Finding My Religion
We're a podcast that asks the question, "What do you believe?" We talk with people to find out how they grew up, what they think about today, and where they think they'll be in the future. Faith, religion, and spirituality are all such personal journeys. We're honored to be able to tell people's stories, no matter the belief.
Finding My Religion
James Pillay: "Problem of Hiddenness"
Guest, James Pillay of the Center for Interfaith Dialogue at the University of Wisconsin, talks about his experiences as a recent Catholic convert. We also talk about his work in the fellowship program and why it's important to talk about the differences and similarities in what we all believe.
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Welcome to Finding my Religion. My name is Miles Stelps. I am so excited for this episode and a couple of the episodes that are going to follow this. I was able to get in touch with the Center for Interfaith Dialogue Program at the University of Wisconsin and they allowed me to talk with some of their interfaith fellows that are currently going through their program. The program's charter is really, really cool. Their goal is to provide their fellows and eventually, some of the other students, with the knowledge and skills to basically overcome some of the barriers of religious differences that exist in our world. It's incredibly enlightening to talk with some of these people because they're so much smarter than me and they're so much younger, but the passion that they have for what they believe, and also for just discourse and what other people believe, is something that I think we all can learn from, especially with some of the things that are going on across the world.
Speaker 1:Alright, we are back. This is a really special episode because I'm talking to again some of that I don't know, which is always really awesome. James Pallee has joined me and he is part of the Interfaith Fellowship at UW Madison, so talking to a fellow dude from Madison first time that's happened, so that's cool. But there's eight of you who are going through this program and I had a chance to meet your professor, professor Ulrich. Is that his first name or last name? I mean?
Speaker 2:First name?
Speaker 1:Yeah, got it. So I met him for coffee. He was super pumped about the program and just said hey, let's see who else in the program wants to be a part of this. So you're the first person to go through this from your Interfaith Fellowship program, so I'm super happy to have you on man. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. Thank you for inviting us, thanks for giving us the opportunity to each talk about our own faith and our journeys to get where we are today, and it's great to be with you, miles.
Speaker 1:Awesome, love it, love it. So are you from Madison originally?
Speaker 2:No, originally I'm from the suburbs of Detroit, but Madison was the best business program that I got into, so here I am. I'm just over halfway done now.
Speaker 1:Awesome, love it. Well, cool man. Well again, thank you for coming on Super pumped to have this conversation. So let's start at the obvious question. I mean what is your faith and what's your spirituality at this point in your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, right, so right now I'm Catholic, right? Ideally, I would be Catholic for the rest of my life, right? And yeah, so I've been practicing Catholic for two years now. I was confirmed a year ago, so would you like to go through the whole story, or how would you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that sounds like that's a very unique place to be in your life, to be confirmed, because you said you're a junior in college right now. So you confirm freshman year, I would assume, of college. That's a unique journey. So, yeah, how do we get to that point?
Speaker 2:All right. So this is kind of starting from the beginning, right. So my neither of my parents are religious, so I come from a non-religious household, but my mom's side of the family is Catholic and then my dad's side of the family is, or was, hindu, right, but neither one of them are really practicing and then I really have kind of strong beliefs in those areas, so kind of raised an agnostic household, you could say, and religion wasn't a big part of life growing up, right. So my parents never took us to worship services on any side. It just, you know, was the topic that I rarely came up right. But my mom's uncle, actually, whenever she would come into town, whenever he would come into town to visit, he'd always kind of give me, you know, nuggets about the faith, like just a sentence or two about Jesus, and then I'd be lying if I said that it didn't touch my heart. And so I really kind of wanted to explore this but wasn't really able to with, you know, the lifestyle that kind of our family was, living right in a kind of very non-religious household. I didn't have many or really any kind of religious friends for most of my upbringing, so it just wasn't something that was really on my radar, and then I don't even know how I could have right, kind of practiced it on my own as a kid, right, but it was something that I was really looking forward to exploring when I got the chance. And so, yeah, so these seeds are kind of planted in me from the beginning, right.
Speaker 2:Or you know, whenever I would hear somebody who's more secular and then maybe somewhat hostile to Christianity, you know kind of give some sort of objection or kind of a question in bad faith, right, I would just have this kind of drive to offer some sort of defense, right. And then I didn't know anything. I didn't even know really the basics of Christianity, let alone Christian apologetics, right, the art of defending and articulating the faith, right. So you know, it wasn't really much, but it was something right. So I always had a drive to at least give something, and that's kind of nicely led me to where I am now, right, and so I was waiting to explore the faith.
Speaker 2:But you know, I couldn't have been growing up. So I said, okay, when I come to university, that's going to be my chance. Right, I'll be independent, I'll be in a new area, right, I'll have the resources to go and give this a shot, right. And so I look up Catholic churches in Madison the night before I leave Detroit, and then I see the Catholic Student Center here at St Paul's, which is a phenomenal place, right. And so I go for a tour a few days later and then I go to Mass, which is our worship service on that first Sunday, and from zero to 18 and a half, the amount of times I've been in a church I could count on a single hand. Right, went up from my uncle, would come to town, right, and now I go pretty much every single day and I'm happiest to have ever been. So that's awesome, that's awesome the story nutshell.
Speaker 1:So it's fascinating that you had this want, desire, like not really being a Catholic, not being like you said your family isn't going to church or going to temple or anything like that. What about it? Like what types of things would kind of pique your interest of needing to respond, even not being like a quote unquote Catholic when you were younger?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's honestly, it's extremely mysterious. And then I've been doing a lot of reflecting on that over the last two years and I don't have an answer. I think it was just some sort of innate drive, right, like for my friends who may not believe, I don't want to just say it was the Holy Spirit, but I think now, now I kind of recognize that that was God's Holy Spirit dwelling within me that really pushed me to do that, even when I knew nothing and then wasn't even practicing, and then you could say not even believing to it in a sense, right, because I didn't even know what to believe, right. But that drive was absolutely there and then the fruits of it were there too, and me trying to offer up defense. So, yeah, I think it was God's Spirit. What can you? So? What would those conversations?
