Religion vs. Science? This is nothing new.

For me, this is the single greatest passage in all of scripture.

Not only does it predict (or perhaps merely contemporaneously identify) the precise nature of the Christian/athiest/skeptic arguements that fill internet message boards these days, but it tells ME that it's all part of God's plan. AND that God, while unimaginably patient and gracious, has a wicked (perhaps "sly" might be a better word) sense of humor.

All of those Dawkins-esque "thinkers" who are so smugly (dare I say pridefully) certain that there is no God because, like the Jews of Paul's time, they demand (empirical, scientifc) PROOF, or like the Greeks, demand philosophical (e.g. formal logical) certainty just might find one day that they weren't half as bright as they thought they were.

The irony is, of course, that this is the crux of the entire problem of receiving salvation. John 3:16 says that whoever believes shall not perish. Simple, right? But not for one of these pompous know-it-alls. For them, to BELIEVE something in the absence of overwhelming evidence is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. (Willfully ignoring the fact that acknowledging something accompanied by overwhelming evidence is not "belief" and requires little to no trust or faith.)

So, if you consider that the reward here is ETERNAL LIFE - pretty much the ultimate-est reward ever, does it not make at least a little sense that the price of admission is something so mind blowingly easy that the simplest child can grasp it, but the "wisest" men the world has to offer simply cannot (or rather, will not) deign to give the matter their consideration.

Can you lay down your pride and allow the world to think you are a fool? It's awfully hard. I don't think there's any greater "sin" in the eyes of the world than being unintelligent.

But there's the rub. There are very few things that God actually, literally, per scripture, "hates." Pride is at the top of this list. Thinking yourself intelligent, needing to be "right." This is pride. And, for that matter it is pride in the very thing that caused our fall in the first place. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the world became a binary system for them. Things were right or they were wrong. Good or evil. A one or a zero. And we've been following that same pattern ever since.

We jumped headlong into the trap, and the only thing keeping us in it, is our own unwillingness to let go of that shiney apple that first tempted us.

Hoisted by our own intellectual petards, so to speak.

I don't know about you, but that kind of cracks me up. Which admittedly does not speak well of me, because it is actually quite a tragic thing. But it does go to prove, to me anyway, that God has an awesome sense of style and/or humor.

Created about 1 year ago