{"id":4515,"date":"2006-02-17T09:19:09","date_gmt":"2006-02-17T09:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/who-needs-god.html"},"modified":"2006-02-17T09:19:09","modified_gmt":"2006-02-17T09:19:09","slug":"who-needs-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/who-needs-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Who Needs God?"},"content":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from a new book<\/a> and an interview with its author, over at Godspy:<\/a><\/p>\n

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\n

I noticed that in your book you take on objections to Christianity that fall into two categories: One, political\/historical issues\u2014the Crusades, Inquisition, elements of sexual politics such as feminism and homosexuality. And two, existential questions\u2014<\/strong>the "why" of human suffering, the question of Hell, the emptiness of a life lived without meaning or the hope of meaning. Which sorts of objections do you find are most prevalent and powerful now?<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

I think it completely depends on to whom you are talking. Some people just want to rehearse their grievances about history and complain about how terrible God is, but aren’t really interested in hearing about who God really is. But I know that a lot of people really do have a hunger, and they bring up all of these objections because they really do want answers. I was like that. I was dying to get answers to all of these questions. I wanted someone to justify the ways of God to me. <\/span><\/p>\n

How convincing do you find Pascal’s wager? To me, it has always been the best argument\u2014<\/span><\/strong>the most practical and convincing….<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Is Pascal still trotting out that old chestnut? You’d think he’d get a new one by now. Ha. But seriously, I’m not sure what I think of Pascal’s wager. I think most people aren’t necessarily looking for logical arguments. That’s part of it, but they want more … they want to get the bigger picture. Logical arguments for God are important, but some people simply are unmoved by them, as I think I was back when. I wanted to see God, to taste and smell and feel and touch him. I wanted to encounter him. Of course people encounter God in different ways, but he created us, so he knows how to talk to each one of us. The question is, Are we open to him communicating with us? That’s what we have to worry about.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from a new book and an interview with its author, over at Godspy: I noticed that in your book you take on objections to Christianity that fall into two categories: One, political\/historical issues\u2014the Crusades, Inquisition, elements of sexual politics such as feminism and homosexuality. And two, existential questions\u2014the "why" of human suffering, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWho Needs God? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/who-needs-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who Needs God? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An excerpt from a new book and an interview with its author, over at Godspy: I noticed that in your book you take on objections to Christianity that fall into two categories: One, political\/historical issues\u2014the Crusades, Inquisition, elements of sexual politics such as feminism and homosexuality. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}