What is your greatest fear?

I've heard before that people's greatest fear is public speaking. As a preacher I've either overcome that or have learned to fake it pretty well, eh? Personally, I think my greatest fears (if I allow myself to think about it) have to do with my children. I won't go into specifics (to write of them would bring them to the mental forefront), but even a common human fear...that of death...for me is mainly is a fear of how it will affect my children.

How about you? What is your greatest fear? Was it public speaking or death? Flying on airplane? Spiders? The dark? Clowns? :-)

We all have fears, and often irrational ones. They really aren't a problem unless they prevent us from living a normal life. We can avoid speaking in public, steer clear of dangerous activities, take a bus across country, stay away from creepy-crawly things, plug in night lights, and never enter a circus tent.

But sometimes fears can overwhelm us, and we've heard of individuals who (for instance) have agoraphobia and refuse to leave their homes. If we had a friend like that we likely would encourage them to visit a psychiatrist.

However, perhaps the worst types of fears are those that keep us from doing the right thing at the right time. Maybe at school you saw a kid get picked on and you should have spoken up, but you kept your mouth shut for fear that the bullying bullseye would move to you. Or maybe at work you made a mistake but you didn't tell anyone because you were worried about getting in trouble (and possibly even lose your job).

If you are a regular reader of my bulletin articles, you already know that Twitter is often an inspiration for what I write. This week's motivation began when a Christian I follow retweeted:

I am #atheism, and the behavior of the most fanatically devout is so often my best argument. #islam #catholicism #christianity

I responded to the original tweeter:

Legit embedded criticism of religion acknowledged *****. However, do misbehaving rabid atheists equally disprove atheism?

What ensued was a conversation that continued long enough to mean I was a wee bit tired the next day. Initially it was painful—and I ultimately I found out why:

I started suspicious of you because you are a minister. I have found your profession to debate dishonestly in the past.

Ouch...but mostly because I suspect it is true.

The conversation improved after that, although he no more ended as a Christian believing in our resurrected Lord than I ended as an atheist believing in evolution. At best, we laid a foundation for future interactions. We will see what the future holds.

However, what I especially found interesting is something in common between the four atheists that crossed my path that night. Here is the Twitter bio of the original gentleman:

Demanding proof of all religions' legitimacy. How offensive you find my tweets is inversely proportional to your rationality.

That wasn't especially contentious, but also not very welcoming to those of us who believe. The second atheist of the evening was a biologist the first suggested could answer any questions I have about evolution. From his Twitter profile: