Part 4: Why is There Existence?
There’s something very interesting about the universe, although at first glance, it doesn’t seem very interesting at all.
The universe exists.
People exist. Mountains exist. Oceans exist. Stars exist. Elements exist. Mathematical formulas exist. Standards exist. Time exists (this might be a bit controversial). Knowledge exists.
But why?
I think that all of the possible answers can be summed up into four categories.
1. Everything that exists has not come out of anything. Things have always existed.
2. Everything that exists has come out of nothing.
3. Everything that exists has come out of something, and that something is impersonal.
4. Everything that exists has come out of something, and that something is personal.
Let’s look at the first option. Everything that exists has not come out of anything. Things have always existed. There was no beginning. In the words of Carl Sagan, “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” This is commonly known as the Steady State Theory. The Steady State Theory was almost completely abandoned by the scientific community in the 1960s and 1970s, after the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, which has been attributed to the Big Bang. The Big Bang implies that the universe is not steady-state. It means that the universe has a beginning.
Nonetheless, let’s look at this theory. I think that the theory is very easy to accept, but its implications are not.
Firstly, the Steady State Theory implies the existence of something that is infinite, namely, the universe. If we look at the natural world around us, there is absolutely nothing that has infinite qualities. But more than that, something that is infinite cannot even be conceived. A unicorn can be conceived, but an infinitely tall mountain cannot. It would make sense that we cannot conceive of things in the supernatural world, but it does not make a whole lot of sense that we cannot conceive of things in the natural world.
What is the problem with things having infinite qualities? In other words, why can we not perceive infinitely tall mountains? Well, because we cannot understand the concept of something having no end. It is hard to imagine a mountain without a peak. A mountain wouldn’t even be a mountain without a peak. Similarly, it is impossible to perceive an elephant of infinite size. What would be the distance between the tail and the left tusk? It is immeasurable. It is not even a reasonable thought.
The life of stars isn’t infinite. The size of the universe isn’t infinite. The human capacity to love isn’t infinite. This natural world is full of finite things, and there is not a single thing that is infinite. Who in their right mind, then, would propose that time is infinite? Well, that’s exactly what the Steady State Theory proponents propose. It seems like the only reason why anybody would settle on this belief would be to escape from another belief. Such a belief would not be philosophically or scientifically grounded at all. It would be emotionally grounded.
Secondly, it is well accepted in the scientific community that the universe is expanding. And not only that, but it is expanding at an increasing rate. What does that mean? This means that at one point in time, the universe was an infinitesimally small dot. But what was before that? The Steady State theorist has nowhere to go.
Let’s look at the second option. Everything that exists has come out of nothing. And nothing means absolutely nothing. We cannot even say, “There was a time when there was no such thing as an atom,” because time didn’t even exist. In fact, the very idea that I would talk about this nothing-ness in the past tense would be controversial, because we cannot even say that this proposed nothing-ness took place in the past, because time did not exist! All we can say is that everything has come out of nothing.
What exists at this split second is the result of what existed in the split second right before the current split second. And what existed in the split second right before the current split second is the result of what had existed in the split second right before it. And so on. Eventually, you would come to a dead end at the first split second. Many people call this the Big Bang.
This first split second could not have been caused by a split second within nothing, because split seconds don’t exist within nothing. It could not have been caused by anything that is within nothing, because nothing exists within nothing. And it could not have been caused by itself, because that would result in an infinite loop, and there would be no reason for the first split second to move on to anything else except itself, the first split second.
It seems like this theory falls apart on its own as well.
Option #3. Everything that exists has come out of something, and that something is impersonal. I think this is the most challenging contender so far. And just to clarify, something that is impersonal would include matter, anti-matter, energy, motion, life-force, and the like. Something that is personal would include God.
Firstly, note that this does not answer all questions. The question is simply pushed back one step. Where did that original impersonal thing come from? Any answer will only result in more questions.
