Chapter Content
So, you know, I think it's really important to talk about, like, having faith in your worldview. It's something we don't often think about directly, but it really impacts everything. It kind of reminds me of that Hans Christian Andersen story, "The Emperor's New Clothes." Remember? Everyone's pretending to see these amazing clothes that aren't even there, just because they don't want to look stupid. Then, bam, this kid just blurts out, "But he has nothing on!"
There was this video I saw, it was pretty wild. This reporter, Joseph Backholm, he's interviewing college students. And he's asking them things like, "If I told you I was a woman, what would you say?" And these kids, they're at a top university, right? They're saying stuff like, "Good for you!" or "Nice to meet you." Like, totally accepting, no questions asked. He even says he's seven years old or six-foot-five or Chinese, and they just go along with it. One kid even said, "I mean, I might be a little surprised, but I'd say, 'Good for you—like, yeah, be who you are!'" It's like...wow.
It's this whole thing with, you know, reality being whatever you want it to be. Whatever you believe, whatever you feel, no matter how crazy it sounds. It's like we're living in "The Emperor's New Clothes," for real. Nobody wants to challenge anything, 'cause they don't want to be seen as, like, judgmental or intolerant. You challenge someone's fantasy these days, and you're basically canceled.
I think it's partly because feelings are, like, the most important thing now. And tolerance, that's the big one. "If I feel like I'm a six-foot-five Chinese woman, who are you to say I'm not?" It'll hurt my feelings, you know? Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't be kind, of course. Playing along with harmless stuff, that's fine. I mean, when I was a kid, I used to dress up as Superman, running around pretending to fly. My parents didn't rain on my parade.
But where do we draw the line? I mean, there's gotta be a limit, right? There was this guy, he was on trial for possessing, uh, bad images, and his defense was that he identified as an eight-year-old girl. He even said, “I’ve always been an eight-year-old girl. Even in my drawings and fantasies, I am always an eight-year-old girl.” Luckily, the judge wasn't buying it.
Then you got the whole transgender thing in sports. Biological males competing as females, breaking all these records...it's a really tough issue. Lots of people are saying it's not fair to biological women. But then you've got others saying transgender women’s civil rights are being violated.
So, what about you? What's your reality? What do you believe about yourself? Do you see yourself differently than you actually are? We all have illusions, right? Some of them can even be helpful. You know, like, an actor imagining themselves winning an award, or something like that.
But how much can we delude ourselves before it becomes a problem? That's the big question.
Okay, so let's get into this whole idea of your worldview. What are the basic beliefs you hold? What do you think about yourself, about others, about life in general? It’s actually really important. What you believe shapes everything about you. Your worldview affects how you see things, how you react to people, even how you dress.
There are tons of different worldviews out there - Atheist, Christian, Muslim, you name it. You can even mix and match, creating your own custom worldview. I've done that myself, with science and Christianity. But you know, sometimes these "salad bar" worldviews can get a little contradictory. You can't really be a New Age pagan and a Christian at the same time.
So, here are three questions to ask yourself about your worldview: What's the foundation? What's the size? And what's at the center?
First, the foundation. I believe that every worldview, no matter what it is, is based on faith. On things you can't prove. Even if you're all about science, you still have these basic beliefs you can't really explain. The trick is to have enlightened faith that’s based on both your IQ and SQ.
Second, the size of your worldview. I used to have a really small, scientific worldview. Only the logical stuff fit in. Then I started learning about crazy things like relativity and quantum mechanics, and my worldview had to expand. It grew, and grew, until it was big enough to include faith in God. How big is yours?
Okay, third: What's at the center of your worldview? What's your religion? I know, even if you're not religious, you still have one. Your worldview is your religion. And whatever's at the center of it, that's your god. That's what you worship. It could be God, or tolerance, or success, or even just yourself. Is your worldview geocentric or heliocentric? Is it all about you, or about something bigger?
All I wanted growing up was to become a scientist. That was my god. That's why when I became a scientific monk, I felt I’d hit the lottery. Nothing and nobody else mattered to me. It was all about me.
Think about how your worldview stacks up. Is it based on enlightened faith? Is it big enough to include everything? Is it centered on something other than yourself? Because, and this is important, this determines how well you'll handle a "Titanic Moment."
What's a Titanic Moment? It's any crisis that threatens to break you. A really tough time. A moment when you feel trapped. That's when your worldview really matters. Is it going to help you, or is it going to sink you?
The engineers who built the Titanic believed it was unsinkable. That belief shaped their reality, so they didn't bother with enough lifeboats. See? Believing is seeing. If your reality is way off from actual reality, a Titanic Moment will destroy you.
