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An Atheist’s Come-to-Jesus Moment
Pat Santy was a NASA flight surgeon during the early years of the Space Shuttle Program. She is best known for her blog, Dr. Sanity, which ran from 2004 through 2012. For years she was an avowed atheist. “Prodigal Daughter: A Journey with Mary,” by Patricia A. Santy, MD, OP, recounts her return to the Catholic faith.
To outsiders, it seemed Santy had it all. She was a successful doctor, specializing in psychiatry. She became a flight surgeon at Johnson Space Center, on track to become an astronaut. She established a successful psychiatric practice. Later, she became a nationally-known blogger.
Her success seemed more remarkable due to an unpromising start. She was the child of divorce (when it was unusual, especially for Catholics). She financed her own way through college.
Yet, as Santy recounts, surface appearances were deceptive. She grew up in a dysfunctional family. A devout Catholic as a child, she abandoned her faith when her parents divorced, and became an atheist after her mother remarried to a man, who molested her.
She transferred her faith to worship of science and rationality. Mix in ’60s California’s “if it feels good, do it” culture and self-centered feminism. The results were predictable. She made herself the center of her universe; setting her own whims first.
Ending up pregnant, she had an abortion because the baby was inconvenient. She married a man she knew from high school, but never really committed to the marriage. Unconsciously mimicking her mother’s behavior, Santy abandoning him for a man she thought her soul mate. Only then did she discover that man, with whom she had a torrid online affair, had similar (and simultaneous) virtual affairs with many other women.
Despite her own verdict, she was not completely selfish. Unable to have children, she adopted one, committing herself to motherhood. As a flight surgeon on the Challenger flight, she put the needs of the astronauts’ families ahead of NASA’s desire for spin control, sacrificing her dream of becoming an astronaut.
Following divorce, she retreated to California, to put her life back together. There she reconnected with her childhood religion. She frequently criticized modern society’s malignant narcissism on her blog before she realized it dominated her own life.
“Prodigal Daughter” charts her recovery and redemption in a powerful and personal story, focused on her Catholicism. While occasionally painful reading, it is rewarding for any person of faith.
“Prodigal Daughter: A Journey with Mary,” by Patricia A. Santy, MD, OP, New Hope Publications, 2020, 165 pages, $17.95 (trade paperback)
This review was written by Mark Lardas who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City. His website is marklardas.com.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Sounds interesting. I love finding faith stories. I wonder what the underlying reason was the return to faith. Was it just hitting rock bottom? Thanks for sharing the review..
Exactly. Most of what is taught about Hell comes from Dante, not the Bible.
There is also the problem that there is a category error in the thinking of anyone fool enough to conflate God and “magical beings”.
One step at a time. One step at a time. His mind is not big enough for a larger God.
Insults are beneath you.
That wasn’t an insult. In a few lifetimes, you’ll be fine. As you are now, I once was.
Is it rewarding for people of non-faith? Or is it like Andrew Klavan’s, The Great Good Thing, which is really only for religious people.
Hard to say. There is some fascinating inside stuff on the early Shuttle program. If you are into space history, it might be worth reading for that. There are interesting sections on medicine and its evolution. But, it is really written from a Catholic perspective. It is similar to Klavan’s Great Good Thing.
The beings I have seen were not magical, one being my grandmother the others unknown.
15 minutes after my mother’s death, she appeared to my daughter some hundred of miles away and spoke to her. She also wasn’t delusional as she had no knowledge yet that my mother had died. She called me and asked if gram had died? Still being upset myself, I gave the phone to the hospice workers and they talked to my daughter for a good half hour, explaining that seeing her grandmother shortly after her death was not unusual. It happens to many people. If there existence after life, there must be a supreme being.
Read an interesting article regarding the proof is our DNA. Every single person on this planet, except twins has a different DNA and each DNA is programed to our bodies to act in a certain manner. Like someone writing a book. A master planer was needed to program each and every one of us. I call the planner G-d.
Even identical twins tend to have minute differences in coding.
Sounds like a sad story with some hope at the end. May take to the beach. Thanks.
Didn’t know that. Thank you.
What are you talking about?
And you can look up Acts 2:26-31, Luc 10:15, Rev 1:18, the lake of fire in Rev 20, Matt 23:33, and frankly wherever it speaks of salvation, the implication is that there is someplace for those not saved. There’s actually quite a bit in the Bible about hell.
Only in the “New Testament” not in the Hebrew Bible. And, I am not Christian.
Oh I didn’t know. I was actually addressing Hartmann. Now that you say that, is he Christian? I wasn’t thinking outside of Christianity.
He calls himself a Messianic Jew. I’m not sure what that makes him.
I have no idea. Ask him.
I don’t know either. I used to think it was a person who was a Jew and took on the teaching of the New Testament. However, a son-in-law calls himself a “Messianic Jew” and was never a Jew to start with.
Gehenna (or the Valley of Hinnom) was a valley south of Jerusalem where refuse and filth was burned. It was used as a metaphor for the purifying of the soul, destroying the thoughts that were not of God and Truth.
Oh, OK. Back to Judaism. Jews do believe in hell I thought. It’s just not as explicitly stated in the scriptures. I assume there is a range of beliefs within Judaism on that.
Jews who aren’t religious may have a range of views, but similar to what @arahant said, religious Jews believe Jews enter a kind of purgatory where they have the opportunity to purify themselves, freeing themselves of their sins. I believe related to that is that Jews who have passed away don’t receive headstones at their graves for one year after they are buried; their hope is that those who knew and loved them will pray for them to help them make that transition to be with G-d.
You know, there’s a lot of Catholic in that. ;)
Wonder where the Catholics got it from :)
OK, I know that. But are you saying that a semantic shift did not occur in its meaning? I’m pretty sure the shift predates Matthew and the New Testament. From what I can gather in a cursory research, Matthew did not make it up.
Agreed. Nothing against my Protestant friends, but they just understand the evolution and development from second Temple Judaism through early Christianity.
What Some Jews Believe
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/282508/jewish/What-Happens-After-Death.htm
That was a good read Kay. I guess I had forgotten you are Jewish. A couple of points from that link. He said:
LOL, I can’t imagine anyone, medieval or not, seriously believing in that characterization of heaven. But he’s trying to make a rhetorical point.
A couple of things surprised me. He said there is
I have never heard that. I wonder how long before birth the soul exists? Not that it has to be Biblical to be part of Juadaic belief, but is it in the Bible? I thought in Judaism the child isn’t a person yet until it takes its first breath. I do understand this: ““The fetus in its mother’s womb is taught the entire Torah . . .” We phrase it similarly as “God’s law is written on every human heart.”
The other belief that took me aback is this:
I have never heard that. Now that appears to be a mystical writing. Are all mystical writings accepted? There are mystical writings by many Christians, some of which have been made into saints, but that doesn’t mean their mystical thoughts are accepted as doctrine. That to me seems very far afield from what I know of Judaism – which I guess isn’t much. Thanks for leading me down a path to have learned something new. ;)
Jeremiah 1:4
The word of the LORD came to me:
Before I created you in the womb, I selected you; Before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations.
About the Kabbalah, I am not qualified to discuss it, as have never studied it. However, if my soul has any rights and say so, I will never, ever, no-way, come back.
However, when my grandmother appeared before me about 1 year after she had died, (1961) she told me she had to do some chores/things, before she could be at peace. The Orthodox believe the soul goes through a waiting process for about a year after death. I’m not Orthodox so wasn’t aware of this waiting period. Just this last couple of years of study.
Hmm. I’ve read that verse many times. It never dawned on me it could be read that way.