Skeptical Faith

Google Image Back in the day when I was a priest, I preferred funerals to weddings. That may sound strange, but when asked to witness weddings, I often felt like I was being rented along with the wedding hall, tables and chairs. Often, I suspected, the bride and groom had a church wedding because their parents wanted it. The couple often had little interest in the religious aspect of the wedding. They seemed to be involved in a sort of mutual self-absorption, and many people attending seemed to be more interested in observing wedding clothes and other attendees than in any encounter with God. It was much easier to get the attention of people at funerals. They were having to deal directly with death, a subject they had spent much of their lives trying to avoid. Believers had to deal with their doubts about the hereafter. Non-believers had to confront the expected oblivion. Unlike those at a wedding, most were eager for anything you could say to relieve their discomfort, and ma...

Google Image I have a friend who is retired from a very successful career in a medical specialty. Years ago, I remember asking him, “With what you know now about science and medicine, are you more or less persuaded about the existence of God?” “Less,” he responded without hesitation. I was surprised, and judging by his current behavior, I believe he may have changed his mind. But I was surprised because the complexity and precision of human biology seems to cry out for a “designer.” It’s hard to imagine the evolutionary process as entirely random. Though I’ve lost the reference to this, I recall reading a quote that said something to the effect that believing that creation is entirely random is like believing that a press building explodes and a fully bound, up-to-date Encyclopedia Britannica blows out of the explosion and onto the street. For those of you unfamiliar with this classic work, the Encyclopedia in its various forms had from 12 to 17 volumes, each with at least...

Google Image Most of us, at one time or another, think about the “what ifs.” What if my father hadn't married my mother but somebody else? Would there be a me? What if my parents had moved to Atlanta instead of Kansas City before I was born? How much would my life be different? And what if I had been born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, instead of St. Joseph, Mo.? Would I be alive today? San Pedro Sula, which few Americans know exists, is said to be the most dangerous city in the world. With a metro area of 1.2 million, it has a murder rate of 159 per 100,000 people. By comparison, Detroit has a rate of 55/100,000 and New Orleans, 53/100,000. Many of the people, including children and young families, we saw on TV in July when thousands of immigrants were stranded on the border, were said to be from San Pedro Sula. Instead of living there, I live in a relatively safe place where crimes are generally solved and people can’t normally commit them with impunity. Compared to ma...

Google Image This blog tries to help skeptics connect with God and religion, and that’s no easy task. According to studies, many young people, and not-so-young people, are tepid about God and shun traditional religions. Though I know many people’s objections to religion go much deeper than language, I try not to be “churchy,” avoiding religious terms that may be “off” buttons. It’s hard to write about Christianity, or Judaism for that matter, without mentioning the Bible, however. Just about all of what we know about God is from the Bible or from people – modern or ancient, scholars or religious leaders – who have tried to gain insight into the Bible and share that insight with us. At some point in a search for God, however, you should read the Bible for yourself. And that could be a problem. It was written over a period of 1,500 years, the last contribution thought to have been written about 1,900 years ago. So it isn’t exactly like reading the newspaper, or even as “easy...