John writes:

"'Skepticism is about suspicion and pride and self-will.' Amen, Brother. You hit the nail on the head. Been there, done it."

Eh, not so fast, John. Some of us have enough experience of human nature to understand keenly the old saying, "If something is too good to be true, it probably is."

Wright's remark applies best to a complete refusal to believe in a Power greater than oneself.

It doesn't work as well when applied to skepticism about Christianity. The story of Christ's death and resurrection is a very good story indeed, but how true is it? All we have is the word of Christ's contemporaries, and we have no good way of knowing the truth or falsehood of their words. All we can do is believe, and I think doubt is not necessarily out of order.

Yes, certain knowledge of Christ's existence and true nature would throw an immense monkey-wrench into the machinery of human existence, which is why I think God is forcing us to take His and Christ's existence on faith. But that is not proof of either Person's existence.

And yes, I'm aware of C.S. Lewis' point (I think it was Lewis) that Christ, assuming He existed, was either a) who He said He was, b) a madman, or c) something worse.

I'll grant Wright's point as far as suspicion goes, but to include pride and self-will goes a bit far, and imputes to skeptics a darkness of mind or spirit that may not apply.

Well, it may not apply to everybody, but I still think he hit it.

He gives us the question: "If God presented evidence to skeptics, all that would happen is that skeptics would doubt their evidence." I think this is true. Of course I have no way to test this. (My evil little brain immediately thinks of an experiment using hypnogogic drugs upon some hapless group of scoffers.)

There are perfectly good logical reasons to be skeptical. I don't dispute that. But I don't think that's where skepticism comes from, psychologically. Let me suggest that it would also be logical for a skeptic to think that while the story sounds too good to be true, billions of people have found reason to believe it, and often testify to highly beneficial results from believing. And therefore, it would make sense for a skeptic to strive his hardest to know more, and to believe.

But how many skeptics will follow that logic? Pascal's Wager is similar, but how many skeptics are interested? If skepticism were purely logical, there would be a lot more skeptics who hope and wish to believe.

I once read a marvellous short story by Frederick Buechner, (Maybe in this book?) In the story God decides to give an indisputable revelation, and re-arranges the stars one night to spell out a Christian message. The world is agog, and everyone is tripping over themselves to become Christian. But then, after a year or two, everything has returned to normal, and the world isn't any more religious than previously....

Besides Jesus, there have been others who claimed to be Divine Incarnation esp in India. How does one apply Lewis trilemma to them.
Eg google Sai Baba-died about a century ago in a small village where he lived out all his life.
Claimed to be the incarnation of Shiva (The Destroyer God). By the way, this claim is totally
lacking in accordance with Hindu scriptures. Shiva being the final Destroyer of Universe has no need or sense to send Incarnations.

Anyway Sai Baba (interestingly most Christ-looking of all Hindu saints and Incarnations) is now revered by millions with his central message of Faith and Patience.

Now was he mad?. Was he a liar?. Or was he what he caimed to be?

My evil little brain immediately thinks of an experiment using hypnogogic drugs upon some hapless group of scoffers.

...which caused my evil little brain to devise experiments involving conversions...seeing if a Wahabi could go Hasidic, or maybe converting an entire Church of Christ to Mormonism...

Let me suggest that it would also be logical for a skeptic to think that while the story sounds too good to be true, billions of people have found reason to believe it, and often testify to highly beneficial results from believing. And therefore, it would make sense for a skeptic to strive his hardest to know more, and to believe.

Billions of people have found what they believed to be good reasons to be xenophobic and even racist - doesn't mean that I'm gonna strive to become a racist xenophobe. Not that faith = evil, of course, just that unlike the 50MM Elvis fans, a billion Jesus fans could actually be wrong.

Of course they could be wrong. My point was that, contra Hale, skepticism about Christianity does not come from purely rational sources. It is not like the skepticism you would feel if I told you about a new miracle-weight-loss diet.

If you heard that lots of people had lost weight, that would not in itself be persuasive. But it ought to move you towards a state of open-mindedness. If it didn't, then probably there is more to your skepticism than you would like to admit.

Bisaal, I think CS Lewis's statement was meant to counter the great many people in our western culture who want to think of Jesus as just a sage or a wise teacher. He was saying that that simply does not work.

I think you could apply the same test to Sai Baba. I would imagine, from the little you've told us, he was a bit mad. Not to the extent that Jesus must have been, if he was not what he claimed. Jesus would appear to have deliberately schemed to let himself be arrested and executed at a moment of his choosing!

But I would suspect that one can slide past the apparent lunacy of Sai Baba without too much trouble. One can say, "Well, he was a bit cracked, but he still can be revered for his nwise teaching."

That doesn't, logically, work with Jesus. Which doesn't prevent people from doing it. People do lots of illogical things.

I guess I focused on the "and to believe" part, rather than the "to know more" part of what you said...I agree, anything that engages and animates the bulk of humanity is worth detailed study, certainly. But it causes one to strive to know - not to strive to agree.

The only difference between skepticism of religion and skepticism of some new miracle drug is that we know miracle drugs have been discovered and developed over the years. Even a 99:1 unproven:proved ratio is infinitely better than that demonstrated by religions...

"The only difference between skepticism of religion and skepticism of some new miracle drug is that we know miracle drugs have been discovered and developed over the years. Even a 99:1 unproven:proved ratio is infinitely better than that demonstrated by religions..."

Those are not philosophically equivalent, because you are acting from within the belief system of natural science. You have faith that evidence from a scientific experiment is valid, but you assume that evidence from the "lived experiment" of being a believer is not valid evidence. (I'm just extrapolating what you are thinking here, don't be offended).

You are acting as a "believer" but you are probably unconscious of this, since this particular belief is just assumed in our culture. (Similarly, a person in the year 1000 probably believed that miracles occur regularly, without being aware that this was in fact a "faith." It was just something "everybody knows.")

In the same way, "But it causes one to strive to know - not to strive to agree..." is fuzzy thinking, because your definition of knowing is based on your already being a believer of a philosophical system that defines it. You want "to know" in the same way I want to know about Islam....from inside a belief-system that presupposes certain things about the question.

Yes, I definitely have a belief system, and I am simply chosing to value some forms of evidence more strongly than I value other forms of evidence. It's a purely pragmatic choice - I think living a longer life, full of more health and wealth, with incredible technologies and astonishing accomplishments is evidence of a belief system that fundamentally works, in a way that the spiritual belief system does not. I will concede the point that, philosophically, there is no logical difference between me and a believer from 1,000 A.D. - that me saying "show me the money" is philosophically the same thing as that believer saying "show me the spiritual truths."

However, I do have a life in the real world, and I have to make judgments about how to live that life. And I can choose an obviously useful set of beliefs that produces cars and iPods and central heating and software I can program on to make money (a set of beliefs that pretty much everyone accepts, as far as it goes). And then to that, I can choose to append a set of beliefs of dubious demonstrable usefulness. Why would I do that?

And sure, why is "because it works" the measuring stick I choose? The fact that I'm reduced to answering that question with, "because it works" shows that we're at the level of root beliefs here...but how does the Evangelist counter this? Because you know that the answer, "oh, well, usefulness is a bad measure - you need spiritual insight" or something is wholly unsatisfying to one mired in my pragmatic paradigm...to be honest, it sounds utterly like sophistry...

"oh, well, usefulness is a bad measure..." Nuh uh, I'd say usefulness is a good measure, and being Christian is useful and beneficial in concrete and tangible ways. I certainly find it so.