“Question Everything”: Atheist Mantra Meant to Evangelize

Do you question everything?  No?  Well, you should.  At least, that is what atheists are telling us to do.  The mantra, “Question Everything” (with some variations) has become extremely popular these days.

There are T-Shirts:

There are buttons, cups, bumper stickers, memes, and billboards.

As you can see, this is the way atheists have attempted to brand themselves.  But, what is the brand?  Does it make sense?  And…more importantly, is it original and unique to atheism?

What is the brand?

What is the point of this marketing scheme?  The goal here is to position atheists as thinkers, thereby defining everyone else as unscientific and stupid.

Does it make sense?

Is this a good mantra to live by? Before we answer this question, let’s take a quick journey through history to see what the great minds of the past said.

Socrates (~399 BC) — “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

Euripides (~450 BC)  — “Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.”

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) — “By doubting we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth.”

Galileo (1564-1642) — “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”

Rene des Cartes (1596-1650) — “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) — “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”

Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) — “We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to accept what is true rather than what feels good.”

Pope Francis (born 1936 and still kickin’)  — “Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything.”

Apostle Paul:

But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; (Thessalonians 5:21)

This list is not exhaustive, but as these quotes demonstrate, great minds of the past and present believe that questioning everything is the path to truth and wisdom. Also, as you can see, these great people come from many different religious backgrounds. Atheists don’t have a lockdown on the concept of questioning everything.

Logically, we can say that it is important to question everything; it makes sense.  And it’s intuitive.  The only way to understand the world around us is to ask and answer questions. That’s why little kids ask so many questions. But, it doesn’t make sense to question everything and never accept the truth when you find it. In fact, we should go a step further and ostensibly accept truths we discover even if we don’t know them to be 100% fact. Why? Because we would never be able to move forward in science, mathematics, engineering, or even our own lives. Think about it, we could never have built skyscrapers or rockets if we didn’t rely on Newton’s Laws.  Interestingly enough, we now know Newton’s Laws to be incorrect in some cases because our scientists kept an open mind to the data, not a skeptical one. If we had scientifically hobbled ourselves by not accepting these laws on the surface, we’d still be living life as if it was 1643.

As shown above, we must question things.  What if you woke up every morning and questioned your spouse as to whether or not they loved you, never believing any answer they gave you?  This would wear on any relationship pretty quickly and leave both sides completely frustrated.  Obviously, it is silly to question every single thing every day and then, once we receive any type of answer, believe none of it.  We question if atheists really even believe this mantra themselves, because who could ever live believing in nothing?

It is unlikely atheists “Believe Nothing, Question Everything,”  because it is an illogical statement.  How can a person believe that you should “Believe Nothing?”

Why do atheists try to co-opt the phrase “Question everything?”

Why do atheists throw this mantra up into our faces?  Why are we, as Christians, accused of not questioning or thinking for ourselves?  Why does belief in God mean that one is not intelligent?

As displayed by the quotes above, many of the great believers of the past asked questions and sought truth.  In fact, Christianity encourages us to seek truth. Good grief, St. Paul even instructs us to “examine everything carefully”!  It is a very small percentage of Christian denominations that teach their faithful to believe without question. God gave us free will and it is safe to say that He understands that we will have questions, that we will struggle to understand, and, yes, we will even have strong doubts.

“Question Everything” has been the mantra of scientists and philosophers throughout the ages, regardless of religious affiliation. Therefore, atheists are attempting to align themselves with the recognized intellectuals of history. So ultimately, the answer to the question is this: Atheists attempt to co-opt the phrase “Question Everything” in order to pit science against religion. They are on the side of science, you are on the side of religion.  They are smart, you are a duped believer of fantasy. They win, you lose!

