I’m not sure if this is the correct thread but here goes anyway…

No one will be surprised to discover that there is a substantial  atheist/skeptic and Christian apologetics presence on the YouTube.  Each community seems genuinely unaware of how they mirror one another even though they constantly feed off each other’s output.   If some prominent believer deconverts then he/she suddenly appears on all the atheist/skeptic channels and if some prominent skeptic converts, well vice versa. 

Recently one of the most prominent YouTube skeptics, Joe Schmid, who runs the ** you do not have permission to see this link ** channel, revealed that he has (re)converted to Catholicism.   Schmid is a graduate student in philosophy at Princeton so he had a certain cachet amongst skeptics.  But he has not moved to an arid desiccated intellectual’s form of belief. No, he has gone full tilt Lourdes –  Fatima – God exists. Christ is Lord. Embrace Rome.  

** you do not have permission to see this link ** 

While I watched this my heart leapt up in a kind of absurd joy.   It wasn’t his long study of the Deep Scholastics.  Nor a consideration of the musings of the Church Fathers.  Not Aquinas.  Joe was converted because of the miracles.   Of course he couches it in terms of evidence and analysis.  Proofs, testimonies, etc.  Even now he retains the modern believer’s deference to science.  He can’t just admit he prefers living in a magical world where water turns to wine and people walk on water.   

The blogosphere is all aquiver.   Once you watch this vid doubtless your YT feed will be full of it.   Watch as much as you can stand.  I get less and less interested.

I’ll let Joe tell his own story.  And I’ll forgo the opportunity to psychoanalyze him from afar.  

What fascinates me is that it seems to confirm a perception I’ve had for some time.  There is a key to our souls that can only be unlocked by a precise procession of complex processes that partake of but largely bypass the rational component of our brains.  (A component that is after all only a small part of our brains and rather late in the evolutionary process.)  The rationalizations and justifications come afterwards.  Joe has promised an upcoming long-form vid that will break down his conversion process. Over time his philosophical thinking will be ordered to fit his new found perspective.  All will be well.

Now don’t think I count myself superior.  I judge not.  As I have commented about my pastor friend.  I could have easily been him. 

I don’t believe in God.  But then I don’t believe in much of anything.  I accept that some things are extremely likely.  Some things are possible.  Much is unknown.   As Heraclitus pointed out so long ago – πάντα ῥεῖ panta rhei – All is flow.   

But I can see that this is not a natural way of thinking.  Science leaves us in state of epistemological doubt.  Can we build a civilization based on doubt?  I suspect not.  And the conclusions of science are often not to our liking.  There is an old unconscious prejudice I think.  That when we penetrate to the heart of things,  to the center out of which all things grow, we must find it transcendent and glorious.  But just because we like an idea doesn’t mean it’s true.  And just because we find an idea repellant doesn’t mean it’s false.   

Perhaps we will shrink back from the revelations of science, chief of which is perpetual uncertainty, and seek peace and safety in some new confidence, some fresh assurance, where convictions find fertile soil in which to grow.   And if it feeds our souls who can say this is an altogether bad thing? 

I remember Alexander Pushkin’s line 

«Тьмы низких истин мне дороже
Нас возвышающий обман…»