EXPERIENCING DOUBT

A surprising number of friends who were raised as Christians have confided to me or have stated publicly that they have experienced a period of doubt and soul-searching, if you will, regarding their belief in God.  In some cases the friend has overcome her doubts and gained a renewed faith in God.  In others she has come to the conclusion that she no longer believes in God.

A CLOUD THE SIZE OF A MAN’S HAND

By the fifth grade I knew that the end of the world was coming and that it could happen at any time.  The pastor of our Seventh-day Adventist church, my Sabbath school teachers, and the teachers of the Adventist school that I had attended since first grade all had done their best to explain how we were in the End Times before Christ’s Second Coming.  They explained that there were myriad signs that we were hurtling toward the end.  The world was in chaos, there were “wars and rumors of war,” and there were more and worse earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters than ever before that presaged the end.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

When it comes to answering pointed questions about philosophical or religious beliefs, Christians have it relatively easy, knowing that most fellow Americans also identify themselves as Christian. They can just say, “Oh, I’m a Christian,” or “I’m Catholic” or “Methodist” or “Lutheran” or whatever, and most everyone can relate and relax.  

Things are not so simple for nonbelievers.

GHOSTBUSTERS

A while back I came across a notice for a presentation at my local library by a group calling themselves the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee (PIM).  The notice indicated that the group would be discussing their investigations of places that were suspected of being haunted.  The presentation was open to the public, and I decided that, as a skeptic, I needed to check it out.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION: OVERLAPPING DOMAINS

Twenty years ago, the late paleontologist and science historian Stephen Jay Gould argued that science and religion pursue separate and legitimate realms of inquiry and that they can coexist, so long as they each keep to their own realm. “Science,” he said, “tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolve.”