With or without justice, we will all some day rot
© lipowski – Fotolia.com
There was this guy at a church I attended for a period of time who had a story; it went like this. He was an accountant who entered into a partnership with another, but one day federal agents came and told him one of the deals he and his partner conducted was illegal. This was strange to him, because he did not know anything about this deal. It was his partner’s, but the partner’s name was not on the documentation. After years of being harassed by federal agents and taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court, he learned that his partner was actually connected to organized crime and had dumped the illicit business on his shoulders. However, the courts were so convinced he was a well-connected gangster that they initially denied his request for court appointed counsel, which he required since his assets had been frozen; his fate was sealed when the appointed counsel did not call any witnesses to his defense. The counsel apparently also believed he was a gangster. He spent four years in prison and can no longer practice his profession. That business partner, who truly was a gangster, died peacefully in his bed without ever experiencing justice.
Switching gears, I was watching a TV interview of an atheist group promoting their viewpoint at a booth (or rather, opposing the Christian perspective), when they were asked, “What happens when you die?” Their response was, “You rot.”
I think this is significant. If there is no God, no ultimate Creator, no Supreme Being looking out for us, then when we die, we rot. There would be no judgment, which some people would cheer about, but there also would be no justice.
I have another example, something that affects us all. A few years ago America went through an economic crisis that we, and the world, are still recovering from. Why did we have this crisis? The political and financial leadership of this country knew what would result from the risky lending and yet they allowed it to continue. None of the leadership elite suffered from the economic crisis, it was the poor and the middle class who suffered, and continue to suffer. The 10% of the country that is without work, the families that lost their homes, those driven to complete homelessness, these all suffered because the leadership of this country failed to do their job and interrupt something that was completely preventable. None of them will ever be punished for doing that to us. Not in this life, and if the atheists are correct, not after they lay to rot in the dirt.
I read a quote from a secular humanist society that went something like this, “What makes our belief so unattractive is that it is just so bad.” What this was referring to is that if there is no God then there is no morality, no punishment of the wicked, no vindication of the oppressed, and ultimately no hope. You are all on your own.
My point is that justice does not always happen in this life and often the wicked persevere, living comfortably while their innocent victims suffer until their death. These two examples of mine are about socio-economic suffering, but what about all those children kidnapped every year who are never found, possibly taken across borders to be forced into prostitution? Rape and murder victims whose assailant is never caught? How about the tens of millions of Chinese who died because of Mao Zedong’s screwy policies and political maneuvers, and other victims of self-serving dictators? There are copious examples that are even more extreme.
Apart from God, we are all on our own, destined to struggle and rot.
My book The Rage is about redemption, because I believe there is Someone looking out for us. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009F7D2VS
Be Blessed — Shamar Covenant
Atheists and Christianity
I usually make a couple of basic arguments that i hope will plant seeds in their psyche.
1. Most Atheists believe that God is an invention by men to relieve their inherent fears of the unknown. I understand that. If that’s the case then it would stand to reason that fear, justice, love, peace, charity, vanity, etc are all creations of the mind of man for some reason or another. All these things men use to create a society and laws to live by. Therefore I choose to believe in the Living God, Jesus. What does that do for me? It gives me peace of mind and heart. The knowledge of what i believe to be the Truth sets me free.
2. You can live your life without acknowledging God that does not mean He doesn’t exist. I am not willing to take that gamble. The fear of God is actually a blessing. Besides, how would it be that at the end of your time that the Lord would come to you and say “Well, you blatantly ignored every sign i gave you to find your way to me. Then, after a time you didn’t even care to look anymore. Ok, now you are confronted with the Truth.” .. rather than face the Lord as a nonbeliever, i would rather walk into Heaven in full armor and have Him put his hand on my shoulder and say ‘job well done.’
3. How can God exist with all the cruelty and death and injustice in this world? Well, the best way for me to explain it is like this… When you were born, the doctor stuck a needle in your arm and it hurt and you cried. Do you remember it? No, you don’t . Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Just that the Lord made you so that every pain and ache of life doesn’t follow you every moment. The pain and suffering of this world stays here when you leave.
