Thanks.

Please forgive my intrusion on your blog, but I found it by accident as I was looking for exercises for my students about strong/weak verbs. Loved your idea about thinking like a screenwriter, ie: how am I going to show this to the folks who watch my move? Great tip.

Long story short, I saw the mysterious bridge graphic and thought I’d come to homepage of Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy, who use the very same graphic. Then I looked in the sidebar and saw the Atheist/Agnostic Article here and gave it a read.

All I can say is wow. What you wrote is very beautiful. You clearly have the heart of a poet. And while I am in total harmony with your sentiment, I disagree with your conclusions.

I’ve studied mythology extensively (taught it for eight years) and have read Joseph Campbell’s work including The Masks of God. It is indeed amazing that so many ancient cultures had stories closely associated with those recorded in the Christian Bible. And certainly one conclusion could be that all religions and God-notions are myth built out of mankind’s hope for goodness and light.

But as C.S. Lewis points out, mankind would never have known to look for goodness and light if there had never been a source of goodness and light. What I’m driving at is a very different conclusion. World myths that predate the Old Testament (or New Testament, for that matter) are amazingly similar for two reasons: 1. the acts these early myths suggest, actually DID happen –or– 2. God, Himself being outside of time, imprinted His own impact on the world in the hearts of all people.

Concerning 1: Take Noah’s flood which is mirrored in many cultural tales. It seems likely that such a catastrophic flood did occur. Geologists the world over have confirmed that certain recent discoveries do indicate a flood on a massive scale.

Evolutionist Richard Carrington, in The Story of Our Earth, a secular publication, admitted,

“Of the many kinds of animals inhabiting the earth at the time vast numbers were swept completely away. Not only individuals, but whole races were destroyed. Extermination overtook the animals of the land, sea and air with equal indifference. When the holocaust was over the whole aspect of life on earth had changed.”180/155

Concerning 2: Take the common mythological archetype of the coming chosen one or coming savior. If prior to the beginning of time, God intended to save all people of the world by letting His son come to earth, wouldn’t He have given people a desire to look for such a one? Certainly this is not beyond the ability of an all powerful God. So the handful of myth/cultural stories concerning events/people similar to Christianity are eternal echos of God’s plan.

I do believe that all people are searching for light. I believe that is because we all realize there’s something missing from our lives, a longing we sometimes call melancholy. This is the hunger for God and for heaven. I don’t think this hunger for light can be argued against–as you say, too much history supports it. But the question then becomes, WHO is the source of the light we long for?

It would have to be someone beyond ourselves, beyond humanity. We ourselves recognize our own self destructive tendencies and the fickle nature of our feelings. People are prone to letting us down. Emotions and behavior are affected by such subtle things as seasons, weather, workload, nutrition, and such. So the light must be beyond us.

God, a supernatural being, fits the bill. But which God? The answer is the most important answer anyone on earth will ever discover. But how to find it? Vishnu? Mohommad? Budha? Jesus? Who?

There we MUST NOT depart from our ordinary means of making judgments. Most of us decide what to wear based on the preponderance of evidence. Hmmm, weatherman said it’s going to be forty degrees. I open the window. It looks cold. It feels cold. The evidence suggests that I will therefore wear a sweater. Imagine you were driving on a one lane road and then stopped at the entrance to a narrow bridge. People explained that if you drive across the bridge, you will be given forty million dollars. I suspect that you would want to get out and inspect the bridge. If there was time, I imagine you’d look it up on the internet or hire an expert on bridges before you ever drove across. It makes sense to examine the evidence.

However, we must avoid making the kind of judgment we make when we choose who we will vote for or what team to like. These judgments are colored, filtered way too much by our history, our upbringing, and our personal preferences. We might vote democratic because a certain issue is important to us. We might pick a favorite team because the quarterback is handsome. If God is real, then He is real whether we prefer him to be or not.

I am a believer in Jesus. But I’m not an easy believer. Unlike the original childlike faith that you had, I scrutinized everything about Christianity. After all, how could there be only one God, one right way to heaven?

I spent years, taking courses in school, studying history, archeology, and even science. I read countless testimonials, considered the experiences of uncountable people of a variety of faiths, and my conclusion was clear: the God of the Bible is real.

The problem is, either people don’t want to do the research because it steals time from their lifestyle –or– they don’t want to believe their findings because it impacts their lifestyle. I didn’t want to believe in God if that meant there was only one way to heaven. I love people. I want them all to go to heaven whatever they believe. But that’s just preference speaking –or wishful thinking. It has nothing to do with the preponderance of evidence for Christianity. Choosing not to believe in God in this way is akin to being starving but refusing to eat because you feel sure someone else in the world might also starve.

In closing, Kaylyred, I am convinced that the reason you cry when you hear Oh Holy Night or Do You Hear What I Hear is that your soul longs for God still. I suspect that your childlike faith in Jesus when you were young made you a Christian. And even though you have abandoned God, HE has not abandoned you. He’s hinting, suggesting, and waiting…because He is the Light of the world. And he loves you.

-WtB

-Jen, Chase and Lulu

I’m really excited about Sony’s new Bravia ad. You should check it out if you haven’t seen it already.