There's no God--so what?
I have a single point to make! I don't wish to argue here that there is a God but I wish to say that anyone with a heart would surely wish there was a God worthy of worship and service; such a God that caring people would be happy to throw in with him "the stubborn ounces of their weight" in a glorious enterprise.
Robert Wright asked outspoken atheist, Daniel Dennett, if he was an atheist. DD said he didn't particularly care for the term's connotations but, yes, he was an atheist though he didn't make a deal of it, he said. [He has written three books advocating it and is very involved in a movement for atheists "coming out of the closet," so to speak. I would say that's "making a deal out of it" but if Christians and other theists have a right to spread their views why wouldn't atheists?] Wright asked him, "Do you wish you could believe in God?" and Dennett immediately shot back, "No!" He misses nothing, you see, by not believing in God and feels no need of him. It isn't, he said, that he passionately denies there's a God, it's more like, he said, "Of course there's no God, but so what?"
Religious people can be incredibly self-centred and they rightly get a lot of stick for it, but atheists of the Dennett, Weinberg, Dawkins and Harris kind have no eye for others either. I don't know if Bob Geldof is an atheist but I do know that despite his social usefulness he's glad (he said) that death is nothing but an endless sleep. I don't know Dennett but his "so what?" makes it clear he hasn't thought with sufficient compassion about the teeming millions of innocents and defenseless who have gone down under the cruel hordes ancient and modern. I'm more disappointed in Bob Geldof who has seen the agony of the world right up close and has worked hard to do something about it. Having seen the cruelty and abuse that these peoples have been subjected to generation after generation I don't understand how Bob can be pleased with the story that life and all hope for justice and restitution ends at the grave. Nazis rape, rob, torture and butcher you and your end is the grave. The Nazi lives in extravagance and pleasure until old age and goes to a painless sleep.
That—that doesn't set our teeth on edge? Well, there's no God to right all wrongs but "so what?"
If you asked Dennett if he cared about justice for the oppressed nations and classes in human society he might be offended—doesn't everyone? He confessed he had done some things wrong but that he was pretty much a good man (and I don't doubt that) but how can a good man not wish there was someone who would one day bring justice to the forgotten poor of the world? I'm not saying, at this point, that there is such a one but how can we say we do not wish that there was such a one?
How could we not wish that even now the world was a place of righteousness, where nations worked together in the grand enterprise of abolishing disease and want and righting wrongs? Recognizing our limitations and not living in ceaseless anguish about what we cannot do, still we must surely wish that some leader would rise up in the Middle East or in Zimbabwe or in Sudan and other centers of profound abuse and loss—we must wish at times for a leader to rise up and turn the whole damnable stream of abuse around and bring peace and prosperity and dignity to these places.
And if we wish that could be true via human hands for a long time to come how can we say we wouldn't wish it to be true via God on a permanent basis? Is Dennett so set against the idea that God is, that he wouldn't wish for humanity someone to make it up to the plundered poor?
If the Christian faith is true that there is a God who came to us in and as Jesus of Nazareth, revealing what his will would be on earth if we were to do it and calling Christians to keep the truth that Jesus is Lord and is coming to right all wrongs before the hearts and minds of the world, would that not be better than having to admit there is no justice or restitution for teeming millions? If that is true and Christians in their lives are to live out the purpose of God that will be completed when Jesus returns, would we not wish that were true for the crushed billions? I don't say we should pretend we believe it's true; only that if we care for more than our own satisfaction would we not wish there was someone who would make it all right for them?
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
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