy:
Is religion a crutch for the weak-minded? Right now on Focus. Hello and welcome to Focus, Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding and defending the Catholic faith. As always, please take a minute to subscribe to Focus on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you listen, and you’ll be notified when new episodes are released. And please give us that five-star rating or review, it helps to grow the podcast. This week, I get to do some role-playing with apologist, John DeRosa, in which I play the part of an atheist who thinks that religion is the opiate of the masses. Maybe it’s just a mere matter of wishful thinking. John has a new book out from Catholic Answers press in which he responds to atheist slogans. Those are those little anti-God quips that make their way around and around the internet doing so much damage to the faith of, say, middle schoolers or other vulnerable people. And I’m quite serious about that.
Cy:
We talked to quite a few middle-schoolers who struggle with their faith, because of what they find on the internet. Some of these memes are actually powerful evocations of real mysteries, like the mystery of suffering. Many, however, are just insults are accusations, dressed up as arguments. It turns out that the claim that God is just a crutch for weak minds or that religion is just wishful thinking, falls into the latter category. But let’s let John DeRosa explain. John DeRosa, this is what I would like to do. I would like to pretend that I am an atheist person, and I would like you to pretend that you are a Catholic apologist and the author of a book called, One Less God Than You: How to Answer the Slogans, Cliches, and Fallacies That Atheists Use to Challenge Your Faith. How do you feel about playing this game with me?
John:
That sounds like a good game.
Cy:
Okay, but however, I will be a… Did I mention that as an atheist I will be German?
John:
No.
Cy:
Okay. Here we go. Ready?
John:
You didn’t. I will say, okay.
Cy:
Go ahead.
John:
In my experience with role playing, it’s going to go into a lot of different topics, but I’m fine with that.
Cy:
Okay. Okay. You’re willing to play. All right. Good. I like this. Improv. So I’m a German atheist. You are playing the part-
John:
So Darren sent me… We wanted to focus on a couple of slogans, but I just know when we do role play, it’s going to go into a lot, but I’m fine with that.
Cy:
Oh, no. We’re going to get really good and focused. Don’t worry. I’ll keep it focused. It’s called, Focus. The whole thing is called, Focus. All right. And you are pretending to be a Catholic apologist and the author of a book called, One Less God Than You: How to Answer the Slogans, Cliches, and Fallacies That Atheists Use to Challenge Your Faith. All right. Here I go. Get into character, German, atheist. Opiate der massen. What do you think of that? Do you know what that means?
John:
What do you mean by that? Would be my first question.
Cy:
These were two Germans who said these things. The first one was said by the great Karl Marx. Boy, do we miss him. All the Marx brothers, we miss them. But that is opiate of the masses is the first thing, opiate der massen. And then the second one was said by Sigmund Freud, who I believe is Austrian, but he spoke German. So, Wunschdenken. That means wishful thinking. So as you can probably guess, I am selecting one of the chapters out of your book, the title of which is, religious belief is silly, childish, wishful thinking and invention to quell our fear of death, a crutch and or the opiate of the masses. So let’s say you have to respond to me that I made all these accusations to you. Go ahead.
John:
Well, I’ll just start by saying people don’t usually make all of them at once, but it’s [crosstalk 00:03:30]
Cy:
Or in German.
John:
Yeah. Or in German. So it’s a little unexpected to handle it in that manner.
Cy:
Okay.
John:
But I would try to parcel it out a bit, because I lumped them all together because of a particular theme that we’re going to talk about. So the theme is important. They all have one thing in common. And perhaps I’ll leave that open a little bit to try and figure that out. Let’s just try to figure this out. But when people say religious belief is a crutch, wishful thinking, opiate of the masses and invention to call our fear of death, et cetera, they’re criticizing religious belief. They’re not just talking all happy about it. So my first question though, is just going to be clarification. In this book, One Less God Than You, I want to teach people to ask questions before you make statements. So you’ve got to ask that person, why do you think that? So maybe we could just start with one of them.
Cy:
Okay.
John:
And go from there. So let’s say you accused me of, or go ahead. You could pick one again. It could be German [crosstalk 00:04:21] English is preferred.
Cy:
Yeah. I’ll go with Freud’s wishful thinking, that look, this is just wishful thinking because it’s hard to deal with mortality. It’s hard for people to deal with the difficulties of life. And so they add this wish dimension to their life, this magical dimension of belief in God.
John:
I liked that you elaborated on the slogan there, because it gave me a little bit more insight into how you’re thinking.
Cy:
Okay.
John:
But can you tell me a little furthermore, so how did you come to that conclusion that it’s magical thinking?
