Skeptical Faith

It’s easy to be cynical about love. Besides being “what makes a Subaru a Subaru,” it’s the favorite word of all manner of popular songs, movies, TV shows, even porn. As sad as is the “hookup culture” – about which I wrote a few weeks ago – at least it doesn’t pretend to be what it’s not. It’s about sex, not “love.” Let’s face it, for young males in our society especially, the concept of love is troublesome. It comes off as a cultural construct translating into the “M” word or some similar commitment, and commitment risks freedom. It’s nebulous and ambiguous on the one hand and obvious and a given on the other. It can apply to someone in a marriage, a “relationship,” to family, to “our fellow men” and for religious people, God. At best, it’s confusing. Love in the context of God and religion may be the most bewildering. I once attended a Catholic Mass in which the priest came to the pulpit at the time of the homily and after an uncomfortably long pause to make sure he...

Today I’m posting my 25 th blog, having started writing them back in June. In general, I’m pleased with the blogs and continue to believe they offer a viewpoint and cover issues that are seldom seen elsewhere. However, the feedback has been slim, and I doubt I’m reaching many of the people I intend to reach. As the subhead on my main Blogger page says, I’m trying to reach people who have given up on God and/or religion. And as I said in one of my early posts, I’m especially interested in those between the ages of 20 and 40. I suspect few people in those categories read them, however. I send notices of new posts each Thursday to my Facebook friends and LinkedIn and E-mail contacts, most of whom are over – and sometimes, way over – 40. I ask that they pass along the blog address and individual posts to their children, grandchildren, friends and acquaintances, who may be among those who have “given up.” So, I hope at least a few in the categories I’m trying to reach ge...

Humility isn’t a coveted contemporary virtue. It’s rarely displayed in politics, business, athletics, fashion, entertainment, or religion. We’re all about self-expression and independence. We seldom pass up an opportunity to “take pride” in this or that, to bask in such things as “American exceptionalism.” We scratch our heads when hearing Jesus’ words about the first being last. We are curious, perhaps, about somebody like the Dalai Lama, a worldwide celeb who tells audiences he’s “just another human being,” and urges people to adopt humility. Or when we hear and see Pope Francis speaking about and acting out of humility. But they just don’t fit in the world we know. But does all our pride lead to happiness? Unrealistic expectations Sure, people should never put themselves down, and people with good self-esteem are happier. That’s not the kind of “pride” I’m talking about. I’m referring to the pride recognized for centuries as one of the seven “deadly” sins (You can...

I know it’s irritating to read, “On the one hand…and on the other.” That’s how life is, however. It’s never as simple as we would like, and faith (at least for me) is no exception. So in considering the question whether belief is a matter of “all or nothing,” I would say that, yes, there’s a sense in which it must be all or nothing, but maybe not all at once. Here’s what I mean. Some pretty graphic language in the Bible is reserved for people who are “neither hot nor cold.” “…But since you are neither,” says the Book of Revelation, “but only lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth.” Instead of “spit,” I’ve seen that translated as “spew” or “vomit.” Strong stuff and an example of the “apocalyptic” literature of its time. Revelation is among the most difficult of New Testament books, which may be why so many preachers like to quote and (mis)interpret it. A common form of being lukewarm, in my view, is the practice of many Christians who believe their religion con...

Skeptics may ask what reading a book that’s at least 2,000 years old could possibly have to do with their lives. The mindset of the authors of the books of the Bible was so different from ours that little of what they have to say would be relevant or useful to us. It’s like reading Shakespeare. He may have been a great writer and all, and there may be useful messages in his work, but we don’t have the time or inclination to decipher the language or understand the context. Besides failing to recognize that the Bible is “the Word of God in words of men,” I believe this is part of a bias we have against dead people. I know that sounds weird but think of how we smile knowingly when we consider the customs and beliefs of our grandparents – to say nothing of the lives of people who lived centuries ago. I recall the hilarious Saturday Night Live skits with “historical” themes. One was about the overconfident and self-satisfied medieval barber/physician, Theodoric of York, pla...

