Skeptical Faith

Google Image The Internet and social media are full of articles about people who have given up on religion and churchgoing. I get it. People ask themselves why they need it. Compared to the excitement and visually and auditory stimulation of the media, church may seem boring. They may have grave doubts about God’s existence. They may be scandalized by the behavior of some clergy members. Some age groups may find religion “embarrassing,” and believe that church is for old people. I’m skeptical, however. I believe people need church more than ever. And if you find church boring, is it the church’s problem or yours? If you’re scandalized by the behavior of the clergy, you’re not paying attention to what our society is like, and you’re letting actions of others determine yours. The benefits of religion are timeless. Young people stand to gain more than the old, in my opinion. The Human Condition Now, regarding doubts about God’s existence. Doubts about everything is the human conditi...

Google Image A few months ago, I attended an event at a theater in downtown Denver. My companions and I were waiting in line in the cold, when I spotted a presumed homeless man seated on the sidewalk holding a cup. I gave him a few bucks, then went back in line. But I had regrets, not because I agree with the people opposed to giving money to people begging on the street and not because I thought I should have given him more, but because I didn’t speak to him or even acknowledge his presence. Whether to help beggars has been a bone of contention for me for some time. Some people say giving them money is a way of enabling their homelessness. I find this argument shallow. It presumes that beggars choose this lifestyle and that they could prosper if they wanted to. In my considerable experience with the homeless, that's simply not the case. Faith Compels Us Besides, and more importantly, I believe faith compels us to help such people. And the gospels don’t place any conditions o...

Google Image This blog is called Skeptical Faith because one of its goals is to show that skepticism and faith are not mutually exclusive. That’s because though our religious beliefs may not be provable through the kind of evidence used in the “hard sciences,” faith is nonetheless reasonable and rational. The evidence for the existence of God, for instance, is at least as rational as evidence that is commonly presented in a court of law. Such evidence includes the testimony of millions – perhaps billions - of witnesses over the centuries, and inferences from studies on the origin of the universe and the origin of life. Inferences aren’t “proofs,” for sure, but in most parts of our lives, inferences are the best we have. Here’s what I mean by inferences. Since moving to Colorado and doing a bit of hiking, I’ve been more interested in identifying footprints in the snow and mud. Looking at them carefully, you can make inferences about the kinds of animals that have passed by, and even...

Google Image Many people who worry about people of faith speaking out on political and social issues say things like, “They’re trying to cram their religious beliefs down our throats.” I’ve often heard or read on social and other media that kind of comment and I’m always puzzled why people are allowed to be motivated by their interest in “gun rights” or “border issues” or party affiliation, and advocate for them, but not someone motivated by their faith. Writes David French in a recent issue of the New York Times: “Anyone may disagree with Christian arguments around civil rights, immigration, abortion, religious liberty or any other point of political conflict … but it is no more illegitimate or dangerous for a believer to bring her worldview into a public debate than it is for a secular person to bring his own secular moral reasoning into politics.” Christian Nationalism French is writing against Christian Nationalism, which I’ll attempt to deal with later in this blog. But he f...