Good Tuesday Morning!!!

1. Question – Is there a standard?

2. Thought – My friend Dave and I were just finishing dinner at the dockside restaurant in Portland, Maine, when the conversation turned to religion. “I don’t think one religion can be exclusively true,” Dave said. “But it seems like you, Frank, have found a center. You have found something that’s true for you, and I think that’s great.”

Playing along with his premise that something can be true for one person but not the other, I asked, “Dave, what’s true for you? What makes life meaningful for you?”

He said, “Making money and helping people!” Now Dave is a very successful businessman, so I pressed him a little bit more.

I said, “Dave, I know CEOs who have reached the pinnacle of business success. They’ve planned and achieved great things in their business life, but have planned nothing and achieved little in their personal lives. They’re now facing retirement, and they’re asking themselves, ‘Now what?'”

Dave agreed and added, “Yeah, and I know most of those CEOs have experienced nasty divorces, mostly because they ignored their families in pursuit of a buck. But I’m not like that. I will not sacrifice my family for money, and in my business I want to help people as well.”

I commended him for his commitment to his family and his desire to help people, but questions still remained. Why should we be faithful to our families? Who said we should “help people?” Is “helping people” a universal moral obligation, or is it true for you but not for me? And to what end should you help them: Financially? Emotionally?Physically? Spiritually?

I said, “Dave, if there’s no objective standard, then life is nothing more than a glorified Monopoly game. You can acquire lots of money and lots of property, but when the game is over, it’s all going back in the box. Is that what life is all about?” (I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler) [Continued on Thursday]

“The brighter you are, the more you have to learn.” (Don Herold)