Everybody has to live for something, but Jesus argues that if that thing is not him, it will fail you. It will enslave you …. Nobody put this better than the American writer and intellectual David Foster Wallace. Wallace was at the top of his profession. He was an award-winning, best-selling novelist who committed suicide in 2008. But before his death he gave a famous commencement address in which he said this to the graduating class:
Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism …. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And … pretty much anything you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things—if they are where you tap real meaning in life—then you will never have enough …. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you …. Worship power—you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart—you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.
