Romans 1:21

Romans 1:21 says, Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  I believe that Paul was pointing out the fundamental problem for mankind since the garden of Eden.  It is not that people do not know God, but that when they do, the become vain in their thoughts and their hearts are darkened.  People choose to follow their own desires.  Adam and Eve did not sin because of a lack of an understanding of God, but because they thought that they could be like Him.  When people fail to acknowledge God today, it is because they want to be in charge of their own fate, but this is a vain thought.  God will always be in charge of His creation, and that includes the everlasting fate of mankind.  For that reason, God sent Jesus to be our Redeemer.  Verse twenty-two adds, Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.  We today, especially in the powerful nations, come up with ideas and inventions that make us feel very wise, but we forget what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, and that is true wisdom comes only from God.  So, when we declare that there is no God or if there is He is nothing important, we become as fools.  Once again, to refer back to Solomon, he said that the fool said in his heart that there is no God. When we feel that we are too smart to believe in God and view the world was a cosmic accident, then we are truly acting as a fool.  The mere fact that we pronounce ourselves to be wiser than God points to our greatest foolishness, as we see next.  Verse twenty-three continues, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.  No matter what idol we make to worship, it is corruptible and cannot represent God, Who is incorruptible.  Even if we worship the image of, or a man himself, we are changing the glory of God to something corruptible.  This is the greatest evidence of our foolishness.