A Skeptic and a Believer

May 27, 2007

                                                   Carolyn S. Owen-Towle

Some time ago I had a conversation with a woman who had been a lifelong fundamentalist.  She had journeyed from one denomination to another in her spiritual quest, but at this point was having a crisis of belief.  All her life she had taken biblical text literally, but she was realizing that there were contradictions in the Bible and she wanted to know which parts were true.  Was Jesus Lord, or was he a man?  Did he rise from the dead physically or was his rebirth a spiritual one?

As we talked I raised the question of whether it truly mattered as long as she lived by the best of Jesus’ examples?  For awhile it seemed she might be on the brink of a breakthrough.  Could her questions be allowed to hang in the air while her life went on?  Was it possible to acknowledge that nobody knows the answers to these questions nor ever will?  Could one live in the questions, making decisions according to ones best understanding?  It seemed very logical to me.

The woman asked questions and mused in a way I initially felt was propelling her beyond her current dilemma into new territory.  After awhile however, I realized that what she continued to insist upon was “the answer”. Her parting words to me were “If I came up with some biblical proof would I contact her?  Her crisis of spirit was apparently a struggle to remain a true believer.

Now, I ask you to make a leap backward many decades in time to a small town and a small girl experiencing her introduction to formal religion. It’s hard to believe that that picture shows me at the age today, of our grandson, Owen. Mother took me to the Claremont Community Church in the early ‘40s. I was 6 or 7 by then. It was a Congregational church. In Sunday school, I sat looking up at a picture of the face of God, haloed with a white flowing beard.  He was benignly peering down at me through peach-blue clouds.  In his open hands seemed to rest my very permission to exist.  I remember dazzling white rays of light shooting diagonally earthward from his clouded and disembodied perch.

I remember the stories week after week of miraculous happenings about the life of Jesus, this God’s son.  Stories of how through Jesus the blind saw and the crippled were made to walk. Poignantly, I remember my inward feelings of incredulity.  How clearly I recall a growing sense of guilt. What everyone else seemed to accept went against my small mind’s logic. Being a timid child, I couldn’t bring myself to question the grown-up teacher’s words. So, I began to feel like an outsider along with guilt for not believing.

For years, I kept my otherness a secret.  Sporadically, I attended Sunday school, even church occasionally.  I was mildly rebuked once or twice as I recall, for giggling in the balcony.  At age 13, I allowed myself to be confirmed, carried  along on the tide by my friends of the same age.  But, as I stood in line receiving the warm wishes and hand-pressing of the congregation, a leaden lump grew in my solar plexis threatening to cut off my very air supply.  Outwardly smiling, inwardly miserable, I joined the church.

From that day on I did not, as I recall, darken the doors of “my” church.  I hid out.  At home, although all the values of religion were being taught, we were neither encouraged nor discouraged about church.  It was there if we wanted to go.

During college my spirit was restless and questing. The humanities and philosophy courses broadened my intellectual and cultural understandings, but it was a Philosophy of Religion course that nudged me to question my tentative meanings for the first time.  Near the end of the course, still timid in the face of authority, I at last summoned up the courage to ask. “Could there be such a thing as a personal faith, a faith built upon one’s own understandings of religious questions?” Honestly, I still remember the hot deep flush and sense of shock and shame as I was struck by the professor’s angry denial. “Of course not! That would be utterly selfish.”   

It was literally twelve or thirteen years before I made another attempt on my inarticulate quest.  That period, I admit, bordered a bit on the cynical when it came to religion. My ignorance led me to believe that religion and I were incompatible.  Aw, the arrogance of one’s 20s. 

Not until I was the mother of two small children did I once again broach the subject of formal religion.  I knew that religion was an integral part of life in the world. And I was largely ignorant of it. Of course, still doubtful, my search was on my childrens’ behalf!  I would look with them but would not give them answers regarding religion that I didn’t believe.

To this day I count it as our great good fortune that we started the search in a Unitarian Universalist church.  There, the windows and doors of my mind were thrown open. I came to understand that I wasn’t some strange anomaly. I was in fact a skeptic.  My questions were welcomed. And people didn’t come back with ready answers.  I felt accepted as I was.  I could question, even disagree, and that was all right. I and my family had found a religious community that affirmed our lives.

Now skepticism is just about as historical as philosophical thought itself.  Why hadn’t I taken a course in it earlier?  The word “skeptis” itself, means speculation or investigation.  The skeptics were frustrated by so much that couldn’t be proven. They realized that the consequence of suspending their judgment was skepticism. Xenophanes wrote, “That which is wholly clear no one has seen, nor will there ever be a person who has intuitive knowledge about the gods and about everything.  For even if we should chance to speak the complete truth, we ourselves would not know it.  What occurs concerning all things is ‘seeming’.” This or that “seems” to be so.

Protagoras added, “truth can only be relative; what is true for me—that the wind feels cold—is true; but this says nothing about the temperature of the wind in itself or how it feels to you.”  Time and again, I hug myself, shivering in the cold, layered in sweaters while Owen runs around in short sleeves and short pants refusing to put on his jacket.  This of course is relativism.

On the other hand, the Stoics and Epicureans, even groups among Christians today, argue that objective knowledge of the religious world is possible. This is where true believing comes in. There are those among us here who live with painful reminders of this.

