by Dymphna Morrissey

Created on: January 01, 2011   Last Updated: March 31, 2011

I've been trying to answer this question for most of my biological life and for most of my time at helium (and keep getting it in my "needs improvement" list).  I never came to a satisfactory answer until two years ago when I read a book by Philip Roth whose dysfunctional character put out a startlingly honest insight.

My own answer seems to be my on-the-spot unabashed mixture of the skeptical and incredulous.  I am neither overly rational or overly emotional.  I answer with a dash of logic, religious sentiment, and personal experience.  I do not pretend to be progressive, beyond fear, or unswayed by childishly appealing explanations.  I pat myself on the back for being brave.  After all, this question, unless it is answered in a bland and mechanical way, can push buttons. 

Many people attach personal meaning to life.  They exert their tyranny of thinking over others.  When I look around, I see a lot of live beings that seem to know precisely what is life.  I am quite ambivalent about every world view that exists, and do not care about pushing other people into my thinking about life.  Nor do I get overly insistent about assigning my "objective" diagnosis, which is really a barely disguised and highly subjective critique in the final analysis.  I am highly ignorant about what is life.  I am mostly skeptical, but I am not a humanist.  I think that aliens exist and that Jesus exists.  Despite the fact that I believe in all kinds of things, I am not dumb or crazy.  What does it mean to be crazy anyway?  I don't mean that in an oh-so-eccentric way, but simply in the sense that every rational person could be considered secretly crazy.  Nor do I mean to digress about what is life because I know that I have to answer the question.   That's part of life, correct?

My friend is highly skeptical of aliens.  She spent a large amount of time explaining how people make conclusions based on ignorance because nobody likes to not know.  I don't care about not knowing.  It doesn't really bother me either way because I'll never know everything.  All kinds of skeptics come out and say they would have a conversation with you about aliens if you gave them a bit more evidence than you saw Venus in the sky as you were driving along a zig zag road.  I played along as the one who just couldn't let go of her funny little beliefs.

I consider myself a Christian,

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