The other day I was on a news webpage. Belief in God came up in the feed below the article and I decided to read the thread of responses because the debate was between what appeared to be a staunch atheist and an agnostic…interesting. The atheist came out with both guns a-blazing. He was just furious and bitter, bashing religious people with each tap of the keys. The agnostic kept asking him why he was so angry, trying to explain that he was behaving in the exact same manner he condemned religious people for. The atheist fellow couldn’t seem to put his finger on why he was so mad, traveling down a rabbit trail or two with little rationality. The agnostic gentleman made it clear he wasn’t a believer, but seemed to imply he didn’t know what to think yet.
I noticed something I haven’t before. They both have an eternal awareness. They both are wrestling with something… but where does this “something” they are wrestling with even come from?
I believe deep inside man there is a seed. When man was created, God, like a farmer, threw seeds of eternity in our hearts.
I think the primal reason for animosity towards a Supreme Being is because people are unable to disregard their eternal awareness, and have such difficulty dealing with the reality of death. So they learn to hate it rather than accept it, like being too short or too tall. It’s a part of who you are and you can’t ignore it. You either accept it or hate it, but you can’t change it. It’s in you.
Let me put this a different way. Abraham Maslow was a famous psychologist who created a hierarchy of needs. Psychologists today still use his work to help evaluate people. It is a human needs continuum, beginning with the basic needs like breathing and ending with self-actualization. Actualization is the highest level of thinking, where man wrestles with meaning and purpose in life.
I believe the greatest battle of the actualized man is what to do with his eternal awareness.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
Eternity is written in our hearts, you can either try to ignore it, accept it, or learn to despise it, but it’s there, waiting for your response… So what will you do?