There is a story I heard about a man who was trapped on his roof during a hurricane. So he decided to pray. He said, “God, I have so much to live for. Please don’t let me die now and I will dedicate the rest of my life to you.”
In about ten minutes a man floated by in a canoe and asked the man on the roof if he needed a ride. The man on the roof said, “No, God is going to rescue me.”
by Thom McKee Jr.
Do people manufacture hope simply because they can’t deal with the possibility that there might be none? This is a question that is not only about how people react to crisis, but also about the very nature of meaning in the universe. Are we merely animals who are so fearful of the unknown that we create entire mythologies (or even religions) in order to give ourselves a sense of hope?
French philosopher Voltaire famously said that “if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Another quote attributed to a first century Roman thinker, Seneca the Younger, says “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
While these ideas are somewhat elitist and maybe even a little offensive, I still see an element of truth in them. I am a pastor, a thinker, and definitely a “religious” person, but I also see