Cy:
Well, I mean, if you really study human psychology, the mind is capable of all kinds of things. And we see in people who have faced trauma, for example, that they make up strange stories. They even become strange characters like the wolf boy and that kind of thing. And so I’ve just come to believe that the human mind is capable of creating these illusions to comfort itself.
John:
I think it’s an important point. And I want to hear you out, because I agree with you that people can often be diluted in their thinking, but can they also think rightly and we can also come to correct conclusions some of the time. Would you grant me that?
Cy:
Yes. Right. [crosstalk 00:05:32] I did that.
John:
Yeah. Right, exactly. And a lot of us do. So the question is, religious belief is wishful thinking is the charge. And I almost want to say this. I want to say, that charge is not something that we have to necessarily deny, because if God exists and made us for himself, then it can perfectly be natural for us to long for him and to wish for him. So I would come back to look at this. I would say, well, isn’t it possible that God exists, and that we believe in him and it’s wishful, because we actually long for a union with him. Would you say that that’s a possibility?
Cy:
Well, I’m going to be a German atheist, so I’m not going to give too much ground to you, but I mean, sure anything is possible, but it seems like your… By saying, is it possible? You’re ignoring the obvious evidence that, look, you’re just making this up.
John:
So now we’ve got a good discussion because you just used a key word, and you pointed out evidence. This slogan does, in my opinion, I’m hearing you out on this. I don’t think in just calling belief, wishful thinking, I don’t think you’re actually putting forth any evidence. You’re just slapping a label on it and making an accusation. But I think if God exists, then it actually makes sense that we have a longful wish for him. And if he doesn’t exist, then you would be correct that it’s more of a delusion or something that was invented. So how are we going to adjudicate that? We just can’t name call each other and you say, I’m having a delusion. And I say, no, it’s a good wishful thinking. I think we’ve got to go back to the evidence. And I’m interested in hearing your reasons why God doesn’t exist. And that’s the theme of what I’m going to do with all of the slogans in this chapter.
Cy:
Right.
John:
Each one of them criticizes religious belief, but it doesn’t actually give evidence to show that religious belief is false. It just attempts to highlight a defect. But my point is, if God exists, if God actually exists, then that defect actually evaporates. And we can go through each one of these examples and I’ll show you how I make that case. And again, it doesn’t settle the issue. I haven’t just proven this German atheist or what I think is wrong. I just am simply stating that belief in God is wishful thinking, doesn’t actually make a case. We’ve got to look at the evidence. So maybe we can go on to another one and I’ll show you how that same thing can be done.
Cy:
Okay. I mean, I’ll go with the other German, Karl Marx, and everyone has heard the phrase, opiate of the masses. Look, from Marx, the problem isn’t that you have all this psychological upset. I mean, he does a psychological view of history kind of, but the idea that people create cover stories in order to cover over what is really economic oppression, and to help people tolerate that economic oppression. So basically churches function as tools of an unjust system, because on Sunday, they preach all this heaven and stuff, and that keeps people from getting upset and engaging in revolution against an unjust system.
John:
Oh, that’s interesting. Okay. So you’re definitely going a slightly different direction with the Marx objection, because you started out with opiate of the masses and then you went to economic oppression. I think we can handle it similarly, but I’m just curious. When you said that first phrase, opiate of the masses, what do you have in mind with opiate and opioids [crosstalk 00:09:02]
Cy:
Well, that’s what I mean. Because of an economic oppression, people should be activated to revolt. But opiate is like the thing that puts you to sleep, an anesthetic. So it keeps people asleep so that they don’t revolt.
John:
And would you say that it’s sometimes good for people to take opioids or they’re never permissible ever?
Cy:
For me, personally, no. Yeah. Sure. If you’ve just said surgery, an opiate is a really good idea.
John:
So this is what I’m getting at. So it seemed odd that I’m asking these follow up questions, but I want to clarify the objection, because opioids can be used and the opiate of the masses, people to sleep, you said anesthetic, they can ease people’s pain and suffering. And I think what Marx is getting at is, due to economic oppression, due to poor conditions and so forth, people just made up this religious belief so that they can have a remedy for their pain. But what I’m going to ask you is very similar to what I asked you before. I’m going to say, well, isn’t it possible that religious belief can appear like a drug for the masses, because God actually wanted to provide us a remedy for the pain and suffering of this life? And isn’t it possible that he gave us our faith. He gave us the sacraments in the Catholic tradition so that they could be a remedy for the suffering, for the economic oppression, for whatever it is that we go through, that we can actually have that comfort. Isn’t that possible?
