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I think we have this sense that if you show me that something is the best answer, then I am going to just go “dude you’re right” and I’m going to believe. “I’m jumping on board because you showed me”. Let me show you why that is so far from true. Let’s say that you are going to introduce your wife’s sister or your best friend to your buddy who is single. And he is going to go on a blind date and you tell him, “You’ll tell me when this is over she is the best thing you have ever met, and you’ve never met anyone who will make a better wife.” And the guy spends time with her and says, “She is a great gal and if I were going to get married I could see this. But you are under the mistaken illusion that I want to get married. But I do not. I don’t mind having a good time with her, but I’m not going to get married—at least not now, maybe never”.
Even if you have convinced me that something is best. Consider that you have two job options. You make more money and it’s closer to home with one, but you pick the other. Who knows what reasons people make choices for, but they are not the best. Maybe I’m nervous, or I don’t want to speak publicly even if I’ll make more money. My degree is in one area but I’d rather be comfortable and live closer to home, and don’t want to leave my house. We make many decisions for other reasons.
In faith, with faith type decisions, we choose often times because we are comfortable with or not comfortable with the conclusion. Sometimes we choose Jesus because we want to avoid hell and reach heaven. Not the best reasons to come to Christ, but they are given in Scripture as well (we do want eternity). But on the other side many people are angry with God. In a recent survey, 19% of atheist are angry with God. Now think about that. 19% are angry with a being they don’t believe in.
Another issue is that I don’t want to admit that you might be right. Here is another one, I don’t want somebody telling me what I can and cannot do. We assume that people believe based on logic, reason, and facts when our most important decisions are, dare I say, for other reasons. Sometimes we want comfortable things way more than we want other obvious things. So we don’t believe for those reasons, I don’t think its anything for religion pro or con that some people believe and some do not.
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