Jesus is a Threat
Some people are more honest than others in their rejection of Christianity. In his book Ends and Means, Aldous Huxley gives some insight into his unbelief with shocking openness. He says,
“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning – the Christian meaning, they insisted – of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever….Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless…”
Huxley rejected God not because he didn’t understand the reasoning behind Christianity or because he thought unbelief was more logical. Instead, he admittedly rejects it because it is more convenient to do so. Huxley rightly recognizes that belief in God has consequences. It means that life does have a higher meaning than the pure pursuit of animalistic urges, that we are accountable to a higher Judge, and that our actions and goals in life are not to be set by ourselves. Belief in God necessarily opens the door to divine accountability, and since he didn’t want any part of that, he simply chose to turn the other way.
This is some brutal honesty. Few people would be willing to confess that their beliefs are shaped not on an unbiased search for truth, but rather a desire to have sex with anyone you want without fear of guilt. While some might think Huxley a little nuts to talk like this, it actually makes perfect sense given his worldview.
Huxley specifically mentions “Christianity” as the worldview he dismisses because of the moral obligations that come from believing in Christ. Not many non-Christians I talk to would cite their own moral whims or willful ignorance as the main grounds for rejecting Jesus, but I suppose there is more of the Aldous Huxley spirit out there than is apparent on the surface. Any belief, religious or not, is easily dismissible once you determine it can’t even be an option. Personal bias and the protection of personal autonomy will easily override a genuine search for truth because it is more convenient to do so.
I will at least commend Huxley on this point: he evidently had some grasp of Christianity that was pretty accurate. Many people these days try to take the Jesus of the Bible and form him into some kind of modern-guru that is more culturally acceptable than the crucified and risen Son of God who atoned for human sin. Additionally, many churches have adopted a more secularized brand of Christianity in an effort to remain relevant to the broader public, hanging onto Jesus but ditching all the religious baggage that doesn’t fit with the times. Huxley, to his credit, wasn’t willing to do that. He kept Jesus more or less intact, although he still rejected him on shaky grounds.
The point is this: in our pursuit of truth, we must be willing to follow the evidence where it leads no matter the cost to our personal lives. Discovering the truth can mean that our whole worldview needs to be uprooted and replaced. It might mean that what we have built our entire lives on turns out to be a bad foundation and we have to start all over. Few are willing to even consider that an option, so we close off some doors of possibility and never really give the facts a fair chance. In these “post-truth” times, more than ever, we need to check our personal bias at the door.
I have tried, albeit imperfectly, to do this very thing. I still find myself a follower of Jesus even though he is like a wrecking ball in my life, destroying some of the idols I hold dear. Being a Christian is by no means convenient. It requires a complete surrender of one’s life to God. My ambitions become his, even though there are times I’d rather not have it be that way. Such is the reality of adapting to the truth rather than it to you. There is personal demolition, and then rebirth. In the case of following Christ, as I can personally attest, it is worth it.
Canadian Bible Guy 
And another excellent post. I was speaking to a co-worker a while ago about God and at the end of our conversation he conceded that he did believe in God but that he did not wish to pursue a closer look because he was afraid of what God would ask him to do. Ignorance is the vehicle to maintaining the status quo, or as I am often reminded, the Garden of Eden, re-visited. From my experience with talking to others, and even including myself, it is not the facts of Christianity that stop most people, but the requirement to remain in the driver’s seat. Real growth never comes until that question is decided. Grace and blessings!
I got nothing but love for the poor soul called Huxley,”no emotion,that’s what bidness is”,im allegedly assuming you live by science and facts,rather than religious beliefs right?but even if you’re not,the following point still stands:it is scientific fact that the hormones of stress down regulates genes and alters our state of being,biologically,hormonally and psychologically,90% of all humans spent 70% of their lives being unaware that they are subconsciously conditioning their minds and bodies into a redundant cycle due to the addictive nature of arousal caused by stress hormones making them think and feel a certian way.95% of those everyday thoughts and feelings is a subconscious program,95% of your thoughts came from your past,so you don’t even that you’re thinking those thoughts and feeling those feelings,thus now, with 5% of their conscious mind, people are saying “i wanna be happy,i wanna be wealthy,i wanna condition my body to a greater mind&consciousness and start believing, not just religiously but because it’s proven and tested and backed by science,and if and when you do inform them of such redundancy,they would say “No!every choice i ever made in my life was of my own volition” but that’s not entirely true because you’re not even aware that you’ve been conditioned to think in that way,because if you truely desired free will then you would be able to overcome your habituations the the things you forced to like,that you think you do actually like,unaware repetition is litterally robbing from your freedom,the branch of science that my explanation is derived from is called neurochemistry and epigenetics,proven and teached by Dr.Joe Dispenza.And secondly, from a religious standpoint it doesn’t matter should a belief be present or absent,Philosophy included, coz at the end of your life after you successfully lived your life by your “said” Philosophy you would then feel empowered or wholesome because of what you achieved right?.a False God represents either a deity,symbol,a understanding,physical object or entity that’s not capable or loyal in truely producing the desired expected result that one’s been loyaly expecting ,in other words if it wants to it can leave you high and dry on the most needed times,eg: “Let’s say you’re right,and you should alone enjoy free will,fast foward some time let say 70 years?and now you feel set for life right?,you went all in, full send with no limits.but then you realized that Jehovah was indeed True to his promise just as he promised,there’s no evidence present that says “facts and a certiant logical understanding” will save you when it’s in you best interest, but luckily for me, Jehovah can’t stop stressing the fact that he promises us “his loyal trusted followers” if we stay true to the Only True God’s commandments, then and only then shall we experience life after death,to ensure our loyalty to him,he offered us his child Jesus Christ,after Jesus explains the expectations of Our Father to his followers,then bad, a very bad man,experienced jealousy then fabricated the arbitrary notion that he deserved free will,free will and immortality was given to us at first but was then confiscated temporarily as punishment for the murdering and raping and pillaging and all the evil our ancestors caused by disobeying the Only True God because those people sought freedom rather than rules,like you,and such they rebuted the rules of God’s beautiful Kingdom he build for us to live in forever,we don’t even deserve such Generosity,we didn’t even ask for it but still he gave it,by disobeying him we waived our rights to accept such Gift,there’s another principle in Science that called “Endowment”,have you heard?”if you don’t use it you lose it”,so if we are complacent by taking advantage of his gift then we’re gonna lose it,and so it was done,so if we don’t change(by “we” i mean “you”) our lifestyles,and get beyond our “urges” of actions and habit to our outer enviroment,now we can stop clinging to what happened in the past,and start building the future “He” wanted and live there in eternity and in peace,because the same urges is equal to the same reactions and equal to the same habits, our souls will not enter God’s kingdom if it’s emotionally anchored to our predecessors wrongful past,in other words:God is an intelligence,intelligence is equal to one’s awareness,awareness is conciousness and you can’t have conciousness without energy,so God along his Heavenly Kingdom are not material,physical beings,Energy is the epi-phenomenon above matter,that’s epigenetics,it might sound insane but this is logic in its entirety:so to get to heaven we would need to get over the habits/relationships of those common urges of material objects in our everyday life,”my phone,the internet,a place i should be,people in our environment,where i am now,what time is it now?”, and if we can do that properly and get over all of our habits,we would no longer be linked with matter and out of the program right?and by obeying and trusting in God,he teaches us not to get comfortable with materialistic items and to focus entirely on him,so that we stay more energy and less matter,now our Divinity is greater that our Humanity, almost like he has been preparing us for a destiny we negotiated for ourselves,so when we’re above our bodies we’re above matter,so all that’s left over is energy,Now after we die,typically our souls or conciousness is linked to to our dead materialistic bodies, but when we turn that around,our souls will have no trouble at connecting to the Divine,and then it will only be a question of when,coz Jehovah honours his word,trust in The Only True God Jehovah,”What is,What was,What shall be”, Amen
If you think Aldous Huxley was an atheist you are a moron.
He claims agnosticism. He strikes me as functionally an atheist, however.
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