Skeptical Faith

It’s easy to be cynical about love. Besides being “what makes a Subaru a Subaru,” it’s the favorite word of all manner of popular songs, movies, TV shows, even porn. As sad as is the “hookup culture” – about which I wrote a few weeks ago – at least it doesn’t pretend to be what it’s not. It’s about sex, not “love.” Let’s face it, for young males in our society especially, the concept of love is troublesome. It comes off as a cultural construct translating into the “M” word or some similar commitment, and commitment risks freedom. It’s nebulous and ambiguous on the one hand and obvious and a given on the other. It can apply to someone in a marriage, a “relationship,” to family, to “our fellow men” and for religious people, God. At best, it’s confusing. Love in the context of God and religion may be the most bewildering. I once attended a Catholic Mass in which the priest came to the pulpit at the time of the homily and after an uncomfortably long pause to make sure he...

Today I’m posting my 25 th blog, having started writing them back in June. In general, I’m pleased with the blogs and continue to believe they offer a viewpoint and cover issues that are seldom seen elsewhere. However, the feedback has been slim, and I doubt I’m reaching many of the people I intend to reach. As the subhead on my main Blogger page says, I’m trying to reach people who have given up on God and/or religion. And as I said in one of my early posts, I’m especially interested in those between the ages of 20 and 40. I suspect few people in those categories read them, however. I send notices of new posts each Thursday to my Facebook friends and LinkedIn and E-mail contacts, most of whom are over – and sometimes, way over – 40. I ask that they pass along the blog address and individual posts to their children, grandchildren, friends and acquaintances, who may be among those who have “given up.” So, I hope at least a few in the categories I’m trying to reach ge...

Humility isn’t a coveted contemporary virtue. It’s rarely displayed in politics, business, athletics, fashion, entertainment, or religion. We’re all about self-expression and independence. We seldom pass up an opportunity to “take pride” in this or that, to bask in such things as “American exceptionalism.” We scratch our heads when hearing Jesus’ words about the first being last. We are curious, perhaps, about somebody like the Dalai Lama, a worldwide celeb who tells audiences he’s “just another human being,” and urges people to adopt humility. Or when we hear and see Pope Francis speaking about and acting out of humility. But they just don’t fit in the world we know. But does all our pride lead to happiness? Unrealistic expectations Sure, people should never put themselves down, and people with good self-esteem are happier. That’s not the kind of “pride” I’m talking about. I’m referring to the pride recognized for centuries as one of the seven “deadly” sins (You can...

I know it’s irritating to read, “On the one hand…and on the other.” That’s how life is, however. It’s never as simple as we would like, and faith (at least for me) is no exception. So in considering the question whether belief is a matter of “all or nothing,” I would say that, yes, there’s a sense in which it must be all or nothing, but maybe not all at once. Here’s what I mean. Some pretty graphic language in the Bible is reserved for people who are “neither hot nor cold.” “…But since you are neither,” says the Book of Revelation, “but only lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth.” Instead of “spit,” I’ve seen that translated as “spew” or “vomit.” Strong stuff and an example of the “apocalyptic” literature of its time. Revelation is among the most difficult of New Testament books, which may be why so many preachers like to quote and (mis)interpret it. A common form of being lukewarm, in my view, is the practice of many Christians who believe their religion con...

Skeptics may ask what reading a book that’s at least 2,000 years old could possibly have to do with their lives. The mindset of the authors of the books of the Bible was so different from ours that little of what they have to say would be relevant or useful to us. It’s like reading Shakespeare. He may have been a great writer and all, and there may be useful messages in his work, but we don’t have the time or inclination to decipher the language or understand the context. Besides failing to recognize that the Bible is “the Word of God in words of men,” I believe this is part of a bias we have against dead people. I know that sounds weird but think of how we smile knowingly when we consider the customs and beliefs of our grandparents – to say nothing of the lives of people who lived centuries ago. I recall the hilarious Saturday Night Live skits with “historical” themes. One was about the overconfident and self-satisfied medieval barber/physician, Theodoric of York, pla...

I’ve always been mildly interested in “near death” experiences. I approach them with my usual skepticism, but I’m not convinced they are easily dismissed as purely biological phenomena. If, of course, you start with the assumption that there is nothing but biology – that there is no such thing as the spiritual and that all human experience is strictly limited to the human brain – then it would be hard to see these near-death experiences as anything but biology in action. If you’re open to the spiritual, you would have a different view. As a newspaper reporter, I did at least one story on the subject, interviewing three Iowans who claim to have had a near-death experience. I found two of the three to be believable. I was unsure about the third – both about whether something extraordinary occurred and about whether he really believed it to have happened. I also recently read the popular book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander....

Two key related questions for many skeptics are, “If God exists, why is he/she silent?” A related question is, “Why faith?” For many atheists, the question of God’s silence is the clincher in their rejection of faith. God is just not there, they say, and there’s no way to get around it. If he/she were, you’d hear from him/her. So grow up, get over it, get on with it. Learn to live your life without God and you’ll be much happier. For me, an important similar question is, “Why faith?” Why would God design things in a way that requires human beings to believe in him/her instead of knowing him/her directly? Why require an intellectual and emotional struggle about faith? If he/she is so smart, couldn’t he/she have come up with a better design? For believers, of course, God is not silent. They see him and “hear” him in others, in nature, in the Bible, in their work, in science, literature and art. But for the skeptical searcher for God, I have no entirely satisfactory...