Don’t buy into their propaganda. Don’t let them make you doubt that it is logical, rational, or even intelligent to believe in God. They are counting on that doubt to evangelize believers away from their faith and drag them to the “free thinkers” side. Nobody wants to be labeled as dumb, stupid, or brainwashed. The truth is, is that God gave us science as a tool to understand His creation and build our understanding of His mind. We don’t have to fear science as Christians. In fact, we should embrace it. Next time an atheist exclaims, “Question everything” quickly agree with them by saying, “I agree! My faith teaches me to question everything and hold fast to the truth.”

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11 responses to ““Question Everything”: Atheist Mantra Meant to Evangelize”

  1. As an atheist, I’d like to try and address some of the points you raise. One of the problems with coming from a faith perspective, as you do, is that once you have accepted a proposition on faith, you can no longer judge it using reason. For example, I take it you believe in the divinity of Jesus–you have faith that he was a real person and that he was the son of God. You can no longer question this proposition because you have accepted it as a tenet of your faith.

    A skeptic questions everything. We ask, “What is the historical evidence that Jesus existed?” (I am a historian and I can tell you the answer is pretty much nothing). As a Christian, you answer “I know Jesus existed because the Bible tells me so!” or perhaps, “I know it because I feel it in my heart!”

    In the case of the first–using the Bible as evidence–we skeptics submit it to the same rigorous scrutiny we would with any historical document. And what we find is that nobody who wrote the New Testament ever met Jesus, every account of him comes second or third-hand, and that most of the books were written long after he supposedly died. Not to mention the contradictions found in the records of his life in the Gospels. In the absence of any non-Biblical evidence of his life, that adds up to pretty scant proof that he was ever real.

    In the case of the second, “feelings” are not evidence. They cannot be tested scientifically. There have been people in history who “knew” they were Napoleon–because they “felt” it. But I think you’d agree that that would be pretty sketchy evidence for proving someone was actually Napoleon.

    So, if we atheists are trying to co-opt the “question everything” mantra, it is because it is a core truth in understanding our world. We find people who throw away reason in favor of faith to answer questions to not be helpful in our quest to understand the world.

    I hope this addresses some of your questions. Have a great day!

    • Ann,

      Thanks for replying to the post. And, thank you especially for proving our point. To say to Christians that they cannot judge whether their religion is true or false based on reason is only meant to discredit them. Like the blog said, you attempt to pit science against religion. So, again thank you for validating this post. Now on to a response to your response.

      If you had read the post, you would have seen many historical figures who also lived by the mantra “Question Everything.” Many of the ones listed were Christians. In fact, one was a quote from the Bible itself, in which, if we supposedly believe blindly as you say, directs us to question everything. This brings us to the next point.

      We are Catholic and one of the things that comes with Catholicism is that we don’t believe anything blindly. We don’t take any one source and just go with that. As we say in this blog, God gave us brains so that we could use them to understand His mind. We use science, history, logic, and philosophy. The Bible is an inerrant part of that understanding.

      As a historian, do you believe that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon? Most historians do believe that he did. However, there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus as there is for Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. This is one reason why most mainstream historians do believe that a man named Jesus existed in history. Here’s what some notable historians have said (some of them atheist/agnostic):

      “In recent years, ‘no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus’ or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.” Michael Grant

      “He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees” Bart Ehrman
      “There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more.” Richard Burridge

      That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus…agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.” John Crossan

      These three quotes were just taken from wikipedia. You can find it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

      If you don’t like wikipedia, maybe this atheist can help you: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2014/09/04/an-atheists-defense-of-the-historicity-of-jesus/

      Peter was an apostle of Jesus and was given the keys to Heaven by Jesus. Remember he even denied Jesus three times after Jesus said he would. Peter went on to become the first Pope and wrote books of the NT. John was an apostle of Jesus; the only apostle who stayed to view Jesus’ crucifixion. He is credited with writing the Gospel of John and Revelations. We also have historical evidence of these men. Men who gave their lives to give witness to a man who you said never existed. I don’t know about you, but I would never choose to die by being crucified for someone who never existed. I’d give up the game if it came to that.

