skeptik

After reading some of the skeptical writings of a friend of mine, and being troubled by the fierceness of his stance against God specifically and religion generally, I was poignantly reminded that as this world spins into more decay and selfishness, people are running in the wrong direction to find their solace. The sick and weak, in a fit of rage attack the one with the cure. As a lesser wordsmith than those I'm about to quote, I will leave it to them to express what I see, in a way that does so better than I could:

But the new rebel is a Sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.
from Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton


The Romans gave to us our legal ideals. The Greeks gave to us our philosophical ideals. The Hebrews gave to us our moral ideals.

• The Hebrew's pursuit was symbolized by light. "This is the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world." "The people that sat in the darkness have seen a great light." "The LORD is my light and my salvation."
• The pursuit of the Greeks was knowledge. "These things are written that we might know that we have eternal life." The Academy was a Greek invention.
• The pursuit of the Romans was glory - the glory of Rome, the glory of the Caesars, the glory of the eternal city, that wasn't built in a day.
  

Paul, who was born a Hebrew, a citizen of Rome, in a Greek city, says this in Second Corinthians 4:6: "God, who caused the light to shine out of darkness, has caused his light to shine in our hearts, to give to us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus our Lord.
...
How that captures every longing and ideal! All are ultimately shown to us in a face. Here we see the ultimate expression of God, the culmination of God’s revelation. It was not restricted to the philosophy of Greece, the spiritual experience of the Hebrews, or the glory of an earthly city. “Do you want to see God?” ask the writers. Look at the face of Christ. That face beckons you not to a smorgasbord of fleeting tastes but to a life of eternal joy.

by Ravi Zacharias, from here and here.