I’ve always been mildly interested in “near death” experiences. I approach them with my usual skepticism, but I’m not convinced they are easily dismissed as purely biological phenomena. If, of course, you start with the assumption that there is nothing but biology – that there is no such thing as the spiritual and that all human experience is strictly limited to the human brain – then it would be hard to see these near-death experiences as anything but biology in action. If you’re open to the spiritual, you would have a different view. As a newspaper reporter, I did at least one story on the subject, interviewing three Iowans who claim to have had a near-death experience. I found two of the three to be believable. I was unsure about the third – both about whether something extraordinary occurred and about whether he really believed it to have happened. I also recently read the popular book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander....

Two key related questions for many skeptics are, “If God exists, why is he/she silent?” A related question is, “Why faith?” For many atheists, the question of God’s silence is the clincher in their rejection of faith. God is just not there, they say, and there’s no way to get around it. If he/she were, you’d hear from him/her. So grow up, get over it, get on with it. Learn to live your life without God and you’ll be much happier. For me, an important similar question is, “Why faith?” Why would God design things in a way that requires human beings to believe in him/her instead of knowing him/her directly? Why require an intellectual and emotional struggle about faith? If he/she is so smart, couldn’t he/she have come up with a better design? For believers, of course, God is not silent. They see him and “hear” him in others, in nature, in the Bible, in their work, in science, literature and art. But for the skeptical searcher for God, I have no entirely satisfactory...

Listening to the TED Radio Hour on my phone recently, I heard an interesting description of how the slums of the world’s great “third world” cities slowly but surely organize themselves. Residents come together to provide basic forms of sanitation, to promote education, to control crime. Invariably, resources are pooled, people hired and bureaucracies formed. Yesterday’s slum becomes tomorrow’s middle class neighborhood. I thought about this recently when I heard someone decry the bureaucracy that exists in organized religion. “It’s all man-made,” it was said. Yes, it’s “man-made,” with the emphasis on “man.” Historically, women have had little input in the organization and development of the world’s great religions, even though women are among their most ardent supporters and operatives. The same could be said of almost all human organizations, including governments. We all know the history. Women were, to put it mildly, not taken seriously in ...

Gospel illustration from the Book of Kells by 9th century Celtic months, Trinity College, Dublin Popular books and movies, and current religious TV shows, show zealous preachers walking a stage with a big, black book in their hands, allowing it to rest open on one hand while gesturing or pointing to a passage with the other. They draw out often obscure words and phrases, trying to make their point. Back in the day, they were referred to as Bible thumpers. They give you the impression that all wisdom, all knowledge - everything you could ever want to know or learn - is contained in that book. The Reformation, the movement beginning in the 16 th century in which dissidents from Catholicism created Protestantism, codified this view in the doctrine of "sola scriptura" or “scripture only.” That's the doctrine that the Bible contains everything you need to know to be a Christian. The church is secondary at best. Many have qualified this view in light of greate...

This is the name of a 1917 book by Rudolf Otto, a famous German Lutheran theologian. I was encouraged to read it in the seminary. I didn’t understand it then, and I’m sure I wouldn’t now. So what I write here in no way reflects Otto’s famous book; I’m simply borrowing the title. I like the title because I believe “the idea of the holy” summarizes what I believe is a big problem for contemporary Americans, especially the young. For many, the word “holy” is an enigma. It’s not in our vocabulary. We don’t know exactly what it means, and seldom use the word. It’s one of those churchy words that make little sense to most contemporary people. I often think of this when singing, “Holy, holy, holy…” at Mass. As a believer, I can make the words my own, but are those words, and the whole vocabulary of religion, meaningful to the majority of young (and many older) people today? I don’t think so. Here is a bunch of other words, common in church circles, that may cause some head ...