      Maybe atheists can’t judge atheism based on reason because they accepted the atheistic proposition based on faith.

      Again, thanks for validating our blog. Have a great day too!

  2. I won’t presume to speak for anyone but myself here.

    Atheism is not a faith-based position. I could be wrong about gods and other religious claims. I’m willing to be wrong. The reason I don’t believe them is because I care about the truth and the more I compared religious claims against reality the less I was able to believe them. So no, I don’t consider “question everything” to be an attempt at branding or a ploy to make Christians question their beliefs. I just consider it good advice. Because when we question even our most cherished assumptions, sometimes we figure out that we were mistaken.

    http://i.imgur.com/XkZMmzb.jpg

    • Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments. I, too, care deeply about truth. It is pretty well-known that atheists do brand themselves as “brights” and “free-thinkers.” Many leading atheists have used these names to describe atheists. I have been told time and again by more than one atheist that it is unintelligent to believe in “mystical sky god.” The brand is that atheists are more intelligent, less brain-washed, and think more logically than believers. That’s the brand. It is definitely good advice to question and on that I would agree with atheists. That’s why in the blog we showed that it has been encouraged and supported throughout the ages. It unfair for atheists to assume that Christians don’t question their faith or seek truth. Please come back and read more. It’s always good to have open, honest, and respectable debates. Thank you for being respectable.

  3. I did read the whole post, but since you provided no evidence in it, I was gently trying to nudge you toward understanding the concepts of proper argument. You start with your claim, which is fine as I understand it–your claim is that Christians DO question things, but then accept truth when they find it. The problem is that you then provided no evidence to show that Christians doing this. You just had a list of people who said it is important to question.

    This argumentative fallacy is called “argumentum ad populum” – the argument from the populace. All that means is that other people also believe the claim you made–it’s not evidence. You then did the same thing in your reply post to me–instead of providing evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus, which was the example I used, you presented examples of modern people who believe as you do. That’s not evidence.

    One of those people did make reference to Tacitus and Josephus, but both of those writers, while closer in time to Jesus, did not know him and were repeating things they had heard from others. If Jesus’ diary were discovered and it said:

    “I am so saddened that I must die tomorrow, but maybe dinner
    will be fun! Bummed I have to invite Judas.”

    then THAT would be evidence that he existed.

    The Rubicon analogy is flawed because although the evidence for it may be scanty, the claim being presented is nowhere near as serious as the one that Jesus existed. We know that Caesar and Pompey had a civil war and that the consequences of that were dire–we have numerous primary sources that attest to it, including archeological evidence for some of their battles. Whether or not Caesar actually “crossed the Rubicon” is a small and unimportant aspect of the larger history that followed.

    If you would like me, and the larger atheist community, to believe that you DO question everything (until you find truth), then you have to present evidence of you or another Christian doing so. A list of people who share your beliefs is not evidence.

    My main claim was that accepting propositions on faith makes one incapable of judging that claim by reason. I stand by that claim. I believe that faith is not a virtue; it can blind a person to new evidence. For example, if archeologists suddenly found the original writings of Paul, and he had written, “Here I go–I am going to invent a religion based on a guy called Jesus and see how far I can get with it!” would you consider it? Assuming it passed every test of authenticity, would you be able to even consider that the religion you follow was a fabrication? Or would your faith prevent you from reasonably considering this new evidence? In my experience with the theistic community, that answer has been a resounding “NO!” People of faith cannot consider anything that contradicts their beliefs.

    And that is the difference between us and why I believe people of faith do not deserve the “Question Everything” phrase. When skeptics question, we listen to the answers and change our views if necessary. This is unlike theists, whose faith requires them to ignore any answer they dislike.

