Mike Watt
Theology
The Five Steps to Critical Thinking
While waiting for a ballgame to start, several teenagers got into a discussion on their religious beliefs. One of the teenagers said “Have you ever looked inside a Catholic Church, they worship statues and they worship Mary and the saints as God.” A Catholic teenager responded back “No, we do not pray to them as a God and we do not worship statues. We pray to Mary but we realize that she is not God.”1 Another teenager brought up Communion. He said “I take Communion but I do not believe it is God, it is just a symbol of him.” The Catholic responded back “We believe in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Jesus said that this was his body. He did not say that this is bread, let’s pretend it is special.”2 “It is either Jesus or it is not.” The first teenager spoke again saying “ I am sick of all you religious fanatics who are imposing their religion on other people.” The Catholic responded “Who is a fanatic, one who prays within their own church, one who demonstrates on a pro-life march or one who believes in God and tries to incorporate that in his life decisions? Explain what you mean by fanatic.”3 Another teenager bragged to the Catholic “I am a better Christian than you cause I got a higher grade on my theology exam then you.” The Catholic responded “Is that what being a Christian is all about? Test scores?”3 The teenager who spoke about not believing Communion was God now said “I don’t believe that Jesus was born as the Immaculate Conception.” The Catholic explained” Jesus’ birth is not referred to as the Immaculate Conception. Jesus’ birth is called the Incarnation when he took on human form.”4 The first teenager spoke once again exclaiming “There can not be a God because he would not let bad things happen to good people like what happens.” The Christian spoke back saying “Maybe God does not let these bad things happen, but that they are only a part of human free choice that God gives to us as a gift.”5 The other teenagers started to understand the Catholics point of view. They then all watched the baseball game as it started.
1Know the facts 2Understand the principal of contradiction 3Define your terms 4Be intellectually humble 5Look for different perspectives