Who Is To Say?
My job requires me to occasionally take long trips to distant work sites.
Not long ago I was riding in the back seat listening to two coworkers discuss life, death, and Jesus.
The driver, we'll call him Ned, had previously worked as an environmental clean up employee of the US government in the Marshall islands. The man siting next to him was a programmer, we'll call him James.
The drive was a long one, so we took a shortcut by the dump.
The dump was this very large, six story mountain of trash. Birds flew all over, and there was debris everywhere and in the trees. Ned was talking about how awful it was that humans waste so much, how the trash affected the water table, and how people don't dispose of things correctly.
James didn't say anything for a bit and then said, "You see all that trash out there? There is far less trash in that landfill than there is inside most human hearts."
The conversation began to take on a more of a 'historical' perspective. Ned brought up the topic of the great fire of Rome -the ecological damage and so forth. James made a passing reference to the historian Tacitus (although he couldn't remember his name until we got back home).
Ned asked about Tacitus, when he wrote. James mentioned that Tacitus had commented in part on the beginning of Christianity (which was just happening in his time), so he was probably writing around 65 A.D. or so.
Ned wanted to know more about what the Romans had to say about the Christians. So James talked all about how Tacitus considered the claims about Christ's ressurection to be totally fabricated whereas other historians of the time, such as Josephus, seemed to find the claims believable.
This was enough to get Ned going about his own views on religion, his view on ethics, and death. Sitting in the back, I was astounded at how verbose Ned was on this topic.
Ned talked about how you could blow off religion and then die one day and discover that you made a great mistake. Or, he claimed, you could devote yourself to religion and then meet a different god after death, or, perhaps nothing.
James refered to Pascal, how the choice toward Christianity was a gamble with no way of knowing for sure. Agnosticism claims some things cannot be seen, whereas faith is certain of the unseen.
At that point James and Ned agreed that the religious choice -who to believe and who to doubt- had far more to do with what a person wanted to believe rather than the evidence, which is always inconclusive.
Then Ned mentioned that he had read a report the other day about how anthropologists had discovered that there are more than forty thousand religions out there. Ned then asked, "Who is to say which religion is 'right'?".
James didn't answer Ned's question directly but only said, "That can't be true. There have got to be at least forty thousand religions in San Francisco alone!"
Ned agreed with that, but James and I had a hearty laugh.
I suppose James' point was that the vast number of religions only shows that there are a lot of 'made-up' religious dead-ends.
The same thing could probably be said of marriage. If someone where to say, 'There are so many women out there ... who is to say which one I should marry?' And then they just went from woman to woman without having any kind of lasting, committed relationship.
Or they could say it differently: that most marriages end in divorce, so it is better to know the shallow happiness of the Las Vegas lifestyle than the deep sorrows of marriage.
I wish I spent more time telling people about Jesus. This encounter reminded me that God does arrange meetings like this with opportunities to tell others about His Son.
I am saddened to see that many people refuse to decide about Jesus because they think there are just so many 'fish in the sea' of religions. It seems like I'm always hearing people ask, 'Who is to say?'
Soren Kierkegaard in his book The Sickness Unto Death noted that when it comes to a person making choices about their life, Christianity is very clear when it says:
But few people live by their beliefs.
Not long ago I was riding in the back seat listening to two coworkers discuss life, death, and Jesus.
The driver, we'll call him Ned, had previously worked as an environmental clean up employee of the US government in the Marshall islands. The man siting next to him was a programmer, we'll call him James.
The drive was a long one, so we took a shortcut by the dump.
The dump was this very large, six story mountain of trash. Birds flew all over, and there was debris everywhere and in the trees. Ned was talking about how awful it was that humans waste so much, how the trash affected the water table, and how people don't dispose of things correctly.
James didn't say anything for a bit and then said, "You see all that trash out there? There is far less trash in that landfill than there is inside most human hearts."
The conversation began to take on a more of a 'historical' perspective. Ned brought up the topic of the great fire of Rome -the ecological damage and so forth. James made a passing reference to the historian Tacitus (although he couldn't remember his name until we got back home).
Ned asked about Tacitus, when he wrote. James mentioned that Tacitus had commented in part on the beginning of Christianity (which was just happening in his time), so he was probably writing around 65 A.D. or so.
Ned wanted to know more about what the Romans had to say about the Christians. So James talked all about how Tacitus considered the claims about Christ's ressurection to be totally fabricated whereas other historians of the time, such as Josephus, seemed to find the claims believable.
This was enough to get Ned going about his own views on religion, his view on ethics, and death. Sitting in the back, I was astounded at how verbose Ned was on this topic.
Ned talked about how you could blow off religion and then die one day and discover that you made a great mistake. Or, he claimed, you could devote yourself to religion and then meet a different god after death, or, perhaps nothing.
James refered to Pascal, how the choice toward Christianity was a gamble with no way of knowing for sure. Agnosticism claims some things cannot be seen, whereas faith is certain of the unseen.
At that point James and Ned agreed that the religious choice -who to believe and who to doubt- had far more to do with what a person wanted to believe rather than the evidence, which is always inconclusive.
Then Ned mentioned that he had read a report the other day about how anthropologists had discovered that there are more than forty thousand religions out there. Ned then asked, "Who is to say which religion is 'right'?".
James didn't answer Ned's question directly but only said, "That can't be true. There have got to be at least forty thousand religions in San Francisco alone!"
Ned agreed with that, but James and I had a hearty laugh.
I suppose James' point was that the vast number of religions only shows that there are a lot of 'made-up' religious dead-ends.
The same thing could probably be said of marriage. If someone where to say, 'There are so many women out there ... who is to say which one I should marry?' And then they just went from woman to woman without having any kind of lasting, committed relationship.
Or they could say it differently: that most marriages end in divorce, so it is better to know the shallow happiness of the Las Vegas lifestyle than the deep sorrows of marriage.
I wish I spent more time telling people about Jesus. This encounter reminded me that God does arrange meetings like this with opportunities to tell others about His Son.
I am saddened to see that many people refuse to decide about Jesus because they think there are just so many 'fish in the sea' of religions. It seems like I'm always hearing people ask, 'Who is to say?'
Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?"
John 18:34
Soren Kierkegaard in his book The Sickness Unto Death noted that when it comes to a person making choices about their life, Christianity is very clear when it says:
YOU are the one.
YOU must choose.
YOU are the one authorizing your beliefs,
and YOU must live by them.
But few people live by their beliefs.
4 Comments:
In this 'information age' it seems that the more human beings know the more confused we become. The only thing that keeps me from being overwhelmed by the confusion is knowing Jesus.
Pam
Living by your beliefs...I like the quote. Sounds like an interesting conversation with your co-workers. I think that once people determine what they believe, especially regarding matters of faith that they should live by those. The problem comes in determining what you believe and then choosing to live by them.
I think that's probably one of the most common struggles of Christianity....figuring out what you, as a unique person, believes.
How true, Pam.
Perhaps if Jesus appeared in the modern world -in this information age- he would speak to us as he spoke to Martha:
"...you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary..."
Luke 10:41b-42a
Hi Smitty,
Thanks for stopping by. Although I would have agreed with you long ago, I now respectfully disagree.
Consider the words of Jesus:
"For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, `This man began to build and was not able to finish.' "
Luke 14:28-30
Judging by your profile (particularly your industry), you are probably familiar with this passage.
The emphasis is not on 'What do I build? A tower or a house or what?'. The emphasis rests squarely on the question: 'Do I have it in me to go through all the way with this?'
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