Skeptical Faith

Google Image Pigs Fly. People walk on walls. Catfish play the trumpet. All among things that are impossible, most would agree. Then there are the theoretical or apparent impossibilities. World Peace. Democrats and Republicans seeing eye to eye. TV shows with no advertising or fees. And then, the really heavy stuff that people of faith profess. Jesus’ resurrection, humanity’s eternal destiny, God becoming a human. Many people would place these in the same category as flying pigs. I wouldn’t. Isaiah Takes the Cake? The Judeo-Christian tradition has a long history of believing in apparent impossibilities. Perhaps the prophet Isaiah takes the cake. Yearning for a new king in the idealized tradition of King David, the prophet engages in a bit of poetry. “Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.” (Actually, I’ve seen videos of lions lying down...

Google Image Many of you, when studying physics or math, may recall learning about Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, philosopher, physicist and theologian who lived from 1623 to 1662. Pascal came up with a way of looking at “the God question” that is now called “Pascal’s Wager.” It basically argues that belief in God involves a high-stakes gamble. Paraphrasing, here’s how Pascal describes the gamble, according to Wikipedia.      ·   God is, or God isn’t. Reason can’t decide between the two.      ·   You play a game … where heads or tails turns up.      ·   You must wager. It’s not optional.      ·   Weighing the gain and the loss in wagering that God is, estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing      ·   There is here an infinity of a happy life to gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite....

Google image In "Darkest Hour," a Netflix movie about Second World-War England, Winston Churchill – the frumpish prime minister who rallied his country to resist the Nazis – told King George VI: “My father was like God. Busy elsewhere.” One of my recent blogs was about the necessity of showing up – at the job, in the family, in prayer. So, what about the importance of God “showing up?” For many, God’s silence clinches their rejection of faith. God is missing in action, they say, and there’s no way to get around it. If he/she exists, you’d hear from him/her. So, learn to live without God and you’ll be much happier. Generally Happier Problem is that opinion polls don’t support the latter statement. For many years, they have shown that believers are generally happier than non-believers. But why is faith required? Why would God design things in a way that requires human beings to  believe  instead of  knowing   God directly ? Why require an intellectual and emoti...

Google Image This blog, as they say in show biz, is partly an encore performance; that is, it’s partly from a Thanksgiving blog I wrote in 2016. (Hey, the blog is free!) Every year I’m amazed that in a country like ours, which is so wrapped up in the material, so much into “conspicuous consumption,” so enamored of people who amass wealth and fame, we still celebrate a holiday like Thanksgiving. I’m not sure about the extent to which Americans are conscious of its meaning, but it’s admirable that we have a holiday to recall how much we have to be grateful for. More Tuned In Growing up in a different culture, my wife, Amparo, is perhaps more tuned in to Thanksgiving than I am. It’s become a bit ho-hum for me, but she so appreciates the fact that a day is set aside to be grateful. She reminded me that this blog would be published on Thanksgiving and gave me ideas for this post. Here’s a sample. We teach our children to say, “thank you,” not just to be polite but to learn the impor...

Google Image Pardon me if I’ve told this story before. On one of my trips to rural El Salvador with fellow parishioners from Iowa, I was walking down a dirt road - probably on the way to visit the family of one of the high school scholarship recipients our parish supported - and heard someone talking in a small corn field next to the road. I turned to see a woman, looking to be about 55 years-old, digging around a corn plant and talking to somebody I couldn’t see. I came nearer the woman and still couldn’t see who she was talking to. Finally, she looked in my direction and we exchanged greetings. Probably a little too boldly, I told her I couldn’t see who she was talking to and asked where that person was. “Oh,” she said, “I was talking to the corn.” That piqued my interest, but I didn’t have to ask. “I often talk to the corn while I’m working,” she said, “because there’s nobody else to talk to.” Open and Kind She was open and kind, and we engaged in a 10-minute conversation. S...

Google Image If you go out to dinner much, you’ll notice that the service – even at the restaurants you like best – can be spotty. Often it’s not that the server is bad, but that there doesn’t seem to be enough of them. Although I find myself empathizing more with the servers than the management, I do wonder how frustrating it would be for managers when employees don’t show up. Showing up - at work, at home, when loved ones need our help, when people down on their luck need our help, and in prayer - is half the battle. You may not think “showing up” in prayer is particularly important, but I believe – and many spiritual writers believe – it's essential. Everything Else Negotiable “There is no bad way to pray,” writes Ronald Rolheiser, a Catholic priest and writer, in his little book, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing , “and there is no one starting point for prayer. You have to show up for prayer and you have to show up regularly. Everything else is negotiable and respects your uni...

