Skeptical Faith

Google Image I recently read this Chinese saying: “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” There’s a lot written these days about happiness. It’s a subject that didn’t seem to come up so often years ago. I don’t know whether people were actually happier then. It just wasn’t often talked about or written about. You were either happy or you weren’t, and you didn't really focus on the subject of your own happiness. Today, it seems to be a favorite topic of some university departments, who study about every aspect of happiness, and unhappiness. Harvard University is often cited in popular articles on the subject. Decreasing Happiness? A Harvard Gazette article last month by staff writer Alvin Powell, for instance, reported on a study by the university’s Human Flourishing Program . It quotes Tyler VanderWeele, the program’s ...

Google Image Do you ever wonder if you’ve made, or will make, your mark in this world? Whether anyone will notice your passing? Whether you will be completely forgotten in one or two generations? I think it’s natural for human beings, the majority of whom are acutely aware of their mortality and concerned that their lives matter, to ask such questions. Turns out, there’s an academic discipline devoted to that subject, though according to a recent article in the New York Times entitled, “ Want to Believe in Yourself? ‘Mattering’ Is Key,” the discipline may be less philosophical than what is implied in my questions. I had never heard of the concept of “mattering” before reading the article. Overlooked Concept Written by Gail Cornwall, the article is sub-titled, “This overlooked concept has been linked to better relationships — with oneself and others.” It's mostly about Gordon Flett, a professor at York University and the author of “The Psychology of Mattering,” and his resea...

Google Image On my daily bike rides around the "foothills" of our little community in Colorado, I get several long-distance looks at downtown Denver. At least half the time, it, and much of the front range of the Rocky Mountains, are enveloped in smog. This isn’t new. I can recall the same view on occasional visits here years ago. It makes you wonder what we humans are doing to our common home and why nothing seems to get done about it. I’ve written often about the subject of protection of the environment, but when I check the readership of my blogs about the subject, I find it’s always low. Is that because people just don’t care? Not Affected Us Personally? I don’t know, but I can think of a few causes for this apparent indifference. One is that no natural disaster or extreme temperature may have personally affected us. We tend to care more about what affects us personally. Secondly, we may believe that it’s one of those things over which we have no control, that the...

Google Image Esau McCaulley, an associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College - a Christian school in Wheaton, IL. - is also a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. McCaulley, who is black, recently wrote an article for the newspaper entitled, “How the Faith That Arose from the Cotton Fields Challenges Me.” Surprisingly, though he acknowledges the racism and brutality of Christian slave owners, McCaulley doesn’t believe Christianity caused the suffering of African slaves in America. On the contrary, he believes that the unique Christianity of slaves sustained them in their suffering. “I think that for them,” he writes, “the Black church did not just provide an answer. It was  the  answer. In a world that proclaimed that the enslaver was lord of all, the idea that something more mighty ordered the tide of events that swept up their lives was the hope needed to survive the day…. Survivable and Surmountable “Christianity had a word to say on how (they) li...