Secondly, the idea seems contradictory to what we know about the world. Francis Schaeffer said of this, “Beginning with the impersonal, everything, including man, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance.” And here’s the catch: Humans are personal. Perhaps I am not imaginative enough, but when I take any combination of these impersonal things, like matter and motion, and I add time and chance, I can’t figure out how anything personal can come out of it.
Yes, I can grant that a collection of matter and energy, with some time and chance, can create some atoms, and maybe some molecules. But personalities? Emotions? Passions? Those are something that are on a different level of substance. Do you honestly mean to say that something like forgiveness can come out of matter and anti-matter? I think that it requires a huge amount of faith to believe that the personal can arise out of the impersonal.
And thirdly, the implications of such a belief are astounding. If everything in this universe is a result of the impersonal, if everything arises in the same fashion from the same boring thing, then is there truly diversity? Would it not make more sense to say that everything is one, and different things are different components, if even that, of that oneness? But then, will anyone be able to say that a human being is more valuable than a rock? And by what standard? One might say that humans are more valuable than rocks because they have more complex molecules, or because they have free will. But why would a human have the right to define the standards of value? Of course a human would define those standards in such a way that humans would be the most valuable of all things! Those standards are meaningless. If a rock could define a standard of value, it might define it by density, or by population. Rocks are much denser than human beings, and rocks certainly outnumber human beings. But that is meaningless as well. All of these standards are relative to individual things, meaning they actually aren’t even standards at all.
But there is much more at stake than the issue of value.
What can we possibly say about morality? Can anybody pass judgment on anybody’s morals? Does anybody have the right to say that rape or murder is wrong, if everything is essentially impersonal things plus time plus chance? All of our experiences and emotions are nothing but chemical processes. What makes those experiences and emotions more valuable than those of another?
And the list goes on. Purpose. Identity. Love. There cannot possibly be these things in a universe that is run on chance. These concepts would lose their meanings if the universe started with the impersonal. All we can really say is that these concepts have been created by human beings, but they essentially are illusions. It is some sort of self-deception. But civilizations run on it.
Does that necessarily mean that the universe could not have come out of the impersonal? You can believe it if you want. Just recognize the faith that is necessary and the implications that are present.
Finally, Option #4. Everything that exists has come out of something, and that something is personal.
I find that this is the only way to explain personality and character. The universe is a specific way and not another specific way because it was created by something or someone that is personal. The character of that original personality is reflected in many things that exist today, such as love, purpose, and justice.
Of course, one might argue that this option is also a step of faith, and questions will arise as a result as well. Very true. But this is a different kind of faith. Firstly, because I think that it is a reasonable faith. The faith that is required by an experienced and knowledgeable skydiver is very different than the faith required by an ignorant caveman when skydiving. Secondly, the questions that surround the supernatural are expected, whereas questions that surround the natural are not. I mean that in the framework of a naturalist, all things that exist must have natural explanations. And people with a decent mind should be able to patch up their belief systems with little difficulty and with minimal contradictions. However, logic and reason do not apply to supernatural ideas, because the very idea of the supernatural means that it ought to supersede logic and reason. So questions are expected.
What does all of this mean?
In all of this, I mean to say that from the idea of existence alone, it is very reasonable to believe that this universe has a personal creator, because all other alternatives are much more problematic.
Francis Collins is a well-known geneticist and the Director of the National Institutes of Health. Though a self-declared atheist throughout graduate school, he later became an evangelical Christian. During an interview by Salon, an online magazine, he described one of the major reasons he made that decision, “We have this very solid conclusion that the universe had an origin, the Big Bang. Fifteen billion years ago, the universe began with an unimaginably bright flash of energy from an infinitesimally small point. That implies that before that, there was nothing. I can’t imagine how nature, in this case the universe, could have created itself. And the very fact that the universe had a beginning implies that someone was able to begin it. And it seems to me that had to be outside of nature. And that sounds like God.”
