Churches in the age of disbelief

Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heaven, from Gustave Doré's illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com.

“I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter .…’’

— Thomas Huxley (1825-1895), English biologist and anthropologist and powerful defender of Charles Darwin’s rheory of evolution.

Community Church of Providence.

As I walked around the East Side of Providence on a mild day last week, I was impressed again by the large number of churches, some quite big, such as the massive Community Church of Providence. Most have shrinking congregations and some have closed. That they’re often meeting places for such groups as Alcoholics Anonymous helps keep them going.

I see many dark-skinned people coming and going at  some of these churches in their Sunday best. Are some worried about ICE? The Third World has more enthusiastic Christians than you find in most of America.

 It’s the age of disbelief around here, in part because of the general acceptance of the idea that we should seek  hard evidence, respect science and practice rationality as much as we emotional and erratic creatures can, rather than taking refuge in death-denying theologies.

What a difference from many places in the South and Midwest, where you can find thriving evangelical churches even at old shopping malls -- lots of free parking! There, you can find many who believe, or want to believe, in the inerrancy of the Bible, despite its many translations’ innumerable contradictions and  in such ideas as that God created the world about 6,000 years ago.