The Insanity in Belief and Unbelief

A friend asked that I contribute to a conversation about Bill Gates semi-religious comments. The billionaire (by USD standards) effused about attending Catholic masses with the rest of the family but stopped short of strong involvements in religious commitments saying science had explained most of the appeal to religious doctrines away. He however conceded that there still were some deep realities that suggest the supernatural.

In the piece stating Gates' views was an explanation about how it takes a level of sanity to completely appreciate both the physical and beyond (metaphysical or supernatural). In doing that the author concluded that anyone who doesn't allow for that duality (physical and beyond physical) exhibits a qualified insanity. I say 'qualified' to discountenance our normal view of "roaming-the-street-mad" that the concept of insanity conjures in the mind. The sense implied here is insanity of taking only one part of a dual-existence as the whole.

By the time I was invited, said friend had already engaged a couple of his own friends who were atheists, I believe. I'd leave the direction in which the discourse was going to your imagination. But below, you can (if you choose to) read my reply. Pardon the length.

Here:

I admire you and your tireless efforts at bridging the lacuna between belief and unbelief. I used to be that way for a while, back in the days. Fired with the proofs drawn from logic and rationed scientific disputations of the School of Aquinas, I engaged those whose foundational principles negated God's existence burying it under the rubbles of other fantastical man-made theories and beliefs. I confronted all sorts, from the religiously agnostic to the downright atheist.

And I saw that process drag. I felt it drain all parties and impinge on the warmth of friendships. And it became clear. I was estranging them the harder I tried. I wasn't succeeding in changing their perspectives. Rather, I was expanding that lacuna. They were never going to budge irrespective of the strength of my arguments. I wasn't going to concede an inch despite the historical exactitude of their positions. I didn't see their facts, they didn't see my proofs. There existed no common grounds from whence to begin to reach a convergence.

Nothing gave.

I remembered an old legal maxim I'd committed to memory. "You cannot argue with someone who denies the first principles." It applied as much to me as it did to them.

Theretofore, I abruptly stopped. Every once in a while I engage in friendly banter about faith and religion but those heavy disputations are behind me now. My belief and faith are at an all-time high. It's matured concretely and still going strong. I have some shared values with some atheists than I have with some of the 21st century Christians. And I'm at peace with that. Not everyone who cries, "Lord, Lord..."

I'd end by rephrasing words from an ad that used to run back then about an alcoholic brand. "My friend Udeme is an 'insane' man. But there's a piece of 'insanity' in all of us." As there's a light of wisdom in us too. I don't know what you call it. It is the spark of divinity. For me.