We live in a society of changing “norms” and diminishing distinctions. The New Tolerance has popularized the idea that truth is in the eye of the beholder. Instead of Truth, there is “my truth” and “your truth.” Even in contradiction, each remains equally valid. This sort of relativism sits atop the P.C. throne, and has made inroads into discussions of religion, ethics, politics and even gender. The idea comingles harder (more objective) and softer (more subjective) sciences to muddle “truth” such that personal preferences and mitigating circumstances affect perception. Physics is one of the harder sciences, and I have as yet not seen anyone able to relativize gravity. If you and I step off the 22-story Executive Office Building of the Capitol, our feelings/beliefs about gravity will have little to do with the mess we’ll make on the plaza. My contention here is that religious/spiritual “Truth” is as similarly hard and fixed and as unforgiving as gravity.
Whatever your position is on what happens to our ethereal selves when our bodies die, it’s nonsense to believe we could all be right. The naturalist believes we cease to exist at physical death. We biblical Christians believe heaven or hell await our (temporarily) bodiless souls until Christ’s second coming. We can’t both be right. You can add reincarnation, passing into “oneness,” or the ubiquitous idea that most everyone but despots, serial killers and pedophiles go to some type of heaven. “S/He’s in a better place” may provide opiatic comfort to us as a culture as we watch everyone die, but it begs the question why we try so hard to push death days or weeks as the precipice inevitably approaches. Death is batting around a thousand, and while we could all be wrong about our destination, we can’t all be right.
I might be wrong in my beliefs, but I’m not wrong saying that whatever is, is, and our beliefs and preferences, like in the case of gravity, don’t change the facts. The New Tolerance disagrees, riding in on a white horse named “Fairness,” proclaiming Sincerity as savior. All beliefs are equally (if only subjectively) true and valid and good. Religions, even nominally “Christian” forms, join hands with all who will agree to this wide, inclusive road to a wonderful afterlife and sing. Tra-la…la-la…la?
Here’s the real question: What do YOU believe? Why?
If you’ve thought about the eternal consequences of death for even a moment and settled your position, however tenuously, you’ve trusted someone – your parents or teachers or pastors or scientists or some amalgam of the world’s views. Whether religious/spiritual or areligious/naturalist, you have placed your “faith” in someone or some idea.
Consider this – some thirty years ago, I had a friend who was a fairly new pilot in the F-111. He was flying a night, low level mission with an experienced instructor. This aircraft had terrain-following radar with a type of “auto-pilot” so the plane could fly low and fast with the pilots’ hands off the controls. The system kept forcing the plane to pitch-up and climb (a built-in safety measure) when there was no apparent obstacle, so they assumed the system wasn’t operating properly. They toggled it off. Seconds later they flew into the side of a mountain at over 500 mph. This macabre example is a cautionary tale of death’s insidiousness, ignored warnings and misplaced trust.
So, again, what do you believe and why? By grace, confirmed by study, the biblical Jesus Christ has earned my trust regarding my eternal destination. Has whoever informed your view truly earned your trust? Much is at stake.
[This article originally appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat.]