Can one be a skeptic and still have faith in God? There is a whole skeptical movement whose goal is “resisting the spread of pseudoscience, superstition, and irrational beliefs”. These all seem like worthy goals. I listen to various skeptical podcasts where they debunk homeopathy, crystals, copper bracelets, ESP, etc.
One might think that you have to be an atheist to be a good skeptic. But Daniel Loxton, a staff writer for Skeptic Magazine, makes a terrific point by defining skepticism this way:
Skepticism is an approach to testable physical claims. Atheism is a conclusion regarding an untestable metaphysical claim. These are not the same thing.
I really like this. It helps explain how I can be a skeptic, yet still have faith that there is a God. While some famous skeptics are atheist, they don’t have to be. I can chose to not believe in essential oils, which has a testable claim, but I can believe in God, an untestable claim.
While there are lots of “irrational” beliefs in religion, I don’t have to believe them to have faith in a God, and to want to do good to others. I don’t have to believe in Noah’s world wide flood which fails all testable claims. While the metaphysical claim that Moroni visited Joseph Smith and gave him Gold Plates is untestable, I can chose to believe or reject it while still maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism.
Which leads me to wonder if religious people are less skeptical as a whole, and are thus more prone to buy into pseudoscience? Does accepting religion in general, and Christianity in particular mean that one is less questioning, and more susceptible to “snake oil salesmen”? Do highly religious communities have more people that believe in pseudoscience, use essential oils, and sell Medaleuca? Does believing that Joseph Smith received heavenly visions and translated gold plates by putting his head in a hat and using a “seer stone” that had magical power make the person more likely believe that a copper bracelet can help his/her arthritis?
Wheat & Tares 
My impression is that nonreligious people are every bit as prone to believe in pseudoscience including vaccine refusal, “organic” everything etc.
I think our minds naturally try and make sense of the world and it will freely use whatever it can to make sense of things. I assume my wife and kids love me and I do see SOME proof of it, but I am not going to put it through a serious skeptical review and try and prove it (partially because doing so might very well make my wife love me less!)
So I agree with E above, but also think that people that are more skeptical than others find it harder to join the church and easier to leave.
I’m a super skeptical religious believer. It heightens my faith in religious teachings but makes me deeply cynical about institutions. I’ve made it work but I wonder if I’ve made my daughter cynical enough that she won’t develop faith like I did. (She has one of the strongest innate sense of morals and goodness I’ve ever seen in a human, so I’m not that worried about her long term moral trajectory.)
It is easy (especially in Utah) to take potshots at Mormons as being highly susceptible to snake oil salesman (today known as Essential Oils), herbal remedies, and MLMs. I think we do need to be careful of such things. However, it is not just Mormons that get influenced by these schemes. I interviewed Jonathan Stapley last night on his GREAT new book The Power of Godliness, and he says that evangelicals, as well as “elitist liberals” are often taken in by these types of claims as well.
There are some religions, like deism, that make no testable physical claims, but most religions do make significant physical claims. The physical claims can appear to be untestable until new techniques are developed. Unless the claims of a religion are reduced as technology advances, belief in the religion becomes incompatible with skepticism.
Testable physical claims can also be changed into untestable metaphysical claims by adding a god that has power to control the physical process. For example, there could be a god that heals people if they consume water that has been activated by repeatedly diluting an active ingredient. This god could want his followers to have faith in him, so he never heals people who are participating in a random controlled trial. Is believing in the god of homeopathy any more reasonable than believing in regular homeopathy?
In my experience, religious people do seem to be more succeptible to snake oil salesmen. When I was younger, the leader of my YSA FHE group was in an investment MLM. The MLM required members to sign a contract promising to invest a fixed amount of money every month until retirement age. The MLM promised a significant return on the investment, but the entire account balance would be forfeit if a single monthly payment was missed.
The leader convinced the majority of the YSA group members to join his MLM. The members would testify to the truth of the organization in the same way they testified of the truth of the church. They would say that we should pray to know if the MLM was true and that we would get a spiritual confirmation. I tried to convince them to invest their money in a regular brokerage account instead, but they wouldn’t listen because they knew the group was true.
I have not seen real studies that refute many of the claims that you mention above. In fact, there are studies that show that some herbal remedies are better than no treatment.
Likewise, I am not aware of any studies that show an improvement in health and wellbeing from going to or working in the temple. But there are many people who can assure you that it does work for them and their friends. For some, the control is when they are not going to the temple due to closure or family obligations that keep them away for many weeks. This is a claim that is hard to test, and there is no financial benefit to a for profit company for proving the claim. This is a tertiary benefit of temple work for the LDS church behind the salvation of the living and the dead.
Skepticism comes in many flavors. Climate-change deniers in my Facebook feed doubt the peer-reviewed scientific consensus and decry the “religion of science”. They believe that global warming is not a testable theory, and therefore treat it as a religion. At the same time, latter day saints call on people to test Moroni’s promise, which requires reliance on personal feelings, so they can know the church is true.
I really like the definition of skepticism in the OP, but it doesn’t really resolve the issue because it can easily be turned in to a no true scotsman fallacy. The question of what is testable remains, and we are we left to determine what evidence is a reliable source of truth.
Rockwell, I like relating this to the No True Scotsman fallacy. I wish I would have thought of that and used it in the post. But maybe there is enough meat in it to do a whole new most just exploring the fallacy, and examples of its use in LDS discourse!
The skeptical believer is better than the gullible disbeliever.
To be a Mormon requires a healthy amount of suspension of belief in facts, in favor of what your gut tells you and hoping that more facts will surface in the future.
Otherwise we would have tossed the Book of Mormon from the onset (search Howlers in the Book of Mormon) and BOA years ago when scholarship started picking apart Joseph’s translation of Egyptian.
My sincere compliments, Bishop Bill – another great (thought provoking) article. At this stage of my life, I must admit that I’ve become extraordinarily skeptical; particularly as relating to promised blessings, miracles, divine intervention of a Heavenly Father who is intimately involved in the finest details of our lives. Yes, I believed in this Being when I was a young boy – but the realities of life in “the real world”, with all of it’s good and bad, beauty and horrors has finely sifted all of these kinds of beliefs out of my life.
Ironically, I do still believe in some kind of intelligent design within the universe and cosmos – and still ejoy savoring the idea of divine purpose; but freely acknowledge that this could very well be my own wishful thinking; resulting from full indoctrination of Mormon belief from birth. The only “magic” I see is the the positive relationships between people of goodwill – who are trying to be good human beings and attentive stewards of the earth. Being in nature has become my healing balm – with a large dose of stoicism to keep my inner self at peace.
As far as “preaching from the pulpit” goes – which occurs in church’s everywhere (and of course – including LDS Chapels and Conferences) it all has taken on the “sound of tinkling brass” mixed with meaningless homilies and threatening words.