    • Ann,

      I didn’t make the fallacy of argumentum ad populum. In the first case, where I listed people who said that we should question everything, I used their quotes as evidence to show that many people, not just atheists, believe it is right to question everything. But, your point is well taken. They could be hypocrites. Instead, we should look at their lives to see if they actually lived their life in that manner. I won’t be able to do it today, but I’ll review what is written about their lives and see if there is any evidence for or against these men living up to what they stated. Saying all that, though, I can’t say I’ve lived my whole life by questioning everything. I’m not that good. I admit it. I am a hypocrite, and a little lazy. While I do think concept of questioning everything is good advice, I’ve found myself believing things just because someone I trust told me so. But, so called skeptics/atheists are guilty of the same thing. It’s exemplified by the plethora of untrue memes that are circulated by atheists without fact checking them.

      On the point of whether Jesus really lived, I again didn’t use the argument of the masses. In this case, you could say that I used an appeal to authority (a different fallacy that you also used by the way when you told us you are a historian and so we should believe what you say). But, in this case, I wasn’t trying to make a formal argument. I am not a historian. I am also not a climatologist or a geologist or an astronomer or many other things. In all these cases, I need to rely to some degree on what the majority of these experts tell me. Of course, I don’t take it with 100% confidence, just like I don’t take my own conclusions with 100% confidence because I regularly struggle with my own bias. I need to moderately test their assertions and move on. It seems you reject the standard belief among historical experts. Can you provide further evidence and reasoning to change my mind? You as a historian are outside the mainstream. All you’ve given me is that there is a lack of concrete evidence (and we both know an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) and that neither Josephus nor Tacitus knew Jesus. However, there are people who knew Jesus who wrote about him. Peter and John. Do you reject them because their letters were compiled into a religious book?

      I didn’t rehash all of the evidence that all the historians lay out because it was not the point of this post. In the future, I’ll make sure to post on that specifically. Hopefully, the evidence will meet with your approval. You state that you are open to evidence and being shown where you are wrong…yet, I get the feeling you are telling me that no Christian is ever going to be able to provide any evidence that is worth noting because “accepting propositions on faith makes one incapable of judging that claim by reason.” Am I getting it wrong? If so, you have just decided that anything I say can be dismissed with regards to Christianity or religion, because I’m incapable of judging with any reason. That is not an open mind at all. I’m curious how you would explain atheists that convert to Christianity. They don’t already faith making them incapable of using reason.

      You say that theists, who’s faith requires them to ignore any answer they dislike, shows your own bias. I’m not sure what faith community you’ve had experience with, but most of the faith communities I’ve been around acknowledge their struggles with doubt. Many come from atheist backgrounds, who accepted the evidence before them. What evidence would it take for you?

      Oh, and I should probably have led with this: If Christianity is false, it needs to be thrown out. However, so far, the evidence points the existence of God, and that Jesus, His son came to Earth.

  4. I’m an atheistic agnostic, who tries to seriously live by a variant of “question everything.”  (I also grew up fundamentalist and Calvinist, and if I could ever be convinced of Christianity again, I’d wind up Catholic).  And I actually get very annoyed at the “question everything” slogan as well.

    Part if it is because everyone and their mother thinks they HAVE been properly rigorous, and that they’ve questioned everything sufficiently, and that they’ve properly closed their minds around the correct basic conclusions.  That’s what thoughtful Christians think (that they’ve looked at stuff thoroughly enough, and that their acceptance of various doctrines/truth claims is a reasonable choice). And that’s what thoughtful atheists think. And that’s what I think! (I think that landing in atheistic agnosticism was as informed and researched and reasonable a conclusion as I’m likely to get, barring some massive change in the way I experience the universe working). 

    At some point you DO just get on with life and living, and stop constantly and everyday entertaining the idea that everything you think and build your life around could be wrong. 