Speaker 1:look like, like what would someone say? And then what would be your response? Like how would that even work? Not being, like you said, a believer at the time, was it something that they were like, well, god's not real. And then you'd have to say he is, and here's why. Or what are those conversations look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, to be honest, they weren't really common. They were very few in our between. So we're talking like less than five ever, Maybe three or four times, and I don't really remember exactly what I said, but I remember just trying to push back in some minimal way just with passion, but without the knowledge or talent. But they were very short, less than two minutes probably each time, than very few in our between. So that wasn't really kind of defining me, those like few in far between arguments. For my first 18 and a half years it was just basically the lack of religion was kind of my story for that chunk of my life.
Speaker 1:Sure, that makes sense. So what do you feel like? Is the drive to join the Catholic Church versus you know, because you said your dad was Hindu, but not practicing correct? What is what's?
Speaker 2:the drive. I don't think that he's Hindu, I think he's agnostic. Got it, but it's out of the family's.
Speaker 1:Got it, so perhaps it's just the like. Do you feel like this is kind of a hypothetical, but I am interested if you had had an uncle on your dad's side that had been talking about Hindu principles, do you feel like you would have been as eager or not necessarily to jump in and believe, but to learn about it? Like, what about? Yeah, I'll just leave it at that Like, do you, do you feel like that could have been a possibility at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean in one level.
Speaker 2:It's hard to say right, yeah, it's tough right, it is tough, but I think, from what we know, probably not, because you don't really see Westerners become Hindu. Right, especially on a large scale. Right, it's something that's very much extremely tied into cultural traditions of that one region of the world. Right, and then even Hinduism itself is going to vary depending on where you are in India. Right, so it's not going to be as unified of a set of beliefs. Right, and so I don't think it has this sort of mass global and cultural appeal that Christianity has had.
Speaker 2:Right, if you look at Christianity, whether it's the halls of Buckingham Palace to Congress, to the plains of Africa or to the jungles of South America right, you're seeing predominantly Christian civilizations, and part of that is because, you know, the people who were colonizing the world brought along missionaries right on their journeys. But the fact that they were so receptive to it in a lot of cases right, not all cases, but the fact that it has this sort of appeal to people all over the world just goes to show that there's a good chance that this is really God's message for humanity. Right, if you look at what Jesus says in Matthew 28, right, go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded. You right? So this really is a message for the whole world, and I think that much of the world is hearing that and is believing that. So, in that sense, god is succeeding in winning sinners to himself.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Yeah, I always find that interesting of you. Know, like you said, there's Christians all over the world. There's this want and desire to have other people believe your faith, but other religions don't have that Like. I always find it's a really interesting juxtaposition between, like Judaism and Christianity, where it's like you don't really have Jewish missionaries like going out. It's more of like a cultural thing, similar to how you were said, like Hinduism. I always find that interesting, like what? Like I don't know why that is, other than like the Bible verse that you quoted of like you know, it says in the Bible, like we should be doing this as Christians, but it just seems so fascinating to me, not being a religious person, that we wouldn't have other religions wanting to do the same thing. Like wouldn't you want everybody to believe what you want? Wouldn't you want all of these people to be missionaries? Like what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a fascinating question, right and so. I don't want to speak for Jews, because I don't know enough, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. That's going to be in your curriculum, right? Coming up as like learning about other religions and other people have to think, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly right In our fellowship. But from what I've heard from a lot of Jewish people is that they actually discourage conversion rather than encourage it. And you know I don't want to speculate, but you know part of what Judaism is is that you've got this certain people. And then I would agree with this too. Right that we're selected by God to bless all nations and then reconcile the world to himself, and so these are God's chosen people, but not for their own sake, for the sake of the whole world, right, because you would ultimately send a son to come up through the Jewish people, right? And so, yeah, I mean, if you're the chosen people, then other people who are in other parts of the world worked, right, and so that kind of makes sense. So I don't want to speak for them, but that's from what I understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. I actually never thought about that. Like you always hear, like the Jews are the chosen people and it's like okay, well, if you're chosen, then you're chosen. Like that's it. If you weren't chosen, you weren't chosen. I've never really thought about that phrase. Why, what? Does it actually mean right, yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:And I do think that Judaism is a revealed religion. I do think that Judaism is from God. But what I would say as a Christian is that current Jewish people today are in error for not recognizing Jesus as the Messiah and as God come in the flesh to His people and to the whole world. Sure. But I do think that it is from.
Speaker 1:God. Yeah, I've definitely heard that before too, so that tracks why Catholicism. Like. There's hundreds of different types of Christianity. You know sex out there, Like, so why Catholicism specifically for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think there's kind of two questions there, right. Why Catholicism initially and then why continue in Catholicism, right? Sure, and so initially, honestly, it's because my uncle was Catholic, right, and so I didn't really have a direct sort of process and influence there, and which is interesting too, because my background is in politics that sort of moved away from politics over the last few years just because I found something that's more beautiful and then, yeah, that's sort of all I want to say about that. It's still very important, but religious matters and questions of God and then God's revelation to humanity are logically extremely more important than that, and there's a good work to be done in politics, right, but there are a lot of people interested in that. Like, political views on videos on YouTube will get millions of views, but videos about religion, will you know, sometimes get only thousands, right, they'll seldom get millions. So there's a lot of people kind of in the conversation about this and broader society, and so that's where I have been wanting to focus my efforts. But why I brought that up was because, you know, obviously Christian, you know, and especially Protestant and evangelical influences really kind of shaped the political sphere in a lot of ways, right, and so there was an influence there kind of indirectly. But it was always going to be a Catholic. For me, from the non-practicing side, just what appealed to me more? Just because that was what I knew, right, and I guess also what was off putting about certain sects of Protestantism would be, you know, fundamentalism, right?
Speaker 2:So people kind of taking the entire Bible literally, which is I've always found it to be funny because the Bible doesn't actually say anywhere to take the whole thing literally, that's a presupposition that these people had. But that goes unjustified, right? Because why not interpret these books and these letters according to the genre of which they were written? So then you can really see what an author's saying, right? So when you see poetry in the Psalms, you know nobody's taking that literally because it's poetry, right?