4. Injustice? What if I told you that the world is like the game Jumanji ? i call it the Jumanji effect. Remember the movie? Once the game gets started there is nothing you can do to end it? It just keeps playing until its over. You didn’t ask to be here on Earth as a human. But you were born and here you are. You are not here by any act that you did. So you don’t like it and you don’t like what happens here. You didn’t invent it. This is not your world. You didn’t create it. You have very little to say about how this world operates. Sometimes what happens here can only be understood by the One who put you here. You can try to end the game by kicking over the table or sitting on your hands and say ‘i am not playing’ or try jumping off a building or stepping into traffic but unfortunately that doesn’t end the game it just puts you into the ‘losing’ side of it. And believe me you don’t want to go there. So what happens if you read the rule book and make an effort to win the game? Then, no matter what happens during your life .. you still win. But you have to play in earnest and give yourself entirely to the game it can become a great journey. Go out and study. Go find Christ. The Truth is and always was and always will be.
OK…. let’s start here…
“I think this is significant. If there is no God, no ultimate Creator, no Supreme Being looking out for us, then when we die, we rot. There would be no judgment, which some people would cheer about, but there also would be no justice.”
Whether or not you approve of or desire an out come has ANYTHING to do it being true or false. While I disagree about “would be no justice,” even IF I grant that as true, so what? A creator’s existence rests only the evidence, not your approval or disapproval of the situation.
Nothing in the whole piece gives us any reason to suspect that “You rot” isn’t the correct answer.
Ignoring your mischaracterization of atheist life as bleak in any way… to address the point you seem to wish to address, you need to provide positive evidence that the creator actually exists AND FURTHER, that this creator is the God of Abraham as revealed in the Bible. Besides providing some good positive evidence, you must also dismiss the mountain of damning negative evidence… all of it.
Your thesis is “God did it (or does it).” You need to make a prosecutors case and handle all of his alibis.
A few of the major alibis that need dismissal…
1) It is now common academic knowledge that the Exodus, Moses, right the military campaign of Joshua is myth. Complete fiction. We’ve known this for a couple decades now, thanks to the honest work of Israeli archeologists attempting to prove precisely the opposite. It is pretty hard to claim a genuine revelation was received during a period of fictional history.
2) The Bible describes an origin to the universe, the Earth, and especially us that is completely contradicted by everything we know about reality.
3) Jesus was incredibly clear about the power of prayer. And it’s all incredibly untrue.
4) The return of Jesus has been IMMENENT for 2000 years. Really?
Scott, thank you for your response, I appreciate your participation in this blog article.
My post here was not at all meant to provide an argument for the faith based on evidence, but discuss a topic I have a great interest in: hope. A discussion on the evidence for the Bible would be too lengthy for a blog, and actually large books have been written on the subject because that is what the subject requires. If you would like to discuss the evidence, I would be happy to via email, but addressing it here would create an endless back and forth.
The point I try to make is that the atheist viewpoint provides no ultimate justice nor any hope. Another approach to this topic would be to start with the assumption that atheism is correct and there is no religion at all. Then, I charge the reader to prove how any human has any value, since we are all accidents of nature and are under no moral authority. How can a suffering person ever have any hope for justice or peace, unless it come by accident? This is the case with atheism, it provides no hope for justice. In my opinion, that is rather bleak.
The conclusion of my blog refers to my source of justice and hope, the Christian faith. If my blog were a discussion which I began with the question about atheism and justice, I would then point out that my faith provides hope because I believe God exists, provides moral accountability, and offers relief to the suffering. All of this is evident in the Bible and can be referenced. From there, if a person was interested in learning more about this hope offered by the Christian faith, a look into the evidence would be in order. However, all of this is too much for a blog, and my blog posts are already too long.
From what I gather, your response to my observation (about the lack of justice and hope in atheism) is, “So what?” My question to you, Scott, is what would you say to someone who lost everything they worked their whole life for and was punished for the crime of another? “So what?” This actually happens all the time; many people never see justice on this earth before their bodies die and rot. If we are all cosmic accidents, then there is no justice and no hope. Or am I missing something?