I have been unemployed for a little over 3 months. Being on unemployment requires that I have to meet with a career counselor. This past week, was my second appointment, it was my first time meeting the guy who was assigned to me. He was a young man, who was really nice, really helpful, and frankly pretty cool. During the course of the conversation, he asked me what my dream job would be. I went on to tell him that my dream would be to be a Worship Pastor full time. He then went on to ask what denomination I belonged to. The conversation took an interesting turn, when he began to share with me his belief system. Mind you, I didn't ask for his opinion, it just seemed like he had the need to share all his thoughts about religion with me. I just thoughtfully listened. I've come to a point in my life where I would rather listen to why people believe what they believe, then write them off as wrong. All people believe something, and in order to point them towards Jesus, its important to know what path they are coming from.
He told me that he grew up catholic and he went to a catholic college. While there, all of his beliefs were put to the test. He pretty much lost his faith and the reason for his beliefs by the time he graduated. This is a common occurrence these days. He shared with me the basis of his belief. We have grown out of the need for religion and people should know how to be good without it. That we have evolved enough to know better. He likened religion to a carrot. Something man created so that they could coerce people into being good. Basically, "You'll go to heaven if you don't do this, this, and this." Man created the idea of Heaven to dangle in front of people to be good, like a carrot used to train a horse. I told him, that no one is good, and obviously that doesn't really work. He continued to go on saying that as far as we have come as humans we should be good.
I can see where the idea of going to heaven can be used as a reason to encourage people to do good. The reality is, Heaven may be the final destination, but it is the relationship we have with God, while alive that gets us there. Before Jesus even came to earth, there was an understanding of eternity. God gave people guidelines. Even before Israel even became a nation, there was a moral code that had been passed down through generations. There was a knowledge of a creator, and even a culture of sacrifice. Morality is deeply ingrained in the souls of humanity. To lack any sort of conscience, I would argue is to be inhuman.We are born with some sort of sense of right and wrong. As a parent I can tell you that children are more prone to do wrong then right. The picture of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on another, is very relevant. Even if it is just metaphor.
The Bible declares that no man is good. Paul in Romans put the whole need for the law argument down in several chapters. The purpose of the law being created was a way to show us how short we fall. All the sacrificing and rituals mean nothing with out true knowledge of a savior. It has nothing to do with just going to heaven. Heaven would be easy if it we were just given a set of clear cut rules. The reality, Jesus is the real carrot. He's the one we need. He was dangled before us on a tree. He was offered to us as our way to heaven. We couldn't be good enough no matter what religion says. Only He is good. Accepting His sacrifice is the only way. Only He can make us better. The faulty thinking of my counselor, God bless him, is the idea that man can do this without Jesus. So in a way he was right. religion in terms of rites and rituals does not make people better. Only Jesus can do that. In a previous blog, I stated that everyone has a choice to believe or not. People have the potential to be really good or really bad or both. The only way to be truly good and truly whole is to know Jesus. God gave us guidelines from the beginning of time. In fact, they proved to show how impossible it is for us to follow them without help. He created them so that the only possible way to achieve them would be to know Him. That carrot is there because God just loved us to darn much to leave us alone. So yeah in a sense, Religion is a carrot, one that should show us our deep inevitable need for God.
My brother the atheist is always on the same blah blah blah. He once told me that he is more moral than the god of the Bible... he who has had his turn at vandalism, theft, character assassination, sexual impurity, drunkenness, habitual lying, cheating, assault, murder through abortion, and life long narcissism. People are broken and there is no incentive in atheism to even strive for more nobility because you cannot destroy the very idea of a law maker, a moral maker, and then think that fundamentally selfish people will choose nobility over self-gratification. For the atheist there is not morality, merely practical means to practical ends... and those means must always compete with a cracked foundation in the soul, with a selfishness and short-sightedness that is also denied all belief in the prophetic voice that breaks through that selfishness and does not merely suggest, but demands, does not merely recommend but declares... repent and turn to the creator of all, the standard of all.
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