Speaker 2:When you look at the book of Revelation, you talk about a dragon in the sky moving its tail and then a third of the stars falling down. The vast majority of the tradition has understood that that belongs to the genre of Jewish apocalyptic literature, right? The vast majority of people have not taken that literally. So it does seem to me to be a better approach to approximate what genre it is and then interpret it so we can see what these authors were thinking versus just a sort of blanket literalistic approach. And so obviously Protestants are not committed to that. And then I don't even think most Protestants are fundamentalists I would say definitely not but the ones that are oftentimes the loudest voices, and so that was probably often a little bit too right.
Speaker 1:Sure, that makes sense. Can you talk about the process of you know, going through and getting baptized? As you know, a young adult going into college, like what did that look like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was actually baptized as an infant. Oh, you were okay, because, yeah, because my mom's family wanted me to get baptized and so I did get baptized, but no church and then a Sunday school, no confirmation classes, nothing like that, right? So once I was here, like my journey, I kind of was kind of dragged hands and feet into the realm of apologetics, right, defending faith. And you know, I started going to church for the first time in my life. I started to engage with the Bible. I started to be surrounded with holy people, right, people trying to live lives of love and people trying to, you know, not live their life just for themselves, right, not to say that that's gonna be all secular people, but when you meet people who are really in love with Christ, there is something that strikes them about you. They are radiating with this joy and I was beginning to catch some of that right From praying and from going to mass, and I really wanted to share it with friends of mine in my dorm room right In my dorm floor, excuse me and I'd surrounded myself with very smart people, and these people wanted answers, they had objections, they had questions and they really pushed back and they were giving me a run for my money, right?
Speaker 2:And I didn't know how to answer a lot of these questions and objections. Right, because you know popular objections are popular for a reason because they resonate with a lot of people. Right, they have, they usually will have some merit to them. Right? And then I just had no idea. If you could just answer this off the top of your head, then nobody would be bringing them up. Right? And so I started researching and you kind of start with low level guys who are gonna be getting millions of views, then you work your way up the intellectual ladder, I like to say, or the ladder of rigor, right, when you get to the professional philosophers with demonstrations and then probabilistic arguments for God, right. And so I didn't want to get into it, but I did because of the people around me, and it wasn't all altruistic, right, as I would like to say.
Speaker 2:Part of it was for myself, with my own doubts. I wanted to be reassured, I wanted to know that this was more probably true than false, because you can have the most beautiful message ever, right? But at the end of the day, if it's not true, then it's not true, right? And so you don't wanna be deluding yourself. Paul says the same thing in the letter to the Corinthians, right In the 15th chapter. He says if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is in vain. And so these early Christians really believed that, that Jesus did experience a bodily resurrection. And then they're admitting our religion is nonsense if this event didn't happen. So there is always a relationship to truth, and there has been from the beginning. So I started studying it for myself and then for the friends around me, and then now I find it as enjoying as it is important. So it's the great joy of my life to get to know the Lord intellectually, end up from the heart as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool. I mean, what were so in the dorm rooms, like what were some of the questions that you were getting? That inspired you to dig in a little bit further and just try to to sift through whatever these questions were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's great. This is kind of the story of my whole freshman year was arguing and evangelizing, then debating on my dorm floor and then, luckily, there was probably 150 people on the floor, so the stock was right. Right, the harvest was there, and so some of these debates last until 5 am. I remember several nights going to sleep when the sun had started to rise and so, that said, that's an interesting feeling, right? Yeah, people were just waking up and then you haven't even gone to sleep yet. So, yeah, I mean about everything, right, questions about everything.
Speaker 2:So the compatibility between faith and science, right. So I've seen studies that show that the top three reasons why young Christians, catholics in particular, leave the church and leave the faith when they leave the household, when they get to university, and these would be perceived in compatibility between faith and science, a dislike of the church's teaching on sex. So very honest there, I like that. And then the third would be purported Old Testament violence and then atrocities, right, like how could a good God command genocide and institute all these weird laws and things of that nature? So those took up a lot of the questions freshman year. Also, questions about non-Christians being saved, like what does that look like? If you're not a Christian, if you've never heard or if you've rejected, how does your eternal future look like?
Speaker 2:So questions from all over, right, about challenges to God, challenges to knowing about the past so we can even debate what happened to Jesus, and so questions all over.
Speaker 2:And then more emotional questions too, so not just intellectual questions about same sex relationships and stealing in the cafeteria, right, and it's a whole bunch of that. So lots of intellectual and emotional objections that I faced, and then I just was in this process of being sharpened, like all throughout the year. And it's really funny too, because by the end of the year I would have been able to answer most questions. Because they're not experts. I wouldn't especially at that time, but also now too wouldn't be able to go against the top atheist philosophers, but other laymen I would be able to answer most questions, right, and so I wish that I had some sort of time machine that I could go back and then I'd strike in the answers that I was given them, because it seems that I missed my window in a lot of cases, right. But that was kind of my freshman year, so it was a really, really, really fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's heavy stuff, man, I mean. So you hear all these questions, it makes you want to dig in about it. Like, were you digging into these questions from the sense of like I already know that this is not like what this person is asking me. I probably disagree with Like. I'm going to go find the answer. Like, were you solidifying what you thought you already knew, or were you trying to dig in and challenge yourself, or was it a little bit of both? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so… I think that it was. It was a little bit of both, but but it was more towards the end of solidifying right. And so I like to say, if you were to give me a button, if there were two buttons that you put in front of me, and then one of them, if I pressed it, it would either Tell me that Christianity was was false, or or or just fail, so like it wouldn't tell me anything. And then the other button, if I pressed it, it would tell me that Christianity was true, or I would fail, so wouldn't, wouldn't really learn me anything. And then said okay, you can push either one, or you could push both of them, or or not. Oh, what would you pick? Right? And I would push the button that says that I Would want to find out if Christianity was false, or or family right, because I don't want to be deluding myself here, right, if it's false, say, I want to know, right. So then I can now, you know, kind of get the most out of my finite years of existence rather than, you know, sacrifice these finite years. I'm in hopes for something greater. So that would be kind of a cool question to know.