- Larry
Part 3: How Can We Know Truth?
Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter in Naming the Elephant by James Sire.
==
One day a little boy came to his father. “Today the teacher showed us a big round globe. She said it was a model of the world. She said the world was just surrounded by space. How can that be? Dad, what holds up the world? Why doesn’t it just fall down?”
His father, knowing that this was just a child’s question, gave him a child’s answer: “It’s a camel that holds up the world, son.”
The boy went away satisfied, for he trusted his father and for the moment it made sense. He’d seen pictures of camels holding up all sorts of things. So why not the world? But then he got to thinking about it and by the next day decided something was missing in his father’s answer. He asked, “Dad, I was just wondering: if a camel holds up the world, what holds up the camel?”
His father now thought that he might be in trouble. So, knowing that a quick answer turneth away further questions, he said, “It’s a kangaroo that holds up the camel.”
Again the boy went away, but this time only for a couple of hours. Back again with his father, he asked, “Dad, if a camel holds up the world and a kangaroo holds up a camel, what holds up the kangaroo?”
This time the father realized that he was in deep trouble. So he chose the largest animal he could think of and he put a capital on it. That is, he shouted. People believe you if you shout, he thought. “It’s an Elephant that holds up the kangaroo.”
“Come on, Dad!” his son retorted. “What holds up the Elephant?”
His father, in a fit of genius deriving from necessity, replied, “It’s…it’s…it’s Elephant all the way down.”
What the boy said next is not recorded. But notice two things. The father has been pushed to the logic of his first answer. If it take something to hold up the world, then there has to be a first holder, something that doesn’t require being held up–a prime foundation. If the father is to answer his son’s question in the way it was asked, he is committed to naming the final foundation of reality–that is, what holds everything in existence.
Second, the father has to recognize that he has no logical way to stop the regress. He must take another tack. He must simply commit himself to the most likely one–the biggest animal he can think of, an elephant.
The story thus illustrates two characteristics of any worldview: its understanding of prime reality and its pretheoretical character. The story makes this clearer when the father takes his son’s question more seriously.
In this story, the father respects his son’s curiosity and intelligence. So when the son asks, “What holds the world up?” the father replies, “Gravity holds the world up, son.”
“Gee, Dad, what’s that?”
“The law of gravity states that the force (F) exerted between two bodies (such as the earth and the sun) is equal to the gravitational constant (G) multiplied by the product of the masses of the two bodies (m1, m2) divided by the square of the distance (r) between them. Here, let me write the formula for you:
F = Gm1m2/r2
“Now look up gravity in an encyclopedia. I think you’ll get the picture.”
“Wow, Dad,” he says after he’s pored over the World Book Encyclopedia, “I understand the formula. It’s neat. But why?”
“Well, son, the law of gravity expresses the relationship between bodies in space.”
“Why, Dad?”
“Well, you see, the universe is a uniformity of natural causes, and the law of gravity expresses this uniformity in a mathematical way.”
“But why is the universe uniform? What makes it be what it is? In fact, what makes it be at all?”
Now the father is at a crucial point. He has named a series of reasons, all linked logically. But he now faces a question that cannot be answered within the framework of his previous answers. In philosophic terms, his son has been asking physical questions. Now he is asking a metaphysical question: why is there something rather than nothing? In other words, what is the Animal all the way down?
The father, so it seems to me, has two basic ways to answer. He can say, “That’s just the way it is.” There is no further reason. There is just Being itself, brute reality, fundamental isness. If he takes this approach, he sides with the naturalists, who, like Carl Sagan, say, “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”
But he has a second choice. He can name one more Animal, a sort of animal beyond all animals. He can say, “God made it that way.” In this case, he has sided with the theists; that is, his one more Animal is a nonnatural, even supernatural, Creator.
