The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." (vs.1)
Just looked up the word for fool used here. It doesn't mean someone who is simply ignorant. The verse is not saying that those who just don't know any better think there is no God. The word is nabal. It means stupid. The stupid person says there is no God. And he or she says it in her heart. Hmmm. Why does her heart say that? What makes her not want there to be a God when everything around her tells her that there is?
The word for heart is leb. Very commonly used to mean the center of a thing. In this instance, at her very center she stupidly rejects what she knows to be true. She is not ignorant of God. She just chooses, at her very core, to deny His existence. Why, again, might that be?
1. She is disappointed in God.
2. God would make her do what she doesn't want to do.
3. Those who say they believe in God have disappointed her.
4. She wants to control her own destiny.
5. The world seems a random place with too much suffering for there to be a God.
6. She really hasn't given the possibility of God much thought.
7. The Crusades.
8. The Inquisition.
9. She is too smart to believe in a fairy tale.
10.In her assumption that there is no God, she has never actually given that alternative idea any of her time. She is ignorant of the evidence for a Creator-God.
Just a few of the reasons I have heard from people. So what is at the heart of atheism? Because the heart is central to the belief. We have Backyard Skeptics here in our community. In fact, the group made the paper again last week because of one of the billboards they erected near the 405 freeway. It incorrectly quoted Thomas Jefferson, who, for some strange reason, has become their deceased spokesperson. Backyard Skeptics had not researched whether Jefferson had actually said what he was quoted on a sign that must have cost the group a bundle. Oooops..."We did not check it out." Yet their most prevalent stated reason for being atheists is that those who believe in God are stupid. Would be funny if it weren't so serious a subject.
Richard Dawkins, the voice of modern atheism, was raised in a Christian environment but gave up his faith in his late teens. His core beliefs are that the universe is a random place ruled by natural selection. When we die, we cease to exist in any form. In his world existence is indifferent, the universe plugging along in a course set about by a chance bang in the cosmos billions of years ago.
After sleeping through a hundred billion centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades, we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way, to spend our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked - as I am surprisingly often - why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it? Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow.
Doesn't the question of "why" beg the question "Who"? Can you ask why you are born of a random, meaningless, indifferent universe? You could just as well be eaten alive today as make a great scientific discovery. Nothing behind it. No meaning, really. Just randomness being random. But our hearts don't let us think that way. Not even his. Science endeavors to discover the origins and workings of a universe too infinite to fathom yet refuses to believe in a Designer Who might just be allowing them to peek at the great intelligence that exploded it all into being. It is like an ant describing Earth to its fellow ants. Maybe not even that profound. Science wanting to expel God in order to be a god. What if God is allowing us a glimpse of His splendor in order for us to stand in awe of Him, not us. That we glory in how smart He is, not in how great we are to have discovered the tip of the iceberg. That is why it is a nabal who says in his heart, "There is no God." A person has to ignore a lot of stuff to throw God away. Like truth and nobility, enlightenment and beauty. These are not scientific notions. And they have no place in a random existence. A sunset bursting with color, a symphony that stirs our hearts, love that changes our behavior, or the warmth of a little child's fingers wrapped around our own are not matters of science. Man is the only part of creation that writes poetry or seeks to define how he feels. In an indifferent universe, there is no "why was I born."
What if you really don't know if God exists? What if you have spouted atheism and then discover there truly might be God? Are you doomed?
I love Proverbs 24:12:
If you say, "But we didn't know about this," won't He Who weighs hearts consider it? Won't He Who protects your life know?
Again with our hearts. The center of what we believe. If our God created a universe so vast and complex that we only know a finite piece of it, isn't it the height of stupidity to say that we are smart enough to figure it all out without Him? At least say, "I don't really know about this." That is reasonable. But to look up at the stars or to understand all that the DNA from a single cell tells us about ourselves, to gasp at a rainbow painting the sky or to cry at the voice of a loved one on the other end of the line, and then to say we are random, out here as the prey for natural selection, gliding through life just to die is truly ignorant.
I just read the eulogy for Steve Jobs written by his sister. Steve, a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, was only about fifty percent sure God existed. Hopeful, of course, at the end that he would enjoy a "better place." In his dying moment, Jobs seemed to see something beyond the loved ones by his bedside. As his soul was leaving his body, his final words were: "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow." Of course, the world wants to know what he saw. May I offer "what if's"?
What if he saw that he was only 50% right?
What if he saw his Creator sitting in His majesty above time and space and realized that he had missed the revelation that would gain him entrance? Like when you walk past a jewelry store and are bedazzled by the brightness of a gorgeous diamond that you cannot afford but is beautiful all the same and out or your reach.
Or, what if, in the privacy of his dying aloneness, he had stretched out his hand to the One Who had always been reaching out to him?
We will never really know. But the One Who knows our hearts will judge our ignorance, and one way or another, we will behold Him.