Cy:
Well, I would like to make an actual Marxist argument now, which is I’m going to go tear down a statute. No, yes. That is possible. I have to affirm it is possible that the reason that people find religion comforting is that God actually wants to comfort his children.
John:
And that’s my point. So just making the charge that religious belief is the opiate of the masses, that it’s invented and so forth to cure economic oppression, that’s really just a claim or an assertion about religious belief without giving any evidence that it’s true or false. So again, we come back to that main point in this chapter that these criticisms attempt to show a defect of religious belief. But if religious belief is true and in particular, Catholicism is true. Well, then the supposed defect evaporates, God made us to wish for him and long for him, so that could be a good kind of wishful thinking. God gave us the great truths of our faith to be comforting for the pain and suffering in this life.
John:
And in that manner, it can work to quell some of that fear and pain, economic oppression that we have. So again, I haven’t heard any evidence with these slogans that God doesn’t exist. I just heard charges and labels that try to show a defect, but it doesn’t fully go through. So I think if you’re going to want to say that atheism is true, or that God doesn’t exist, we’re going to need further arguments. We’re going to need some more evidence for why you think God doesn’t exist. And I address those in different chapters of the book, but there’s a couple more, if you want to go through them. Same rule is going to belief being a crutch, irrational and childish, but that’s going to be my general response.
Cy:
Let’s do the irrational one, because the crutch, I can see how that’s like an opiate. I mean, if you’re wounded, you need a crutch and it’s okay to have a crutch.
John:
Exactly.
Cy:
So that’s not necessary… But let’s go to the one that’s irrational, because it does seem to me… And now I’m not speaking as an atheist. I’m out of character now. I came out of character, but it does seem to me that a lot of these arguments are based on just a general idea of you need to wake up, stop being under these illusions. So the irrational one is at the core of this, even though it might not be quite as glamorous as saying, opiate to the masses or wishful thinking or something. It is really what the argument is, is that this is fundamentally, you’re just engaged in irrational behavior when you’re doing this religion thing.
John:
I think you’re exactly right. And I think irrational and childish both go hand in hand here, because you’re almost like, well, you were just taught this at a young age and told to follow it. It’s irrational, you’re believing all these miracles and stuff, because you were just told that. But again, in the background, I would want to question this and say, well, what exactly do you mean by faith is irrational? Or how did you come to that conclusion? If I was in an actual conversation with someone, I would ask those two questions first, because I found sometimes if I jump into an argument or a defense, I actually misunderstand where they’re coming from and what objection that they’re making. So I’ve identified what I think are two distinct worries. When someone says faith is irrational, how could you believe all this stuff in our modern scientific age?
John:
Maybe they have a scientific objection in the background, but let’s just stick with faith is irrational. I have actually come to distinguish two distinct worries. And I think it’s important to ask them, what do you mean by that? Because otherwise you might answer one of the worries and they actually had a different worry. So I think when someone says faith is irrational, one of the concerns is that it’s just an arbitrary, blind leap into the dark. And you’re just holding onto this Catholicism, someone else’s holding onto Islam, someone else is holding onto Hinduism and blind, arbitrary leaps, they can go in any direction at all. So belief in God, or you holding one particular faith view is irrational because of that blind leap. And so for that answer, if that’s the word, that it’s a blind leap into the dark, and this is straight out of the catechism, but our answer is, well, I don’t agree with that assessment.
John:
I can agree with you that if it were simply a blind, arbitrary leap, then we would have a problem with our worldview, but that’s not what Catholics hold, because we’ve always pointed to something called, motives of credibility for faith. And we believe that having faith in Christ and his church is actually motivated by miracles, prophecies and the holiness and endurance of the church. And there’s a lot of really good evidence that we can go into there. If you’ve never heard that before, I would love to discuss that with you. But I think that’s the first step we have to take is that it’s not blind and an arbitrary leap, because we can point to these motives and credibility.
Cy:
Okay.
John:
But there’s a… And then, you guys do this all the time. Catholic answers tons of evidence for the resurrection. You talk about different saints, What the Saints Never Said, one of your favorite books. All that good stuff, but there’s a second worry that comes up as well. So why is faith irrational? People sometimes have a second worry.
Cy:
Okay.
John:
And this sometimes gets missed. And you can tell me if you ever hear this. They don’t mind that… Okay. You’re pointing to Christ because you think Christ did miracles. You think he arose from the dead. Okay. I see you have some evidence there. It’s not just a blind, arbitrary leap, but religious believers hold to that belief way too firmly and tenaciously. They go beyond what reason and evidence can demonstrate. So maybe you have some evidence there, but that doesn’t justify the firm and certain conviction of believers in the pews. And that’s what makes it irrational. And this is an enlightenment critique, but you’re supposed to proportion your beliefs to the evidence. You can never go beyond what the evidence can demonstrate. That’s the charge, and that’s a distinct charge from that it’s just a blind, arbitrary leap [crosstalk 00:16:17]
Cy:
That is quite distinct. Yeah, yeah. That’s a totally different thing. And that, actually much more difficult to answer.