His son can then ask again, “Why, Dad?” And his father is again at the end of his answers. Unless he has extranatural information, he must now say the same thing as the naturalist: “That’s just the way it is.”
==
My friend pointed out that it is not gravity that holds up the world but rather the lack of gravity that holds up the world. Let’s set that aside.
Naturalists and theists have something in common, and it is that there is no way to conclusively and logically prove their position all the way through. At some point, the defender just has to admit that he’s banking his understanding of reality on unsupported beliefs. It is like building a soaring tower that is magnificent on the outside, but the material used in the foundation is unknown.
For the naturalist, I don’t think there is a universally agreed upon answer to why the universe is uniform, or why the universe exists, or why protons and electrons exist, or even why knowledge exists. Well, naturalists can provide more Animals. They can say that the universe exists because of the big bang, or because of string theory. But then there are more questions. Why was there a big bang? Where did that energy come from? Where did the first quark come from? If we trace any piece of information that we know, and we ask the why’s behind it, we will always end up with a dead end. “Who cares?” somebody may ask, “Science is progressing.”
And to that I will say, yes, science is progressing, but it is within a specific context, within a certain philosophy. And because of that, everything changes. You see, when we ask the why’s and end up with a dead end, it does not mean that we simply have a limit to our knowledge, but it means that all of our knowledge is at risk. If we do not know why something is the way it is, then we cannot know that something. Our very belief that science is progressing might not even be true, if we can’t even understand why the universe has laws of science.
How so? Let’s say that you come home one day and find a million dollars in cash on your bed. However, you have no idea how it got there. Will you just assume that it is yours, because it is in your room, and everything else in your room is yours? Probably not. In fact, you will probably doubt that it is yours, because you do not know why it is on your bed. You might even suspect that it is counterfeit money. On the other hand, if, over the period of twenty years, you earned a million dollars, and one day you decide to withdraw it in cash and put it on your bed, there will be no doubt that it is yours, because you know why it is on your bed. You earned it, and you put it there. Understanding of knowledge leads to certainty of knowledge. Alternatively, the less we know about why something is, the less sure we can be that that something is true.
Let’s continue with the “science is progressing” example. Science is dependent on the uniformity of the universe. But even though we “know” that the universe is uniform, we don’t know how that uniformity got there. And if we don’t know how it got there, then we cannot be sure that it will stay there (just as if we wouldn’t know how a million dollars ended up on our bed, we wouldn’t be sure that they would stay there). If we cannot be sure that uniformity will stay there, then our laws of science will become useless, and science itself will be dismantled.
I’m not saying that science is useless. We have to run with what we have. Our beliefs suit us for the time being. All I’m saying is that because everybody is so limited in their understanding of reality, there is no guarantee that the supposed facts that we have are true. All knowledge is based on dead ends, so all knowledge is questionable. And to those would say, “I don’t mind if all knowledge is questionable. I just want to live my life,” I would inform you that assuming that it’s not a big deal is just as much a step of faith as saying that it is a big deal.
Here’s the issue. The basic foundation on which the world bases all of its understanding of reality is a foundation of faith. Chew on that for a moment.
Faith is the certainty of the unproven. And it is here that naturalists and theists find their common ground. Naturalists choose to believe that the universe simply is, and it happens to be uniform. Theists choose to believe that God (or “gods”) simply is (or “are”), and he (or “they) made the universe uniform. I think the main difference is that theists recognize that they use faith, and naturalists often do not.
Religious people are sometimes accused for blindly following their beliefs. When pressured into a corner, they just say, “God exists. That’s just the way it is.” God is their dead end. But here we see that everybody, in a sense, is in this same boat. “The universe exists. That’s just the way it is.” The universe is their dead end.
