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I read of a story that sums up the legacy of the utopia built on skepticism. It is the story of a Pastor who was invited to speak in the Russian city of Pushna, a city outside of Moscow.

He explains, "This is a fascinating place, for years off-limits to foreigners. At the height of the Cold War, under Nikita Khrushchev, the city became a center for biological scientists. Thousands of brilliant men and women in their white lab coats settled there and worked for the Soviet state. Now, in the early 1990s, I was very eager to dialogue with these visionary citizens. The lecture hall was filled with at least a thousand of them, and as agreed, they had selected the three topics for discussion: 1. Does God Exist? 2. Is the Bible True? 2. Who is Jesus Christ?

Night by night, I would speak for about 45 minutes, and then respond to various questions they had written out for me to consider. I wasn't concerned about the lectures, but anticipating the questions had me a bit concerned. After all, I was going to be facing some of the top brains in the world. And while you can plan a lecture, you can't plan those questions!

To my amazement, after three nights of intense meetings, I hadn't faced a single question on science. Not one. Not one question on atheism, either. Instead, these searching people asked questions like: How do I pray? If God is so good, then why is the world so bad? How can you have a better marriage? How do you forgive people who have hurt you?

By the end of the three-evening symposium, I felt like I really knew this audience quite well. I had been speaking to them, answering their questions, meeting with little groups of scientists. So finally I said to them:'You folks have really surprised me. I'm standing in the midst of some of the brightest minds in the world and you don't ask me one question about science. Not one question about atheism. Why?'

One scientist rose to his feet to give me an answer. I'd never in my life heard something like what he said. 'Pastor Finley,' he confessed, 'for forty years, we tried atheism, and it failed. We all know that it failed. We saw firsthand how it left all of us morally barren; we were left with no hope, no future. So the question to us is not whether atheism is the answer to the question of life. We know all too well it is not. No, our question is rather whether Christianity is. See, you don't have to answer all the questions about atheism; we just want to know that Christianity is the most viable option.'"