Ross Douthat in today's NYT trumpets the conversion of a secular Islamic atheist to Christianity. He discounts her reasoning that led to her conversion which is simply that she was looking for a worldview she was not finding in atheism, not that she found Christianity to be the one, true religion.
In the wake of my mother's and sister-in-law's recent deaths, I have had occasion to examine my own relationship to the Catholicism of my youth. I would love to be able to believe in choirs of angels escorting my loved ones to an eternity of bliss in an otherworldly Heaven. Unfortunately, the Catholic church has squandered any moral authority it may once have wielded in my life and the evangelical brand of christianity favored by many with its emphasis on a personal relationship with the divine does not appeal to me.
Douthat's reasoning is mankind needs the comfort and civilization building power of organized religion, preferably his brand of conservative Catholicism. As far as I can see his vision is the same as the first cave dweller who convinced his fellows that lightning was the hand of god. Thank Dog, most of us are over that brand of snake oil.
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