The church lady, played by Dana Carvey, was one of my favorite Saturday Night Live characters. Dressed in clothes and with a hairdo that was unfashionable even in the 1950s, she laced her spoof interviews with frequent references to Satan, and made judgmental comments to her guests with expressions such as, “Isn’t that special?” and “How convenient!” The church lady was a model of hypocrisy, judgmental to the core. A 2012 survey found that 62 percent of millennials (18-24 year olds) believe that present-day Christianity is “judgmental.” It’s among the most often-heard accusations against religious people. And without a doubt, some religious people are just that, appearing to be bitter (unlike the church lady who seemed to have a lot fun zinging her guests) and resentful of others. I believe many people, young and old, who have given up on God and religion but are still searching see committed Christians in this light. Stinging dingers Ironically, no one was more crit...

In reading religious publications, particularly Catholic ones, you get the impression that many people believe that if the church would change its position on the moral/social issues – like abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage, women and gay clergy, etc. – young people would return to the church in droves. I don’t think so. I think the crisis of faith is much deeper. From what I’ve read and experienced, it’s basically a matter of relevance, or the question, “Why do I need faith?” and “Why do I need religion?” If it were simply a matter of the moral/social issues, the mainline Protestant churches – many of whom do not oppose abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage and have women and gay clergy – would not be experiencing the exodus from their churches that nearly matches that of the Catholic Church. “While only 11% of Millennials were religiously unaffiliated in childhood,” says a recent survey, “one-quarter (25%) currently identify as unaffiliated, a ...

I hope those of you who are not Catholic will forgive me for writing about the Pope. Though it’s obvious that in this blog I look at things from the Catholic perspective, I want Skeptical Faith to be useful to people of all faiths and no faiths. It’s just that Pope Francis strikes me as someone, like the Dalai Lama, who has something to say to everyone. Some people may ask, “What’s the big deal about a pope being personal and open, living simply, appearing vulnerable and fallible, wanting the church to be welcoming, and speaking honestly about  doubt and gays?” Shouldn't you expect that of a religious leader? Yes, but it hasn't been true for any pope in my memory, with the possible exception of John XXIII (1958-1963). Here are some interesting things Pope Frances has said in a recent interview, as reported in America magazine. I’ve edited them for length and relevancy to this blog. They make the blog a bit longer, but you can use the header to pick and choose what ...

Just to get something out of the way, some of you may be asking yourselves what this old guy could possibly know about sex. Ok, so I’m no expert, but who is, really? Is it the person who has had a lot of it, say a person who sells sex or who is promiscuous? That’s like saying a typist is an expert on writing. Is it the sex therapist? That’s somebody who fixes another person’s sex problems. It doesn’t necessarily mean he or she knows a lot about the meaning of sex, and I believe sex, like all of human life, has meaning. So I’m not writing about sex as any kind of expert. I’m also not writing about it because I think sex is somehow unworthy of the seeker of truth. It’s because I believe sex is often made into a barrier to the search for God. Studies about the sexual and spiritual ideas of young people show that many who ignore their parents’ or church’s beliefs about sex figure “the horse is out of the barn,” that they’ve cut the cord, that they have by their actions already a...

Photo by Beatriz Botero I was reminded recently while reading an article on baseball that we humans are rarely moved by intellectual arguments. That was also brought home forcefully for me in reading the book, “Predictably Irrational, The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions,” by Dan Ariely. The author, a professor at Duke University, has spent decades studying what motivates people, mostly in buying stuff: why we buy what we don’t need; why we turn up our noses at cheap wine but are captivated by the expensive stuff, even though a lot of research has shown most of us can’t tell the difference; why people who have been asked to name the Ten Commandments are more honest afterward than those who haven’t been asked that question. We like to think that we’re motivated by reason. Fact is, many – if not most – of our decisions result from feelings. We’re “feeling” beings. We feel anger, love, antipathy and compassion every hour of every day and act on them. That’s why I have t...