Speaker 2:So I would press that button, but I wouldn't touch the other one, right, and the reason why is because I wouldn't want my free will to be overwhelmed, and I think that this is actually the reason why God remains largely hidden from us, right? So one of the challenges to God's existence is called the problem of hiddenness, right. So the objector would say something along the lines of it's very mysterious that, you know, god would, if he wants us to believe in him and then come to relationship with him, would, you know, have his Existence be ambiguous and to not have it be obvious and to have that stumbling block in the minds of a lot of people Not even getting over the hump of belief, let alone placing their faith in him. Right, so doesn't just seem more simple, like he doesn't exist, rather than he's playing some sort of elaborate game with us? Right? I am kind of want to steal man that argument, right, but I'm not so sure about that, actually, because God isn't interested in just having us believe in him. Right, because he could have made his existence obvious, right, he could have inscribed on the surface of every atom made by God. Right, or he could have wrote in the sky with the clouds and I exist, believe in me.
Speaker 2:But he doesn't do that, and my answer would be that he it's possible, it's genuinely possible that God may have sufficient reasons for remaining hidden, and then one of those reasons may be is that he wants to preserve our free will. Right, because if we have this notion that punishment is guaranteed If we don't accept him and then come to him, then there's a strong sense that we're going to avoid sin and then, you know, do acts of love Not for the sake of God but for the sake of punishment. Right. And so if there's a possibility that we could, you know, engage in all the pleasures and then do all of the evil, so for sins that Are in front of us and that we're faced with, and still get off scot-free at the end, but yet we still choose God, or even think about it from the other side, that God may not even exist, but we still place our faith in him. I still pray for an hour a day, I still read the scriptures, I still try to evangelize and make sacrifices, even though it may all be for nothing. I think you have a faith that's extremely beautiful in that way, because you're choosing God for the sake of God. Not even if, even though there's no guarantee of reward and you're still avoiding sin, even though there's no guarantee punishment, so possibility it's all for nothing and you still choose the good. I think that's extremely rich right and it sort of allows us for for maximum freedom. I think that our free will to an extent would be Compromised if we knew absolutely that it's heller God as our options.
Speaker 2:I think for me personally, I would be choosing a lot of this stuff because I who wants to suffer? But if you look at a lot of that, secular people right, they don't believe in hell, because why would they? There's their secular right and so they can do a lot of these things, thinking that that they'll get off scot-free and then that's. You know, that's intuitive. I would think the same thing if I was like for myself. So the idea that there is that option and alternative that may really Describe reality, that is a live option, the table that getting off scot-free or in God not existing, but you still choose holiness, is extremely, extremely rich in my view. And then that that satisfies me completely on that issue.
Speaker 2:So that's why actually I pray that I never see a miracle, because you see kind of reports of the healings, you know, and a lot of areas in the Christian world and especially in the Catholic world. And and I prayed Multiple times that I never see that because I want, whenever I do something, and especially whenever I do something, you know, super raggedy. So like going to mass every Sundays would be obligatory, but then going to mass every day would be very much super or okay, torque, right, so be commended rather than commended. But right now I'm sort of doing that completely out of my free will, out of luck, but then if I have this guarantee that that God exists and it seems to me that I would just immediately Kind of be drawn to and then feel like I have to like, I like enforced, so there is a sense where I have maximum free will with that, with there being some indigene, so that kind of sells it for me.
Speaker 1:It may not for everybody, but but I'm totally satisfied with that answer one thing I find fascinating is Enough time had people on here that that used to be Catholic or grew up Catholic.
Speaker 1:I grew up in the, the Lutheran faith LCMS, which is like Catholic light for all intents purposes.
Speaker 1:It's like pretty much Catholic, but we don't have like confessional and I there was this, always this set, and I've talked about this before on this podcast about like this sense of fear that I would have as a kid and like. I've talked with other Catholics who are now out of the Catholic faith that like also talked about this sense of fear of like you know that the heaven and hell thing, or just being just being like generally afraid of like what happens if I don't really believe this. But I've also talked with you know, like yourself, I've talked with people that are still involved with the Catholic faith to talk about the beauty of the faith, to talk about the Lovingness of God. Why do you think there's the? There's a disconnect with people that fall out of it versus people that are still in of it with, like this, the sense of beauty, but also the sense of like dread and like oh crap, like what's what's gonna happen to me if I don't actually believe this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a that's a phenomenal question. That's. That's a really, really, really interesting inquiry, and what I would say is that, you know, kind of both aspects are important, right, because God is. Is it pure love? Right, and he's pure mercy and his goodness. But he's also justice, right, and God is a perfect being. Right, that's one of the philosophical definitions of God, right, a perfect being. And then what does that mean? I like the definition of perfect being, which is that a being that possesses every great making property. So it's a greater to exist rather than to not exist. So he's got existence. Right, is a greater to be intelligent than to be unintelligent. So he's got intelligence, and to the maximum degree. Right, and so it's also greater to be just than is to be unjust, right?
Speaker 2:Nobody, when we see the video of George George Floyd's neck being Pushed into the ground, thinks that, oh, that guy who did that deserves to just walk away with no Reprocussions. Right, because that's not just, he did something evil, and so we had this sort of intuition of Retributive justice, and retributive justice says that Good deserves to be rewarded and then evil deserves to be punished. So there is absolutely a just aspect to there, but but that's, that's not the focus of the faith. Right, that's an aspect, and even the Bible talks about this right that a fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So when you're in the early stages of the spiritual life, then a lot of the sins and a lot of you know Kind of actions that we would say are evil, right, as revealed by God and as a are discoverable in the nature of man. Right, a lot of times you'll be avoiding this stuff because you don't want to go to hell. Right, and we've all Benefits like that, especially at the beginning of your spiritual life. But then, as you grow and then you mature in the faith, then love Replaces fear and then even duty and the things that you do your motivation for, for loving and for avoiding sin, is not of the avoidance of punishment, but it's done out of the desire to be in the presence of the one that you love and the one that loves you more. Right, and so I always like to say that I'm getting this from somebody else but Christianity, properly speaking, is not about saying no, it's about saying yes. It's about saying yes to something greater and then a derivative of that is saying no to the things that keep you from that, right?
