I like Ben. I went golfing with him again yesterday, and it really was enjoyable. This was a tougher course than the one we went to Saturday, so our scores weren’t as good. But oh my, it’s a beautiful thing to be walking a beautiful course in beautiful weather.

But I don’t just like Ben because he plays golf with me; I like him because he’s a thinker. He says there are two kinds of people in the world: ones that think and ones that don’t. That might seem a bit simplistic and downright impossible, but hang with me on this. I’m talking about thinking in the sense of pondering, of thinking the things of life through. That latter type of person goes through life just for the fun of what it can offer, and they are very, very focused on the here and now.

Now, I think this is oversimplifying things a little bit. I don’t know if there are too many people that never once in their whole lives think about why they are here or whether there is extraterrestrial life. But how many people basically go through their lives without really thinking through what they believe and why they believe it?

In a way, thinking might be scary because there are many, many “thinkers” who have thought themselves into atheism or worse. But of what value are our beliefs if they can’t stand up to our own scrutiny? You think they’re going to stand up to anyone else’s? If we don’t think, in the end we lose big time.