That may be your truth, but it is not my Truth (August 17, 2023)

Do you ever get tired of all the lies in our culture told by the news media, our politicians, etc. We all have to try our best to sift through all the lies to try to piece together the truth and it can be very frustrating to the point we may just feel like giving up.

When it comes to religion, the agnostic shares their frustration and tells me I may as well just give up as there are so many different religions, and so many different gods out there, it is impossible to tell which is the true one, so best to simply live your life and ignore all the noise. After all, “That may be your truth, but it is not my truth”.

As I process the response here from the agnostic person who says maybe there is a God, but that God is unknowable given all the options to choose from out there, I wanted to first start on the last statement of “That may be your truth, but it is not my truth”. How true is this actual claim itself?

So first of all, I want to readily admit there is something called subjective truth that changes from person to person. For example, if I say Pizza is the best food out there, that is my opinion. Another person may think the best food is steak, or fruit, or Tacos, etc. Subjective truth is truly from each person’s perspective, and it would absolutely be correct to say in this case “that may be your truth, but it is not my truth.”

However, there is also Objective truth which means there are things that are true regardless of if you agree they are true or not. Does not need your agreement to be true.

There is a pastor on the web I really like named Mike Winger who gave a great analogy on objective truth that I will share here. Three men are told they are going to go up in an airplane tomorrow and then at a very high altitude, be required to jump out of the plane so come prepared accordingly. The next day the three men show up. The first man is wearing a superman costume as he believes He will simply fly when He jumps out of the plane. The second man is wearing a space suit as He believes He will float up into space. The third man is wearing a parachute as He believes in gravity and thinks He needs the parachute to slow his descent and keep him from getting injured.

All three of these men each passionately believe they are correct. What do you think will happen when they each jump out of the plane? Well, its obvious, two of the men are going to suffer and die for believing something that was not true, while the one who found the correct true answer (Gravity) and is wearing the parachute will land safely and be protected by the truth.

The man wearing either the superman costume or the Space suit can say “That may be your truth, but it is not my truth” all they want, the truth of Gravity is true weather they believe it is true or not.

I think we can take this analogy from Pastor Mike Winger and expand on it further. Suppose you were a 4th person on the plane, and you had to review each of the three men’s choices and choose the one that seemed best for yourself before you had to jump out of the plane.

Would you like the agnostic throw up your hands and say they could all be true? Well, likely not, but what if instead of 3 choices, there were a thousand choices and instead of a day, you had a year or more to prepare. Would you like the Agnostic still simply say it is impossible to choose? Well, if that is the plan, on the day of the jump you will find yourself on the plane, with no plan at all chosen. When they tell you its time to jump, you will panic and say I am not ready, but they will tell you that is not an option on this plane. This plane is called life, and everyone has to jump when it is their time. If you do not jump, you will simply be thrown off the plane.

In your desperation you look around. There is a woman holding a chicken, because the chicken can fly, she believes she can also as long as she is holding the chicken. There is a man holding a sealed jar of air as after all air floats so he thinks holding this will save him. Another person is holding a small helium filled balloon like you would buy for a child. Since the balloon floats, maybe it will hold him up, and so on, and so on, and so on. With so many choices, you never make a choice, and there by the choice is made for you. You are thrown off the plane with no parachute, plunging towards the earth to your death.

I hope this helps illustrate that the agnostic decision to not make a choice is itself a choice and may not be a wise decision when they get to the end of their life.

So obviously I reject the agnostic choice to not make a choice. That then leaves me to sort through all the gods and religions out there. Is the agnostic correct they are all the same? Well, no, they are not.

The Atheist tells me that there is no Intelligent designer of the Universe, No God. So, if I find a working smart phone of the beach, push a button and then a video plays, you are saying the intelligent assumption is random chance made that phone? The facts are that if the earth was a degree closer or further from the earth, we would all die, or that if gravity was slightly stronger or weaker, we would all die. One gram of our DNA is packed with 1 million gigabytes worth of intelligent and highly organized data. To believe that came out of a series of random events is like believing a paper factory and an ink factory blow up beside one another, and the result is a telephone book with people’s names, addresses and phone numbers results. I do not care how much time you give me or how many parallel universes you create, that explosion is never ending up with a Phone book, and my DNA is not ending up as complex as it is. Nope, I do not have enough faith to make that leap. I will pass. What else you got?

How about Materialism (Kin to Atheism) which says everything that exists is material. If I can’t see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, touch it, then it is not real. Umm, can you touch an idea in your head? Can you hold the love a parent has for their child in your hand? Also, If we live in a purely random and chaotic world as this theory also states, why do the laws of math work to such precision we could calculate how to land a man on the moon? Seems like a pass to me.