If that’s the case, then this isn’t very much like a debate forum anymore. In a debate, there is an affirmative side and a negative side. The affirmative side proposes a resolution, while the negative side holds to the status quo. But in the case of whether or not God exists, there is no status quo, and therefore there is no proposed resolution, because a proposed resolution is something that brings about a change in a status quo. In other words, we cannot assume that God is existent until He is proven nonexistent, and we cannot assume that God is nonexistent until He is proven existent. We simply must recognize the two sides.
How then can we go about this matter? We cannot measure their likelihoods, in a sense, because probability is determined by mathematics, and we now realize that mathematics is rested on faith. I think perhaps the best way is to examine these two sides carefully and to determine the consistency of the respective belief systems.
One thing that we can do is to put our minds into the mind of a naturalist, and then into the mind of a theist, in order to look for self-contradicting beliefs. For the naturalist, one set of self-contradicting beliefs might be the combination of “Every effect has a cause” and “In the beginning, there was a big bang.” For the theist, one set of self-contradicting beliefs might be the combination of “God can do whatever He wants” and “God cannot sin.”
We can also look for events in history or attributes about reality that might seem to possibly contradict our beliefs as well. For the naturalist, the “fine-tuning” of the universe, that the uniformity and precision of universal constants make the universe suitable for complexity, and most importantly, life, seems to contradict the belief that the universe arose randomly. For the theist, the existence of evil seems to contradict the belief that there is a good all-powerful God.
So we can say that there are two types of contradictions. One is the type between a belief and another belief. One is the type between a belief and a piece of reality. Of course, we do not have enough time in this lifetime to examine all of the apparent contradictions out there in our belief systems, but I think that an examination of at least some of these contradictions can help bring to light which belief system actually makes more sense, and therefore which belief system actually is the real belief system.
- Larry
Part 2: What is Truth?
Supposedly, Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, the day of Jesus’ death, “What is truth?” There is no record of a response.
It’s been two thousand years, and people are still asking that question. And recently, that question has been publicly raised to another level. “Does truth even exist?” In the past century or so, there has been this huge surge in this idea that truth is relative.
Now, if all of these people are right, that truth is relative, then everything that I will say will be of absolutely no use to you. They simply won’t apply to you. Because truth is relative. And all of the counter-arguments that are given to me won’t apply to me. Because truth is relative. The whole art of persuasion is removed of its place if truth is relative. So something has to be sorted out before we move on. That’s the purpose of this post.
So is truth relative? Yes and no.
Yes, in the sense of the statement, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” To one person, it is “true” that a certain individual is beautiful. To another person, it is “true” that that same individual is not beautiful. That’s “truth” being relative.
Yes, in the sense of the statement, “$10,000 is a lot of money.” To one person, it is “true” that $10,000 is a lot of money. To another person, it is “true” that $10,000 is not a lot of money. That’s also “truth” being relative.
No, in the sense of the statement, “Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States of America.” To one person, it is “true” that Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States of America. And it is the same to any another person.
No, in the sense of the statement, “Human beings have walked on the moon.” To one person, it is “true” that the human beings have walked on the moon. And it is the same to any other person. Or is it?
Here we have hit something that needs to be thought out. The fact of the matter is that there are people who would not agree with the statement, “Human beings have walked on the moon.” What does that mean? I can think of two sides to take. The first side is to say, “They are right just as we are right. To them, human beings have not walked on the moon. But to me, human beings have walked on the moon.” The second side is to say, “Either they are wrong or I am wrong. Either human beings have walked on the moon, or they have not walked on the moon.”
Given this scenario, I haven’t met many intellectuals who would take the first side. Why? Because that’s not the way the world operates. Try walking up to a professor after getting a graded exam, and say, “To you, the answer to Problem #4 is 13, but to me, the answer is 14.” Or try walking up to your friend and saying, “To you, the New Orleans Saints won Super Bowl XLIV, but to me, the Indianapolis Colts won Super Bowl XLIV.” A common thing that we say about such people is that they are in denial. What does that mean? Of what are they in denial? Why, they are in denial of truth. And they can only be in denial of truth because truth in this case is not relative. Think about it. If all truths were relative, there would be no such thing as denial.
