Atheism to Catholicism A Professor’s Journey Out of Nihilism | Prof J Budziszewski 

Please God keep the Dominicans safe...our Church needs them more now than ever.

Thank you for this talk. One of those gems found buried in the rock face of RU-vid.

This guy should do more talks.

This was incredibly moving and a brilliant talk, Thankyou!

Budziszewski is an incredible speaker for your series - thank you. However, please fix the audio situation for the speakers so that these great talks can reach more people. I'm sure if you look at your video analytics for these, they'll show a quick drop-off at the beginning because of the audio.

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🎨 Artist William Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress" paintings depict a dissolute person's downfall. 00:30 🌌 The speaker's journey to Catholic faith is described as a downward progression, paralleling the art series. 01:10 🌟 By the grace of God, the speaker recovered and returned to abandoned Christian faith. 01:38 🕊️ The speaker's journey led to eventually becoming part of the Catholic Church. 03:46 🌍 The speaker believes in a universal moral code shared across cultures. 05:53 🔥 The speaker describes his internal struggles between faith and materialistic views. 08:43 🧠 The speaker's conflict between faith and materialism intensified due to his scientific pursuits. 12:10 📚 The speaker's intellectual pride and the atmosphere of his life obscured his belief in God. 15:02 ❓ The speaker delves into practical atheism and agnosticism, trying to deny God's existence. 18:10 🧐 The speaker reflects on the inconsistency of agnosticism and how it involves its own theology. 19:02 🤥 The speaker delves into self-deception and how it leads to denial of God and objective moral law. 22:05 🧠 The speaker embraces nihilism, viewing himself and the world as mechanistic and devoid of meaning. 25:02 🧠 The speaker questions the reliability of beliefs without free will, leading to doubt about God's ability to make Himself known. 26:20 🧠 Practical atheism is prevalent in modern universities, where belief in God is tolerated but not seen as impactful. 27:44 🧠 The speaker's reasoning about free will becomes incoherent, leading to self-doubt and idolization of self. 32:08 🧠 Agony doesn't automatically lead to a return to faith; it takes a journey of relearning, feeling, and thinking. 39:42 🧠 Realizing the existence of evil leads the speaker to acknowledge the existence of good and the implications of their interrelation. 44:01 🧠 The speaker's return to Christianity precedes their eventual journey into Catholicism. 46:21 🧠 The concept of the Church's unity and authority becomes a crucial factor in the speaker's decision to embrace Catholicism. 48:12 🧠 The intellectual virtue of obedience plays a role in accepting Catholic doctrine before fully understanding it. 49:55 🕊️ Cradle Catholics find encouragement from those who convert to Catholicism, as it validates their faith journey and the discovery of the Catholic faith. 50:09 🛡️ The Catholic faith brings a sense of completeness, with all the missing pieces of the speaker's faith falling into place, especially through the sacraments which offer pathways of grace. 50:39 🏠 Analogously, joining the Catholic Church is like moving from a cottage on the outskirts of a palace to finally stepping inside the palace itself, experiencing a profound sense of belonging. 51:06 🐺 The hunger for God's grace is compared to a wolf in one's stomach, which finds fulfillment in participating in the sacramental meal, especially in the Eucharist, which prefigures the heavenly feast. 51:50 🌟 The speaker's journey back to faith showcases the idea that genuine faith can be lost and regained, reflecting his belief in the possibility of losing salvation and experiencing the mercy of God's redemption. 53:20 🌊 Deconstruction and reconstruction trends within evangelicalism mirror historical shifts in Protestant mainline churches, with some embracing deconstruction and moving away from traditional beliefs. 54:03 📖 "Scripture alone" (sola scriptura) can be misinterpreted to exclude apostolic tradition, leading to a literalist approach that projects cultural ideas onto the Bible, which can distort true meanings. 55:31 🙏 Projective accommodation occurs when individuals impose their desired beliefs onto scripture, thinking they find it there, which can lead to a distortion of religious doctrine. 56:55 🌀 The speaker observes that evangelical churches experiencing deconstruction may follow a trajectory similar to the historical mainline Protestant churches. 58:55 ✝️ The speaker identifies the attraction to Catholicism among young evangelicals as stemming from a desire for truth, deeper liturgical experiences, and the quest for a genuine relationship with Christ. 59:42 🤔 Faith and reason are not adversaries; faith enlarges reason by adding depth and insight to previously held beliefs, and the experience of faith is not just cognitive but also relational. 01:00:45 🙏 The speaker highlights the power of prayer in influencing the conversion journey, mentioning the prayers of others, including family members, as instrumental factors in his own return to faith. 01:02:11 🌿 The speaker's wife played a pivotal role in his journey, challenging his false beliefs and delusions, ultimately contributing to his rediscovery of objective moral truths and the reality of personhood. 01:03:30 📚 The Catholic faith was dispelled of misconceptions, including the notions of salvation through works alone and a lack of personal relationship with Christ, as the speaker discovered the rich scriptural and Christ-centered aspects of Catholicism. 01:10:16 🔄 The internal struggle of trying to convince oneself of atheism while suppressing the innate knowledge of God's existence illustrates the human capacity for self-deception and the persistence of objective truths in the face of denial. 01:13:08 🤔 Investigating general principles of natural law known to all. 01:14:05 🕊️ Self-deception and understanding how we deny knowledge of natural law principles. 01:14:33 🌟 Addressing faith and reason, discussing the reasonableness of resurrection. 01:16:08 🤯 Examining the plausibility of the resurrection, argument to the best explanation, and moral dilemmas in the face of suffering. 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38:12 So, more "Imagine" by John Lennon, than "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan, up to this turning point?

There is a strange background noise. It sounds kind of hellish. Which is a bit ominous and distracting. Thank you for posting this however.

Life is a story all about stories.

45:05 You mean like John Shelby Spong, of late but not obliterated deplorable doctrinal memory? John Shelby Spong Decided to be wrong As he was very good at it, Believe his word, I wouldn't it.