Tuesday, October 15, 2013

How Am I Supposed To Find The Forest With All These Trees In The Way?

As a youngling I was forced to do many things I didn't want to.  For the most part I did them.  Rarely pausing to question why.  Then one day it happened.  I asked the question.  Why?  Not as a form of rebellion but as a matter of curiosity.  As I got more answers I started to embrace the logic of what I was forced to do. I became man.

Why have we lost our ability to question what has been put in front of us?  Or more aptly put, why do we only question that which we disapprove of?  When the message is one that supports our views or opinions, we seem to have lost the ability to be objective. To question the validity of a quote is gone if we agree with it. Who cares if it’s true?  My dad was no fan of President Carter but he would've never supported the type of anti Obama false prophecy that has permeated both ends of the political spectrum.  Both of my parents loved Jesus.  But not so much they felt Tim Tebow was a good QB.  It's good to have beliefs.  It's even better if you're willing to stand for what you believe. But what if doing so means believing a lie or embracing a hoax?      

There was that picture flying around the internet of the father of the Duck Dynasty clan Phil Robertson holding a bible in his hand with text that told the story of the network suits at A&E, in response to complaints, asking him if they could take the prayer out of the end of the episodes.Which of course he refused to do and said if they took it out there would be no show. Which sent the network exec’s running in fear.  But is it true?  Does it matter? We want to believe so.  We want to believe our faith is being attacked and finally we have someone with power on our side.  We want to believe even though it isn't true and basic reasoning skills would tell us that if we let them. Reason tells us there isn't much chance that Duck Dynasty got more complaints than Jersey Shore? Reason tells us more like minded people (Christians) complained about Ellen Degeneres coming out of the closet on her sit com Ellen in the late 90’s, than all of the anti-prayer complaints for Duck Dynasty combined. And there was no outcry to cancel the show.  We want to believe so bad we’re choosing to believe an obvious hoax.  We want to believe.   

Then we have the story of the poor school teacher who was going to be fired because she had the audacity to send a letter to President Obama that was critical of his administration.  We want to hate the President.  We want him to be wrong.  We want his birth certificate to be fake.  We want to believe gas prices never went over $3 before he was president even though we paid for it.  We want to believe he is the devil.  So much that we will never question anything that supports that idea. Even if believing means we're retarded.  A simple web search will tell you the teacher story is a hoax.  And if you read the letter you should have been able to figure that out for yourself.  When have you ever heard President Obama say the United States is not a Christian nation much less say it to Muslims everywhere?  When has a teacher ever been fired for writing a letter to the president?  When has a teacher ever written a letter to the President that didn't discuss education?  We don't question this because we want it to be true. We want to believe.  

And you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who thinks Tim Tebow has been blackballed from the NFL because of his faith.  We want to believe our faith has been attacked so much that we seem to ignore the pile of players on the field after every game holding hands in group prayer.  Shown on national television for all non Christians to see.  We want to believe in a predominantly Christian country that a sport that still, even at the pro level, employs a team chaplain, just can’t handle Tim Tebow loving Jesus.  We want to believe it so bad we ignore that Tim might be breaking the 2nd, 4th and 10th commandment on national TV every time he draws attention to himself for loving the lord with his pose we now know as Tebowing.  We want to believe so much that we ignore his completion percentage.  We want to believe. 

Why?  Why do we want to believe?  We are who we are.  Almost all of us just want to go to bed and wake up happy. Why do we choose to cling to a myth, a lie, a misrepresentation of the truth?  It's not necessary.   Is it ok for Tim Tebow to love Jesus while simultaneously sucking at QB?  Is what we believe so important that we will embrace a lie or worse, lie to ourselves?  The lesson should be not to embrace something so hard without knowing everything.  Instead it seems the lesson is to just convince ourselves any evidence to the contrary is part of the cover up.  Still I want to believe.  I want to believe we are better.  Deep down.  I believe we all are better.  I want to believe we all silently question the same things.  That when you peel it all back, we're all quite the same. That even when we won't admit it, we know the trees are the forest.  That we all don't actually like Dancing With The Stars or the Voice.  I want to believe.

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