The fact of the matter is that either the answer to Problem #4 is 13, or it is not 13. Either the New Orleans Saints won Super Bowl XLIV, or they did not win Super Bowl XLIV. Either planes hit the Twin Towers in September 2001, or they did not. Either Robin Hood was a real historical figure, or he was not.
Concerning these truths, all people either believe the truth, do not believe the truth, or do not have a position concerning the truth. It is not the case that everybody has a special equally correct view, but that there is one correct view, and people either align themselves to it, or they do not, or they have not approached it yet. Either people are correct, or they are incorrect, or they do not know.
Perhaps this concept is a little tough for people to chew on, but I honestly think that if we simply sat down and thought these things out, we would come to the conclusion that there are some “truths,” commonly known as absolute truths, that simply are true for everybody. Therefore, it must make sense that there are two types of truths. One is the relative kind of truth, and one is the absolute kind of truth. And here comes the next question. How can we determine what is relative and what is not?
If we look at every example of relative truth that we can think of, it seems that the truth is relative because there is something ambiguous about the wording. $10,000 is a lot to somebody, because the phrase “a lot” is ambiguous. There isn’t a specific quantitative value to what that means. A certain individual is beautiful, because the standard of beauty is not universally defined. One individual might value the eyes, while another individual might value the hair. But with issues like who it was that won Super Bowl XLIV, there is a set way to determine who it was. It is pre-defined what the rules of American football are, and how many points a touchdown earns, and such.
Once we can understand that, then everything falls into place.
Los Angeles, California is hot. That’s a relative statement. Los Angeles, California hit 80 degrees today. That’s an absolute statement.
Now take a look at these statements.
God exists. God has a son. God’s son died.
Are those absolute statements or relative statements? Well, do they have inherently ambiguous descriptions? Actually, yes. God is ambiguous. Different people take “God” to mean different things. To some, “God” might mean “Santa Claus,” and to others, it might mean “Creator of the Universe.” So, in the same way that we redefined “hot” to be “80 degrees,” we can define God in a way so that the sentence is no longer ambiguous.
For purposes of convenience, we can take St. Anselm’s definition, which most monotheists accept, that God is a being of which no greater being can be conceived. I’m taking that definition because that definition of God is often the definition at the center of debate today.
If we want to be picky, we can even define the word “exist” to further remove ambiguity. To exist is to have objective reality.
Taking that definition of God, can we say, “God exists for you but not for me”?
I don’t think so. And why not? When people say that, I don’t think that they are actually meaning what they say. It is logically impossible for God to exist for an individual but not for another individual, just as it is logically impossible for President Obama, or Robin Hood, or aliens, to exist for one individual but not for another individual. What most of these people essentially mean is that God does not exist for either of us, but you believing in God’s existence is a bit of a psychological placebo effect, and it does you good, so I’m glad you believe in a God. Or at the very most, God is like a personal spirit, guardian, or psychological nature, but definitely not a being of which no greater being can be conceived.
And so the intellectual world can be divided into three groups. Theists believe that at least one deity exists, and it is the case that at least one deity exists for everyone. Atheists believe that no deity exists, and it is the case that no deity exists for everyone. And there is a third party, which we can define as agnostics (I understand that some agnostics object to this definition), who choose not to take a stance in the matter.
Onwards.
- Larry
Part 1: Why Does This Matter?
Everybody has assumptions. They are inescapable. Without assumptions, we would not be able to function. When I was getting dressed today, I assumed that Weather.com was accurate. When I went to my Fluid Mechanics lecture, I assumed that the professor didn’t send a last-minute e-mail to cancel the class. When I was eating my lunch at a restaurant, I assumed that the food served was not contaminated.
Even though absolute certainty was not guaranteed in any of these scenarios, I never even gave these assumptions a second thought. Fortunately, all of these assumptions proved to be correct assumptions. And so those assumptions were well made.
