The Essence of Christianity?
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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1w ago
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 ..read more
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Can a Skeptic Take the Bible Seriously?
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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1w ago
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 ..read more
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Childlike or Childish?
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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1M ago
Google Image Since moving to Colorado, I’ve had lots of opportunities to spend time with my four-year-old grandson, Leo. Recently, we toured the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. I know, it sounds like a bit too sophisticated for a four-year-old. But on the day we went, the museum was filled with children. About 20 school busloads, to be more exact. And we found lots of interesting things to see, even for four-year-olds. As always, I was amazed at Leo’s curiosity about the natural world, as well as his interaction with the other children at the exhibits. He was especially fascin ..read more
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Are We Failing God’s “Tests?”
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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1M ago
Google Image When I was in the seminary studying theology, our Scripture professor, Fr. Ignatius Hunt, on Mondays would choose a student in class - I presume arbitrarily - to answer a question or two about what we had learned the week before. One of my friends, Tom R, sweated bullets on Mondays, dreading the calling of his name. The class had three or four “Toms” and Fr. Ignatius, a scripture scholar but a kind man (and one of the best teachers I had in all of my formal education), would call the name, “Tom,” then pause, looking over the student roster in his hands, before calling a ..read more
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Where God Happens
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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1M ago
Google Image There is an old film, made in 1960, that caused me to be a secret admirer of Hayley Mills, the British child actress whom I thought was about the cutest girl ever. The film was called Pollyanna. Based on a book by Eleanor Porter, it was about an 11-year-old, unabashed optimist named Pollyanna, an orphan who lives with her stern aunt Polly. Nothing could shake Pollyanna’s view that life is wonderful, and since the book and movie, “Pollyanna” is used to describe a person who is unrealistically optimistic. One movie scene features actor Karl Madden as the Reverend Ford, who ..read more
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Trying to Define Love
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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1M ago
Google Image Years ago in Ireland, the daughter of a cousin of my grandmother had a child out-of-wedlock. I heard this from my brother, a priest, who said the girl’s family took the baby from the mother and had the child raised by her grandmother. My brother spoke approvingly of this arrangement, saying that the girl’s family decided that if she was irresponsible enough to have a baby out-of-wedlock, she was too irresponsible to be a mother. When older, my brother changed his mind about that opinion, and although I thought it made sense when I first learned about it, I, too, grew to ..read more
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How We View “Church”
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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2M ago
Google Image An itinerant preacher is in a small house, packed with people who are transfixed listening to his experience of God as loving Father. It contradicts much of what the listeners have learned and, as usual with this preacher, many are confused. Suddenly, he is interrupted by someone who says, “Rabbi, your mother and brothers are outside, wanting to speak with you.” In a seemingly rude way, he answers, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” Then he answers his own question, indicating his listeners: “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Fa ..read more
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What Love Requires
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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2M ago
Google Image Since my college days, I’ve been a fan of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. For those of you not familiar with him, Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who resisted the Nazis and paid for it with his life. His decision to resist wasn’t easy. He labored over it, trying to decide between patriotism, and loyalty to his country’s government, and the demands of his conscience. Finally, it was a matter of deciding that his patriotism was really love of country and that the Nazis were destroying everything good about it. He was also a pacifist, but decided that the Nazis ..read more
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Noise!
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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2M ago
Google Image I was recently the recipient of a birthday gift – to my wife, Amparo. That is, she received the gift of an overnight stay at a nice, Colorado hotel and casino and I was allowed to go along for the ride. The hotel was wonderful and in a beautiful mountain location, but there’s not much to do but gamble. So I spent a few hours playing a poker machine. I don’t bet much so I lost only a few bucks in a couple of hours playing. But after an hour or so of sitting in front of a garish machine – carefully programmed, I presume, to allow you just enough wins to keep you in your se ..read more
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Still Throwing Stones?
Skeptical Faith | Christian Faith Blog
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2M ago
Google Image Woman was made to be man’s helper, according to the Book of Genesis. But instead of helping, she gave him forbidden fruit to eat, prompting God to kick them both out of Paradise. For women, it was all downhill from there, according to the Hebrew Bible. As many of you know, I’m reading a book called, “Jesus, An Historical Approximation,” in which author Jose Pagola – a Spanish theologian and biblical scholar - uses modern scientific research to understand the world in which Jesus lived. He has a whole chapter on the status of women at the time of Jesus. For the most part ..read more
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