Before me lay a vast desert. How long it had been since that wilderness had last seen rain, I could not say. Three years perhaps, or four. Long fissures reached like fingers across the clay-baked expanse. A few sun-scorched crags were the jealous residents of that wasteland. Allowing no creatures, no living things to share their kingdom, they were disturbed only by a light sand, swept by a fiery wind.

As I watched, the silence was broken by a deliberate beat, amplified by the harsh serenity of that wilderness. A legion of men emerged in the distance, marching toward me. Fifty men abreast, they passed not a hundred feet from where I sat in the shade of a boulder. Heads bowed, they trudged by, hooded in dusty brown robes that covered them down to their disheveled sandals. There seemed no end to the column; it stretched for miles, as far as I could see.

I drew closer and fell in the line next to a broad-shouldered man with a plodding step. He did not look at me exactly, but cocked his head slightly, revealing a bronzed face with a gritty countenance. The grizzled strands that escaped from his brown hood matched the stippled growth on his cheeks. Beads of sweat clung to his upper lip, occasionally brushed away by a rough tongue. I greeted him warmly, and was rewarded with a husky grunt.

“Tell me, sir, what is this company?”

“We are marching,” he answered.

“To where?”

“To the End.”

“To the End of What?”

“To the End of Man.” He seemed well satisfied by his answer, and silently trudged on, ignoring my inquisitive glance.

Undaunted, I renewed my query. “Why do you march?”

“It is our duty.”

“To whom?”

“To ourselves.”

This line of questioning bearing even less fruit than the last, I asked him what would become of Them. “What will you do when you get to the End?”

He seemed surprised at this, and retorted, “The End is the End. There is Nothing Else.”

I persisted, “There must be Something at the End.”

For the first time, the traveler turned toward me with a scowl. “There is Nothing Else,” he repeated. “We are Man. It is Enough.”

As he turned back to the road, he pulled from his mouth a small stone, no more than a pebble. Inspecting it, he smacked his lips twice, than placed it back in his mouth, sucking furiously. As I glanced around, I noticed a similar bulge in the mouths of many of the other pilgrims. I inquired of my guide as to its purpose.

The answer was obvious enough to him. “It sustains me,” he retorted with an especially loud smack. “But it cannot avail much against this heat, even for an hour.”

He pulled the stone from his mouth only to glare at me once more. “It is Enough,” he snapped, and popped the stone back into his mouth.

At this, we trudged on in silence for some time. Presently, my eyes were drawn to a small party on the edge of the endless column. Their step was lighter, their heads higher, than their comrades. Some of them peered about restlessly, scanning the desert for… Something.

I inquired about them. “They are the Seekers. Fools, all of them.”

“Why fools?” I asked. “What do they seek?”

The traveler snorted. “They search for More. A waste of time.”

“A waste?”

 “Tried it once myself, when I was young; they will never find It. We do not need More. We have Enough. It does not help our Progress.”

At once, a cry rang up from the Seekers.  As one, they rushed toward a boulder set apart from the path the men followed. Shading my eyes against the sun, I could make out the glimmer of a small creek running out from the base of the boulder, bubbling from some unseen spring deep in the ground.

One man collared a young Seeker as he ran by. “Where do you think you’re going, little halfwit?”

“Oh it is wonderful, sir! They have found More!”

His tormentor gave his arm a rude twist. “Bah! Do not waste yourself chasing such dreams! It is nothing but a mirage. You’ll stay right here. Don’t scorn your fellow Man; you’re no better than the rest of us.”

For one brief instant, the young man glared back defiantly. But in the next moment, his resolve seemed to crumple; with a final doleful glance at the other Seekers, he bowed his head and resumed his March.

I watched the other Seekers as they excitedly gathered the water, some drinking deeply, others filling a waterskin and running back to the column to share a fortune with their parched comrades. One returned ahead of the rest, not even pausing to quench his own thirst in his haste to give refreshment to another. He grabbed the first traveler he met and pressed the flask to the man’s lips. “Drink, brother!” he cried.

But his charity was unwelcome; I stared in disbelief as the man shoved the altruist to the ground, spilling his prize on the arid earth. “I am no brother of yours,” he returned. “And I have no need of your pity.”

The Seeker was aghast. “But only the water will fill you! What you have will never satisfy!”

