Our default mode is to believe what we want to believe. We believe good things about people we like and believe bad things about people we dislike.
Apart from an outside influence that compels us to believe in something beyond ourselves, we are doomed to default mode.
I have recently been listening to lectures presented by Dr. Donald Chittick, a creation scientist. He speaks of all the managed information he dealt with in his academic career. He speaks of the fact that we all interpret life from a particular bias. You may have the bias that you believe in God, or don’t believe in God. You may have the bias that you believe the Bible is true or you may believe that the Bible is not true.
You, and I, receive and process information through our bias.
But there are other processes going on as we handle the various information that comes to us. For one, we agree intellectually that there is a God, the Bible is true, we should listen to God, obey the Bible, yada, yada. . .but do we agree emotionally and volitionally. The Bible speaks of this as believing with or in or hearts.
However there is one factor that throws the whole idea that we are in the “I believe in God” camp or that we are in the “I don’t believe in God” camp. And that factor is that no matter where we proclaim our intellectual loyalty, we believe what we want to believe. We believe what we think is best for us.
There is an abundance of information concerning the world we live in, its history, its origins, the eco-system. As I listened to the lectures I thought that no matter whose “side” we are on, even though a river of information is available, we live on a small stream which is the current “take” on life.
There is the pagan “take” on life that people buy into where these people don’t examine premises, or implications of decisions (for instance not recycling), or whether the textbooks are intellectually sound. We are getting what we want from the little bit of information fed to us and if we’re happy then we’re happy.
And there is the Christian “take” on life that people buy into where these people don’t examine premises, or implications, or the actual statements of God in Scripture, or whether our personal belief system is truly sound. We are getting waht we want from the little bit of information fed to us and if we’re happy then we’re happy.
Whoops! Wait a minute, seems there is no difference. Yes, thank you, that is my point.
Often there is not difference. If you only believe what you want to believe, then it doesn’t matter which “side” you come down on.
The Christian who doesn’t bow before the majesty of God and who doesn’t allow God inside to change his “actual” (as opposed to professed) belief system is no different than the pagan.
If God is not transforming our minds and lives, we are not godly, merely religious.
Got myself pretty distracted. Oop Arts means “out of place artifacts.” For instance if batteries were found in a culture 1,000 years ago.
The point I started with was that there is much information about the development of technology and society on this earth that we sometimes do not let the facts speak for themselves but we fit the information into what we want to believe.
Maybe I can develop this more later, but let me finish with this. We all need to examine how large a portion of reality we are leaving out of our philosophy of the sake of the moment. I will believe this because it will get me this now.
But what about later, dude?
