"Comparisons between faith and romantic love crop up throughout the centuries, appearing in the Bible-the "Song of Songs" is one long love poem-and the reflections of early Christians such as Origen and Saint Augustine. In his 1923 biography of Francis of Assisi, the British critic G. K. Chesterton remarked that for the medieval saint, "religion was not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love-affair.""
"With both faith and romance, the comparison suggests, abstractions and proofs only approximate what experience reveals: ineffable wonder, a shout-it-from-the-mountaintops elation, confidence in the unconditionality of another's love."
"For Beha, though, falling in love was more than merely analogous to having faith; it was a catalyst. More than a decade after first reading Russell, he began seeing someone."
Christopher Beha's journey from childhood Catholicism to atheism began in college following traumatic experiences including his brother's accident and his own cancer diagnosis. He studied anti-religious philosophers like Bertrand Russell, Albert Camus, and Arthur Schopenhauer. However, as an adult, Beha reconsidered his atheistic conclusions in his book Why I Am Not an Atheist, citing both philosophical objections and a personal catalyst: falling in love. This romantic experience prompted his return to faith, illustrating a connection between love and spirituality that appears throughout religious history, from biblical texts to writings by early Christians and modern thinkers like G.K. Chesterton and David Brooks.
#religious-conversion #atheism-to-faith #love-and-spirituality #christopher-beha #philosophy-of-religion
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