Skeptical Faith

Google Image I’m not much of a celebrity watcher, subscribing to the cliché that celebrities “put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us (assuming we wear pants).”   But I came across a 2012 interview of actor Mark Wahlberg, recently placed on Facebook. I think of him as a tough guy, “heart-throb” actor who has appeared in movies such as The Italian Job, The Departed, The Perfect Storm and The Fighter. He’s been getting a lot of publicity lately because of his movie, The Gambler. Judging by the critics, it needs all the promotion it can get.   Anyway, Wahlberg, 43, used coke at age 13, was a gang member and was sent to prison at 16 after having been involved in racially motivated assaults, according to the interview. Growing up in Boston, he is from a family of nine children, several of whom have also served time.   At some point after prison, he changed. Here’s what he had to say about it.   “Once I focused on my faith, won...

Google Image “Hello Lord, it's me your child. I have a few things on my mind. Right now I'm faced with big decisions And I'm wondering if you have a minute, 'cause Right now I don't hear so well. And I was wondering if you could speak up.” These lyrics by singer/songwriter Sara Groves touch on a frequent subject of this blog: God’s silence. I believe it’s one of the biggest obstacles to faith today, although the problem surely stretches back to the dawn of belief in an invisible God. If there is a God, why doesn’t he/she show himself/herself? And, ask many who have given up on God and religion, if God is unknowable, why bother? Just get on with life and do the best you can without him/her. Many who would like to believe in God, as well as many who on some level already do, are stuck on these questions. In his book, “Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief,” physician and geneticist Francis Collins – head of the National Institu...

Google Image The terrorism events in Paris have generated debates about religion and fanaticism and provide ammunition to those who believe religion is irrational and violent. The debates are a good thing, but the view about religion, I believe, is misguided.   A BBC reporter recently interviewed a woman in England who defended the brutal and lethal methods of radical Islamic groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, which appear to favor mass killings and beheadings in their attempts to conquer parts Iraq and Syria. When the reporter asked the woman, who had been accused of promoting terrorism in Great Britain, how she could justify breaking British law, she replied that she must obey God’s law rather than civil law. She seemed to apply that principle to the Middle East killings as well. It reminded me of the passage from the Acts of the Apostles in the Christian Bible in which Peter and some other apostles were hauled before the Jewish Supreme Council in Jerusalem. Council memb...

Google Image For years I’ve been interested in Iran. Maybe it’s because I see it not just as the country whose citizens held 52 Americans hostages for 444 days four decades ago and with which the U.S. has a bitter relationship, but as a nation descended from a great Persian culture. Anyway, I recently read in The Economist that “ordinary Iranians are losing interest in the mosque. “Iran is the modern world’s first and only constitutional theocracy,” the story says. “It is also one of the least religious countries in the Middle East. …By forcing religion on people it poisoned worship for many. They are sick of being preached at and have stopped listening. “The country is Islamic in much the same way that Italy is Catholic,” one Iranian economist is quoted as saying. Isn’t this the pattern when it comes to “official” and entrenched religions? Look at the state of faith in any country that has an official religion or where religion has dominated society. We can start w...

Google Image Personally, I’m not big on dates and times. I have often forgotten my birthday, and a couple of years ago assumed I was a year older than I actually was – without really thinking about it. So the New Year holds little meaning for me. I see such observances as human inventions, and though I know society would be hard pressed to function without keeping track of time, I sometimes wonder if we would be better off without it. But I know that the New Years is among the saddest of times for many people. While some people party much of the night and most of the morning, others feel depressed, thinking that with the close of another year, they have left behind part of their lives and are a year closer to the end. It’s no wonder when the “theme song” of New Years is the old Scottish tune, “Auld Lang Syne,” whose lyrics are:    Should Old Acquaintance be forgot, and never thought upon; The flames of Love extinguished, and fully past and gone: Is thy s...

Google Image The following is from a recent display, called “Funny Notes from Little Kids,” on the MSN home page: Dear tooth fareis: My tooth whent down the drane. It was an accident. Will you take this eyelash insted? From Emerson An arrow points to a circle Emerson made with his pencil. Presumably, he had placed an eyelash - or part of one – there. We can smile because a child wrote it. If an adult had written it, it certainly wouldn’t have made it onto a nationwide stage unless it was part of a news story on adults who believe in tooth ferries and who had been denied an education, and we wouldn’t smile. We adults try not to be childish or juvenile - except when it comes to God and religion. This is especially evident at Christmas time. We get caught up in the childish accidentals and miss the substance. Many of us also have childish or juvenile reasons for believing, and just as childish or juvenile reasons for not believing. How many of us believers have m...

Google Image During his first week in college, Michael Conway’s grandmother - a great cook who always shared what she made – died, and after the funeral, Conway got into a conversation with the guy who worked at his dorm’s front desk. Seeing his stress, the guy invited Michael to join a group called Labre, which seeks out homeless people in downtown Chicago, offering them hot dogs, granola bars and occasional toiletries. The guy obviously knew that Michael needed to “get out of himself,” specifically by “paying forward” his grandmother’s generosity. Fortunately, it worked for Michael, who took the risk to become a regular member of Labre during his four years in college. I recently read about him and the account of his “calling” in America magazine, making me think of how searchers for God, in a variety of unlikely ways, “find” him/her. Many people today think that searching for God is anything but risky, that it’s an accommodation to the status quo. But is it, really? I’v...