John:
It’s a different kind of answer too. That’s what I want. I want Catholics to start distinguishing these, and there’s different variations on the two worries, but usually people have a worry that there is no evidence and it’s just a blind leap. Or they have a worry in the type of conviction that faith and religious belief requires simply being irrational and not being allowed. So how would we answer that? Well, again, let’s say we have some good evidence pointing in that direction. The answer to the second worry, again, we have to assume that we have good evidence that God exists. We have some good reasons to trust Christ and his church, that’s modes of credibility. But the answer to that second worry, the reason why it’s not always irrational to go beyond what the evidence can demonstrate is because God can reveal things to us, and God can give us grace to help us make the act of faith.
John:
So this is the difference. And Bishop Barron uses the analogy of a person, human person. I’ll make it brief, but you can meet someone new, Cy Kellett. We’ve talked a couple of times, but if we went and hung out for an afternoon, got lunch, something, I would know some various things about you. I might know a little bit about what you talk about. I like the kind of music that you like. I was introduced to that last time, a bunch of other things that I’ll learn about you, but there’s still the inner mysteries of things that you contemplate. Things that really matter to you, things about your life that I would never know unless you reveal them to me. And if you choose one day, we became good friends and you revealed something to me, at that point, I would make a choice.
John:
I can trust you and say, you know what? You’re my friend. We’ve been going through this together for a while. I believe you. And whatever that piece of information is, I take it in and I just make an act of full trust. But say you reveal something to me, and I was like, oh, I don’t know if I believe you, Cy Kellett. I don’t know if I trust you. Well, that sort of faith wouldn’t be appropriate if we were good friends. And so that analogy helps us with our walk with God and our religious belief. When we put our faith and our trust in Christ, we are choosing to believe him. And the reason it’s not irrational is because when we make that choice as Catholics, he’s actually giving us grace and working in us interiorly. And this is in Vatican one, it says that God gives divine aid alongside motives or credibility and miracles.
John:
But he’s giving us that divine aid through the sacraments, through daily prayer, that we can actually come to that certain conviction. So it’s by God’s grace and it’s by a trust. And now the easiest is just going to say, well, I just think that’s all a bunch of hooey. Well, okay, that’s fine. And we can talk about that, whether there’s good evidence for God and his church, but what he can’t say is that it’s merely irrational because we’re going beyond the evidence. Because we have an account, namely, the Catholic account, the God account, the Christian account, that allows us to go beyond what the evidence can demonstrate. And [inaudible 00:19:21] that’s an account of trust and its an account that works with God’s grace. So that’s how I would handle the two different worries there.
Cy:
I like it. It reminds me a lot of the sixth chapter of John’s gospel when everyone abandons Christ and Peter says, Lord, where are we going to go? You get the sense of Peter and those few that are left, they’re rooted in, we believe you as a person. We don’t need all this other evidence, because we’ve come to believe you as a person. You have the words of everlasting life.
John:
That’s a great example. And I think it’s one of the dangers with the enlightenment and the skeptical age, is that people have almost… And just with getting so impersonal with social media, with everything else.
Cy:
Right.
John:
People don’t form as many of these deep friendships and these deep trusts. And when you become detached from that, when the only type of thinking you look at is scientific, empirical data thinking, which is good and can absolutely help us. But this category of trusting in a person can almost disappear. And if you no longer see that as plausible, it’s harder to make that act of faith. So I think one of the things we have to do is always be good Christians and be good friends to people to show them that they can trust us. And then they can trust the one that we trust who is Christ. So I have a closing thought on this chapter, but that’s the general tools I would use to diffuse some of these slogans.
Cy:
All right. I’ve got one more question. Do you want me to ask the question first and then get your closing thought?
John:
Yeah. Go ahead.
Cy:
Okay. So I think a lot of times these things are not actually said in the context of an extended conversation. They’re said to you as a biting remark, and that may not give you the context for a lot of response. How do you deal? I just want to know, are you, John DeRosa deal with say, you’re just at an event. I don’t know like a kid’s birthday party or something, and cousin Fred says, are you still doing that religion stuff with your crazy opiate of the masses? And you don’t want to ruin the kid’s birthday party, but how do you handle that?
