The Atheist vs. God

The Bible is a collection of small library books very much focused on God and how he interacts with his own creation……not only the world of nature but in his dealings with humankind. In the Bible God has chosen to reveal aspects of his character; his law; his wisdom; his grace and his redemptive purposes, through his prophets God has spoken to humanity.  He has also rebuked humanity including his own special people, Israel, for its corrupt and sinful activities.  Chief among these is humanity’s tendency to indulge in idolatry, either in worshipping various gods or making idols that represent gods.  I wrote about this in my last blog.  However, with the ongoing worship of “strange’ gods comes the idea that man is the maker and creator of his own destiny.  God is ignored or denigrated or simply utterly written off as non essential in our world today.  After all, hasn’t science and technology replaced the need for God?  Man can do it by himself.  Collectively man has the power to make people’s lives better.  We don’t need a God for that, do we?

The verse that comes to mind occurs in two passages in Psalms (14:1 and 53:1). “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” Commentators maintain that the statements in many of the Psalms is not a literal denial of the existence of God but a description of the wicked who live and behave as though God takes no notice of human behavior.  There are no rewards or punishments.  The fools who declare that “there is no god “makes an assumption that God takes no interest in human affairs.  However, today, something even more diabolical is being accepted into the mainstream of human thought.  We are in the age of the New Atheism.

 This really isn’t new concept at all.  A small number of Greek philosophers and writers would question the existence of the traditional gods.  Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, was forced to drink hemlock for corrupting the youth of his day by declaring that the world was governed by chance, not gods, and that morality is man –made and not divine.  Today we don’t force atheistic philosophers and scientists to drink poison but they disseminate their own poison through their writings.

Those of us who are believers often scoff at the outcries of the humanist/atheist/agnostic. But whatever our convictions about God and his dealings with mankind; how he has chosen to reveal himself through Jesus; how we are given the do’s and don’ts of living in this world,  there are thousands of others who have chosen to view our faith as ignorance or worse yet…… they are just plain disinterested! Here are a few “advantages” to atheistic thinking.  Here are just a few.

1. You never have to worry about what God thinks of you. You are never under the scrutiny of a God who expects you to behave in a certain way. Since there is no God to judge you or to punish you in the afterlife, you are rather a free agent. Not all atheists are immoral or bad people. Probably a few of these more admirable traits just happened to be the result of living in a world that has moral values! I wonder where those came from??

2. If you are an atheist, you never have to admit that you need the help of a higher being….namely God. Religion, they say is for the weak, for those who cannot make it on their own. They never have to lower their self esteem, seek forgiveness or see flaws in their own character.

3. If you are an atheist you can embrace any point of view that you want. Morality becomes the right of the individual. All morality is relative. If there is no God, morality is a human invention or a by-product of biological and cultural evolution.

What is it that keeps people from God? Obviously some people were raised that way, just like those of us who are Christians.  However, we must be held accountable for our faith.  We are to live out our faith in our relationship to God and what he requires of us.  As James says, ”Faith without works is dead”. Does that become a burden or a joy?  We don’t have to prove ourselves to God.  He loves us all, but at the same time we have a responsibility not only to God but to our fellow humans.  This view of life just might make our world a better place.

I have more thoughts on this subject but will resume this topic in my next blog. I want to discuss some views of the bestselling authors of atheism …. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens. (now deceased).   Stay tuned!   More to come…………