Skeptical Faith

Google Image Ron Flug, the husband of my friend and former newspaper colleague, Polly Flug, died several years ago of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I’m somewhat familiar with it because my sister-in-law and the husband of another newspaper colleague also died of ALS. Simply put, the disease is a fatal communication problem – between the brain and the rest of the body. Eventually, patients lose their speech, ability to swallow, to move and breathe, and often die within two years of diagnosis. The disease is sadistic, prompting anyone searching for God to question why God – portrayed in the gospels as a loving parent – could allow it. I’ve written several blogs on why God allows bad things to happen to good people. The blogs have not definitively or even satisfactorily dealt with the question, of course, but I believe there are rational answers to the question nonetheless. I’ll return to the subject in a future blog. Today I want to...

Google Image These weekly blogs are primarily meant for skeptics who, despite their skepticism, search for God. And they’re based on the premise that there is no contradiction between skepticism and faith. Personally, I’m a believer, but with frequent and sometimes grave doubts, so I also consider myself a skeptic. I always look for evidence and have a problem when it’s lacking. I would guess that I’m far from alone in that respect. I write this blog in hopes that my reflections about my own search can help in somebody else’s. Where I may part company with many skeptics is my belief that religion is a great support in the search for God. Although polls show that the number of people saying they believe in God has stayed pretty steady, there has been a well-publicized decrease in the number of people who profess a religious affiliation. They’re known as “nones.” Nothing Less Cool? I understand the sentiment. For many, nothing’s less cool than attending church....

Google Image Walking my daughter’s dog in a racially mixed, Denver neighborhood recently, I passed an African-American woman who smiled and said, “I like your dog.” “Thank-you,” I said, and we both moved on, two ships passing in the night. A momentary encounter of small gestures. She undoubtedly thought no more about it, but I appreciated her friendliness. I began thinking about what should be obvious: How connected I am to her, despite differences in race, age and economic circumstances. We are contemporaries, living within the same narrow span of a century or so. More basically, we are fellow human beings, with the same basic needs, desires, faults and virtues. We undoubtedly share some tastes and preferences, but we probably think of our worlds as worlds apart. It’s easier to be conscious of our differences than our similarities. Differences dominate our perceptions of people of different races, religions and cultures, but isn’t it mostly illusion? The Plantation Seven...

Google Image Aside from species characteristics, what do all human beings have in common despite differences in beliefs, philosophies, ideologies, political parties and nationalities? The desire to be happy. Happiness means different things to different people, of course, and we don’t walk around thinking about it. We seldom hear people say, “I just want to be happy,” although many people may think it several times a day. I would guess people who are less affluent, and live in less developed countries, think about it less often than middle class Americans. Most people in the world are, perhaps, too busy trying to survive. Still, I’ve never met someone who doesn’t want to be happy and I doubt if I ever will. So why does happiness escape so many of us? I’ve heard many responses, including the idea that it’s mainly due to expectations that are unrealistic and thus unfulfilled. Many religious people would say that it’s because God is absent from our lives, and as a bel...