Speaker 2:So I like to give the analogy of a marriage, right? So let's say you've got a Bachelor, but he's now engaged and he's about to get married, and then he's thinking, you know, I'm I kind of think this is interesting, would be cool to be in a relationship, but you know, there's a lot of downsides to, there's a lot of things I'm gonna have to say no to. I'm gonna have to say no to Every other woman I'm gonna have to say no to. All my time I'm gonna say no to, you know, being relaxed again. I'm gonna have to say no to Spending all my money on myself. I'm gonna have to say no whenever there's a cute girl I want to flirt with the office. I'm gonna have to say no to all these. You know sorts of things, right, but it's like, okay, well, if you think that, then you'll never get married, if you think of it and all the no is right.
Speaker 2:Really, fundamentally, it's about saying yes to that woman and it's about saying yes to her and giving your whole self to her in such a real way that you're gonna say no to the things that keep you from her. So which one there's the more important and is the most most fundamental, clearly the same yes. And so just as it is with a spouse, so it is with God. And then a lot of the times too in the Bible You'll see God Describe as a relationship with, with his people, in espousal imagery, right, a lover and a beloved actually. And that's a relationship between Christ and the church.
Speaker 2:Right, there's bride and groom. And so you know I'm not gonna avoid sexual sin or I'm not gonna avoid greed, or I'm not gonna avoid cheating on the exam Because I'm spirit punishment, right. I'm not gonna view Christianity and then the fight for holiness through that lens. I'm gonna view it through the lens of God, desires a relationship with me and has paid the ultimate price for me and is Working every single day to reconcile me to himself and to invite me into an everlasting friendship of love. That's the object of my focus, not the sin. And so Christianity is fundamentally about saying yes and not about saying no. And so I think that if more people understood that, then I think we would have we'd be leaving a lot better places as a church and then individual souls would be in a lot better place too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fair. That's fair as you're going through, like the beginning of this spiritual journey, your researching questions that you're getting, you know, hit left and right at 5 am on the the freshman dorm floor, was what was surprising. Like, like, as your, as your researching, like, what did anything stand out of? Like well, it wasn't expected in that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so I'll also answer a question that you didn't ask. Like what? Yeah, no, thank you. Like what stood out among the people asking the questions and what really, really, really stood out to me was the fact that most of these people and you know there's a pretty representative group there, so I would like to generalize this the rest of the population too but that while they won't usually initiate conversations of religion right, it's a topic that you know they want to avoid most cases Once you start with them, they'll be interested and they'll want to talk.
Speaker 2:And that's really really cool, because there were guys who I talked with for months that we religion never would have came up yet, and then so I would think, oh, it's not a big person, big part of this person's life, or this person has never thought about it, or or really, fundamentally, they don't care about it. But they'll sit and I'll talk with them for hours. So they have this sort of innate capacity in them and this innate interest in the things of the supernatural realm of reality, right, the things of God. They have this desire and this interest, even if it's sort of lurking below the surface, and so maybe that suggests that people are a lot of people are kind of stuffing us in because they don't want to think about it, and so that's why I really, really applaud the non-believers who do think about this stuff. Right, and a lot of times, just because you're not a theist doesn't mean it's because you haven't thought about these answers, right. There are people, I think, that agnosticism is very, very reasonable. I think that one can reasonably be an agnostic. I would not call them irrational for that and so you can absolutely have reasons for not thinking. This is obviously true, something like that, right? And so I was really, really surprised to see that people who would never initiate a conversation and would have never talked about it, at least in front of me, would then be really, really interested once the conversation gets going and pepper you with questions. And so that was really cool, because you wouldn't see that with most issues, right, if you would start talking about some theory in physics not to say that that doesn't have any merits or value or is it important, but they'd be uninterested.
Speaker 2:But religion is something that's interesting to everybody, right, once you get it going, because it's so relevant to their experience, right, there's no question that's more relevant to the human experience than does God exist? Because that controls all of the fundamental questions of life. Right, questions of origin, right, where did I come from? Identity, who am I Meaning, what's the purpose of all this? Morality, what's right and wrong. And then destiny where am I going? And if you notice that all five of those questions are connected to the existence of God whether or not God exists, right, and so everybody should be interested in this, and then I think everybody is, once you get them going right.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of what shocked me most in talking to people. What shocked me the most with researching was that you can have really smart people on both sides, right, and so you watch some of these debates and then both of the guys are geniuses. Very clearly, both of them are really superior intellects and have both come to opposite conclusions in a lot of ways, and so that was really fascinating to see that really smart people can be found on both sides. But what's also fascinating as well about research was that usually the people making the most extreme cases were the people who were the least educated, and the people who were the most educated would make somewhat nuanced claims. So when you see like an internet or Reddit atheist saying there's no evidence for God, or that Jesus is just a myth, that Jesus actually never existed, and then all these sorts of extreme claims. They tend to be very uneducated people because the scholars don't say that, right. I mean your average atheist philosopher who understands what he's talking about.
Speaker 2:So atheist philosophers of religion especially so philosophers of religion study, you know the arguments for and against the existence of God and sort of wearing the merits of both. And you look at these people like Graham Athe is the number one atheist philosopher in the world. He's from Australia, end up. These are important books criticizing theism, but even he writes repeatedly that theism is rational, that it's plausibly true. There's another agnostic what is an agnostic philosopher? Named Joe Schmidt. He's going to be a student at Princeton and he recently remarked that he's 50-50, that he thinks that the evidence for and against God counterbalance each other, right. There's another agnostic philosopher named Philip Goff, and he's made statements implying that he thinks it's 50-52, that there's strong evidence on both sides, right?
Speaker 2:So you see, on one hand you have your red atheist saying that there's no evidence, there's nothing religious. People are deluding themselves. And then the most educated people are saying no, there's actually. This is possibly true, there is a case to be made. I mean, I personally don't buy it, but there's a strong case to be made. And you do see the same thing on the other side too. Right, you talk to.
