Yesterday I happened to run across the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego going to the furnace because they wouldn't bow before the statue of the king; and I wondered "what would I do in that situation?"
Though I do not consider myself weakly principled nor a coward, I think I'd probably bow, and my inner monologue would mutter things about how I didn't agree with what I was doing, but preferred survival to principles.
I say this because if someone put a gun to my head and said "I will shoot you in the head right now unless you state out loud that gravity is not real." I would absolutely say gravity was not real, even though it obviously is. The reason for this is that my speaking out loud that gravity does not exist in no way lessens the body of evidence in support of gravity, hell, the Universe is still here as I type "gravity does not exist" (and gravity does not smite me).
Or if someone said to me "every day at such and such time you will read "What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs" or similar books OR ELSE YOU WILL BE PUT IN THE OVENS!" I would more than happily read Young Creationist garbage to avoid the ovens, because my death in the ovens would not further the cause of Evolution (there'd be one less evolutionist writing a blog!) nor would my reading of books about dinosaurs with children saddled to their back weaken the case of evolution, the body of evidence is not strengthened nor weakened by my not standing by my "principles."
Or if someone captured me in a war and forced me to say "America is a clown-nation full of yellow-haired pansies" every day or be ruthlessly tortured, I would probably pony up and say that "America sucks, dude." Of course, I do not believe America sucks, nor would I when I said it.
So why is it any different with God? Why do people go to the gallows so many times throughout Christian history because they refuse to refute the ultimate power of God? It seems to me, that like gravity and evolution, God is an immutable part of existence, and no amount of fingers-crossed lying will ever change that. If everyone on Earth became a spineless weasel like me and denied gravity in exchange for not getting shot in the head...if not a single person on Earth believed in gravity...would that in anyway cancel gravity's effect on the universe? Would we spontaneously float in to outer space?
Or would we simply replace gravity with a new term, like "intelligent falling" to explain phenomena that are universally true and immutable, and behave the way they behave independent of what they are named and how many people believe in them?
Perhaps I am trying to justify my own squeamishness and lack of courage. But on the other hand, perhaps I am seeing the bigger picture better than hard-headed people obsessed with principles. So while I enjoy the Old Testament stories of persecuted peoples dying before they'd deny their God, I have to ask...did they really think so little of God that they were afraid their personal denial of Him would reduce His power? Seems a little egotistic. Or if instead their fear was that God would feel betrayed and cast them to the outer darkness (where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth), didn't they know that God saw what was in their heart, and would have known the tyrannically-forced, vocal God-denial was a lie?
I suddenly have a gun to my head. A lunatic is holding the gun and demanding I say gravity is a lie and intelligent falling is the truth. I can either refuse, and die, or acquiesce, deny gravity is real, and eventually I will hopefully escape this situation, at which point I will obviously go back to acknowledging that gravity is an immutable part of life. In the meantime I can secretly still believe in gravity. Hmm, what would Newton do...what would Newton do...
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