“I daresay that’s as may be,” the man replied, as he drew his precious pebble from between his lips. “But this,” he gestured. “This, is Mine. Do whatever you like for yourself. But as for me, I have Enough.”

Disregarding the Seeker’s pleas and tears, he hurried toward the middle of the column, burying himself deep among his fellows.

By now, all of the other Seekers were returning with water. They ran to the front of the column, and shouted so fervently that the entire horde came to a halt. “We have found it!” they exclaimed. “Drink, and live!”

Their shouts were met with silence by the stoic pilgrims. Finally, one bolder than the rest came forward. Without a word, he accepted a flask from one of the Seekers and turned to face the column, raising it high. He paused briefly. Then, stone-faced, he slowly poured the water onto the ground. Turning to the Seekers, he growled, “Look here. We don’t need your new ideas.”

“No we don’t!” echoed the pilgrims.

“We can look out for ourselves. Man has always marched on, and so He will march to the End. If you are not with us, you are against us. Now stand aside. Do not hinder our Progress!”

A wave of fury rushed over the pilgrims, the first show of sentiment that I had seen from the masses.  Once again, the swarm pressed forward.

The Seekers stood valiantly in the path, pleading with all those who rushed past, until, one by one, they all fell, pushed to the cracking clay by travelers who would not be turned aside from their goal. Row after row of pilgrims trudged on, heedless of the groans of their fallen comrades whom they now trampled into the dust.

As the last pairs of sandals pressed on, leaving behind scores of broken bodies, order was at last restored to the column.

One traveler turned to take one last glance at a shattered jug, its spilled prize still running along a small fault in the earth. Removing a pebble from his mouth, he licked his lips. A moment later, he replaced the pebble, turned, and was gone. Onward marched Man.

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  (John 4:10)

Skepticism is the philosophy that casts doubt on everything.  Skeptics may say that all religions are the same.  But they do not think that all of them are true.  They probably think that none are true.  To them, religions are metaphors for some grand, overall truth, but what that truth is, they cannot say.  They might say that they believe in God.  But to them, God is vague and unknowable.  Many skeptics claim to have faith.  But their faith has no defined object.  They place their faith in faith itself.

Modern skeptics view history, religion and politics in terms of power struggles between groups.  They say that objectivity is impossible, because each group has its own point of view.  History books were written by the winners, not the losers, so history is subjective and unreliable.  They say one can never know what really happened in the past, because alternative viewpoints have been suppressed.  North American and European traditions are automatically suspect.  Eastern religions are way cooler, not because they are any closer to the truth, but because they are exotic and less familiar.

About three-fourths of Americans today call themselves Christian.  But skepticism is found on every street corner, in every church, synagogue and mosque.  It’s as ubiquitous as Walmart.  This is McFaith, the generic belief system of America.

Skeptics can be outstanding people.  Many whom I know are compassionate, thoughtful and honest. In their kindness and affinity for others, they put many committed Christians to shame.

Although there are skeptics whom I admire, I am dissatisfied with skepticism. Why would someone become a skeptic?  Not because it’s logically consistent.  “Everything is subjective” contains a glaring contradiction.  Each of us perceives the world through lenses of culture and experience.  But this does not imply that reality is unreal.  It does not make every observation an illusion.  If someone says that everything is subjective, he is claiming to see these things rather objectively.  He is claiming to stand on solid ground apart from those personal points of view.  How does one achieve the objectivity to make such a profoundly sweeping statement?

Skepticism is marketed as open-minded and tolerant, but I personally find it condescending. Consider the claim that all religions are the same.  Jews, Christians and Muslims worship an all-powerful creator.  Beyond that, however, the differences are stark.  Christianity asserts the divinity of Christ, which Muslims and non-messianic Jews flatly reject.  If the overlap among religions is so huge and obvious, then why haven’t their adherents realized it yet?  Why aren’t religious leaders working to merge all faiths into one?  Who is the better judge of the true character of a religion: one who truly believes and practices it, or one who observes it superficially from a distance?

To claim that those immersed in their religions cannot see with the clarity of someone on the outside — especially when that outsider happens to be you — isn’t a convincing argument in my book.

