What IF...There Is More To Life Than Just THIS?

As we dive into our What IF series, I want to start us off with a question that you can't answer...but you can.

What I mean is this.

There are some questions in life that you can answer with precision.  

When you measure the size of a marble with a micrometer caliper, you gain precision.  

You can tell me, "This marble is _______ millimeters."  

When you look at your watch you can tell me what time is, often to the very second.

But in many areas of life - often the most profound areas - we lack the ability to give answers that are verifiable in this fashion.  The big questions of life and death and morality - the answers to these questions are arrived at in a different way.  

Let me note here that this does not mean there is no science or mathematical analysis when it comes to big life questions.  There most certainly is.  When we ask about the creation of the universe, the scientist is not left at the door of the discussion.  There ARE elements of science and research that can help us answer these questions.  But science and research ALONE cannot give us answers to the most profound questions that we all ask at some point in life.

Here is my question: What if there is more to life than just this?

More than what we perceive with our 5 senses.

More than just the physical and natural world.

More than just blood and flesh and soil.

Aren't there situations where you say to yourself, "Because of this experience, I just know that there's got to be more to life than just living as an animal and then dying."

Here's one of the reasons I'd argue I know there is more...

This is my son Hudson. 

He is not an apologetic for the existence of God in the same way that reading the Cosmological Argument is, but he is none the less an apologetic for something grand.  How is it that from his birth on - though he can do nothing for me as far as making my life physically easier by mowing the lawn or bringing money into the family bank account - despite all of his limitations as a three year-old, I would give my life for him in an instant.  His life makes me look and say, "The way I feel toward him - this tells me that there is something profound and literally awesome to life."

Perhaps you don't have children.

What about experiencing images like these?

  

Doesn't nature speak to you in some way?  

Perhaps you aren't an 'outdoors person' like I am.  Fair enough.  But haven't you had some moment in life when you were struck with wonder at the grandness of life and/or nature?  

Perhaps it was art.  

Perhaps it was a poem you read. 

Haven't you had an experience in life that screamed into your soul, "You are alive!"  

What is that about?  

What IF that is something that is hard-wired into you - an understanding of the profound nature of existence itself.  

Does this make you a devout religious person?  Not necessarily.  Even Neil deGrasse Tyson, the American astrophysicist and agnostic, is amazed by the wonder of the stars at night.  

At this point, we aren't asking anything about agnosticism.

We are just asking What IF there is more to life that just the ho-hom, day-to-day existence that leads us from birth to death with nothing wondrous and profound.  

If you have experienced wonder - in any form - a grasping that yes, you exist - well then you and I are kindred spirits.

- tC  

3 Truths from the Las Vegas Mass Shooting: Evil and Ideology

(Photo Credit - ABC News)

I know I am not the only one who has this deep sense of how broken the world is.

Hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico.
Earthquakes in Mexico.
And now this mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Not to mention the daily tragedies around the planet - starvation, sex trafficking, lack of clean water, and the list goes on.

This post is not going to be about gun control vs. the 2nd Amendment (though a real discussion on from these two sides would be beneficial.  Notice I used the notion of a 'real discussion').

This post is to point out three truths we can learn from the Las Vegas  shooting - deeper, soul-level, theological truths.


1. Evil exists.  When you hear about this kind of carnage, there is - for almost everyone I know - a visceral reaction.  You don't have to be personally connected to someone who was involved to feel this reaction, and the reason is that we know at a deep and reality-connected level that this was evil.

Hear me now...
Not just wrong - though it is clearly that.
Not just sad - though it is clearly that as well.
Not just a case of mental illness - though this may be true as well.
Not a case that can be (possibly) simplified down to the notion of 'radicalization' - though it may be that in part.

This was evil.  It had echoes of when President George W. Bush called the 9/11 attacks by the same name - evil.

There was and is a darkness that emanates from incidents like this.
The arbitrary nature of the killing.
The planning that this took.
The willingness for the shooter to take his own life at the end of his killing spree.
The wickedness of the deadly intrusion on a peaceful music festival.
This was and is evil.

As I pondered this, I found a short video that explains some of my thinking on this topic of evil:

The second truth I'll share is that this is like and unlike other mass shootings.  Some have political and religious motivations.  This one may - we are not yet sure.

But when I hear that this mass shooting might not be 'ideologically driven', I have to disagree.

2. All of life is ideologically driven.  All of it.  For all of us.

Ideology doesn't have to be codified to count as ideology.  An ideology is your doctrine or belief that guides you.  If it is religious, it is a religious ideology, and if it is political then it is a political ideology.  But narcissism and selfishness and self-promotion and sexual fulfillment and hedonism are all ideologies just as much.

This man had an ideology that led to his actions.
He may have been aware of his ideology or not, but it was there none the less.
Something he thought and believed about himself and others drove his actions.

Our ideologies are rooted deep inside of us.  Jesus said that out of the heart words come.  Solomon told us that we should guard our hearts for they are the well-spring of life.  We all live out our ideologies.

My last thought I willingly admit is speculation, but I want to at least share it to offer us some food for thought.

3. Is Friedrich Nietzsche's Ubermensch at the heart of this shooting?  Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche rejected social norms as weak and promoted the idea of the super-man, the man who was willing to use power and strength and force to accomplish what he desired.  I have to wonder about this shooter (as I also wonder about the Columbine, Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, and the Newtown, Connecticut shooters): was this shooting about this man asserting power and domination because our social fabric, for these kinds of individuals, became so weak and pointless that all that was left was to showcase prowess by portraying the human version of 'survival of the fittest'?  Even the suicide at the end of the shooting spree - I have heard psychologists say that when murders carry out this final step it is because they often desire to continue to control their own destiny and that it is sometimes a final show of defiance, that even in death 'I am still my own man.'

(Photo Credit: PopSugar.com)

More to come on this topic.  In the meantime we pray and think deeply because life can be filled with great sadness.

- tC