The impact of the scientific method has deeply influenced the quality of modern life.  The harvests of science have born us both sweet and bitter fruit. Decartes’, author of the scientific method made a great contribution,  This was to doubt everything and then accept only ideas which were clear and distinct.  His radical skepticism cut through old truths, and what passed as common sense. He insisted upon clear thought and concrete evidence in determining what was real and true.

Religious liberals in general have sympathy with such radical skepticism.  For most of us have doubted, questioned, tested and often dismissed traditional religious beliefs.

I’ve got to admit my skepticism crosses over into the secular realm as well.  I mean I look both ways on a one way street.  Don’t you?

I’m a doubter. I guess some people are born doubters.  I heard of a teacher who was having a math class. She asked Johnny, “If I were to lay two eggs here and three over there, how many eggs would that be altogether?”  Johnny replied, “Personally, I don’t think you can do it.”

I so want our children to be questioners and doubters. If we can give them little else to begin their religious journey, let’s give them freedom from superstition, absolutes, guilt and fear by encouraging them to open their minds and hearts to the countless meanings from which they can ultimately weigh their choices.  If they are to be fearful or guilty, let it come from their own healthy consciences rather than from a stultifying religion.

I believe it is a healthy skepticism that leads individuals to challenge oppressive institutions. People need to rattle the existing order. They need to respond with spoken, written, voted limits to actions that would lead this country in ways counter to what America stands for.  I’m afraid we UU skeptics don’t even challenge to the extent we could or might. I know I could do better.

The danger, of course, that the skeptic faces, is the liability toward cynicism.  Then the faithful becomes the glib, the vigilant, the mistrustful.  The cynic has lost faith and hope, and is convinced that those who think positive change is possible are fatuous, utopian, perhaps even deluded.  As H.L. Mencken said, the cynic “is one who when they smell flowers, looks around for a coffin.”

I don’t want to be that kind of a person.  The temptation, especially in these times, is there.  But, I feel saved by my natural tendency to trust before I judge—especially when it comes to people. Upon meeting someone my desire to make a connection supersedes my questioning of their motives. I look for authenticity, a good indicator of trustworthiness.

Cynicism leads to despair, to an attitude that doom is inevitable.  It’s a sure way to protect oneself against disappointment. But, it negates the very spirit of life.

Nor is skepticism alone sufficient to religious living.  As Descartes himself admitted we cannot live by doubt alone. For obvious reasons most people need to affirm values and purpose in their lives for these are the things that sustain us. 

This is where I become a believer. Skepticism has cleared the ground upon which I have erected a clear and distinct personal faith. Perhaps, I wasn’t so far off after all, way back in college when I asked my tentative question.

William James, psychologist and philosopher at Harvard, was also a Unitarian and the creator of pragmatism as a philosophy. A naturalistic theist, he wrote of “the will to believe.”  James knew that we must go beyond doubt to affirmation if we are to become fully human.  However, like most of us, he was wary of affirmations and beliefs that were unclear or based on wishful thinking.  Speaking as a Unitarian Universalist, I know one’s paths to belief are really restricted.

Far from believing what we want to, we must believe as our reason, the evidence, and our experience dictate.  Anything to the contrary would be an embarrassment to us. We believe things we wish we did not have to believe.  We certainly aren’t descended from Tertullian who wrote, “I believe because it is absurd.”  You and I are forced to accept what seems most true, whether we like it or not, whether we approve or disapprove.

The will to believe has to do with meaning and judgments.  I’m sure there are certain things you can only do if you believe you can.  We can’t prove such a thing as love, yet we pin our very lives on its existence. The quality of a relationship is absolutely shaped by our belief about its truthfulness and affection.

Skepticism isn’t at play when one affirms the value of love, compassion, trust, the very goodness of life, the worth and dignity of every person.  None of these sentiments are provable but most people choose to live as if they are real and crucial to their lives. 

We suspend our skepticism when we affirm the incredible value of our earth, of nature and its resources.  Where is skepticism when people envision and struggle toward a world of inclusiveness and freedom from destructive forces? Our volition toward what is good is an affirmation, On the other hand, as to whether the earth can be saved or freedom and inclusiveness can be achieved, skepticism may logically enter in.

By my own inclination and under girded by my Unitarian Universalist faith I affirm religious values without succumbing to wishful thinking.  I’ve chosen from live options—ones that are real and viable in my thinking. I’ve readily suspended my skepticism and made a faith claim.

From life experience, from so much that has fed my spirit, from the logic of my thought, I find I’m a deep believer in life.  I believe in the goodness to be found in people. I believe in hope, born out of the will of most to do what is right.

Unreservedly, I believe in you wonderful Summitarians who are bold and brave for your faith.  You, who have been so kind to and respectful of my beloved Tom. And I believe that all the goodness I and my family have received from you has been offered with affection and generosity of spirit.

Yes, I am both a skeptic and a believer.  Humbly, therefore, I offer this to you as one approach of many to the religious life.

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And now, let there be an offering to sustain and strengthen this place which is sacred to so many of us, a community of memory and of hope, for we are now the keepers of the dream.                                                  -Brandy Lovely