Can a religious person be a "skeptic"?
The following is a response from one
religious skeptic.
I wanted to reply with some thought and care to your request. There are all sorts of reasons that Christians, such as myself, and skeptics can and should work together. But instead of going into my personal journey into becoming a Christian/skeptic, I thought I would use a story I once heard about the separation we all have in our life between the spiritual and the scientific world.
Let's say there is a piano. Now both the skeptic and the religious person can agree on the evolution of the piano. We can study the evolution of the piano and music, from simply a prehistoric man tapping a rock or using sticks to make sound...then perhaps the first drums made of animal skins...to the spinet to the modern piano to even the electric keyboard of today. We can all agree that the piano has evolved.
We can also agree on the mechanics of the piano. We can see how hitting the key makes the hammer hit the strings and music comes out. Science can explain how the short strings make a different sound than the longer strings. It's not magic.
While we can all agree on the HOW of the piano, we can not perhaps all agree on the WHY. A religious person would perhaps wonder why people created the piano in the first place. WHY did early man want there to be sound, and indeed pleasing sound? Why do we like music, and feel a need to not only listen to it but create it and dance to it? Certainly science can give us some answers or rather guesses. But unlike the clear science of HOW a piano works, the WHY is an elusive subjective answer.
You can have different answers for WHY people love music and WHY music is in our lives, and yet still agree on the HOW a piano works.
In that way, agreeing on the HOW, a religious person can also be a skeptic. The question of WHY doesn't require science and probably has no one answer. Also where the religious person and the atheist skeptic need to work together is when there is a serious problem, like say a player piano. A piano that plays on it's own? Without any musician? There will be those that might say, oh well a ghost is playing that piano or God is playing that piano and if you don't believe me you are going to hell. The skeptic, religious or atheist or agnostic, needs to step up and say wait, we know how a player piano works. This is nonsense. Stop fooling people. Some religious people might be afraid to step up, because after all, God does mysterious things. But, all the more reason a religious person should be a good skeptic and tell the truth. Good religion along with good science is based on the truth as far as we can tell it. When we know something is wrong (and we know about a player piano because we aren't afraid to study it in a scientific manner to see how it works) we have to speak up. You can't think well that brings people to church. Personally, I like to think God doesn't want people that are being tricked into believing in Him. He's capable of doing just fine without any help from charlatans and those that would exploit others.
I keep the HOW and the WHY separate in my life. I enjoy working with my skeptic friends, one is a Buddhist, one is a Quaker, and there are various other Christians, and a lot are agnostics and atheists. As long as we respect each other, and are honest with each other, we can do a lot of good work together.
James Randi wrote a book called "The Faith Healers". In the book he exposes the world of those tv evangelists that claim to cure people, but instead just exploit them. It's not that I don't think God could cure someone, but I sure as heck know that those people on television aren't. Leaders of many Christian religions and even Jewish religious leaders were very supportive of Mr.Randi (an atheist) in this work. Mr.Randi NEVER blamed the victims of these charlatans. He instead attacked those that would take advantage of people of faith in need. That is just one of many reasons I'm proud to call Mr.Randi my friend.
I find a lot of acceptance among my atheist friends. And I know that for someone to come out and say I am an atheist takes a lot of courage. While I don't agree that there is no God, I do admire their honesty. We all know people that fake a belief in God to take advantage of others. Atheists are very honest (or I imagine dishonest atheist simply lie about their lack of belief !)
As a Christian I hope I look for the good in all people. And I find a LOT of good in the skeptic movement and am proud to take an active part in skeptic work and activities.