The question of God’s existence is the most central and important question we can seek to answer. If God doe not exist and we do not survive the death of our bodies, life is ultimately absurd.
“Suppose I invite you over to my house to play a game of Monopoly. When you arrive I announce that the game is going to be a bit different. Before us is the Monopoly board, a set of jacks, a coin, the television remote, and the refrigerator in the corner of the room. I grant you the first turn, and inform you that you may do anything you want: fill the board with hotels, throw a coin in the air, toss a few jacks, fix a sandwich, or turn on the television. You respond by putting hotels all over the board and smugly sit back as I take my turn. I respond by dumping the board upside down and tossing the coin in the air. Somewhat annoyed, you pick up the board and fill it with hotels again. I turn on the television and dump the board over again” (Illustration by J.P. Moreland).
Now it would take too many cycles of this nonsense to recognize that it didn’t really matter what you did with your turn, and here’s why. There is no goal, no purpose to the game we are playing. Our successive turns form a series of one meaningless event after another. Why? Because if the game has no purpose, the individual moves within the game are pointless. Only a game’s action purpose according to it’s inventor can give the individual moves significance.
If the game of Monopoly as a whole has no purpose, the individual moves within the game have no meaning or value. The only way your moves within the game have significance is if you discover the purpose of the game and you align yourself with that purpose.
As it is with Monopoly, so it is with life. Like that game of Monopoly, the only way our individual lives have any ultimate meaning or value is if life has a purpose behind it, and real purpose requires both God and life after death.
If God doesn’t exist, we as human beings are simply Johnny or Jill come lately biological accidents on a insignificant speck of dust we call earth which is hurtling through empty space in a meaningless and random universe that will eventually die a cold heat death. In this scheme of things, we are no significant than a swarm of things. In a universe where there is no God and no after life, our actions are meaningless and serve no final end because ultimately each one of us, along with everyone we know and have influence on, we die and enter oblivion. There is no difference between living the life of a saint or a sociopath, no difference between Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler. Whether objective, morality, meaning, purpose or value it’s just incoherent babbling. It’s absurdity of life with out God. We all might as well commit suicide now.
Without God, the universe is the result of a cosmic accident, a chance explosion. There is no reason for which it exists. As people we are a freak of nature – a blind product of matter plus times plus. If God doe not exist, then you are just a miscarriage of nature, thrust into a purposeless universe to live a purposeless life to end everything with death. Unfortunately, most people don’t realize this fact. They continue on as though nothing equals nothing.
It seems to me that when we honestly reflect on the absurdity of life without God we cannot at the same Tim remain apathetic towards the question of God’s existence. God’s existence matters and has tremendous implications for our own existence. Life’s absurdity without God should bother us. It should keep us awake at night, it should jar us out of our apathetic attitude and challenge us to seek answers to life’s ultimate issues. Unfortunately, this is often not the case, especially in our Information Age where it is far to easy to remain distracted and caught up in the daily busyness of life. Sadly many people can simply go on day to day without even giving a second thought to the most important question in life.
But if we want to be intellectually honest, and if are at all concerned with real meaning, value, and purpose, the question of God’s existence demands our attention. We ignore this topic and remain apathetic to it only to our own peril. For a reasonable person, reflection on the absurdity of life without God should be enough to extinguish any remains apathy regarding the question of God’s existence.
Perhaps apathy is not something that can be changed directly, it is not something that can be simply willed away through direct effort. Like many other beliefs, apathy must be changed indirectly. If apathy is the belief that the existence of God is not meaningful or relevant in life, perhaps reflecting on the absurdity of life without God will be powerful enough to indirectly change my beliefs and help communicate the importance of taking God and other ultimate issues serious.
Atheism and Naturalism as a worldview seem unable to offer the kind of meaning, purpose, and hope that humans require and yearn for. But, instead the ultimate fate of a individual, humanity, and even the universe will inevitably be the same regardless of what any person may do. Nothing anyone thinks, says, or does will change the fact that each individual person, all of mankind collectively, and the universe itself will someday be extinct, lifeless and cold. The outcome of atheism and naturalism is an inevitable hopelessness.
Naturalists fails the existential test, and honest atheists cannot life happily and consistently with their worldview. If atheism is true, and if atheists honestly reflect on their own eventual non-existence as well as the fact that their actions in the life have no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose, it seems to avoid the overwhelming feelings of depression, despair, and dejection. It is no wonder then that some atheists have resorted to nihilism.
Biblical Christianity provides the two conditions necessary for a meaningful, valuable, and purposeful life. God and immortality. Because of this we can live consistently and happily within the framework of our worldview. Biblical Christianity succeeds where atheism and naturalism breaks down. Therefore it makes a huge difference whether God exists.
From Pity to Praise 