Google Image I suppose many of us believe that people who don’t see things our way are merely influenced by others, the culture, trends, etc., and don’t think for themselves. That’s usually a fallacy, but I can’t shake the idea that it’s true of many people today, especially the young, concerning religion. Many who have abandoned religion, I believe, are more influenced by cultural changes than by thoughtful consideration. Don’t get me wrong. Many people who have rejected religion and belief do so because they have thoughtfully, and often painfully, examined the issues. But I believe many have not, dismissing religion because they feel that it provides no benefit. Even the Purchase of a Car? How many study the issue of faith as much as they examine other decisions in their lives – their political affiliation, their job or spousal choice or even their purchase of a car? And as for the question of whether the abandonment of religion is good for society, I can only ask, “How’s th...

Google Image In a speech about immigration, a prominent politician recently remarked that America has become “ a dumping ground. We’re like a garbage can for the world.” And at a political rally, a comedian referred to Puerto Rico as "a floating island of garbage." I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Did they mean that all immigrants are garbage, and that the residents of Puerto Rico are garbage? Or was the politician talking only about immigrants who lack proper papers and the comedian only that the island is messy? I don’t know. But is speaking about any group of human beings in that manner OK? I think not. We may have different opinions about how the U.S. border should be handled but referring to any group of human beings in such a way, even those who are “illegal,” is an obstacle in the search for God. And Puerto Ricans are certainly not garbage.   Contradicts Christian Teachings For starters, such a view contradicts my church’s teaching on social justice,...

Ouray, CO Google Image There’s a strange story in the Gospel of Luke about Jesus sending out a large group of disciples, two by two, as a kind of advance contingent “into every town and place where he himself was about to come.” Some Bible versions say there were 70, others 72, disciples. But among the strange aspects of this story is Jesus’ instructions that they were to “carry no purse, no bag, no sandals….” And they were to stay in houses along the way, “eating and drinking what they provide.” It appears he wanted them to travel lightly and engage their hosts. When I worked as a priest in Bolivia, Father Mike Walker, a priest who had worked at the parish when I arrived, decided to take a two-week “vacation.” Our parish was a relatively isolated place on the shores of Lake Titicaca, about two and a half hours from the capital, La Paz. And priests from our American diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph worked at another Bolivian parish in a semi-tropical place called Coripata, which b...

Google Image “Say what?" some may ask. "Who do you think you are telling your readers how to pray?”  Well, remember that this blog is principally for people who have given up on God and/or the Church, even though few of those people may read it. I always hope that people who do read it pass it on to their family and friends, and I know some do. Anyway, I'm guessing that many people searching for God have a problem with prayer. (I recall an old joke about soldiers in a fox hole a under fierce artillery attack. Paralyzed with fear, one of them asked, “Does anyone know how to pray?” One of the soldiers said he grew up near a Catholic church and maybe he could say a few words. So, he began, “B-22, I-8, N-14.” For those of you who don’t get it, Catholic parishes were known for their frequent fund-raising Bingo games.) Hopefully, most readers know something about praying. I would even bet that most already pray, but even though I’m certainly not a prayer expert, I do quit...

Google Image I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a bit of election anxiety. I’m not crazy about either presidential candidate, to be honest, but using the standards of my faith, I greatly prefer one over the other. Other people will undoubtedly have a different preference. But if my preferred candidate is not elected, I fear a further corruption of democratic processes, further deterioration of the value of honesty and integrity, tolerance and benevolence. And greater authoritarianism. Some will say that these negative traits apply equally to both candidates; that both candidates lie, are intolerant, etc. But as I said, though I don’t fully endorse either, I think there is a great difference in their moral characters, and I believe morality and ethics are basic qualities to seek in a presidential candidate. Thought Better of Myself I’m not pleased to feel that anxiety. I thought better of myself, but there’s so much at stake, I suppose it’s to be expected. I keep coming bac...

Google Image I vividly recall when, as a kid, I learned that a priest who was popular nationally for his ultra-traditionalist, anti-Semitic radio broadcasts, was excommunicated by the Catholic Church for insisting that non-Catholics could not be “saved.” At the time, this news confused me because I thought that’s what we learned in the Catholic school I attended. Later in life, I better understood the church teaching on the subject but still believe the teaching is ambivalent and misunderstood by many Catholics, let alone non-Catholics. On the one hand, Fr. Feeney’s view confirms the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John that “No one can come to the Father except through me.” On the other, the church attempts to explain how non-Catholics can enter God’s kingdom with the esoteric doctrine of the “baptism of desire.” "Seeks the Truth" "Every man who is ignorant of the gospel of Christ  and of his Church,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “but seeks the truth...

Google Image Listening to a radio broadcast recently, I heard an interview of a woman who was advocating for more freedom for women. Basically, she said that women should be free from traditional constraints to be able to do what they want. “What about men?” I thought. Lots of women would answer by saying we men already do what we want. There’s truth in that, but people searching for God - at least in the Christian tradition - need to go deeper. Jesus was “a man for others,” and all of his teaching urged his listeners to be the same, man or woman. I thought about the newscast, and the advocate for women’s liberation, as I read a recent article in America magazine arguing against the concept of the “chosen family.” The idea of a chosen family, as I understand it, is the adoption of people other than one's biological family as one's “real family.” According to the article, the chosen family is becoming more common, especially among young adults. Those We Choose to Keep Cl...