Skeptical Faith

Google Image I’m an enthusiastic supporter of science, even though I write these blogs about finding God. I see no contradiction between science and religion, believing that the contradictions that are commonly seen are actually distortions of both. Science has no way to prove or disprove most religious beliefs and scientists merely show their biases when they complain that religion is “unscientific.” Of course it is. Like music, literature, art, it’s a way of knowing that doesn’t depend on scientific evidence. Many religious people, on the other hand, reject science off-hand, as if we’re not supposed to use our intelligence and in a methodical, rational way, try to learn as much as possible about life, death and all in between. Changing Recommendations During the pandemic, some have criticized the science involved in understanding the COVID virus and providing vaccines and recommendations because they change. At first, the CDC was recommending lots of hand washing and wiping dow...

Google Image I’ve often thought about how we humans wind up where we are, in the physical as well as social and economic senses. First, how is the family into which you are born determined? Who knows? Then there’s the matter of where and how you live. A company executive for Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. decided that my father would be manager of a paint-and-glass branch in St. Joseph, Mo. So that’s where my brothers and sister and I grew up. Our economic status was also determined in that way, and we lived modestly, but comfortably. By contrast, years ago on assignment as a newspaper reporter in Mexico, I visited the main garbage dump in Mexico City to do a story about the nuns – members of Mother Theresa’s religious order – who worked among the people who lived there permanently. The dump is indescribable. My taxi driver refused to go closer than two blocks, saying the odor was too disgusting and the place too dangerous. I walked from the cab to the nuns’ house and that afternoon,...

Google Image I remember years ago hearing about the “Gaia hypothesis” and thinking that it was interesting, if not plausible. In case you are unfamiliar with it, the Gaia hypothesis, to paraphrase Wikipedia, proposes that the earth’s organisms  interact with their surroundings to form a self-regulating  system  that helps maintain and perpetuate conditions for life  on the planet. The hypothesis was named in the 1970s after Gaia, who personified the earth in Greek mythology. Wikipedia says the hypothesis today is considered by many scientists “to be only weakly supported by, or at odds with, the available evidence.” The idea, however, caught on with people who like to personify things that aren’t persons (like the commentators of TV wild animal shows who ascribe human feelings and thoughts to animals and even give them human names). So, for some, the earth itself is alive and has human feelings and intelligence. Extended to the Universe And that idea, it...

Google Image While out walking I sometimes listen to a program on National Public Radio called Hidden Brain. Its usual fare are the psychological quirks and oddities of human beings. A recent broadcast was about the famous 1960s experiments of psychologist Stanley Milgram in which Milgram professed to show that most people will do what an authority figure tells them to do, regardless whether it’s right or wrong. The experiments, which I believe to be problematic for at least a couple of reasons, touch on the nature of human beings, their intrinsic goodness or evil, their ability to make ethical decisions and their freedom, all of which, I believe, are crucial questions for people searching for God. Acquiescence Milgram came by his interest in the subject honestly. According to the program, he was influenced by the Holocaust and the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal who was hanged by the Israelis in 1962. His question, still unanswered, was, “How could the majority of...