    Should you be open to having your view of the world fundamentally shattered? Sure. Should you set aside times when you examine your deepest convictions, and make yourself face all the sorts of naggling doubts and questions that your brain does its absolute best to avoid and NOT face? Sure.  (There’s an article I love called “Avoiding Your Belief’s Real Weak Points,” which I keep on perpetual bookmark, because it reminds me to veer INTO mental pain when I notice it, not away from it).  But do I go out looking to fundamentally shatter my view of reality at every waking moment anymore? No, I don’t, and I suspect most people, religious or atheist, don’t either.

    Another part of my uneasiness with the phrase is that questioning your most fundamental or cherished beliefs HURTS. And it’s not something you get to do successfully once (over, say, religion) and then, yay, you’ve won the thinking/questioning game! It’s something you then actively go out and DO MORE OF, finding that next thing that hurts JUST AS MUCH to look at. Then the next. And in my personal experience, the people who continue to punch themselves in the mental solar plexus this way don’t lob off “question everything” like some glib logo and catch-phrase.

    ——

    All that said, I think there IS a reason atheists may have a stronger “claim” to that catchphrase. 

    This is going to be rather roundabout, so I’ll just start with your exegesis of Thes 5:21, which I find to be questionable.  In context, and compared with similar passages like Gal 1:8 (“if I or an angel from heaven preach to you a gospel different from the one you received…”) and Act 17:11 (the Bereans)), it’s unlikely think Paul had something like, “question everything! Including the fundamental doctrines of the church and salvation!” on his mind when he wrote “prove all things.” He was saying something more like, “when someone says they have a word from the lord, make sure they’re not selling you a bill of goods, different from the True Faith you already know.”

    You’ve definitely got a case for Abelard and Galileo and Descartes having a “question everything” view, though. However, it should be noted their positions of extensive doubting DID put them outside of the Christian mainstream of their times. Anselm, who was a contemporary of Abelard, and whose approach to knowledge was “faith seeking understanding,” was/is seen as more safely orthodox than Abelard and his system of methodological doubt. Galileo…well, he got himself in some hot water, and while his conclusions were vindicated, you’ll still find a lot of criticism of his methods and attitudes.  And Descartes’s Enlightenment-tinged radical doubt was considered pretty darn suspect, and liable to land him in wrong conclusions.  No one put these folks outside the bounds of orthodoxy, but they weren’t exactly your normal, typical Christians, either.

    In one sense, the skeptics/rationalists/atheists DO have a point. It IS typical and fundamental to their view of the world that one should put everything up to question and doubt. You can’t call yourself a rationalist/skeptic and leave any of your beliefs in a forever-doubt-protected zone.  (Yes, before you ask, I occasionally seriously question whether nothing-immune-from-doubt is a correct way to approach life. :p Whee, recursion!)

    And, sure. Nobody is 100% consistent in their philosophy of life.  But what it does mean is that you CAN pull someone aside and say, “you’re doing the rationalist/atheist/skeptic thing wrong!” if that person is flinching from and avoiding doubting a cherished idea or belief.  And if they’re a good atheist/rationalist/skeptic, then they’ll take that admonition seriously. They will stop, and they will think, and they will check to see if they HAVE indeed fallen into an inconsistent pattern.  It’s actually quite similar to how, if you pointed a Christian toward a Bible verse, and said “you’re not living like a Christian should,” that Christian would at least give a moment’s serious consideration to whether you might be right.

    So I will buy that methadological doubt is fundamental to a rationalist/skeptic/atheist iew of the world. I’m NOT similarly persuaded that methodological doubt (down to first principles) is a fundamental part of the Christian worldview. Though I DO think Christianity has room in it and its orthodoxy for people who ARE temperamentally inclined toward methodological, thoroughgoing doubt. 

    Phrased another way: someone isn’t doing Christianity “wrong” if they never happen to doubt the truth of the faith passed down to us. But neither are they doing Christianity “wrong” if they DO doubt.

