We are fundamentally drawn to understanding that there IS something greater than us "out there". The Holy Spirit will make Himself known to everyone at some point - just because you choose to reject Him, to reject Christ and God the Father, won't quench that feeling that there IS a greater Truth. You'll put another name on it - aliens, Mother Nature, the majesty of science, the Illuminati - but we are driven to that knowledge for a reason.
This article came from the New York Times - the link goes to the entire article, but I want to share parts of it here. This is written by a NYT author named Clay Routledge:
Are Americans becoming less religious? It depends on what you mean by “religious.”
Polls certainly indicate a decline in religious affiliation, practice and belief. Just a couple of decades ago, about 95 percent of Americans reported belonging to a religious group. This number is now around 75 percent. And far fewer are actively religious: The percentage of regular churchgoers may be as low as 15 to 20 percent. As for religious belief, the Pew Research Center found that from 2007 to 2014 the percentage of Americans who reported being absolutely confident God exists dropped from 71 percent to 63 percent.
Nonetheless, there is reason to doubt the death of religion, or at least the death of what you might call the “religious mind” — our concern with existential questions and our search for meaning. A growing body of research suggests that the evidence for a decline in traditional religious belief, identity and practice does not reflect a decline in this underlying spiritual inclination.
I felt around the edges of it for decades before He finally smacked me in the head a few times and I couldn't ignore Him any more despite my best efforts. I was the biggest "there's always a scientific explanation" guy there was - and I still see God using modern science to work His wonders more often than most Christians - but eventually even I had to admit the Truth. If my sweet late wife Melissa were here, she could tell you how hard I fought it. My son Hamilton still fights it just as hard, even when he admits the Truth grudgingly on occasion. I see my near-step-daughters going through the question stage now.
Dozens of studies show a strong link between religiosity and existential concerns about death and meaning. For example, when research participants are presented with stimuli that bring death to mind or challenge a sense of meaning in life, they exhibit increased religiosity and interest in religious or spiritual ideas. Another body of research shows that religious beliefs provide and protect meaning.
We search for this meaning because it's instilled in us from before the beginning. It's the old joke about becoming a Christian on your deathbed because that's the only time it matters to you. Quite often, however, it IS the only time we actually ALLOW ourselves to slow down and consider the matter objectively and seriously. We crowd out these critical thoughts with the noise of the world and society and distractions that the fleshly world culture forces on us, that the devil encourages specifically to keep us from listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit, telling us that feeling of longing for the Holy Father's comfort the same way we long for our parents as children.
Furthermore, evidence suggests that the religious mind persists even when we lose faith in traditional religious beliefs and institutions. Consider that roughly 30 percent of Americans report they have felt in contact with someone who has died. Nearly 20 percent believe they have been in the presence of a ghost. About one-third of Americans believe that ghosts exist and can interact with and harm humans; around two-thirds hold supernatural or paranormal beliefs of some kind, including beliefs in reincarnation, spiritual energy and psychic powers.
These numbers are much higher than they were in previous decades, when more people reported being highly religious. People who do not frequently attend church are twice as likely to believe in ghosts as those who are regular churchgoers. The less religious people are, the more likely they are to endorse empirically unsupported ideas about U.F.O.s, intelligent aliens monitoring the lives of humans and related conspiracies about a government cover-up of these phenomena.
We all know there's Something Up There. If we've rejected the Holy Spirit's invitation to come to Christ, then we transfer that knowledge to something else. If we're into that sort of thing, we fill that hole with "aliens/time travelers from the future", or "government conspiracy/Big Brother is watching you", or "the Illuminati/secret society" that's supposedly running the world from secret. (You don't NEED a secret society to bring about the signs of the End Times. Economic efficiency demands integration of business practices, monetary policy, government procedures, and so forth. It's in our very nature to create what the Bible says will be the Devil's playground.)
When people are searching for meaning, their minds seem to gravitate toward thoughts of things like aliens that do not fall within our current scientific inventory of the world. Why? I suspect part of the answer is that such ideas imply that humans are not alone in the universe, that we might be part of a larger cosmic drama. As with traditional religious beliefs, many of these paranormal beliefs involve powerful beings watching over humans and the hope that they will rescue us from death and extinction.
I plead with you - we are fast approaching that moment when every person will have to choose a side: either you're ON God's side, WITH Jesus...or you're AGAINST Them. If you choose poorly, God can't help you anymore beyond that point.
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