As for the notion we are just physical beings (and the idea of spiritual realm is rejected here), how do you explain a boy who grows up with all his physical needs met, plenty of food, good clothes, a nice home, but every day his parents tell him he was a mistake, he is a loser, they wish he was never born, etc. We all know those words, which are not physical objects will destroy that child’s spirit. Of course we have a spirit that is beyond our mere physical body, and if we have a spirit, then believing in the spiritual realm is not an idiotic fantasy but a logical conclusion given the world around us. So again, I will take a pass here.

OK, then that leaves us religions that believe in a god / gods. Well, those all must be the same, right?

Not even close. Most religions believe we can earn our way to Heaven (See my prior post on will there be any good people in heaven for that discussion), so I will take a pass on all of those). I could take many other aspects and discuss them, but for this purpose, let’s just focus on where each religion says we came from.

There is a religion that believes the earth is riding through space on the back of a giant invisible turtle. Many ancient religions believed a male god and a female god had sex and the female god gave birth to the universe. Lots of crazy ideas in many ancient religions that seem more like the lady holding the chicken on the plane believing that when she jumps out, the chicken will keep her from falling.

Then there is the religious text that stands apart from all of its rivals. The bible. It is interesting I have seen the bible called an ancient book of superstitions that is at complete odds with science. Is that actually true? How does the bible describe how we got here?

First, instead of the atheist belief there was no intelligent designer of the universe, or absurd beliefs like two gods had sex and the universe was birthed, or the earth is riding through space on the back of a giant invisible turtle, the bible says this:

A single God (In 3 persons, but so unified in abilities, thought and purpose as to be indistinguishable, I.E. Jesus said if you have seen me, you have seen the Father) , A God who is Spirit, beyond the confines of time, Space and Matter, and who has always existed for all Eternity past (meaning no one created God) spoke the universe into existence based on thought and design of God.

In the bible, the book of Genesis provides an exact order and sequence that God in fact did create everything:

A) Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

B) Verse 2 God created the earth without form made up initially of Water

C) Verse 3 God create light ((Before the source of the light like Sun, Moon and stars which comes later. This is an odd sequence for ancient Man to think up, as People would have assumed the Sun came first, then light, not the other way around)

D) Verse 4 and 5 God separated light from darkness and created Day (Still W/O Sun and Moon and stars)

E) Verse 7 and 8 God divided the sky to be separate from the earth

F) Verse 9 and 10 God created land and the seas

G) Verse 11 to 13 God created all the plants (which the animals would need to eat, and which would create oxygen, so logical sequence)

H) Verse 14 to 19 Now, after light was already created and assigned its place throughout the universe, now God ties it to a source and creates the Sun, Moon and all the stars (By the way, this order of light first, then the source of the light 2nd resolves a lot of gaps in science)

I) Verse 20 to 22 God next creates all the fish, etc. in the oceans and rivers, etc. and all the birds

J) Verse 23 to 25 God creates all the animals

K) Verse 26 to 28 God created Humans, One Man (Adam) and One Woman (Eve) and made them fruitful so they would multiply on the earth.

Regardless of what you think of the above, it is hard to argue it is not a very logical sequence of creation. In fact, many scientists affirm the sequence of water, then light, etc. is the exact sequence that would have been needed to get to the earth and universe as we know it. Does this orderly account of creation in the bible strike you to be on the same level of believability that two gods had sex and birthed the universe? I will go with the bible as the most logical example.

How about the religion that says the earth is riding on the back of an invisible turtle? Does that seem to you to be just as logical as this description of the earth in the bible:

Isaiah 40:22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth (Earth is described as a circle, which a sphere is a perfect circle)

Job 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth on nothing.

It says God suspends the earth on nothing. How could the ancient human writers of the bible have known this? They would have thought either the earth needed to rest on something to stay in place like solid ground, or have a wire to suspend it. To be suspended on nothing is an odd thought for ancient man, but not if the Holy Spirit of God did indeed reveal this to the human writers of the bible, since it is exactly the truth we have discovered since then.

Conclusions:

So again, no other ancient religious texts have anything like what the bible has in describing how we got here. The fact the bible lines up with what true science now knows is amazing. Unlike the Agnostic who may decide to never make a choice and in the end find themselves thrown off the plane holding a chicken, I am going with the parachute, the truth I find in the bible.

If you want to dive deeper, I assure you that you will find a massive volume of logical data that supports the bible in ways no other religious book or philosophy can measure up to. If you are truly a seeker of truth, then the bible, and the God revealed in it is my recommended choice to help you prepare for when it is your time to exit the plane.

P.S.

John 14: 6 Jesus replied, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

If you really are tired of sifting through all the lies, then I have found rest in Jesus, as Jesus is indeed the truth and He has never lied to me yet, Although sometimes He has told me truth I did not want to hear on my need to repent, or on his plan to allow suffering in my life. Jesus is my anchor for truth in a world tossed about on the ever-shifting sand of our culture where what is considered true today will be called a lie in twenty years.

May the Lord bless you and your families in the fullness of the truth of Jesus, and may you find rest there within this restless world.

Love you all…………