    If we assume, for the sake of argument, that Christianity is true, then I don’t see a problem with Christianity NOT fundamentally requiring extreme doubt. It means that both non-intellectuals and intellectuals, and doubters and non-doubters, are welcome in the faith, by whatever means they arrive at and become convinced of it.  In that sense, one could argue Christianity has a bigger, more tolerant temperamental tent than skepticism/rationalism/atheism.

    But it DOES mean that the rationalist-atheist-skeptics can claim a version of “question everything” as a part of their unifying, fundamental identity as a group, in a way Christians don’t and can’t.  Christians certainly CAN question everything, and put their entire faith on the line, unsure if it’ll prove true or false, and still wind up on the other side Xians. And if God gave a person an intellectual, questioning, probing, methodological-doubt-inclined temperament, good theologians will argue that such people have a responsibility to use their brains to their fullest, and NOT preemptively shut them down, even if it leads them to question and doubt stuff like the apostle’s creed.  But, again, if you’re not gifted/positioned/called to do it, you don’t HAVE to hold those doctrines up to doubt as part of being a good Christian.

    ——

    A QUESTION!
    What was it that personally convinced you that what the Catholic church claimed about itself and God were true?

    • Thank you, Marie! What a well thought out response. I can definitely tell that you give much time and thought to your beliefs. The point of the blog was not to say that atheists are wrong in adopting the slogan “Question Everything.” The point of the blog was to show that it is not true or fair to claim that Christians are taught to just blindly believe. As a Christian, I have been accused several times of being intellectually lazy, stupid, and a blind believer in fairy tales. It is wrong and untrue to state that Christians never study their beliefs, never doubt, never seek answers as to why they truly believe in God. I know I have. For example, most Christians believe in capital punishment. An “eye for an eye” stance. I used to staunchly believe in capital punishment. Staunchly. The Catholic Church does not condone capital punishment unless absolutely necessary for the safety of people. At first, this caused me to recoil, because it went against my belief system. But, I dove in and learned why the Church believes that way and I also weighed it against what I know as a criminologist and it didn’t make sense to believe it anymore. So, today I don’t support it.

      The point of all the quotes was to show that people from thousands of years ago were talking about questioning everything. This is not something new to modern atheism. I wasn’t saying that I agree with everything they said, but the point is, is that people down the line, Christian and not, have been encouraging questions. And you are right, what St. Paul is talking about when read in context is to question what people are telling you with regards to faith. There were a lot of false teachers going around teaching wrong things and Paul was encouraging people to examine carefully what they are saying to make sure that it is true. This is good advice, especially with 30,000 Protestant denominations. But, I also think that we can take Paul’s words and apply it to our lives in other ways, i.e. morals, cultural beliefs. Question what people are telling you, reflect on it, and hold to what is true, not just what sounds good or feels good.

      Neither side, believers or non-believers, own the phrase. I can understand from what you said that it fits more with the life of an atheist/agnostic, but we should not have this game of tug-of-war with it. We should all be open to studying, understanding, and looking at things logically and rationally. Did you know that when the Catholic Church is presented with a supposed miracle it puts that claim through the ringer? They test it, study it, and seek to actually disprove it. They bring in scientists outside the faith to study it and find a natural, scientific reason for the miracle. Most miracles brought in front of the Catholic Church are found to not be miracles. This is one reason I respect the Catholic Church so much. They are not afraid of science, they embrace it. They question, they seek to understand.

      St. Paul told us to always be ready to defend the faith. I think you can only do that if, as a Christian, you truly explore why you believe what you believe. Atheist don’t like the “well, I believe because I believe” answer to anything. As Christians, we need to show that we have put thought behind our beliefs. And you’re right, some Christians are completely and utterly satisfied with believing without question. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Though, it makes it hard to answer questions when confronted.

      If you would like to read why I converted to Catholicism you can read that here at my blog: http://passionatepurpose.org/my-conversion-story-why-i-became-catholic/ If you have any additional questions, I’d be happy to answer. And, there is a lady named Jen Fulwiler who was a lifelong atheist. She became Catholic and she has a fascinating story. I would be happy to send you her cd if you would like to hear it. Or you can look her up online.

