The Questioning Christian

The Michelson-Morley Experiment and the Experience of Gay and Lesbian Christians - Fr. Nick Knisely

Physicist-turned-priest Nick Knisely recalls that Einstein's attitude toward the the Michelson-Morley experiment's outlandish results was, in brief, to face the facts and deal with them.  He suggests that Einstein's example should inform the church's current struggles to deal with gay and lesbian Christians today. 

Excerpt:

Einstein started his thinking toward Special and General Relativity by postulating that each observer’s experience must be treated as valid.  By so doing, he constructed a physics that would require that the speed of light was exactly the same for all observers, whether they were moving or not.  Einstein then was able to suggest experiments that demonstrate that his ideas were correct.

But the key point in all this was that he accepted the experimental evidence of the Michelson-Morley experiment as valid, even though it seemed to make absolutely no sense within a Newtonian (and deterministic) framework.  Einstein decided to trust in the report of the observer and by making that decision he was able to gain a radical new insight into the nature of reality.

*  *  *

Gay and lesbian people report that they find themselves transformed by their encounters with the Risen Christ. But they do not uniformly find that their sexuality or sexual orientation is transformed.   If we believe this report, then what does this tell us about God's desires for them?

Entangled States: The Michelson-Morley Experiment and the Experience of Gay and Lesbian Christians.

40 questions about the nature of Jesus - Freethinking Faith

Steve Jones writes:  "As some of you may have surmised, my Christian faith is decidedly unitarian, not trinitarian. Below are my 40 questions that take issue with the prevailing christology, for your comment and criticism ...." 

So Big and Healthy Nowadays That Grandpa Wouldn't Even Know You - New York Times

From the QC "The Universe Continues to Get Better" Department:  I sometimes pose the rhetorical question, Would you trade places with one of your ancestors who lived 100 years ago, or 10,000 years ago?  Sunday's New York Times reports on one facet of this question, namely the dramatic improvements in human health that we've seen in recent decades.  Excerpt (with emphasis added):

The Keller family illustrates what may prove to be one of the most striking shifts in human existence — a change from small, relatively weak and sickly people to humans who are so big and robust that their ancestors seem almost unrecognizable.

New research from around the world has begun to reveal a picture of humans today that is so different from what it was in the past that scientists say they are startled. Over the past 100 years, says one researcher, Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago, humans in the industrialized world have undergone “a form of evolution that is unique not only to humankind, but unique among the 7,000 or so generations of humans who have ever inhabited the earth.”

The difference does not involve changes in genes, as far as is known, but changes in the human form. It shows up in several ways, from those that are well known and almost taken for granted, like greater heights and longer lives, to ones that are emerging only from comparisons of health records.

The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments like heart disease, lung disease and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today, according to a federal study that directly measures it. And that is not just because medical treatments like cataract surgery keep people functioning. Human bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before.

Even the human mind seems improved. The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades, and at least one study found that a person’s chances of having dementia in old age appeared to have fallen in recent years.

The proposed reasons are as unexpected as the changes themselves. Improved medical care is only part of the explanation; studies suggest that the effects seem to have been set in motion by events early in life, even in the womb, that show up in middle and old age.

“What happens before the age of 2 has a permanent, lasting effect on your health, and that includes aging,” said Dr. David J. P. Barker, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and a professor of epidemiology at the University of Southampton in England.

Gina Kolata, So Big and Healthy Nowadays That Grandpa Wouldn't Even Know You, . New York Times, Sun. Jul. 30, 2006.

Anglican Bus to "Canterbury" - Funny Satire

See here (hat tip: Drell's Descants).

Troubling Inconsistencies in the New Testament: Five Reasons for Skepticism (Revised)

Occasioned by a discussion in which I participated earlier this week, I've just finished a major revision of an essay I did a couple of years ago, which is now titled, Troubling Inconsistencies in the New Testament: Five Reasons for Skepticism.

I did this revision primarily so that I'll have it as a ready reference — these days, I really am trying to get away from directly challenging traditionalists about their theology, because it's largely a waste of time. 

I'm far more interested in reaching out to skeptics and non-believers who, deep in their hearts, sort of wish they could believe, but haven't found a way to do so that's consistent with their educations and experience.  I feel a special obligation to such folks, perhaps because I used to be one of them.  They simply don't buy the argument that "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!"   So I'm trying to articulate alternative, positive, empirically-defensible arguments why it makes good sense:

• to conclude that God exists;
• to put one's trust in him and make one's self available for his service;
• and to follow Jesus.

Too few young nuns to support aging ones - Yahoo News

From Catholics face crisis over retired nuns:

The retirement realities far overshadow the burden from well-publicized sexual abuse cases, which have cost the American church more than $1 billion since 1950, with tens of millions of dollars in pending claims.

In some ways, religious orders face the same problem as many governments: increasing numbers of older retirees need benefits, but there are fewer workers to support them. America's younger workers pay now for the
Social Security benefits of seniors, while younger religious support their older generations by caring for them.

Sisters, who make up 82 percent of retirees, are especially vulnerable.

