Imagine an incoming freshman at a major university known for science and technology. Now, imagine that incoming freshman is standing outside of the Physics building, making fun of all the people who believe in this "physics" thing. I mean, he learned about physics when he was younger, sort of. He's pretty sure he's got the main idea, and has come to the conclusion that is just plain silly.
As graduate students getting their PhDs in Physics walk in and out of the building , he makes comments about how it's all made up, and that scientists have changed the facts over time, and it's a blind faith in what scientists (people they've never met) have told them. I mean, his fellow Aphysicists all agree. In fact, he's surrounded himself with only other people who think what he thinks, and believe what he believes. No additional data needed. Don't need to be duped into believing in this physics stuff. "Keep your kool aid to yourself, you Physics Freaks!"
He spends the entire semester coming up with theories as to how gravity really works, why things fall in a parabolic arc, why sound changes octaves when a train goes by ("Certainly not this Doppler effect the physicists say it is!", he snorts).
All the while, there are all of these people studying physics in-depth. They are getting Masters and PhDs on the subject. What could they possibly be studying? I mean, it's all based on blind faith and made up stories, right?
Ridiculousness.
But this, in essence, is what is happening. But the subject is not Physics. The subject is God and Jesus and the Bible. And there are these babbling atheists standing well on the outskirts of what it's really all about, acting as though they have even the slightest clue.
I have no doubt they grew up going to some church on Sundays who failed to teach them what it's really about. I have no doubt that they potentially had a bad experience with someone who claims to be a Christian. I have no doubt they have learned some stories about Christians in history that have been over-exaggerated with some serious hyperbole, or completely rewritten history, while ignoring the exponentially more heinous atrocities of atheists and agnostics in history (e.g. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Pol Pot).
I get it. But they are standing outside of the building with horribly incomplete and/or false information, mocking those who have truly studied it and know better.
I'm not mocking these ignorant and snarky freshman. I'm pointing out that - to someone who knows better - they simply sounds like babbling idiots. And I know they don't want that... to be seen as ignorant or arrogant. But they are.
So I'm making a suggestion to them. Look at it as a throwing down of the gauntlet.
You don't know. Simple as that - you do not have the necessary data to make an educated decision. That's quite clear. If you did, you would be either fully in the belief category, or you would be looking into it rapidly.
Here's the offer: If you wish to know, I'm happy to provide you with the right information over time. And it must be over time, because you are so far off path, with so many built up layers, that it's going to take some time to remove the brainwashing this culture has done on you.
You don't know, but that's okay. It takes admitting it to start the process. That first step takes humility... a wonderful beginning to the process.
As we step into a new year, take the step. Admit you don't know everything and that perhaps all those metaphorical "PhDs in Physics" know something you don't know.
God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name. Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk and silence atheist babble. I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?
Psalm 8:1-4 (The Message)
