Values, Fact or Fiction?

The secularist (one who lives his or her life without God and advocates the same for all society) insists that the world of facts is the scientific world and the world of values is the world of religion. Facts are "brute" facts, i.e., they are simply there, the stuff of reality, whereas religion is a result of preference, more or less arbitrary. But no such dichotomy exists, except in the mind of the secularist. Values, in fact, are based on facts. Christians, for example, hold to certain specific values because of particular facts.  Facts such as the existence and self-disclosure of a holy God who loves us and wants us in His forever family. Facts such as the coming of this God to earth in the person of Jesus Christ to die in our place, pay the price for our sins, and rise from the dead. Then the further fact of the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives to transform us from the self-centered, self-guided persons into persons who live for God and others. These are history-changing, life-transforming, history-substantiated facts, facts that have been experienced throughout history by many millions of people, and are no less powerful than today.