Between 1965 and 2005, their numbers plummeted from 179,954 to 68,634, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

With far fewer younger novices being recruited, the majority of sisters are now more than 70 years old, the retirement office's new survey said. Even though sisters usually work until age 75, caring for the retired population is a huge task.

Why We're Reluctant to Reprimand Other People's Children - WSJ column

One day when my son was maybe three years old, he suddenly bolted down the driveway and into the street, as fast as his little legs would take him.  A neighbor mom, in her front yard two doors down, saw him; she immediately yelled, "[Name], you get back onto the sidewalk right this minute!"  Then, seeing me running out to retrieve him, she started apologizing profusely to me.  My response was to thank her equally profusely, and to say, please yell at my kid if you see him doing something stupid or dangerous.  

I was reminded of this when I read Jeff Zaslow's column in today's Wall Street Journal (sorry, you might need to be a subscriber to read it all):

... As a society, we have grown reluctant to reprimand kids -- not just our own, but other people's, too.  Yes, in theory, we believe it takes a village to raise a child.  But lately, the village feels pressure to keep its collective mouth shut.

To combat the problem, child advocates are trying to bring back the concept of "parents beyond parents."  They tout research showing that kids who receive constructive input from an array of adults are less likely to use drugs, lie to parents or commit crimes.

Michael Gurian is co-founder of the Gurian Institute in Colorado Springs, Colo., an educational training organization that compiles child-rearing research.  He believes problems such as anorexia, depression and chronic stress in children are exacerbated because kids today often live in communities where nobody but their nuclear families seems to care much about them.

I once interviewed radio host Garrison Keillor, who lamented that "adults no longer dare to influence other people's children" by telling them to quiet down or tuck in their shirts.  In his novel "Wobegon Boy," Mr. Keillor longs for the era when "you didn't smart off to elders, and if a lady you didn't know told you to blow your nose, you blew it."

But the truth is, today's kids often welcome discipline by outsiders, even if they roll their eyes.

Alana Schemers, 15, tells of inviting a male classmate to her home when her mother wasn't there.  A neighbor saw the boy enter the house and called Alana's mother on her cellphone. Within minutes, Alana heard from her mom, who told her the boy had to leave.  Alana still likes her neighbor, and sees the wisdom in the woman's decision to butt in. "It could prevent me from doing something stupid in the future," she says.

I'm so grateful for the Bible-study group in our parish to which my wife and I belong, because we provide just this kind of support for each other.  For 10 or 15 years now, two Fridays a month, we meet to discuss a book, watch a video, etc.; then we and our kids go have supper at Skeeter's (aptly described as a sports bar for 10-year-olds).  Over the years, we've gotten to know each other's kids, and they've gotten to know the other parents as well as the other kids.   We've been to each other's baptisms, confirmations, school plays, and sports events; eventually, it'll be weddings and, in the fullness of time, funerals.  It's been a real blessing.

You'd Think I'd Have Learned My Lesson Last Time ....

I can't remember the last time I encountered such a smug, insular group of people — implacably certain of their own rightness, gleefully hurling insults at an invited guest who held other views — than some of the commenters at Fr. Al Kimel's Pontifications blog.   Al was kind enough to comment on his blog about my own posting on Hell.  He posted a trackback ping to this blog, which I took as an invitation to conversation.  Then some of his "friends" got into the act.  I like to think I held my own in the discussion, but it wasn't an especially pleasant experience.

Wait, I do remember now:  I've run into just such a crowd — and it was the exact same people — the previous time I responded to Al's critique of one of my postings.  I seem to have completely forgotten that prior experience, or maybe I just blocked it out.

(For the record, in both instances, Al's own critique was thoughtful and charitable.)

OK, then; I may learn slow, but I learn good.  Al, if you read this, it'll be a long time before I darken your blog's door again as a commenter.  I'm always glad to read your questions and comments about my views, but from now on my responses are going to be on my own blog, where I can enforce some rules of engagement.  Enjoy your new "neighborhood"; if your commenters are the 21st-century face of Roman Catholicism, I'm fervently grateful I checked out of the RC church at age 12.

Faith, Reason, God and Other Imponderables - New York Times

"[Embracing religion] is what Francis S. Collins, Owen Gingerich and Joan Roughgarden have done in new books, taking up one side of the stormy argument over whether faith in God can coexist with faith in the scientific method.   With no apology and hardly any arm-waving, they describe their beliefs, how they came to them and how they reconcile them with their work in science."    Cornelia Dean, Faith, Reason, God and Other Imponderables, NY Times, July 25, 2006.

"Evolution is not just real but is actually happening to human beings right now"

"Stephen Jay Gould would have been pleased.  No, not about his mug shot at the endpoint of evolution in the illustration above, but about the growing evidence that evolution is not just real but is actually happening to human beings right now. ...  Europeans seem to be adapting to the increased availability of dairy products, with genetic changes that allow the enzyme lactase, which breaks down lactose in milk, to be available throughout life, not just in infancy. Similarly, East Asians show genetic changes that affect the metabolism of the sugar sucrose, while the Yoruba people in sub-Saharan Africa show genetic changes that alter how they metabolize the sugar mannose."   Shankar Vedantam, And the Evolutionary Beat Goes On . . ., Washington Post, Jul. 24, 2006, p. A07.