John:
No, it’s a good point. It actually came up with me, because I was at a funeral, at a family funeral. This is probably five years ago or maybe three or four years ago. But one of the people in my wife’s family actually said at the repass lunch, and I have it quoted in my book. They’re like, religion is just a crutch for weak people that don’t know how to deal with the difficulties of life. And they said that at a funeral. So you’ve got to use some judgment. Okay. I don’t think I handled it the best back then. I think I would have a better idea now.
Cy:
Okay.
John:
First you got to actually discern, is this person interested in having a conversation? And one way to do that is just ask something like, well, I actually disagree with that. Are you interested in discussing that further? Because I’m curious to hear your reasons why.
Cy:
Right.
John:
And that just opens it and they might just say, no, trust me, I’ve had those conversations enough in my life, man. I don’t want to talk about that stuff anymore. And then that’s fine. You don’t have to shove it down their throat, but if they are interested in the conversation, it’s going to be best in a one-on-one context. And you’re going to, like you just said, these are just a one-off, quick statement, but you’re going to drill down. And the chances are, this person has deeper worries. That someone giving this slogan about wishful thinking opiate of the masses, childish or rational faith, chances are they’ve become hardened toward religious belief for a number of other reasons. And in that conversation like, hey, what do you see is wrong with this? What’s your evidence against God? Then you can find out more of what they’re thinking, and then in a subsequent conversation, you can bring even more to the table and hopefully push them in the direction of Christ in this church.
Cy:
And Freud and Marx have both been generally discredited in, the Catholic church is still making saints. So there’s that evidence, but you wanted to make your final point, John.
John:
Yeah. I’ll just add this, because I’ll recommend folks to check out some of the work of Alvin Plantinga that I cite at the end of the book, because he talks about this stuff with a special terminology. So what we’ve been talking about, Plantinga says, these are de jure objections, however you pronounce that Latin phrase. And he’s saying these are objections that purport to show a defect in religious belief without at the same time, giving any evidence that the belief is false.
Cy:
Oh, I got it.
John:
And he distinguishes the de jure objection from the de facto objection. And he says, a de facto objection is actually evidence or claims or arguments that purport to show a religious belief is false. And those would be things like the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, and things we deal with, with other slogans that actually say, God doesn’t exist because of X, Y, or Z. And what Plantinga does a really nice job of in his work, and that I kind of summarize in this chapter is that there are no successful de jure objections independent of a de facto objection. If you actually want the slogan to go through, you’re going to have to bring some arguments and evidence that show religious belief is false. You can’t just claim it’s irrational, childish opiate of the masses, wishful thinking, et cetera. So that’s how I train folks to respond to this slogan.
Cy:
That’s very helpful. That’s a very helpful distinction. Danke schoen, auf Wiedersehen. I became a German atheist again. That’s thank you. We’ll see you later.
John:
God bless you. Have a great day.
Cy:
Okay. You too. Thanks John DeRosa. John’s the author of course, of One Less God Than You: How to Answer the Slogans, Cliches, and Fallacies That Atheists Use to Challenge Your Faith. Before we wrap up this week, I want to let you know that you can get John DeRosa’s brand new book, One Less God Than You at 30% off until the end of the month. Just go to shop.catholic.com, put in the promo code, one more. That’s just one word and you’ll get your 30% savings. Jesus told his closest followers, “Behold, I am sending you like sheep into the midst of wolves. So be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” I really like how John probes with questions, trying to get out the other person’s sense of the topic before giving a response.
Cy:
In defending the faith, the temptation is always just to rush in and start fighting with the wolves. And this is almost always a bad strategy. It’s better to ask trued questions and give simple answers. In this case, it turns out that no real argument against God is being made. Rather, we’re getting an argument against those of us who believe in God. The argument is that we’re weak minded. And maybe even that argument is true in many cases, but whether you’re right or wrong about that, the real question is whether God exists. So we want to get to that question and move past the insults masquerading as an argument. Thanks again for joining us at Catholic Answers, Focus.
Cy:
I’m Cy Kellett, your host, and I will invite you to send us an email. Anytime we would love to hear from you. Maybe you want to suggest a future episode topic. Just send it to focus@catholic.com, subscribe to Focus wherever you get your podcast, that lets you get notified when a new episode is out. And also, thank you whenever you give us that rating or review, especially that five star rating. It helps to grow the podcast. If you’re able and you would like to support us financially, we do need your financial help in order to continue to make this podcast. And you can do that@divcatholic.com. Thanks again for joining us. I am, as I said, Cy Kellett, your host. And we’ll do this again right here, God willing on Catholic Answers, Focus.