What leads to atheism?

Katie van Schaijik | Mar 22, 2013

Today I'm ruminating on a fascinating psychological profile of atheists linked by a facebook friend. 

I'm thinking about

1) the importance of relationships, especially in families, and the problem of alienation: the shut heart

2) the importance of gender difference, and the particular gift women are supposed to be for men

3) the problem of exaggerated value placed on intelligence, and the under appreciation of the role of the emotions in human life

I'm thinking about all this in relation to Jules' Person class tonight.  His subject is the heart and the emotions.  We've both been thinking and talking a lot about this passage from Pope Francis' inaugural homily on the Feast of St. Joseph:

Here I would add one more thing: caring, protecting, demands goodness, it calls for a certain tenderness. In the Gospels, Saint Joseph appears as a strong and courageous man, a working man, yet in his heart we see great tenderness, which is not the virtue of the weak but rather a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love. We must not be afraid of goodness, of tenderness!

I become daily more convinced of the importance of personalism for helping our sick society.