We all have presuppositions, biases and ideas that under gird much, if not all, of what we write. Sometimes great miscommunications and misunderstandings occur simply because we think we know what others’ presuppositions are…we assume. And everyone knows what happens when you assume right?
Jon Krakauer ends his book, Under the Banner of Heaven, by spilling out his own theological frame of reference, where he’s coming from. I appreciated his honesty and think that what he describes is where many people today are:
“I don’t know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion.”
He continues:
“In fact, I don’t know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.
“There are some ten thousand extant religious sects – each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I’ve come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain – which doesn’t strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief.
“And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why – which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.”