I Want to Believe

It will come as no surprise that one of my favorite TV shows was The X-files, a show about two FBI agents assigned to investigate paranormal activity.  The main character was Fox Mulder, a true believer in the phenomena that had been assigned to the X-files because he was absolutely obsessed with UFOs and alien abductions.  He was a sort of pariah within the bureau, stuck in a basement office amid stacks of filing cabinets with a large poster of a UFO on the wall with the mantra: "I Want to Believe."
Agent Dana Scully was assigned to be his babysitter/debunker.  She was the voice of science and reason, a medical doctor and a "by the book" agent.  Scully had to report to the assistant director about the activities of her partner.  I think what gave the show a certain seriousness was the fundamental question of what we believe and why.  There were dark dealings, sci-fi and political paranoia, gruesome and fanciful creatures, aliens and secret government agencies in the show, but the basic premise of every episode was centered around the conflict between Mulder's "belief" and Scully's skepticism.
I will admit, as strange as it may seem for someone in my line of work, I usually find myself as more of a Scully than a Mulder.  I prefer to question things.  I like it when there is hard proof and a solid foundation.  But what the X-files did rather skillfully is bring the facts and the truth into question.  One of it's taglines was: "The Truth is Out There."  I believe, indeed that the truth is out there.  I believe in objective reality, namely the proposition that some things are true regardless of your point of view or personal biases.  However, as any first year philosophy student will tell you, the number of these absolute truths is rather small.
One of the reasons that I do what I do, is because one of those absolute truths I believe is God.  It's a foundation piece of my whole framework of truth.  And it's an entirely subjective belief, meaning that it is something that I believe basically because I want to believe.  I can't prove it, but I also have become convinced that no one can disprove it.  Scully and Mulder went back and forth over this basic issue, Mulder wanted to prove, Scully wanted to disprove, and neither one of them ever succeeded.  Over the course of the show, Scully grew in faith, but she did so only inasmuch as she came to question the validity of what she thought she knew, in other words: she grew up and learned to admit that maybe, just maybe, the "facts" weren't as ironclad as she had thought.
One of the difficult challenges that face people of faith in an increasingly scientific and skeptical world, is allowing for that same sort of growth.  Dogma is rather unhelpful in a search for truth.  If you think you know the answer, you are unlikely to even ask the right questions.
The thing that Jesus did so effectively in his interactions with the religious authority types who were pretty sure that they had all the answers, was to ask the right questions.  Do you notice how often his parables beg a question rather than answering one?  Do you notice how often people are "afraid to ask him more questions?"  It's not because he was angry or terse with them, it was because they realized that they were asking the WRONG questions.
Yes, there is a such thing as the WRONG question.  True believers and skeptics are both vulnerable to asking the wrong questions.  A question that you already know the answer to and are asking as a rhetorical technique, unless of course you're on your high school debate team, is the wrong question.  A question that you are going to use as some sort of litmus test for judging another person worthy of your acceptance, is probably the wrong question.  A question asked out of genuine curiosity and a desire to know more, live in the light of the truth, and expand your mind, is probably the right sort of question.
Question everything, but make your questions good.  Search for the truth with diligence and an open mind.  Remember that the truth is out there, meaning it may not always be in your grasp.  Be humble, but persistent in your pursuit of the truth, and never be afraid to ask the right questions.