Speaker 2:You know some people at church. They might be extremely arrogant and thinking that, oh God, this isn't just so obvious. Like look around, look how beautiful the world is, but no, there's. There could be other explanations too. Like, maybe that's the most probable, but there are others too. And so just kind of be more modest in the claims that you make them. The more educated one is. I think that they'll realize that there is a real debate here and not to say you can't be confident in your convictions. So I'm confident that God's existence is much more probable than his non-existence. Like, I'm confident in that. But I'm not going to say that if you disagree, that you're irrational. I think there is to be. There is a case to be made against that as well. So that's also what surprised me. So a lot of surprises on this journey, right?
Speaker 1:That's wow. That's awesome. Yeah, just the nuance behind. Well, first of all, you're saying that I shouldn't get my theology from Reddit. Is that what we're getting?
Speaker 2:at here, that would be sound advice.
Speaker 1:The Reddit atheist. I love that, but yeah, it's kind of you can take that mold and place it in anything that disagreements happen, whether it's politics. I like to talk about sports a lot. I just had an argument with a buddy today because there's a big trade that happened in the NBA where Dame Lillard has come into the box and we're debating the merits of that and we're both dumb when we're taking a really, really like entrenched side and the nuance is important and it's okay that you don't know something and I really like that. You were able to find that along the way. So that was surprising for you that there were scholars out there that maybe don't believe in God that are smart. Is that what the conclusion was?
Speaker 2:Or I would say that the conclusion was that there is twofold One, that there's extremely smart people on both sides of the debate, and then two that the most educated people will tend to be more nuanced and the people who make the most extreme claims tend to have less education.
Speaker 1:Got it? No, it makes no sense. So this idea of faith is always fascinating to me, of if, like I remember so, my dad was a pastor growing up and if we got to a point where he wasn't able to answer a question, it was like, well, you have to have faith. Was that ever troubling for you at all? Like going through this and like trying like, because, like you said, you were talking earlier about how, like, there is this sense of unknown almost, but at the same time it's almost. I forget how you phrase it. You're a lot more well spoken than I am, but did that ever come up of like faith being the answer? Like that, that is the endpoint versus like the answer. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no man, you ask amazing questions. That's why you're the interviewer here. I would say we didn't as much. I didn't get that as much coming up, you know, as as a Catholic in these last two years, because the Catholic Church is, I think, very, very unique among the Christian denominations and among really all religious traditions. I mean, you see this a little bit with Islam for a significant portion of their history, which is very admirable, but especially with Catholicism, you see a fantastic intellectual tradition, like all the way back to the beginning, with the Church fathers, people like Oregon and Tertullian, and moving to Augustine and Anselm and Thomas Aquinas and Don Scotis, and then all the way up to now, right, and there's many, many great thinkers in between as well. I mean you just see a tradition that's preceded us for 2000 years of just some of the smartest men who have ever walked the earth believing this and then developing this doctrine, and so that's the framework that we're looking at faith from Right. So Saint Anselm had a great quote where he said that ours, talking about Christianity, is a faith seeking understanding. I believe it was Anselm who said that. So we want to understand this, we want to be rational about this, because, ultimately, if God exists, then all truth is God's truth, whether it's coming from Neil deGrasse Tyson or from a preacher on the street, right, it's true, it's coming from God, and truth can't contradict itself. And so reveal the truth from God in the scriptures can't contradict truth that we discover in nature, right In the, in the universe, and then the created around right, and so we see them as kind of two sides of the same coin of truth. Part of it we're going to be discovering and part of it is going to be revealed, right, so there's the pool of data and there's the divinely revealed data, and then there's the data that we discover through science and then philosophy and then other forms of acquiring information. And so I would say I didn't get that as much from a Catholic sphere just because we want to be able to explain most things. Some things we're going to say are mysterious, like, I'm sure you know, the Trinity right.
Speaker 2:The idea that God is three persons in one being is something that's so, so unique right To Christianity. I mean because it seems counterintuitive at first glance, like why not just say three beings, right, it's one first one being, like that's. That's a lot more simpler and that's what everybody else has said, like almost everybody has said multiple beings, and then some people said one being right, especially the Jews, christians and Muslims, right, but then the Christian is saying, yes, one being, but in three persons. That's extremely, extremely mysterious. It's not absurd, right, but it's mysterious, right.
Speaker 2:And people have come up with some sort of, you know, explanations for it, like you could say that, well, you could reason to God's essence being love itself, right, so God is love itself, and whenever you have a genuine instance of love, then three things are required there needs to be a lover, a beloved, and then there's the shared relationship between the two, and so we could think of, you know, the father being a lover, the son being the beloved, and then their relationship of love would be the Holy Spirit, kind of proceeding from those two, right, and so, you know, that's one explanation you could think of. I mean, that's certainly not dogmatic, that's something that's very kind of a technical and then up in the air and then should be debated, but so you can kind of reason to some of these things. But, yeah, there is absolutely mystery, right. And then, even when we think about the word faith, right, like people nowadays use the word faith as sort of like a leap, when there's no evidence, there's not reasons for this, and so I need to take a leap of faith, right?
Speaker 2:But when you look at how faith is used biblically, it's used more like trust, right? So it's trusting. And then that trust can be based on evidence or not based on evidence, right? And so I would say that for us it's going to be both. I think that, yeah, there are reasons why thinking why you should think that God exists, and then there are reasons to think that he has decisively revealed himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, that this is God's revelation and gift to humanity. But it's far from clear, it's far from obvious, not settled, and then so there is an element of ambiguity and then mystery, and then that's also the point of faith is trusting what you can't see or infront of. And then even Jesus says in the Gospel of John blessed are those who have believed, even when they have not seen you, right. So there is absolutely an aspect of trust in that way.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, growing up in the church, no one's described the Trinity that way. I mean that makes sense to me. The love comparison, so that's well stated. What has been? So we're going to kind of switch gears here. What was, if any, the reaction from family that you were like, for all intents and purposes, jumping in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's yeah, yeah, right Again, someでは. For now, I think there's an element of not understanding as much just because when you're on the outside, and I was on the outside for most of my life.
