Existence is Futile

Every true Trekkie, at least the TNG sort anyway, will tell you that the turning point for Star Trek: TNG came with the introduction of the Borg. Before those cybernetic aliens graced the sci-fi scene, TNG was just….well, blah. We, the viewers, needed a real villain, something to make us feel that the crew of the Enterprise didn’t have to win. And, of course, even non-trekkies can quote the infamous “Resistance is futile” line. That phrase summed up how most story lines when with the Borg. Practically everybody, including  the great Jean-Luc Picard, had felt the sting of defeat before the Borg. It was that line that helped make the series what it was. Resistance is futile.

In last week’s post, I talked about how the absence of God leaves us without ultimate value, morals, or purpose. While I’m writing this week’s ahead of time, I’m guessing that the atheists in my readership might already have a response ready. Namely, they will be very quick to point out that a negative consequence doesn’t make a belief wrong. They’re right about this. Some of us have had to accept the hard facts of a very sad afterlife for those we love, but we do not throw out our entire faith simply because of negative consequences.

What I’d like to challenge atheists to do, though, is to live their lives consistently in light of atheism. Or, actually, let me take that back. Please, atheists, don’t live out your lives in light of the absence of God. The chaos, carnage, and despair would be horrendous. Devorah Hilsenrath, a survivor at Auschwitz said: “”In Auschwitz, the Nazis interpreted the [Ten] Commandments backwards.” In Auschwitz, a swift murder was almost merciful. Starvation and cruelty were commonplace. Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called “Angel of Death” was especially known for his cruelty, even performing vivisections on pregnant Jewish women.

There isn’t much difference between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Consider Richard Wurmbrand‘s experiences at the hands of Russian torturers:

“What the communists have done to Christians surpasses human understanding….I have seen communists whose faces while torturing believers shone with rapturous joy. They cried out while torturing the Christians, ‘We are the devil! There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I heard one torturer say, ‘I thank God in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to see this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’”

In a prison in the USSR, Wurmbrand met men who had seen their children murdered before their eyes, simply for refusing to renounce Christ. Christians were crucified and made to eat and drink excrement and urine in mockery of Communion. But, if atheism is true, none of these snippets of history should really make you cringe. You see, if there is no Divine Lawgiver, there is nothing wrong with what happened to these men and women. This entire planet is Auschwitz. This entire planet is Soviet Russia. Everything is permitted, provided you can get the government to make it legal.

Atheists don’t behave this way, though. In fact, I know plenty of atheists that are very moral people. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens both have a very strong sense of morality. I once sat in on a talk Hitchens gave about the dangers of Islam in Western countries, and I actually applauded at the end. He recognized the atrocities that come with an Islamic state, and he wants nothing of it for America. The man told of nearly winding up in a concentration camp himself for daring to mark out a Nazi swastika graffiti. He knows right from wrong, but is painfully ignorant of the fact that he has no grounds for condemning the actions of militant Islam. Dawkins is no better, stating that there is no absolute morality, only “pitiless indifference”, only to turn around and condemn religious instruction as child abuse.

This is all rather embarrassing for the thinking atheist. Bertrand Russell was opposed to war and sexual restrictions, but wrote that he could not live as though ethics were a matter of opinion. In light of atheism, he found his moral sense to be incredible, saying “I do not know the solution.” Nietzsche believed in living beyond good and evil, yet he condemned anti-Semitism. In 1991, Dr. L. D. Rue addressed the AAAS on the topic of morality, saying that humanity had only three options. We can turn the world into a madhouse, living only for self. We can turn to benevolent dictators for safety, or we can choose to believe what he called “the Noble Lie.” Rue said that we must believe in respecting human life and rights  in order to trick ourselves into doing good for someone other than ourselves.

In the end, it’s impossible to truly live out atheism in all of its ugliness. While atheists are right in pointing out that a negative result is not proof that a belief or philosophy is wrong, they have a very difficult time living life in light of God’s absence. Christianity is a far superior belief system in terms of morality and rights. It provides us with a God Who reigns and loves us, and a Heaven to belong in when this life is done. I’ll be getting to arguments for Theism a little later, but for now let us at least agree that we’ve identified the implications of either belief system. Existence is either meaningful or futile.

God, Math, and Existence

Who or what created numbers? The Big Bang? God? I don’t really know that it matters. Now, before my Christian brethren get ready to lynch me as defecting from Theism or creationism, let me explain myself. When I’m talking about numbers, that is not the same as talking about information. There’s really only one explanation for information, and that is intelligence. Numbers themselves are simple abstract concepts. You can have two cars or chicken wings, for instance, but you cannot possess the number two all by itself. You cannot interact with the concept of “two”. We call objects, matter, energy, and so forth concrete objects. (Not to be confused with concretes, which are a very tasty treat found at Ted Drewes.) Anyway, besides being abstract, numbers also happen to be very necessary to our universe. They have to exist as a logical consequence of things (matter, energy, people, objects, etc) simply existing. They are, in a sense, uncreated. No matter how you think the universe got here, neither God nor a cosmic hiccup intentionally produced numbers. Now all of the things that numbers represent- almost- were created at some point in time. Even naturalism’s strongest adherents accept this as fact. Numbers are different, as is the whole of mathematics itself. Numbers exist because they have to.

Now, most people who are Theists believe in the self-existence of God. We believe that God exists in the same way that mathematics exists. I don’t need to explain how He exists or where He came from, really. Like numbers, the God of the Bible is self-existent. Christians do not believe in a contingent god, one that needs an explanation for how he came to be. Christians believe in a God Who is absolutely necessary for existence to even have meaning. Created gods, as John Lennox has pointed out, are a delusion, and I don’t know anybody who believes in a god who needed reason for being. Who needs to worship a being that is dependent on another being for its existence? Ought we not to worship the greater of the two, as that will be who is really in control? If the cosmos spawned God somehow, ought not we to worship the cosmos? In Christianity, God is- by definition- necessary and uncreated. If God exists, my atheist friends, He exists because of Who He is. It is the nature of His being, so to speak. Before atheists, agnostics, and Christians can hope to discuss beliefs, they must agree on the definition of the terms, and atheists and agnostics must understand what a Christian means when he says the word “God.” After proper definitions are provided, I believe we can actually accomplish something.