My title is a little ambiguous, so I’ll use myself as an example.
I’m Catholic. I’m pretty liberal, but I believe in the core teachings. I believe in miracles, Jesus’ divinity, yada yada yada.
With that said, when I meet somebody who claims to have witnessed a miracle, I am very skeptical. The same goes for people who claim experience with angels, demons, auras, faith-healings, and other such things. While I don’t necessarily disbelieve them, I do think that for around, hmmm, 95%+ (at least), of such stories, there is a natural explanation.
So, while not a skeptic in the strict sense of the word, I am certainly not mister woo-woo either. I was wondering if others shared my particular mindset.
Yes, absolutely, except in my case, it’s not 95%, it’s 99.99999999999%.
I may technically be a believer, insomuch as I believe in God, pray, and observe several religious practices, but I’m functionally atheistic. I don’t believe in miracles (at least, any that occurred in the past 2000 years or so), I don’t believe my prayers are answered, and my morality does not derive from my religion. I believe God exists, but I don’t accept any of the “proof” people present me.
Being a Catholic means that I believe in all kinds of things that sound absurd. It doesn’t follow that I must therefore believe in EVERYTHING that sounds absurd.
To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, I believe in miracles, just as I believe in lions- but I don’t expect to see either of them on every street corner.
Very nicely put! I’m deeply religious and also quite skeptical. I don’t ever expect to see Jesus or the Virgin Mary on a slice of toast because I have no way of knowing what they looked like. I know people twist things to suit their perceptions and I’ve been guilty of the same thing. I also firmly believe that faith can coexist with logic and rationality and that one should apply reason and logic to one’s own beliefs. I think it’s important to know why you believe something as well as what that something is. I think miracles do happen, but I think they usually take the form of coincidences which don’t break the laws of physic and believing something is a miracle is a choice a person makes.
Christians are commanded to love God with all their minds as well as hearts. When Christ sent the disciples into the world, he told them to be sharp as serpents and it seems to me his way of teaching involved a lot of questioning of authority. Therefore, I see questioning things as a moral obligation and intellectual curiousity as a virtue. That may be my attempt to justify my behaviour, though. If questioning things is a sin as some people believe, I’m in deep trouble! :eek:
I think Siege sums up my position - I’m not just skeptical, but I also have a cynical streak a mile wide. But I am also deeply committed to living a life of faith. I have seen things I would classify as “miracles”, I have experienced things that defy rational explanation. I still sometimes doubt my own experiences. But I do try to hang on to my faith, and I’m not sure which runs deeper - my cynicism or my belief. I hope I don’t end up in a position to find out.
Oh, definitely! In fact, I used to get in trouble in Sunday School for being such a skeptic. My faith is tempered by reason. I don’t believe in people who say they hear God speaking to them, I’m not a huge fan of angels, I think a lot of stuff in the Bible is literary license or story-telling at its best. My favorite religious philosophy comes from the play Inherit The Wind and the writings of Annie Lamott, for pity’s sake!
I pretty much agree with everything said in this thread (especially the quote by G.K. Chesterton, but I’ve always fangirled him).
I’ve never thought science and religion could be too much at odds, deep at heart–scientists exploring the details of the universe, the dark matter and the gravitational waves and the DNA sequencing and the stem cell research, see the glory and the infinite variety of God’s creation. God gave us the brains and made us the stewards of His planet so that we could learn about the cosmos, the nature of existence; skepticism about everything, an open and relentlessly inquiring mind, is what God wants us to have.
A little girl fell in a pool and was under water for a long time. Maybe a long as 10 minutes. Admitted to the hospital late Tuesday night. All the Dr.s and staff expected the little girl to die before morining. We started praying.
On Thursday afternoon the little girl went home. The Dr.s said that she will be ok, that she will live a normal life with no side effects. In fact one of the Dr.s told the parents that he did not expect to see the little girl when returned the next day.
Another time.
I made a mistake one time working on a freight elevator. I brought the gate dead weight down on my finget. I smashed the last 3/4 of an inch under a solid bar 3inch by 4 inch by 16 inch. Moving at full opening speed. When it hit it hurt. As I pulled my hand out before I opened my hand I thought if God can care for the little girl then the hand will be no problem. All the time my hand healed there was no pain and I was able to keep working.