But what if I was wrong? For every false assumption that I make, I will have to experience some sort of consequence that I would not have planned to experience. I would have to walk in the rain, or I would have wasted twenty minutes walking back and forth, or I would have gotten sick or worse.
So here is a common pattern of life. Usually, false assumptions produce negative consequences.
Then when should we make an assumption? It seems like this would depend on two factors.
1) The likelihood that the assumption is true.
2) The nature of the consequence.
Either the likelihood of that assumption to be true must be very large, or the potential negative consequence must be very small. If both of those are false, one should not make an assumption.
Example #1. If one day, I was very bored and found myself flipping coins, I could choose to assume that the next coin that I flip would be heads. Now, this does not have a high likelihood. It’s a 50% chance. However, the negativity of the consequence is not high. Whether I flip heads or tails in this scenario, there is essentially no consequence. Because there is no consequence, an assumption can be made.
Example #2. Now, let’s say that I want to cross a bridge extending over a gorge. I will assume that it is okay to cross the bridge. If the bridge snaps, then I will die. That is a very negative consequence. However, it is not likely that the bridge will snap. It has been approved by the government, it is not structurally unsound, and its historical statistics show that not once has it snapped while people cross it, etc. So because it is not likely, an assumption can be made.
Let’s take this assumption: There is no God, and even if there was a God, it wouldn’t matter to my life.
What is the likelihood that the assumption is true? Well, I’m glad you asked. That is why I created this blog.
And what is the nature of the consequence? Potentially, there can be a missing out on knowledge, or joy, or love, or peace, or nirvana, or heaven. There can also be a receiving of a bad life, purgatory, or eternal damnation. Some of those are pretty big consequences.
I heard an illustration once. What if, one day, you receive a letter from the IRS, saying that you owed $1,000,000? And meanwhile, you were fairly certain that you didn’t, and that you never heard of such an amount. What would you do? Would you simply brush this whole thing off, assume it was a mistake, and carry on with your daily activities?
No. You would probably investigate. You would send an e-mail to the IRS, or you would call the IRS. You would do something to confirm that this was a mistake. And what for? Because even though you might think the likelihood that this was true is small, the consequences are large. If there is just a chance that this is true, then there is a chance that you might end up in prison.
Is this not the same as religion? The only difference is that the consequences are a lot larger. And so even more, we must investigate. We must dig and dig until we can dig no more, because it is potentially necessary for survival.
Here’s another way to word this. If there is absolute truth, and if it is absolutely true that God exists, and if it is absolutely true that God’s existence is correlated with the existence of humanity, then possibly life and death and more are on the line. That is why this matters.
- Larry
Intro
In the past year or so, I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about religion. And specifically, the credibility of religion. And honestly, I’m a bit taken aback at the countless arguments that are thrown out on both sides of the fence, that are founded on misconceptions and misunderstandings. And I’m even more taken aback by the number of people who are actually swayed by these baseless arguments, to the point that their whole lives are changed.
I cannot sit back and watch this happen. I’ve decided to write a series of blog posts about why I believe in the God of Christianity. It might seem like I am simply adding fuel to the fire. That is true. But I honestly think that this type of discussion is very lacking in the modern college community. In other words, this is not so much a forest fire as it is a few burning charcoals right now. And secondly, I am proposing that this fire might be very necessary and relevant to everything we are and everything we know.
I do not think ignorance is bliss. I think that the foundational beliefs of people must be questioned, because beliefs determine actions. If our foundational beliefs are wrong, our life might be spent in all the wrong ways.
Warning. This is a red-pill-blue-pill moment. If you want to remain where you are, do not read these posts. If you want to believe that ignorance is bliss, that is your decision. But for those who want to discover spiritual truth, be warned, because these things that I will write about have transformed me in such a way that there is no turning back.
Here we go.
- Larry
