It’s simply not a big deal to me — if it’s real it’s real, if it’s fake it’s fake. But we have some mutual acquaintances who seem to take umbrage at the notion that someone could claim to have faith and yet not believe in it. One gets the distinct impression they’d prefer to believe in it even if it wasn’t real, than not to believe in it even if it wasn’t real.

Actually, I do kind of understand it — they confuse faith in the possibility of such things happening with credulity. (You know the type. Not all of them, just particular somes of them.) If I say, “I dunno, I’m not convinced the shroud is real and I don’t see what the big deal is anyway,” they hear, “I’m a Big Bad Calvinist and I don’t believe God ever did use physical objects in any supernatural way, except where it says so in the Bible, which I believe in more than I believe God, and even then I really believe that the physical object part is just pretend and the only the effect matters, and if I admitted the shroud was real I’d have to become Catholic.” So to fail to argue against my indifference is to endorse what they believe to be my Protestant cryptognosticism and skepticism. And in reaction, some of them decide that if they are going to believe that God uses physical objects in supernatural ways, they have to believe every report of such things that comes down the pike, else they are guilty of skepticism rather than faith. Hence faith = credulity; occasional skepticism or indifference = radical skepticism and overall indifference.

And yeah, I know the type. Not as well as you, but you could tell that by looking at my roots.

Sadly, age and the advent of teenaged children is doing its own work.

Hey! I will email soon.

Pentamom:

We won’t talk about my hair.