It goes beyond science here. I am a believer that Christ is salvation from our sins. As is said in the New Testament, Christ didn't come to heal the healthy, but to heal the sick. Only someone who can admit they're sick can reasonably be healed. If you're very defensive about yourself or your work, or aggressive towards other people and their work and ideas, it doesn't match the attitude of someone who believes they are "the least of all people" as Paul did. If you admit you are sick, then you admit you have messed up, that you are flawed, and quite probably that you have made similar mistakes to the ones that others make which irritate you. Look, I am the first to respond poorly when someone criticizes me or when I mess up. I was not great at recognizing the stove burner wasn't on this morning. Always looking for an excuse instead of owning up to reality.
We all do it, sure. But that doesn't make it any better. A sin is an evil thing. They are simple things we think are no big deal. Every sin is driven by selfishness. Some religions teach that you can earn God. But I don't for one second believe that. If I did I wouldn't be here teaching you guys. If it was true that it was about earning things, about getting ahead by valor, it's really about numero uno. Then there is no love. Loving someone else is fundamentally remitting your position as the only thing that matters. Letting down your walls. It is letting go of control and putting your emotional defenses in someone else's hands. And without it, without people, I just don't see any purpose to all this. Feeling good gets old.
Well if it's not about ourselves, then it's important to live that. When it comes to science, to political ideas, to dealing with people every day... doesn't it have to be about interacting with people and looking at their ideas with care and introspection instead of surety, certainty. Others who think they've got it all figured out, are so sure of themselves... probably annoy you? Well if that's true, then why would you want to let yourself be the same way? You'll look the same way to others as those smug people do to you. In the end it's about sin. I do still make sinful, selfish choices. And those choices aren't just poor, and I don't just need to do better and not worry about it, they are utter evil and should be very weighty to you. And only by the Lord's forgiveness, through a meeting of humility with the one who died when he didn't have to, can I carry forward in any strength. Hope all my ramblings haven't just been words, but hit home somewhere or another. Because indeed, I consider this the biggest deal around in the end.