Skepticism is the religion of rich white men.   Yes, in the recent past, Christians from Europe and North America exported their culture to other parts of the world.  And the Christianity now practiced in the United States is mixed with contemporary American values (e.g., individualism and consumerism). But this was not always the case.  During its first 1,000 years, Christianity was based in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  And today, while Christianity is waning in the west, churches are exploding in Latin America, China, and sub-Saharan Africa.  The “average Christian” today is dark-skinned and poor.

While developing nations send pastors to the United States, the moguls of Madison Avenue and Hollywood export sexually explicit images and western-style consumerism to the rest of the world.  Who are the real imperialists now? 

Skeptics deny the possibility of miracles.  “Miracles can’t happen,” they say. “Why not?” I ask.  “They just can’t,” is the reply; “Miracles are not reproducible in a scientific experiment.”  Well, that’s why we call them miracles, no?

Many who claim that miracles are impossible seem unaware of how aberrant that belief is relative to what people have thought in other places and times.   This mindset is rooted in the period known as the Enlightenment, in the empiricist philosophies of Hume and Kant. Thomas Jefferson took scissors to his New Testament and cut out every miraculous element. I’ll bet his slaves at Monticello wouldn’t have done that. Again, it’s the religion of the rich white man.   

Of course, people in other places and times also believed that the world is flat.  That idea was overcome by a steady accumulation of evidence, much of it gathered by rich white men.  But the impossibility of miracles is a different matter entirely.  That is a faith-claim that can never be proven. A computer scientist living in the 21^st century is in no better position to judge that matter than an illiterate peasant in medieval times or an Australian aborigine in 6,000 BC.

When I call skepticism the religion of the rich white man, I do not intend it as a slur.  Using race, ethnicity or economic status to discredit someone’s views is morally offensive and intellectually lame. My purpose is to challenge the idea that all faith is the byproduct of culture.  Christianity is expressed by individuals within cultures.  But the gospel of Jesus — his message of the kingdom of God — is not a cultural construct at all. The teachings of the New Testament, when properly understood, affirm every culture and challenge every culture.

If you feel that I have mischaracterized your views, then you are probably correct.  The skeptic I have described is partly a straw man.  People are complicated. Their belief systems do not fit neatly into predefined categories. Yet I do have some understanding of American skepticism, because I was once a young American skeptic.

I distinctly remember, back in my freshman year in college, how intoxicating it was to voice skeptical opinions and be welcomed by new friends into the ranks of the enlightened.  I remember the heady feeling when it first dawned on me that now, as a skeptic, my belief system was the greatest because it encompassed all others.  I could now respect all religions of the world without actually having to learn about them, because I had figured out on my own that none of them were true.  And I had accomplished all that by the age of eighteen!

After a brief flirtation with skepticism, I decided instead to believe in Jesus. How and why this happened, I cannot say.  It was not an entirely rational process, but neither was it irrational. Within a year of this uneventful conversion, my friends began to notice that I was different.  Instead of pontificating that all religions were the same, I began to show disdain for anything secular and non-Christian.  I demonstrated that religious people and skeptics are equally prone to arrogance and hypocrisy. I hope I have made progress in that regard. While my beliefs and convictions have become stronger, I hope that I have also grown in the capacity to question myself, to personally admit that I could be wrong, and to consider that my own culturally-bound expressions of Christianity may be inadequate.

There is still one question I cannot resolve: How can people of different faiths, who hold different world views and core values, live together in peace, love and mutual respect? Christianity as a religious movement has failed to provide an answer.  Skepticism hasn’t answered it, either. The idea that you can eliminate conflict by negating all claims of absolute truth is ludicrous.  People who hold different views may interact peacefully in their communities and workplaces.  But often they do so by avoiding politics and religion.  When a polarizing issue comes up, they just “agree to disagree.”  Setting up boundaries and keeping your distance is not the same as acceptance, communication and friendship.

No system of belief can unite people of different beliefs.  But there is a person who, more than any other, broke through these barriers when he interacted with people.  Jesus made claims that are stunningly absolute:  “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  I have heard young people describe these words as “presumptuous,” “arrogant” and “ignorant.”  But Jesus himself was anything but.  He showed respect, understanding, compassion and love toward everyone he encountered. If claims of objective truth are dangerous and repugnant, how could they coexist with this beautiful mind and exemplary life?

Of course, some will claim that the New Testament was fabricated by clerics in the second century. But I would say that skepticism was invented in the 18^th century by those rich white men.