THE PRISON

There are prisons with wardens and walls, bars and barbed wire, cement and cells. Then there's a prison without those things--without guards and guns, without bed checks and bulls. This prison is one of the intellect, one to which a man goes of his own free will and locks himself inside.

HELLO, DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND

His prison is a universe without a known cause other than his attribution of it to the impersonal  + time + chance. Although he longs to believe that the great drama of his life has an Author and a noble end, he lives locked inside thinking that the impersonal  + time + chance "laboriously produces man, mind, and devotion only to snuff them out in the maturity of their development." (Will Durant)

When he turns to science, he finds it gives him great power, but diminishes his significance. It gives him no purpose and stands silent on the great questions, "Who am I?" "Why am I here?" and "Where am I going?" When history or the arts try to give him meaning, values, and goals, death cancels them out. They weren't ultimate, only momentary. In this intellectual prison, neither he nor anyone else, nor any loved one has any ultimate meaning.

HIS HOLLOW HOLIDAYS

Every fourth Thursday in November, he's intellectually alone because he has no one to thank. He can't thank the impersonal, time, and chance, that would be like expressing gratitude to a rock.

Christmas is a hollow holiday, it's just the end of the year for drinking, hangovers, headaches, nausea, giving gifts without knowing the Ultimate Giver.

YET, HE HAS TO WORSHIP

The tragedy is that he's put himself in this prison in spite of clear and understandable communication to the contrary. He's chosen to to reject the 24/7 attempts of the God of the Bible to communicate with him. Instead of worshiping and wanting to know more about Him, he decides to worship himself, an animal, a tree, or his bank accounts. (Romans 1:18ff)

The odd thing he's adamant in wanting others to join him in his incarceration. They say that misery loves company, so he spends his time arguing with others, trying to get them behind bars as soon as he can. Yet, we get the feeling that he's really arguing with himself to keep his cell locked.

INSIDE THE WALLS

Inside the prison, he searches for something to make him happy. In this search, C. S. Lewis delivered a profound insight into the psychological engine that drives the drama of history: “All that we call human history — money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery — is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” )We can add to that list terrorism and abortion.)

NOBODY SINS IN A VACUUM

But such a quest for happiness comes at a cost to others. The search doesn't occur in a vacuum. "So what happens when [you] seek joy and must use someone to get it? You must oppress. You must step on toes. You must wound and offend. And you come face-to-face and eye-to-eye with other such atheists seeking personal happiness at your expense. You get used. Paradoxically, these desires attract us to one another, making the impact even harder, like an inevitable head-on collision between freight trains." (Tony Reinke)

Fallen man is a freak: he locks himself in prison and becomes vehement that others join him.