Being Skeptical

Being skeptical is smelling the milk before you drink.

Being skeptical is checking out your daughter's boyfriend before you let her stay out past ten.

Being skeptical is watching the weather forecast before the road trip.

Being skeptical is a sign of intelligence, of being rational, of being a good steward.

Skepticism is part of the thinking process. An important part.

Not being so eager to die for a cause or argue a point is a sign of maturity.

Sometimes the patience to watch, wait, listen, research and think trumps guns-a-blazin'.

The genuine hero says it when ears don't want to hear it and takes the knocks and walks the line simply because no other life is possible than the real one.

~Terry Walstrom

"Get[ting] The Fear Of Hell Out Of The Human Heart"

Robert Ingersoll was asked the following question (one of several

in an interview in the Philadelphia Times):

Question. Haven't you just the faintest glimmer of a hope that in some future state you will meet and be reunited to those who are dear to you in this?

Answer. I have no particular desire to be destroyed. I am willing to go to heaven if there be such a place, and enjoy myself for ever and ever. It would give me infinite satisfaction to know that all mankind are to be happy forever. Infidels love their wives and children as well as Christians do theirs. I have never said a word against heaven—never said a word against the idea of immortality. On the contrary, I have said all I could truthfully say in favor of the idea that we shall live again. I most sincerely hope that there is another world, better than this, where all the broken ties of love will be united. It is the other place I have been fighting. Better that all of us should sleep the sleep of death forever than that some should suffer pain forever. If in order to have a heaven there must be a hell, then I say away with them both. My doctrine puts the bow of hope over every grave; my doctrine takes from every mother's heart the fear of hell. No good man would enjoy himself in heaven with his friends in hell. No good God could enjoy himself in heaven with millions of his poor, helpless mistakes in hell. The orthodox idea of heaven—with God an eternal inquisitor, a few heartless angels and some redeemed orthodox, all enjoying themselves, while the vast multitude will weep in the rayless gloom of God's eternal dungeon—is not calculated to make man good or happy. I am doing what I can to civilize the churches, humanize the preachers and get the fear of hell out of the human heart. In this business I am meeting with great success.

—Philadelphia Times, September 25, 1885.

Prophecy Fulfillment And Probability

A very concise and accurate statement by Farrell Till concerning biblical prophecy. Excerpted from Prophecy Fulfillment And Probability, The Skeptical Review, 1993 / July-August:

...Mr. Dobbs alleged that the miracles of Jesus had been prophesied in Isaiah 53:4-5, his crucifixion in Psalms 22:16, his resurrection in Psalm 16:10, and his ascension in Psalm 68:18. Examination of these passages in context, however, reveal the same problem that Earle Beach and I discussed above relative to Jeremiah 31:15. The statements are notoriously obscure and become prophecies only through the arbitrary claims of the New Testament writers who lifted them out of context and applied them to situations that the original writers were not referring to. So there is no way that anyone can establish that these "prophecies" were originally intended to be prophecies. All we have is the mere unsubstantiated word of the New Testament claimants that they were meant to be prophecies, and that is not a good enough foundation to build a probability argument on.