"The tragedy of common sense
it that it is not
very common."
(Albert Einstein)

"Politically correct Christianity
is tolerated but despised.
Full Gospel Christianity is
respected but persecuted."
(Unknown)

"If you marry the Zeitgeist
you will soon become widow."
(Goethe)

"To reach the source of a river
you must swim upstreams."
(Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)

"I note that all those,
who are positive to abortion
already are born."
(Ronald Reagan)

Self-confident Krister...

Perhaps, when you surf around on my web pages, you might think that I sometimes am very self-confident and in lack of nuances in my opinions. Nowadays you are supposed, in the name of "tolerance", to admit that everyone else can be right as well. And of course you should be tolerant, and of course other people have the right to whatever opinion they hold (as long as they don't hurt others). But, there is something that is called truth! To have rights is not the same thing as being right!

The reason that I am Christian is that I became convinced that the Bible is true. Thus, I do not try to prove that the Bible is true because I am Christian. It is the opposite! I am a Christian because I believe the Bigle to be true! If for example Mr. Atheist maintains that there is no God, and that the Bible is nothing but a collection of myths and fairy tales — an opinion that he has all the right to hold — that doesn't mean that he automatically is right. If there is a God, and the Bible is the revelation of God, then Mr Atheist is wrong, regardless of how convinced he might be of the opposite. Even if he gets angry or hurt or sad, he is still wrong!

You, who mean that I ought to be more humble, do you really mean that I can only be a Christian, if I in the depth of may heart, deny what I believe in. Or...? If I am convinced that there is a God, it is very reasonable that I should have the right to maintain this belief. Then I must also have the right to maintain, that those who deny the existence of God, are wrong. This is not a question of intolerance, but of truth!

I am not trying to force people to the same beliefs as I have, but I willingly confess that I try to influence people through my argumentation. But why should this be wrong? This is not a question of brainwashing — everyone can draw their own conclusions when reading my articles. Of course you should be humble and tolerant. You can never be absolutely sure of anything. If you take it to the extreme, you can even question if New York exists, especially if you have never been there. Or perhaps you were dreaming or hypnotized, when you thought you were there. But such theoretical, philosophical discussions, which have caused some people to end up in mental institutions, only lead to introvert, fruitless speculations. Even if we can not prove anything, in an absolute sense (the only exception is possibly mathematics), can we still be strongly convinced of certain things, like New York having an objective existence. And it is healthy and necessary to function like that. But if you now, are strongly convinced regarding a certain matter, you can not, simultaneously, be absolutely convinced of the opposite. Recently observations were published, which seem to indicate that there are two, hitherto unknown, planets outside Pluto (the planet, that so far has been regarded as the outermost planet of our Solar system — I disregard the ongoing discussion whether Pluto is a planet or not). If these two planets really exist, and someone maintains the opposite, then this person is totally and absolutely wrong!! Absolutely truth is not an opinion among other opinions, but deals with facts — "das Ding an sich" (remark: Science does not deal with absolute truth — ontology — but gives us usable models of the physical reality)!!!

So please, go ahead and read my articles, get angry and upset, think differently, but do not deny me my right to believe in what I believe. And my right to argue for my beliefs and opinions. I do not deny you those rights. But remember, there is an absolute truth, independent of what you and I think! And that truth might be found beyond what you call "common sense". Albert Einstein once defined common sense as "the collection of truths you have acquired at the age of 18, and then, for the rest of your life, regard as the one and only way to look at things". It was by thinking beyond the generally accepted presuppositions in physics, that Einstein found new truths about our Universe. Perhaps your and my common sense is more of an expression for limitations in our mind, than it is an expression for what in possible and true!

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