Interesting passage from Pulphead, by John Sullivan - Chapter 1, "Upon This Rock":
"Everything about Christianity can be justified within the context of Christian belief. That is, if you accept its terms. Once you do, your belief starts modifying the data (in ways that are in themselves defensable) until eventually the data begin to reinforce belief. The precise moment of illogic is hard to isolate, and may not exist. Like holding a magnifying glass at arm's length and bringing it towards your eye: things are upside down, they're upside down, they're right side up. What lay between? If there was something, it passed too quickly to be observed.
This is why you can never reason true Christians out of the faith. It's not, as the adage has it,because they were never reasoned into it - many were - it's that faith is a logical door which locks behind you. What looks like a line of thought is steadily warping into a circle, one that closes with you inside it. If this seems to imply that no apostate was ever a true Christian and that therefore I was never one, I think I'd stand by both statements. Doesn't the fact that I can't write about my old friends without an apologetic tone suggest I was never one of them?" |
