Wednesday in the First Week of Advent at Mississippi Abbey

“The crowds were amazed and glorified the God of Israel.”  The prophet Isaiah writes, “Although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike.” 

Albert Einstein writes in his famous God Letter, “I do not believe in a personal God.  … The Bible is a collection of primitive legends which are pretty childish.”

The English physicist, Stephen Hawkins, said, “Modern physics leaves no place for God in the creation of the Universe.”

The biochemist, Isaac Asimov, writes, “I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”

And Mark Twain ridicules faith when he joked that, “The ideal life is good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience.”  And, “Go to heaven for the climate, and to hell for the company.”  He concludes, “Faith is believing something you know isn’t true.” 

In contrast, a child who believes, “God made us to know, love and serve him in this life, and to be happy with him forever in heaven”is more profoundly educated than the wise and learned of this world.