Just looked up the word for fool used here. It doesn't mean someone who is simply ignorant. The verse is not saying that those who just don't know any better think there is no God. The word is nabal. It means stupid. The stupid person says there is no God. And he or she says it in her heart. Hmmm. Why does her heart say that? What makes her not want there to be a God when everything around her tells her that there is?
The word for heart is leb. Very commonly used to mean the center of a thing. In this instance, at her very center she stupidly rejects what she knows to be true. She is not ignorant of God. She just chooses, at her very core, to deny His existence. Why, again, might that be?
1. She is disappointed in God.
2. God would make her do what she doesn't want to do.
3. Those who say they believe in God have disappointed her.
4. She wants to control her own destiny.
5. The world seems a random place with too much suffering for there to be a God.
6. She really hasn't given the possibility of God much thought.
7. The Crusades.
8. The Inquisition.
9. She is too smart to believe in a fairy tale.
10.In her assumption that there is no God, she has never actually given that alternative idea any of her time. She is ignorant of the evidence for a Creator-God.
Just a few of the reasons I have heard from people. So what is at the heart of atheism? Because the heart is central to the belief. We have Backyard Skeptics here in our community. In fact, the group made the paper again last week because of one of the billboards they erected near the 405 freeway. It incorrectly quoted Thomas Jefferson, who, for some strange reason, has become their deceased spokesperson. Backyard Skeptics had not researched whether Jefferson had actually said what he was quoted on a sign that must have cost the group a bundle. Oooops..."We did not check it out." Yet their most prevalent stated reason for being atheists is that those who believe in God are stupid. Would be funny if it weren't so serious a subject.
Richard Dawkins, the voice of modern atheism, was raised in a Christian environment but gave up his faith in his late teens. His core beliefs are that the universe is a random place ruled by natural selection. When we die, we cease to exist in any form. In his world existence is indifferent, the universe plugging along in a course set about by a chance bang in the cosmos billions of years ago.
After sleeping through a hundred billion centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades, we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way, to spend our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked - as I am surprisingly often - why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it? Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow.
Doesn't the question of "why" beg the question "Who"? Can you ask why you are born of a random, meaningless, indifferent universe? You could just as well be eaten alive today as make a great scientific discovery. Nothing behind it. No meaning, really. Just randomness being random. But our hearts don't let us think that way. Not even his. Science endeavors to discover the origins and workings of a universe too infinite to fathom yet refuses to believe in a Designer Who might just be allowing them to peek at the great intelligence that exploded it all into being. It is like an ant describing Earth to its fellow ants. Maybe not even that profound. Science wanting to expel God in order to be a god. What if God is allowing us a glimpse of His splendor in order for us to stand in awe of Him, not us. That we glory in how smart He is, not in how great we are to have discovered the tip of the iceberg. That is why it is a nabal who says in his heart, "There is no God." A person has to ignore a lot of stuff to throw God away. Like truth and nobility, enlightenment and beauty. These are not scientific notions. And they have no place in a random existence. A sunset bursting with color, a symphony that stirs our hearts, love that changes our behavior, or the warmth of a little child's fingers wrapped around our own are not matters of science. Man is the only part of creation that writes poetry or seeks to define how he feels. In an indifferent universe, there is no "why was I born."
What if you really don't know if God exists? What if you have spouted atheism and then discover there truly might be God? Are you doomed?
I love Proverbs 24:12:
If you say, "But we didn't know about this," won't He Who weighs hearts consider it? Won't He Who protects your life know?
Again with our hearts. The center of what we believe. If our God created a universe so vast and complex that we only know a finite piece of it, isn't it the height of stupidity to say that we are smart enough to figure it all out without Him? At least say, "I don't really know about this." That is reasonable. But to look up at the stars or to understand all that the DNA from a single cell tells us about ourselves, to gasp at a rainbow painting the sky or to cry at the voice of a loved one on the other end of the line, and then to say we are random, out here as the prey for natural selection, gliding through life just to die is truly ignorant.
I just read the eulogy for Steve Jobs written by his sister. Steve, a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, was only about fifty percent sure God existed. Hopeful, of course, at the end that he would enjoy a "better place." In his dying moment, Jobs seemed to see something beyond the loved ones by his bedside. As his soul was leaving his body, his final words were: "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow." Of course, the world wants to know what he saw. May I offer "what if's"?
What if he saw that he was only 50% right?
What if he saw his Creator sitting in His majesty above time and space and realized that he had missed the revelation that would gain him entrance? Like when you walk past a jewelry store and are bedazzled by the brightness of a gorgeous diamond that you cannot afford but is beautiful all the same and out or your reach.
Or, what if, in the privacy of his dying aloneness, he had stretched out his hand to the One Who had always been reaching out to him?
We will never really know. But the One Who knows our hearts will judge our ignorance, and one way or another, we will behold Him.
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