The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The radio show host was interviewing someone who was describing a Richard Dawkins book --- new or old I don’t know; I didn’t listen that long.  The speaker said that Dawkins explains that the universe is expanding into oblivion and eventually everything, including man, will fade out of existence as we know it.  He was positively giddy as he said: “So man is here for just a while, and so we should enjoy our moment in the sun.”

What an idiot.  I “enjoyed my moment” as I switched the channel.

Dawkins and his cult choose to believe only what they can measure or prove --- or what they “believe” others have.  (Personally, I don’t believe in gravity since it was said that Newton conceived of it after watching an apple fall from a tree.  I never actually saw an apple fall from a tree myself --- and I’ve walked past many an apple tree --- therefore, I don’t think gravity exists.)  Dawkins’ followers won’t admit something even Dawkins himself admitted in the film “Expelled,” by Ben Stein, namely: God could exist, but Dawkins chooses not to believe so.

Well, I do.

I think Dawkins would agree with a concept put forth in an old Clint Eastwood movie.  There is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  He would agree that these relative values exist in almost all natural things and their usage by man.

Weapons were created for good reasons and used to accomplish good things, but they can be used for bad things, and in the extreme for horribly ugly things, so can food, so can hair color, so can any modern technology.  (I don’t have to describe examples; you can make them up easily yourself.)  Every action of man, using various material things, can be categorized in that way.  Now even Dawkins wouldn’t agree that something horribly ugly is good, although some of his followers would disagree, saying all things are relative --- my good may be your ugly --- “There is no truth.”  Dawkins would say there is a truth, if you can measure it, or at least an approximate truth.  (Do you weigh 150 pounds, or 150.0000001 pounds?)  But this concept of things being (relatively) good, bad, or ugly is a lie because it dismisses a fourth alternative.

“Ugly” is bad to the most extreme, but there is no consideration of “good” to its most extreme.  I might choose to call that “holy,” or I might call it “glorious,” or I might call it God, but I am as certain of its existence as I am of “ugly.”  Dawkins sees things on a material scale from good to ugly; I see a scale starting with glorious things or God, with material things on the lower end of the scale.

What I am saying is that no matter how “good” man is, and no matter how good I am, there is something, some ONE, “good-er” than me.  Dawkins and his ilk would say that man --- and in particular Dawkins and his thinking --- are as good as it gets.  God?  No, no, no, they would say.  “If you want to put God at the highest end of the scale, than I am God.”

But of course, they can’t prove that.  “Trust me, or prove me wrong,” they would say.

Quite frankly, I’d sooner trust in gravity, if for no other reason than more people say it is true than not.  And more people have and do believe in God than in Dawkins.  He would say man today is at his evolutionary peak.  Good grief!  Look around!  This is as “good” as it gets?  He’s looking at the wrong end of the scale.  At the moment, man seems at his ugliest, and Dawkins a prime example.

Prove me wrong.

The gospel this day talked about pride and humility.  They are not measurable on a material scale, yet every one can see the pride in the parable.  And they can see it in Mr. Dawkins also.  Jesus placed a priority on humility, Dawkins on pride.

I guess it really is a choice, which one you would equate with God, and which with the opposite end of the scale, ugly.  And we may just have to disagree, but don’t you dare tell me that you “know” you are right.