It isn't impossible so perhaps there is, perhaps many - but it's not something I have known for myself. What I encounter is the belief that Jesus is a myth or a fake... "and anyway I don't want what he offers".
(But have they really considered what he offered? Hasn't the belief that he is a fake blocked it?)
It should be possible to evaluate the two things separately - one: whether there was Jesus, and what he brought - and two: whether we, personally, actually want that. Two things that seem separable - but are they ever separate, in actual experience?
Of course people get wrong or distorted ideas about what Jesus was or wanted, and this is surely inevitable even if there was not such a mass of disinformation and deception.
Blaise Pascal remarked that all Men would want Christianity to be true, if they knew what it was: he knew from a direct personal mystical experience. But how very few people ever seem to get to that point.
Most seem to operate in a permanent haze of confusion, whirling from question to question - did Jesus really exist? What did he say? (And not say?). Is that the best offer? What would I want otherwise? How does this fit with my favourite things in life?
What is mostly missing is any sense of Life, Here, Now; as a baseline, as a basis of comparison. People seem unable to grasp their own lives - they can't think it through, and they can't (or won't admit) a recognition of Life as an instantaneously 'known' whole.... and what that is.
Just a whirring, superficial, passive mass of confusions and contradictions... and a kind of nihilism about any possibility of anything else - not that they have ever tried.
Or even, people that have actually had such an insight, a moment of comprehension; but reject it as personal, subjective, wishful thinking, day dreaming, a momentary psychosis or whatever... They have some vague idea that if it had been really-real then they would have read about it in the mass media and everybody else would feel exactly the same...
Consider the bounds of life... Many or most people seem to think that it does not make any difference whether 'biological death' is the end of the person, or not. They regard eternal life after biological death as an irrelevant factor in life before death. In sum, they never seem to have felt or experienced the difference it makes, and engage in silly reductions and catch phrases instead... of an 'it's not important' kind.
There are so many possible way that people might understand, yet this idea of what counts, what is important, seems to stymie the lot of them!
And of course Systems lie in all directions to kill any chance of escape! At a deep level we know that to exchange one cage for another is not worth it. If Jesus is believed to have offered merely a more comfortable cage, then I'm not surprised people aren't interested...
But people seem awfully sure that there is nothing but cages to choose between... despite that most of us have experienced something which is not a system but is real: I mean the family.
4 comments:
Many atheists or others who have rejected Christ appear to 'protest too much'. They cite reasons that can only come from rejection of rules and facets that they actually believe in. The rules are 'too strict', 'not fair', 'hateful', etc. They usually sound like children who are angry at their father, not men who reject an actual fairy tale.
I think that there is a question of whether people want to know the truth that Jesus represents. Of course, those who have come to know that truth want what Jesus is offering, which is primarily that truth itself. They wouldn't have come to know that truth unless they wanted to know it.
But wanting to know the truth about what is possible in eternity, and what that demands of us now, is precisely where people are really hesitant to commit themselves.
Because all truth makes demands on us, first that we give up the lies we've already accepted and second that we start to act based on what we know.
People who say it doesn't matter whether or not they live after death are telling the truth...about their own desire to avoid dying, or even thinking about dying, as long as possible. It is a deeply instinctive desire, but more than that it is a fundamental volitional one.
"Nothing can go wrong." The present society can't possibly be wrong, my own personal lifestyle can't be wrong. my body can't go wrong. For those who want to avoid thinking about how fragile and unstable their life really is, they don't want to even think about it.
They especially don't want to think about what a tiny, infinitesimally small proportion of the world actually loves them, or even cares about them at all.
"They especially don't want to think about what a tiny, infinitesimally small proportion of the world actually loves them, or even cares about them at all."
@CCL -- This strikes me as incorrect. The Truth of Christ is a total, complete and overwhelming love of the Creator God for his children. Far, far more than enough to make up for any "love-deficit" of the world. When this Truth is fully understood, internalized and accepted it engenders a state of being of total peace, rest and eventually joy. Of those not willing to acknowledge or accept this Truth of Divine Love I would guess that in most instances it's the result of emotional trauma, deep-seeded soul and biological damage that comes with being incarnated into a fallen world during the last days. These people need healing at a very deep level before they'll open up to God and I'm increasingly convinced that will be one of the main tasks of God's End-Time Church in order to bring in the final harvest before Christ's return.
-Andrew E.
I am using "the world" in the scriptural sense, as it is employed by Jesus, which is the sense I consider most appropriate to a discussion about belief in Jesus.
Jesus teaches the distinction between seeking the love of the world and the love of God very starkly. He also teaches that this is ultimately a personal choice, it is not a result of what God has done other than providing that those inclined to choose the world over God should have a world to choose.
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