Our Monday night small group has been walking down this trail for several weeks now and last Monday we pondered this question:
Why are humans so quick to jump on to and cling to the latest truth claims?
We came at this question from a Christian perspective, heavily influenced by St. Paul's words from Romans 1:
"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God."
We also discussed this question with some humility because each one of us has been guilty of being influenced by the "truth of the day." Here is what we concluded in answer to the question:
- We prefer our autonomy, we don't like having anything in authority over us.
- And if there is no authority over us, we are free to pursue our selfish desires with no rules.
-----------------------------------------
A few days later I listened to this story from a "This American Life" podcast. To summarize, a college professor with a family decided there must be more than this, what he could touch and see; if there weren't more then the beautiful universe would be diminished. So he abandons his wife and children and job at the university to try to establish contact with extra-terrestrials. He firmly believes that there is intelligent life "out there." After years of effort, frauds and near-misses he still believes that something is out there - something big, over-arching, transcendent - in his words, "what we might call God." He said that he believes ET could exist BUT believes that God could not because, again his words, "it sounds too fantastic."
----------------------------------------
Might this bring a third excuse to the table? Do we reject the idea of a loving God because it is too fantastic, too good to be true?
