Skeptical Faith

Google Image In a recent issue, Matt Malone, editor of America Magazine, passed along a joke about his religious order, the Jesuits, who have a reputation for being highly educated, sophisticated and presumably, religious. “If you buy a Jesuit a drink, he’ll talk to you about anything,” wrote Malone. “If you buy him two, he’ll talk to you about Jesus.” Most of us have the notion that religion is, and should be, a private matter. We’re irritated, and even embarrassed, if someone brings religion into an otherwise secular conversation. The more society becomes estranged from religion, the more likely that is. As indicated by Malone’s joke, even religious professionals hesitate to bring faith into a conversation.   Why are we so reluctant to talk about our faith, or even faith in general? May Cause Discomfort There are lots of answers. Among them is the traditional reluctance to bring up religion or politics because they’re controversial and may cause discomfort or conflic

Google Image Definitely. OK, so we don’t usually think of him/her in those terms, which may conjure up women protesting, marching and going bra-less. But does God buy into society’s biases against women, males’ illusions of superiority, the violence perpetrated against women and their objectification in entertainment and pornography? Not the God for whom I’m searching. Somehow, however, the equality of the sexes has been lost on many religious people. In the case of Christians, it’s especially hard to understand. Christians believe that God became a human being in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Presumably, God chose a certain time, about 2,000 years ago, and a certain culture, that of Judea, to do so. The time may have been right in the development of Jewish religious views, but the contemporary culture did not hold women in high regard. You can say that about all the cultures of the ancient world, perhaps, but surprisingly, the ancient Hebrews were probably among the b

Google Image A recent National Public Radio broadcast discussed the huge differences in salaries that result from the choice of a college major and subsequent career choice. The presumption underlying the story was that you could achieve much more “success” in life by choosing a major and career like engineering over fields like psychology, education, philosophy or social work. Nothing was said about the value of knowledge itself. It made me think about how we define “success.” To me, the presumption of the report shows how little influence faith – especially the Christian faith and its values – has on our lives. That’s because it prompts us to ask the question, “How much money can I make with this major and career?” instead of “Which major and career will help me serve others?” or “Which will make me happy, or contribute to my knowledge or insights about myself and the world?” To cynics, the latter questions must seem terribly naïve. People who ask them will be “losers” t

Google Image   As a section editor at the newspaper where I worked, I occasionally received calls from people complaining that the paper was filled with “bad news.” They wanted “good news,” they said. I had little patience with these callers because for a journalist, there is no “good” or “bad” news. There’s just news, and the journalist’s job is to deliver it as objectively and accurately as possible. Readers can decide how, and to what extent, it affects them. Now as a consumer of news, I have a different perspective. I still want journalists to provide accurate, objective news, whether I like it or not. If news outlets provided only news that made us happy, we wouldn’t have an accurate view of reality and that would be dangerous. But I get almost depressed when, day after day, the news is depressing. Interviewed over 200 girls Recently, I heard a broadcast of an interview of Nancy Jo Sales, who wrote a new book called American Girls. She spent 21/2 years researching t

Google Image Next time you hear a scientist say something like, "The more we know about the universe the less important we become," don’t buy it. The reality is precisely the opposite, according to a recent article on the National Public Radio web site. The more we know about the universe, the more unique we become, theoretical physicist and cosmologist Marcelo Gleiser is quoted as saying. We have become accustomed to hearing that humans may not be alone in the universe, and that speculation is underpinned by countless science-fiction movies. This has led to doubts about the uniqueness of human beings, even conjecture about whether the traditional view about humans’ dominance among the earth’s sentient creatures is deserved. We simply don’t know about the presence of beings elsewhere in the universe, but there is little doubt about the uniqueness of humans or their dominance in our world. Billions of years to evolve Life began about 3.9 billion years ago and