Another time
I was working at Christian Music Festable. We had many electrical problems that I will not go into because of time. We had a problem on one electrical panel. There were three 50 amp three pole breakers and one 30 amp, for a total of 180 amps. All three breakers were tripping because of over load. To make the changes we had to I went back to the distrobution panel. The panel I was pulling out 180 amps was only being feed by 50 amp breaker and it was not overloaded.
If you do not believe me that is OK. I was there and I have a hard time believing it.
I admit I am a skeptic. I have faith in what I hear in my religion. I also believe I was given a brain to interpret events myself. Maybe I do not have enough faith to just believe without reasoning.
Never believe without reasoning. That is how people get in real trouble.
I am also a skeptic. When I hear of a miracle I question it, even the ones that I have described. When you question you get answers. There is nothing wrong with questioning God because he will answer.
Despite being a believer, I am very skeptical of miraculous claims. I firmly believe in the power of prayer, but I also frequently urge people not to jump to conclusions whenever they hear about miraculous healings or other fantastic claims. I do believe that such things occur, but I also recognized that these stories can sometimes be fabricated or exaggerated.
I also tend to question what I am taught. That’s precisely why I left the church of my birth, and have since become a conservative evangelical. This is even reflected in my theistic beliefs. I have questioned God’s existence in times past, but I have since become thoroughly satisfied that there is more than enough evidence to point to his existence.
It’s common for people to dismiss Christians as unthinking sheep who simply believe what they’ve been told. Sadly, there are too many believers like that, just as there are too many skeptics who are quick to believe stuff they’ve heard (the whole “Christianity was inspired by Mithraism” meme, for example. That’s why I’m always gratified when I encounter believers who recognize that faith can be – and should ultimately be – informed by the evidence that we are challenged to examine.
Been a Charismatic Christian for 30 years, seen weird spiritual fads come & go, respected religious leaders rise & fall & sometimes rise again, seen my own church withstand some weirdness, got into some weird teachings of my own (no, not the ones I share here G- I mean Really weird), so Hell yeah, I am!
On the other hand, I can’t buy that all this exists without some great Mind behind it. And I’ve studied & experienced enough to convince me that this Mind has works in the history of the Jews, manifests Himself through Jesus, guides us through the Bible & the Christian Community, still works in our lives today & is bringing us closer to the manifestation of His Reign in humanity.
I’m a pretty devout Catholic, but yeah I’m pretty skeptical. Faith should be informed by reason. (We got several lectures about this in my seminary classes even).
Now do I think there are angels, demons, miracles, and apparitions? Yes. Am I immediately inclined towards doubt when someone says they experienced/saw one? Also yes, but I am persuadable.
I’m very skeptical of anyone’s claim to a modern-day miracle. I think many of the Biblical ones may even be attributable to literary license.
I believe that, if there are angels, they don’t generally interact with humans. I don’t believe in demons.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but I wish I could. The world would be a cooler place with ghosts. It would also be a cooler place with intelligent life on Mars, but I know that isn’t there, either.
I am religious, though not christian, and I am inclined to believe people have experienced something but usually it is not what they think it is.
On the road from my aunt’s house to my parent’s house there is a spot where every single time whe drove by it I thought I saw the bat signal in the sky. I couldn’t figure out what it was or where it was coming from but it was very plainly the bat signal. One night I decided I was going to figure out where this was coming from and I waited for that spot in the road and I discovered that there was a dip in the asphalt that caused the headlights to flash on a yellow sign momentarily, which appeared to be the bat signal when sitting in the back of my dad’s Toyota.
This has proved to me that there is an explanation for everything.
I do think that supernatural stuff exsists but I don’t believe any of it is here to help or harm us. My theory on the afterlife is that it occasionally becomes noticable to us in our current life, kind of like a fetus in the womb can hear the disembodied voices of the people surrounding it’s mother.* Some of the people who claim to have seen ghosts and apparitions are probably correct but I think most of it can be explained away by attention whoring, misunderstandings, and mental disabilities.
*It is either this, reincarnation, or nothingness. I think this is the most fun of the possible outcomes though so I don’t want to let go of the idea.
Skeptical yes. We should question and use our faculties to discern truth from tradition. I cringe a bit when people attribute something to God to easily and are certain some idea or inclination must be God guiding them. Follow your intuition but take responsibility for the choice.
I’m skeptical that you understood the nature of his or her claim.
Being “somewhat skeptical” doesn’t mean that you automatically reject all claims of God’s intervention in the world. Based’ on b]Snnipe 70E**'s other comments, he/she presumably believes there is good reason to accept these as examples of godly intervention while rejecting others.
