Intellect verses Conscience

In an article written for the Los Angeles Times titled “How many really don’t believe in God?” John Allen Paulo, who is a mathematics professor for Temple University in Philadelphia, contends that there are more atheists and agnostics in the United States than most would believe there to be. He takes a percentage approach when it comes to reporting the numbers, which I believe makes the truth sound worse, or better, than it is.

In his article, Paulo uses a poll that was conducted by the Pew Forum on the religious landscape of America. Two thousand randomly picked people were asked questions of their faith and of their beliefs in God. One particular question asked, “…whether they would disapprove of a child’s wish to marry an atheist?” Roughly 952 of the 2000 polled said “yes”. Although this number sounds low in my opinion, I had to ask where this poll was taken and in what context the inquiry was given.

Upon study of the location in question, I learned that the 2006 survey was from the University of Minnesota. Upon visiting the web site for the university, I quickly came to the understanding that the University of Minnesota supports, rather strongly, “an equitable and welcoming environment for people of diverse gender and sexual identities and expressions…”. There are multiple links to gay and lesbian student help sites and housing. One link even discussed how the university strives to work against all forms of oppression. For me this was a disturbing discovery. To poll a university that prides itself on sexual diversity and expressions of such practices, on subjects of religious matter seems rather dubious. Not to mention that Paulo uses surveys that throw the argument in his direction. I am certain there are comparable surveys that have been conducted elsewhere that would indicate a different outcome.

The second question posed to the respondents asked if they would disapprove if their child wanted to marry a Muslim or black person. The numbers respectively went down on this question, but I fail to see how this inquiry has anything to do with believing in God. This is more of a racial question than a religious one, and I believe he was simply stretching for some more statically supporting references.

Let’s visit the idea of the unbelief of God. I believe that when we discuss the choice of atheist or agnostic stances, we are dealing strictly with the intellectual side of the argument. Believing in a God you cannot see or touch goes beyond intellectual reasoning and enters the area of the conscience. Humans have a great gift (or curse) of explaining away anything they don’t understand. We present arguments as to why we should or shouldn’t believe in something, then stand firmly by our decision as though our life depended on it.

By reading Paulo’s article, I can clearly see that he has only dealt with the intellectual side of the issue of religion, and has failed to enter the conscience where our moral and ethical values reside. I do not recall it being written anywhere in the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt use only your brain and not your conscience. Paulo writes, “Some non-believers, it seems to me, are likely either to lie and say they belong to some established creed or to fudge their responses by saying they’re spiritual and believe in a nebulously defined God or are simply unsure.” As I read this statement, I got the mental picture of the intellect doing all the speaking and the conscience yelling out, HEY DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME! Other than the guilt they feel about ignoring their conscience, why else would people feel the need to lie about their belief or lack there of?

To summarize what I have learned from this article, allow me to say the following. There is no doubt in my mind that Paulo is a highly intelligent individual who desires to know all he can and use his gift of mathematics to help people understand what can be explained by numbers. However, to use this simple solution on an entity that is beyond understanding seems foolish. One can only begin to grasp who God is and decide for themselves if he exists, when they allow their heart to join in the discussion and balance out what the intellect has to offer. God created us with both a mind and a conscience for a reason. We can either allow fractions and percentages to decide our eternity; or we can use our whole being, which God designed, to help us discover the gospel truth.