Egghead Time

OK so I'm going to be all tedious and philosophical this time. I don't have any pictures or funny observations (that I know of) so please bear with me.

I went to an English Movie night that's put on by my neighbor Becky as part of her work with Y.Y.M.  Maybe some of y'all know what that is but I admit I can't remember what it stands for. I do know that "Youth" and "Mission(s)" are in the name so that gives a bit of an idea what the organization is like.  

Well the movie we watched was Unbreakable starring Bruce Willis. It's directed by the guy that did The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan. Unbreakable is about a normal guy that discovers that he may in fact have extraordinary abilities. In short that he's a super hero. I happen to think that this is one of the most woefully underrated movies of past 10 years but what do I know?

 Throughout the film nobody can bring themselves to believe it's possible for a guy to have these kinds of abilities. It's a big theme of the movie. The main character goes through a tough process of discovering his abilities and believing that it's actually true. This leads him to a decision of whether or not to use these abilities. 

As we discussed the movie and the things we liked about it this quote (which I can't remember exactly so I'll paraphrase it) came up. "People can easily believe something that is impossible but cannot at all believe something that is only improbable." This got me to thinking. 

Whenever a believer (a character that thinks Bruce Willis has superpowers) in the film tries to convince someone that he really has these abilities they are resistant. People do not want to believe that someone may be extraordinary. Why is this? There are people (some of my friends among them) that do not want to believe in God, any God, much less Jesus. Why? I have not always been a Christian but I've always wanted to be. I've doubted, I still struggle with it from time to time. But my desire for God to be real and for Jesus to have really died for my sins has been constant. A world without God is pointless, hopeless, cold and empty to me. Why do so many people seem to be comforted by the idea of a Godless world? How could this be preferable to an eternal life full of love?

What is so threatening about the idea of God? C.S. Lewis was a notorious Atheist in his earlier life. But even he wanted to believe. He felt that the Christian story was a beautiful myth. A way of explaining things that were unexplainable to people of the time. The story goes that J.R.R.Tolkien (my hero) and another of The Inklings (I think it was Charles Williams but I'm not sure) locked themselves in a room with Lewis one night and refused to leave until they convinced him that God was real and he could in good conscience believe in Christianity. It worked obviously. I like to flatter myself that I could be Tolkien to some of my friends' C.S. Lewis. The big difference is that my friends do not want to believe it. How do you get past that? 

I feel like if I could crack the mystery of the desire to disbelieve I could get past it. Really I can only just be the best friend to them I can and always treat them with respect and love. But what is so threatening about Belief? I don't have an answer. So far all I can come up with is that once we believe in Jesus we have a responsibility to live accordingly. It's not a set of rules, "Do this, this and this. Don't do that, that or that." But you can't just pass the buck and say, "Not my problem" anymore. You can't help but feel your connection to people and want to help. The easy thing to do is just be out for yourself and the suffering of others does not affect you. You answer only to yourself. But at the end of the day you're alone.  Is being your own master really so attractive that it is better to die than to serve a higher purpose and have an eternal life? 

I don't mean to make this about being scared of death. But obviously if you do not believe in God then you believe that once you die that's it. You're worm food. I know that being Christian makes life worth living and gives us a much richer experience that we could ever have on our own in a random world of accidents and moral relativity. But there are many very smart people (smarter than me for sure) that prefer that very existence. Being agnostic I can understand. It does not take any amount of faith to say you don't know the answers. But atheists are just as sure (and in many cases much more certain) that they have the answer. They have figured out the true nature of the universe. Really, believing in God is also accepting the mystery of creation and acknowledging that we humans do not have all the answers.  

I'm sure there are Christians out there that think they've got it all down. The whole "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" thing. Probably many atheists think that this is what it means to be a Christian. That's one area I know I can change things with my friends. Some people have never known an actual Christian for whom they had any respect. I like to believe that's just 'cause they haven't known many genuine Christians. So when we let our light shine they can see the source, hopefully. But how do you crack that barrier of just not wanting to believe? 

So I'm not any closer to an answer now am I? I guess not. One of those myriad people smarter than me is this guy Michael Novak. He's written a book called No One Sees God that seems to cover this exact topic I've been rambling on about. I haven't read it but he has an article on National Review Online about it. I think it's definitely worth checking out. His article is mostly about the argument for Belief. I've basically just said many of the same things. So much for my big original insights. But it doesn't really attack the answer to the question "Why do atheists not want to believe in God?"  

Since I don't have the answers obviously I invite anyone and everyone to put their two cents in the comments. I'm all ears!