Converting the Atheist

From the Archive - May, 2020

Should the athlete be a scientist or a believer? It’s an honest question. And one that’s asking whether confidence stems from knowledge or faith, or if they’re the same thing in the face of adversity.

The scientist will want to prove their readiness to themselves. To demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they are prepared to achieve a desired outcome. To show their work. To spell it out. To be able to trace it all back and have it all add up. If X then Y, inevitably — since Day 1, until Day 100.

They are in the business of predicting the future in small, mundane ways until they’ve predicted themselves to the top of the podium. Until that spot is the Y to their X. That cold, airtight logic is their confidence.

The believer, on the other hand, exchanges all that bolted down fact for the persistent faith that they will perform. They don’t need to know how. They don’t need to know why. It will happen because they trust that it will. They trust their coach, their training, their body, their experience, their gut, their God.

What replaces the hypothesis->critique->hypothesis cycle is a clarity of mind that doesn’t allow challenge. The result is a tautology: it will be because it will be. That is their confidence, and it is elegant in its simplicity.

Of course most athletes are a mixture of both. And I think people can change over time. But I think it’s by far easier to learn to be scientific. Is it possible to teach yourself to believe?

How do you convert an atheist?