      Again, thank you for your comments. My husband and I enjoyed reading what you had to say.

    • Marie,

      I’m Amy’s husband and helped her with this post, so I thought I’d take a crack at your question. But first, thank you for your well written response. I appreciate you sharing your perspective. I have a question on your response though. Many atheists have told me that atheism is not a worldview, it’s not a religion, it’s just an absence of these things. However, you said that the catchphrase “Question Everything” is fundamental to the atheist/skeptic/rationalist view of the world. In other words it sounds like a basic tenet of faith that they each member shares. In fact, you went on to say that you could pull an atheist aside and tell them they are being a bad atheist by not questioning everything, similar to a Christian. Did I get the wrong idea from what you said?

      Also, just so I’m clear. I don’t really have any heart burn with atheists or any other group using the motto “Question Everything.” What irritates me is that it is used as a hammer by atheists on Christians. They say, “We question everything. You just believe blindly and are therefore stupid, unworthy of listening to.” Anne demonstrates this in her responses to this post.

      As for your question: The reason I think Catholicism is correct is because it doesn’t contradict science or reason and is founded in history showing a straight line of succession back to the apostles. Catholic teaching along with our tools of science, philosophy, and history provide for the most complete understanding of the world around us. If you’d like a more complete description of how I came to this conclusion (though, I have to admit, that it’s not quite a conclusion yet… I still have more questions to be answered), I’d be happy to share.

      Dustin

      • Hi, I’m an atheist, and I would like to point out that there is one glaring and obvious answer to the imposed question of why we use the slogan “question everything.” When we say that, we are saying that you must come to your answer by examining “real” evidence, and tested theories based on reliable testimony, science, and what is considered fact. That being said, it should be clear that the human spectrum of emotion and a book from 2,000 years ago that can’t be verified in ANY WAY, but can be disproven by elementary science can’t be the evidence you use to come to your conclusion. The mere mere belief that these are reliable sources of information is in itself a clear example of indoctrination. I did not post this to insult, but if you set aside your predisposition and look at what I’m saying workout bias you can see how the Christian argument can only hold water providing one denies all truths of which we are aware of in the present age due to thousands of years of science. I am off firm conviction that if the knowledge we currently have was available when religious texts such as the bible were written, not a single religion would exist. All Christianity or any other religion can really claim to be is a hypothesis. The problem is that every single thing we know about physics disputes these hypothesis and there is literally nothing other than “faith” to confirm them.

        • Hi Dennis, thank you for replying. As a Catholic, it puzzles me when atheists say that we don’t examine “real” evidence. That just simply isn’t true. If you look throughout time since Christ came, Catholics have been studying and using science to examine the world around them. Many of the greatest scientists the world has ever known have been Catholic, many of them even priests and monks. They have all believed that science and the Bible don’t contradict each other, but that God reveals his truth to us through both. Further, science alone cannot be the only way we come to know things. How could you ever prove that science is the only way of knowing something? You can’t, because science itself can’t prove that. As a Catholic, we are taught to use many different ways of coming to know truth: philosophy, science, theology, etc. The Bible is one of the most historically reliable ancient documents we have. Nearly every scholar agrees with this. Jesus is a historical reality. People other than Christians have written about Him. He was an actual person. Now, we can discuss as to whether He is God. I wrote this blog because I have dealt with many atheists and have found that they deem Christians as inferior in intellect and reason. In my experience, atheists believe they are the only ones that ask questions, while the Christians bumble along just blindly believing. I invite you to read the atheist conversions stories on my site and if you would like, I can engage you in reasoned and intellectual debate. But, before even diving into the Bible and Jesus and all of that, the first place to start is: Is there a God? I think there is good evidence for it. I’d be happy to discuss.

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