There was this brilliant guy, Kurt Gödel, he developed these incompleteness theorems. Well, during the rise of the Nazis, he became convinced that people were trying to poison him. So, he would only eat food prepared by his wife, Adele. Later in life, Adele had a stroke, and Gödel stopped eating and starved to death. His misguided worldview killed him.
So, again, what do you believe? What's your reality? What's your worldview? How big is it? And who or what is your god? Because when you face your Titanic Moment, your worldview will be the difference between hope and despair, life and death.
Let me talk about dreams for a minute. Dreams are important. They can motivate us, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of equality. My dream of becoming a scientist got me from East LA to Harvard.
But what if I'd only focused on my dream? I'd probably still be stuck in a lab somewhere. I'm not just a scientific monk. During my quest to become a scientist, my geocentric worldview got much larger. It morphed into a heliocentric worldview that included not only truths I could see, prove, and imagine but truths I could never see, prove, or even imagine. I discovered something far grander: my destiny.
A dream originates with you. A destiny, in the Christian worldview, originates with God. A dream comes from an earthly place. A destiny comes from a heavenly place. A destiny is defined not solely by specific achievements but by personal character. It's about who you become, not just what you become. A destiny is not just a destination; it's a journey that rarely, if ever, follows a straight path. A destiny is not always at odds with a dream. But often it is, and almost always, it is far grander and more breathtaking than a mere dream.
So how do you find your destiny? By intentionally seeking it out.
Even though I can't prove that I have found my destiny, I believe with all my heart I have done so and am living it out. I'm more fulfilled than ever before. And judging from the messages I receive daily from strangers all over the world who read, listen to, or watch my communications, never have I made such a positive difference in other people’s lives. And finally, never before has my character been so well-rounded, empathetic, and selfless.
There's a story about Dr. King having a premonition about his death. He said he'd seen the Promised Land, but might not get there. Then, he was assassinated. He was destined to become a martyr for the ages.
There was this student at a university, and she told me she was going to college only to please her parents. It was their dream for her. She was desperately unhappy, she explained, but didn’t know what to do about it. I talked to her about the difference between a dream and a destiny.
So, how do you find your destiny? Well, I explained my experience in terms of two tuning forks. Tuning fork number one is me. Tuning fork number two is God.
When I strike me, I vibrate at a certain frequency. Years ago, that vibe was me madly pursuing my dream. It was me single-mindedly doing my own thing.
When I strike God, he vibrates, too. That's my God-given destiny calling.
All during my years as a scientific monk, those two frequencies—my dream and my destiny—were very different. They were, as we say in physics, very dissonant.
Dissonance in our lives usually appears in the form of dissatisfaction, discouragement, dejection, or maybe even suicidal thoughts.
For me as a grad student, the dissonance appeared as an intellectual dissatisfaction with science’s answer to my big question.
That dissonance ultimately drove me to explore other disciplines, other worldviews.
So, if you want to find your destiny, you have to get close to God and become still. That doesn't guarantee you'll find it, but not doing it guarantees you never will.
You must silence yourself and become still. Set aside your own ambitions and open yourself up to all possibilities.
As I’ve explained, an epiphany happened to me in the 1990s. For the first time in my dream-driven life, I began listening for and picking up on God’s voice. I began vibrating sympathetically with my destiny.
From then on, there was no looking back.
I abandoned my lab but not my dream—far from it. For my destiny included my dream and so much more.
My destiny took me to places that the little Mexican kid from East LA had never even dreamed of. It took him far, far, far beyond what his eyes had ever seen, his ears had ever heard, and his mind had ever imagined—exactly as the Bible claims.
Even if you believe God doesn’t even exist, start by opening your mind to the possibility that he does. Because unless you’re at least willing to believe that much, you’ll never be motivated to see whether he’s real or not—to do the hard work it takes to find out. And, therefore, you’ll react by simply continuing to live as though God is a fiction, and you’ll die without ever discovering the truth for yourself.
So, are you chasing a dream? Or are you seeking after your destiny?
Are you facing a Titanic Moment? If so, how well is your reality faring against absolute reality?
The answers depend on what you believe. They depend on your worldview.
So one last time: What is your worldview?
Is it big enough to encompass your destiny? Or is it so small that you believe only in things you can see, prove, and imagine?
I'm inviting you to live by the cosmic-minded, translogical, metaphysical principle: Believing is seeing.
Do your homework. Study the various worldviews, including the scientific and atheistic ones. Ask questions. Demand honest, rigorous answers.
I wrote this to explain how and why I chose mine.
I didn’t even write this book to defend absolute truth. As a popular saying goes: Truth needs no defense. Truth is like a lion. Simply turn it loose and it will defend itself.
That’s been my purpose here—to turn the truth loose. Now it’s up to you to figure out what to do with it.