Speaker 2:A lot of it can seem kind of crazy because it's foreign to you, but that doesn't necessarily discredit it, because if you're on the outside of the scientific community and then you see a lot of the stuff that's said in the theoretical physics about how they kind of describe what fundamental material reality looks like, it can seem really, really wacky at first glance, but then when you're in it and you've been learning it and you know all the language, and then you see the reasons why they're saying this, and then it seems a lot more reasonable.
Speaker 2:So I think when you're on the outside and when you just haven't really engaged with something, then it is gonna seem kind of weird, right. And so I'd say that my family, they're not upset, right, that I've gone on this path, that I'm doing my best to seek God and to respond to God's love for me. But I think they're kind of at the stage where, like you know, it's fine for him but it's not really something for us, like I can put forwards in their mouth. So, yeah, not angry but not really fully understanding, but being fully supportive, right. Like, I'm allowed to go to church when I go back home, I'm allowed to go to the chapel to pray, and so I'd say supportive, just not fully understanding, right, which is fine. So to continue to pray for them and to lead a life of love and joy, so they can see what an authentic Christian looks like.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, I mean it's. That's an okay place to be. I guess for them, right Is like to not really fully understand it. But you know, you, do you, you do you for lack of a better words, and we'll do us, and you know, maybe they'll come around to you or you know you. Just that's how it is for the time being, but that's great. I'm glad that they're supportive of that. I think that's important. What? So? We talked a little bit about in the beginning the interfaith fellowship program that you're involved in at UW, essentially what that is. I don't know if I really described that as that we have people from different faiths that are coming together, and I think there's like a three prong approach of like what do people believe, understanding what other people believe and then experiencing what other people believe. What are you looking to get out of it? Or what's exciting about this journey for you? Of like talking with your peers that don't believe exactly what you believe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I've kind of noticed things so far in the fellowship there's maybe gonna be like some sort of risks between me and then some of the others, right, when you've kind of studied this like in depth right In certain areas, and I'd say there's two main things that I'd like to contribute to the group and then there's some things I'd like to get out of it too. So with respect to the contributions, I wanna shatter stereotypes of Christians, right. And so what are two stereotypes of Christians right, kind of broadly speaking, especially among young people? Well, one, they're bigoted, and then two, that they're unintelligent, right. So you know, like on the bigoted side, like you'll see signs we unfortunately just saw this a week ago in Madison, right Guys with signs saying like all these different types of groups are just automatically going to hell. You know, it's funny too, cause they had Catholics on there. They're like good people sports fanatics right.
Speaker 2:People like all these other religions, like they're all going to hell, and there's not the signs they weren't here, you know, this past week, but everybody see the signs. That says, like God hates gays and stuff like that. And so people using their religion as sort of like a blunt object to hit people with, is, you know, the impression that a lot of people get. And then on the other side, you know you've got people again a lot of times, the fundamental looks right, but you see people denying, you know, the fruits of modern science, whether that's from biology, right, insisting on a special creation or insisting that the world is 6,000 years old or something like that. So both of these have, you know, fostered an environment where the gospel is seen as a sort of logical absurdity that no thinking man or woman could possibly believe this. And so I want to go into the fellowship and to the people that we interact with as a fellowship and then show them what an intelligent and then hopefully loving Christian looks like. Right, cause I think that you know we're not like that, like we're all sinful. I sin, you know, absolutely. I'm not perfect that was just in confession the other day but I'm not, you know, as villainous as those people right, like my goal is my goals are not nefarious, like I'm going to fall short of my goals, but I do think that they are. I'm holy and then through the grace of God, I think, you know, admirable in a lot of cases, right, even though I fell short every single day. So I want to kind of show them what authentic Christianity can look like when somebody's actually trying, not when somebody's perfect, because I know it means perfect and I want to be, but I think that most days then I do try to be holy. So I want to show them what that looks like. And then I do want to contribute to a functioning democracy, right, because we want to approach the world not as we would like it to be, but how it is right. And then most people don't believe what I believe, and so I would like everybody to come to a relationship with Christ. That's that's, that's my goal, and then that's that's God's goal as well. God says that he is not willing that any should perish, but that all might reach repentance and faith. So God's will is universal salvation. Now, that's that's ultimately not achieved out of human free will, but but God is desperately pursuing every individual soul desperately and then has poured out himself on a cross when he took out, when he took on human flesh for their sake. Right, so that they can be reconciled with God for each person, as if they were the only person to ever exist. Right, and so that's something that's that's so beautiful and that's worth fighting for. And but, but not everybody believes that right. So we still need to to get along with society and still need to make progress in other ways too. Right, whether that's scientifically or politically or sociologically, and so I want to contribute broadly to more social cohesion in that aspect too. So that's what I want to contribute to the group. Right.
Speaker 2:And then, in terms of getting out of it, I'd like to learn about these other traditions. Right, because you know there's thousands of religions, not only the major, of course, but you can't learn all of them. But when you do have an opportunity to learn it, I think it can, you know, reaffirm you in your own beliefs or open you up to somebody else's, and either one of those things is good. Right, if you think that, if you're even more convinced that what you have is the truth, then you'll appreciate it more. But if you see that, okay, something else may be true too, something else may be good and beautiful, then you'll be open to that. So I think there's no harm that can be done from learning right. I mean, the pursuit of knowledge is one of the most virtuous things that a man can do, and so there's there's only good that can, that can come from that. I think, right, that's awesome. If it's genuine knowledge and pursuit, I think that only good can come from.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I think that's, you know, shattering the stereotypes. That's that's interesting phrase, cause I mean, I, you know you go on on TikTok or Instagram reels or whatever and, like you just see ignorance a lot of times, and obviously I think you mentioned it before of, like, political video is going to get more clicks than a religious one, but the religious ones a lot of times it's talking about people that are idiots, that are just talking like dumb stuff. So I think it's really cool when you meet people that are, you know, really entrenched in it, like like yourself, and have this faith, that still have that want and desire to not only learn about their own faith but also learn about other faiths, like, like you said that the how could that hurt anything? If anything, it's going to make your faith stronger, I would assume, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they make it make me appreciate it more too. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, what's like in the future for you Like? So we were recently Catholic. We're in this interfellowship program. What like? What do you want to continue on like with religious theology as like part of a career? Like, what do you want to do with all this stuff that you're learning?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I'd say, you know, I'm still kind of figuring that out. So I would say I've my plan has been to go into to business for a long time and you know you can, you can do good work anywhere.
Speaker 2:Right and then you know, the cool thing too is that we're even secular work, so like working for Amazon, right, or, you know, working at a car company right, even if it's not work, that's sort of explicitly Christian based right on secular work, if done in Christ, right, if you're doing it out of love and if you're doing it for you know God's sake, and it can actually be just as valuable in the eyes of God as ministry that's undertaken explicitly for him.
Speaker 2:And so there's always opportunities to do things out of love, like anything. All types of work have dignity, right. And then work itself is holy because it's like you're you're participating in imitating God's active creation, because that involved work, and so you're participating in that right and that sort of creative grace. And so I would say that all types of work are holy and there's opportunities to evangelize in the workplace and to show people what, what the love of Christ looks like. And so I was able to talk about my faith and some of my internships right in previous summers and and then that's led to me getting lunch with employees to talk about faith and that's led to other employees coming up and asking questions to write. And so there's opportunities everywhere to to love, serve and know God. And to love your neighbor as you love yourself right Love it, love it.
Speaker 1:What does so? This is a final question what didn't? And, by the way, this is my wife's question. I can never take credit for this. She always tells me to ask this and I never do, and I just remembered it. What didn't we talk about? Or what didn't? I ask that you wanted to share, that you wish that we had talked about. Wonderful question. She's a wonderful woman.
Speaker 2:I would. I would say just to consider the great questions of life. Right, because it's really easy, with the society that we live in today, to really kind of distract yourself with, with things that are a lot of times goods within themselves but what are not the highest good. Right, and so you know you can. There's great TV shows out there, there are really funny videos and tick tock. There are great destinations to travel to right, but there's so much to do.
Speaker 2:Right, and Western society, there's so many kind of things that can distract you from the deep questions that that everybody should be engaged with, whether or not your theist. Right, because, you know, imagine if you found that the world was going to end in an hour. You wouldn't, you know, sit and play video games. You would be really thinking about God's existence, and then I would say that, well, our 80 year lifetimes, or 75 years or whatever it is, is close to an hour, comparable to an hour. On the times, again, times, times, scale of infinity.
Speaker 2:Right, so you should be living your life that way to not not out of fear again, not out of fear but out of genuine curiosity and then mystery. Right, and having a spirit that that is adventurous and that that wants to know the truth and that wants to know goodness, wants to know beauty, right, those are called the transcendentals because they transcend all the different types of being, but, but also because they transcend cultures to, like, every culture has has saw you know what, what's true, how do we describe reality and what's good, and then what's beautiful, right? And then I think that we're at an interesting place right now where we're not really concerned about those questions, where we're really kind of going down the path of of some of my pleasure seeking. Right where I'm, you know where we're binge watching TV shows or sitting on tiktok for two hours, or you know we're going to be watching five basketball games a row on Saturday, like, like. Why not just one?
Speaker 1:like five and well, there's five of them.
Speaker 2:I got to watch all there right now, but all this kind of stuff you can really kind of and then like movies and TV shows again, these are all the good things, so, but but they're not, you know, the object of our attention. So the question is like what, what is the greatest thing that we can expect from our existence, right, is it going to be something that's finite, or is it going to be something that's infinite? And we all acknowledge, right, but you know, logically, infinity is greater, and so we should really be contemplating that and really trying to get to the truth and then get to what's good and beautiful, right? And then I would add this really quickly, that I'm philosophers of knowledge, right, they talk about something called, so they're called epistemologists, like philosophers of knowledge, and they make a distinction between epistemic justification for a belief and then pragmatic justification for a belief. And epistemic justification concerns the truth, value of a belief. So is your belief true or false, basically? And then pragmatic justification, on the other hand, concerns sort of the cost and benefits of holding belief. So does your belief have more benefits than it does costs? Right, and both it need to be considered when you think about very important questions, and so I would say that we should really, really, really want Christianity to be true.
Speaker 2:I think that this is the most beautiful message ever, right, the idea that the God of all creation, the people who we get on our knees for, the people who we talk about serving all day and worshiping the literally the person that we worship is going to flip the script and then actually serve us and suffer for us, like nobody else dares to say that God suffers for humanity.
Speaker 2:And you see kind of small teachings of that and like some other religions, but a lot of times they're openly mythology or they're just trying to be symbolic or like give some sort of message to our illustration to demonstrate that God would love us, right. But but this is God actually tangibly suffering for us, god shedding blood for us, and it doesn't get more beautiful than that, right. And so I would say that we shouldn't want to demand absolute proof, right. We shouldn't want to demand something beyond a reasonable doubt or to demand there be no questions left. At the end of this, I'd say that the continuous pursuit of truth is virtuous and then is mysterious and then fulfilling, and so I would say that just kind of way, both right way, the evidence as well. As you know, questions of the heart as well, and what, what you think the deepest desires of your heart are. And it's oftentimes not going to be the things of the world, but it is going to be to be loved infinitely and without any sort of bounds.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's what I got no, I love that well stated dude. This conversation was awesome. You're a smart dude and I learned a lot. I have a lot of things to look up and and research for myself. I have a lot of things I need to look up in the dictionary because he's a lot of big words today, which is great, but I really appreciate you coming on and spending an hour or so just talking and wish you all the best in the school year and hopefully you'll be.
Speaker 2:You'll be on to bigger and better things after, after this next year thank you very much and I so appreciate what you're doing kind of letting people experience and kind of expose and all the facts on both sides and to let them make a decision and to help them think about these things in a serious way, and so I wish you the best of luck on your own journey. As well enough, he served in the community, I think that if God does exist, which I think he does.
Speaker 2:I think he'd be happy with what you're doing.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that man, and go bucking. By the way, let's not forget about bucking right. Take care, see you face again. To James for coming on and for the uninitiated. Bucky is the UW mascot and he is a badger. Next week we'll be talking to another one of the fellows from the interfaith program at UW, so make sure to tune in next Thursday. You.
