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Sermon by Steve Smith 
September 21 , 2008,     The Leap of Doubt

Since I’m going to be spending a little time talking about the interplay between doubt and faith, I thought it would be helpful (and perhaps even inspirational) to listen to some powerful voices from history express their doubts and skepticism over humanity’s inventiveness. We begin with Albert Einstein, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, who weighs in on the possibility of atomic energy: “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” Popular Mechanics, the scientific bible for home-based scientists everywhere, was equally decisive as they predicted the viability of futuristic computers: “Where the calculator alone on the (current mainframe) is equipped with 19,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons.”
One of my favorites comes from a French surgeon, Dr. Alfred Velpeau: “The abolishment of pain in surgery is a fantasy. It is absurd to go on seeking it. Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient.” And Lord Kelvin, the famed British mathematician and physicist that most of us read about in high school, was equally prophetic in two of his skeptical viewpoints. First, “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” And second, in an opinion from 1897 that has been recycled more than once: “Radio has no future.”
The primary value of this kind of exercise, of course, is to give our sagging self esteem a vigorous boost by helping us to feel superior to some of history’s most brilliant thinkers. There is a secondary benefit, but we don’t need to rush right into it without lingering a while longer with the thrill of knowing that these so-called geniuses were wrong, mistaken, off the beam, not the sharpest knives in the drawer, their elevators didn’t go all the way to the top, they’re not the brightest bulbs in the closet, they were one brick shy of a load, misguided, or just plain muddle-headed about these subjects. Don’t you feel better?
Anyway, another benefit is that it’s easy, and even fun, to challenge other people’s beliefs, when we are smug in the certainty of our own. And here we’re going to have to broaden the focus of our ridicule to include everyone who doesn’t think the way we do. But when other people challenge our convictions, it stops being fun and becomes downright offensive. Take one of the characters in Comedy Central’s cartoon hit South Park, for instance. For years the writers used this character to make fun of all the major religions and several of the minor ones, including Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was a scream, and the actor providing his voice oozed enthusiasm.
But after reading the script where they ridiculed Scientology, a popular religion among actors, the actor decided he couldn’t participate in anything so offensive and quit. It turns out he was a Scientologist, and he didn’t see anything funny in what they were doing. Carl Sagan, the celebrated skeptic of PBS fame, sounded a warning to other skeptics: “you can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don’t see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.” Skepticism, you see, is an assertion about knowledge, and how we understand the world around us, and if you turn it around on itself, you have to be skeptical of your own skepticism. That statement comes straight from “A Skeptical Manifesto” on a website designed specifically for skeptics. 
Timothy Keller, the author of the book, “The Reason for God,” encourages people to look at their doubt in a similar vein, by using some of their own skepticism to look at their doubts in a radically new way. To be fair, he begins with believers by suggesting that “a faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic.”
To phrase his suggestion a little differently, he is of the opinion that doubts have the potential to strengthen a person’s faith, and that if you take the time to wrestle with those doubts, you will come out on the other side with a stronger, deeper, more vibrant faith. I agree with him. I’ve known many people whose trials and tragedies in life have driven them away from God; I’ve also known a good many people who have endured those hardships with grace and a plucky determination to grow deeper in their faith in the process. While Keller encourages Christians to listen to their doubts and those of their friends and neighbors, he also believes that skeptics should be intellectually honest enough to hold their own reasoning to the same scrutiny they apply to the beliefs of others.
“Skeptics must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their own reasoning,” he writes, for “all doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs.” As an example, he uses the popular belief in America today that, “There can’t be just one true religion.” You’ve heard that, haven’t you? The assertion that no one group possesses the total truth about God is a very common one. However, “you must recognize that this statement is itself an act of faith. No one can prove it… and it is not a universal truth that everyone accepts. If you went to the Middle East and expressed this opinion, nearly everyone would say, ‘Why not?’”
Every doubt, therefore, is based on a leap of faith, because our assertions are based on claims that are not provable. We live in a climate of political correctness in which it is considered unenlightened and outrageous to make exclusive religious claims. People who do so are stigmatized as foolish or dangerous extremists. One of the proverbs of this popular approach to God is that “all major religions are equally valid and basically teach the same thing.” This assertion is so common that one journalist recently wrote that anyone who believed that there are inferior religions is a right-wing extremist. It all sounds very sensible, doesn’t it?
But do you really want to say that the Branch Davidians, or religious groups who practice polygamy and encourage marriages between men in their seventies and girls just beyond puberty are not inferior to any other faith? I know we fall all over ourselves not to be judgmental, but privately, most of us would condemn practices that involve child sacrifice, cruelty to animals, or subjecting another human being to humiliation or abuse in the name of religion. But let’s focus our argument on the major religions, since this is the mantra that most people chant, that all the major religions of the world believe in the same God.
The problem is that this isn’t true. If you went to a series of worship services or group gatherings that were representative of these major religions, you would come away with a confusing jumble of contradictions. Buddhism doesn’t believe in a personal God at all, and a number of Buddhists could honestly tell you that they are agnostics. Hindus believe that God is manifested or incarnated in multiple personalities, and that people’s souls are reincarnated on the soul’s journey through history.
Judaism doesn’t believe in the multiple personality theory of either the Christians or the Hindus, and neither the Jews or the Muslims believe that Jesus is the Savior. As a matter of fact, there are a number of modern, liberal Christians that doubt the historicity of Jesus, and thus dispute the miracles, the resurrection, and any number of central tenets that more conservative Christian groups would consider to be fundamentals of the faith. Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself. It holds a specific view of God, which is touted as superior and more enlightened than the so-called “exclusive” beliefs of most major religions. So the proponents of this view do the very thing they forbid in others.
Another proverb of the popular approach to religion is the statement that “each religion sees part of spiritual truth, but none can see the whole truth.” It’s based on the parable of the blind men and the elephant, where several blind men crowd around an elephant and reach different conclusions about the nature of the beast based on the part of the elephant they are touching and feeling. The point of the parable is that the religions of the world each have a grasp on part of the truth about spiritual reality, but none can see the whole of God or claim to have a comprehensive vision of the truth.
As you might guess, the story unravels if you begin to examine it. How could you know that each blind man only sees part of the elephant unless you claim to be able to see the whole elephant that no one else can see? There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to all others. How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?
Another proverb of the modern, politically correct approach to religion is that “it is arrogant to insist your religion is right and to convert others to it.” The noted religion scholar John Hick has written that once you become aware that there are many other equally intelligent and good people in the world who hold different beliefs from you and that you will not be able to convince them otherwise, it is arrogant for you to continue to try to convert them or to hold your view to be the superior truth.
Once again there is an inherent belief nestled in this worldview, which is that your view is the correct one, and that if people who insist that their religion is the true one would only come around to your way of thinking, then the world would be a much better place. I’ve heard story after story of skeptical professors making mincemeat out of the inferior reasoning of their fledgling students, enlightening them to the fact that their faith in God is misguided. I’ve also heard of theologically liberal professors wanting to indoctrinate the hapless conservatives or fundamentalists who wander into their classes.
I’ve even been on the receiving end of what felt like discrimination from a so-called open-minded, liberal pastor looking to fill an assistant pastor position. While I was eminently qualified for the position, the interview took a decided turn when he found out about my conservative background. Apparently his open-mindedness didn’t include people who didn’t think like him, because the interview was over and I was out on the sidewalk less than five minutes later. It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions is right. The intellectually honest truth is that we are all exclusive in our beliefs about religions, but in different ways.

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