Skeptical Faith

Google Image For years, I’ve done almost all my reading on Kindle, the Amazon e-reader. I prefer it to the printed page. With Kindle, I can carry around my library even when traveling. It has a back light so I can read regardless of light conditions. And e-books are substantially less expensive. One of the features I use regularly is that of trying a sample of a book before buying. It usually consists of a chapter or two so you can get a sense of the quality of the content and writing. On a recommendation, I recently read a sample of the book, Sapiens , by Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. The title refers to Homo sapiens, the human species to which modern humans belong. The book is about our evolution, pre-history and history. Promising Limitless Bananas It doesn’t take long to learn where the author stands on belief in God. In comparing the intellectual abilities of Homo sapiens to monkeys, Harari asserts, “You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by pro

Google Image From a Judeo-Christian perspective, you can’t ignore the Bible if you write about God and religion. For believers, after all, the Bible is the Word of God in the words of humans. And one of my favorite Scripture passages was read at Mass during this time after Easter. It’s the story of the Apostle Thomas who, when told that Jesus had risen from the grave, said, in so many words, “Yeh, right.” How could you not relate to Thomas’ doubt? Who could believe such a thing? Even in Jesus’ time, the resurrection challenged everything we know about life and death. I’m sure Thomas’ view was shared by other apostles who, perhaps, didn’t have the courage to say so. I Will Not Believe “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails,” said Thomas, “and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Thomas, whose Greek name is Didymos, or twin, is mentioned only a few times in the New Testament. He was evidently impetuous and c

Google Image A little-noticed national news item recently reported the death of 96-year-old Judge Damon J. Keith. One of the nation's longest-serving federal judges, he was a tireless champion of civil rights and civil liberties. Grandson of slaves, he revealed in an interview what it was like growing up. "I never had a black teacher. And the Fisher YMCA was right across from Northwestern high school. Blacks could not go to that Fisher Y. There wasn't a black police officer above the rank of sergeant. There were no black judges. There were no black elected officials.” When he went to college, Keith had to sit in the back of the train because of his race. He served in a segregated army in World War II. "There's not a day in my life in some way large or small, I'm not reminded of the fact that I'm black," said Keith at age 92 in the same PBS interview. People of Privilege We white people simply can’t relate because, like the term or n

Google Image As a young man, I traveled to Europe on a ship. Since a friend and I were seminary students, talk at the table where about a dozen of us second-class passengers were seated for meals was often about religion and belief in God. I recall vividly the comment of a physics professor from a Texas university, a self-described atheist, when the subject turned to human love. “It’s a function of the liver,” he said. My scientific knowledge was limited but I knew that remark was bogus, even ridiculous. Some scientists pursue research that attempts to physicalize traditional moral values. Among the latest, reported in USA Today, was research that purported to find that “the spirit of giving” is really the “hormone of giving.” Social Glue This may result from overly ambitious reporting (or lack of editing), but the gist of the article was that the hormone oxytocin “is a social glue that holds us all together and makes us care about other people,” according to the lead resear

Google Image As American priests in Bolivia in the 1970s, my colleagues and I tried to overcome the cultural differences between the Aymara people with whom we worked and the cultural baggage of the western Church. We wore Aymara-made vestments for Mass – the heavy, hand-made, colorful ponchos that kept people warm in the cold of the Altiplano. We sang hymns composed by Aymaras set to the woeful music of the Andes. We conducted masses in Aymara, even though none of us were fluent in the language. But we barely made a dent in the cultural differences because they were so many and so great. It made you realize how much we in the western Church are influenced by our culture and how hard it is to separate it from religion. Much more effective is the work of people like Engelbert Mveng, a Jesuit priest from the west-central African nation of Cameroon who experienced first-hand the importance of culture in understanding the true nature of religion – of Christianity, at least. A U