Skeptical Faith

Mark and Desiree's House I recently visited my nephew, Mark Pfeffer, in Anchorage, AK. Trained as an architect and a developer by profession, he and his wife, Desiree, have a beautiful house on the shores of the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. But its location isn’t what makes the house unique. Its design comes from a question asked of students  long ago  by one of his architectural professors at the University of Nebraska, a question that Mark has tried to answer throughout his building career. “What story does it tell?” We may not realize that a building can tell a story, but Mark’s house does – a story of tragedy and hope stemming from a 1964 earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Canada and the northwestern U.S., killing 131 people. It destroyed parts of Anchorage, moving houses, bluffs and earth. Immediately Pleases the Eye So, Mark and Desiree’s house consists of several modules, each reminiscent of the many small, neighborhood houses destroyed in the earthquake...

Google Image I’ve been impressed by the new pictures of outer space taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope .   They capture a beauty that, given the cold, barren nature of space, is hard to imagine. From the viewpoint of a believer, it’s especially hard to imagine - as my faith asserts - that God is present even there. The pictures initiated, for me, a series of mostly random thoughts about belief in God, formation of the universe, faith and doubt. The thoughts are highly personal, of course. I recognize that everyone has his/her own ideas about these subjects. I offer mine because the point of these blogs is to attempt to help other people who are searching for God, especially those who may have given up on God and/or religion. I must say that it’s harder than ever, at least in my lifetime, to be a believer. That’s partly because many of the “external” supports for religion are disappearing. There are many more public attacks on religion. And though more people are educa...

Google Image This is an "encore" edition of Skeptical Faith. Hopefully, a new blog will be available next week. Attention all those concerned only with “matters of great consequence:” Is it possible that you’ve become someone you didn’t want to be, having strayed far from the innocence and simplicity of childhood? That’s the main question asked in The Little Prince, which Netflix, the streaming video service, has added to its repertoire of movies and TV shows. Though not a big fan of animated flicks, I was a big fan of the book, The Little Prince, back in the 1970s when it became extremely popular in the U.S. It was first published in French and English in New York  in 1943 as a novella by French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery , who disappeared while piloting a Free French Army plane the following year over the Mediterranean Sea. Nearly Two Million Copies “The novella is the fourth most-translated book in the world and was voted the ...

Google Image A recent article in the New York Times reports on Gustavo García-Siller, the Catholic archbishop of San Antonio, TX, and his advocacy for gun control in a state where “guns are woven into the culture.” Uvalde, TX, where an 18-year-old gunman massacred 21 students and teachers at an elementary school, is in the archbishop’s diocese and even before that horrific event, Garcia-Siller had been outspoken on the need for the country to “overhaul its gun laws.” “The reaction to Archbishop García-Siller’s position on guns among Catholics in South Texas,” says the story, “has been colored not only by long-held political beliefs and their horror at the Uvalde shooting but also their views on how and when it is appropriate for church leaders to wade into such a heated and seemingly intractable debate. An Issue for Politics? “’That’s an issue for politics,’ Carlos Zimmerle, 54, said after a recent Mass at a Catholic parish in San Antonio’s west Side. ‘Not for religion.’” So, ...