Skeptical Faith

Despite polls showing that most young people are, at best, indifferent about religion, there appears to be a great deal of interest in spirituality. That's encouraging. Human beings may be wired for spirituality, and it’s reassuring that many people recognize that. They know they need to dig deeper, to refuse to accept that life is only about stuff, power or fame, and to acknowledge that there is much more to life than meets the eye. A healthy skepticism about religion may be warranted, too, especially today when institutions of all types deserve to be challenged. Eugene Kennedy, a psychologist and former priest, in his book, "Believing," says: "...It is normal for people to test their belief systems rather than to accept them as on a par with the grandfather's clock and the bracelets or cufflinks that they inherit from their parents. ...They want something substantial to give themselves to, something that matches their joys and sorrows, somethin...

I recently read a quote from a man who claimed to be God. How did he know he was God? When he prayed, he said, he was talking to himself. Many of us have asked ourselves, "Is prayer rational?" For me, it's only rational in the context of faith, which is rational overall despite the lack of scientific evidence. For me, prayer sometimes feels empty. Usually, it's satisfying, and rarely, it's awesome.You experience an intimacy with God that gives you a brief, fleeting sense of who he/she is and who you are, putting everything in perspective. You can be entirely yourself and let it all hang out. You can get a sense of well-being, of being grounded, no matter what happens in your unpredictable and sometimes scary life. One of my most frequent prayers is, "Help me see things as they really are." (I know. For an unbeliever, this is the model of irony.) I understand the problem for skeptics. At least once a year, I make a retreat at New Melleray Abbey in ...

I'm an admirer of Thomas, the apostle, after whom I may have been named, because he refused to believe without seeing the evidence. Even though he's a character out of the gospels, written by the newly-hatched Christian community some 1,900 years ago, Thomas was, in this sense, a "modern" man. Some religious people may criticize him, but I believe Thomas' skeptical reaction to the news that Jesus had risen from the dead is the only rational one. Told by the other apostles they had seen the risen Lord, Thomas replies: "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe." The gory crucifixion Thomas may have gone a bit overboard in making his point by saying he had to experience the results of Jesus' gory crucifixion to make sure his friends weren't seeing things, or that somebody wasn't impersonating Jesus. He obviously understood human being...