Open Letter to an Atheist
God Is Love.
Take any argument that uses God as a subject and replace it with the word love. Love cannot be proven. Love is responsible for passions in men that go beyond logic. I would argue that love is not the reason for wars , and other atrocities, but then again self love-ie pride-is. That results from considering our selves, God.
So why God? Order! You see, everything has order. Even the randomness of chaos appears to operate in a playing field of order. Who says that God had to provide this order? He did, for one. Many brilliant and educated minds have sought out truth and come to the same conclusion. It appears so easy to label those who have come to conclusion that there is some form of intelligence behind the order in the universe as brainwashed morons believing in superstition (or please insert any derogatory statement that reduces the debate to namecalling) and those who hold a different opinion as “freethinkers(etc,), that it's difficult to wish to enter the discussion. But having done so I will put forth a few points to “freely think” about.
Why Order? What is it that makes any of it work? I became convinced of the existence of God during my 9th grade biology class. We were studying skin cells. And the complexity of how a single cell manages to operate is spectacular. Now I can agree that we have come to understand how these things operate, but not why. At every level we find a complexity of order that is beyond our ability to create.
But we create all kinds of stuff, you say. I would put forth that we assemble/rearrange/build a great deal, but that man has yet to create a single thing. All matter that was, is. Even the birth process of our own people is a series of seemingly near impossible events that must take place in perfect sequence for a new person to emerge. We can manipulate it, but we cannot create it. Do you really believe that random chaos is is conducive to life? It works for destruction(something we are pretty good at), but not so good in creation.
Why morality? What leads us to believe that there is any truth whatsoever? I mean if truth is relative, than my truth is your false, and Hitler or Dalmer was no more right or wrong than Ghandi or Mother Theresa. An easy one to shout out a “yes, that's right”, to, but think about it. If there is no right and wrong( universal truth) than the whole argument is moot. There is no logic. No ability to discern, we break down into randomness and chaos. A=B will not work because I can assert that my truth is to counter yours and we are left with namecalling and chaos. So we simply agree that killing small children to make tacos is socially unacceptable, at this time( some would call this a social contract). I don't know about you, but I have a real sense that killing small children is wrong. I also get a strong conviction that helping someone who is in an auto accident is right. I call it morality, but I suspect it borders on truth. Why do we have any sense of right and wrong if we are nothing but evolved monkeys? What is it about us that even let's us develop the ability to codify Logic(which oddly enough is based on the concept that things are true or false)?
Why Beauty? While I recognize that this is a largely subjective concept, I do put forth that the mere concept of beauty is in contradiction to the “evolved monkey” concept. We are the only creature that even appears to have any concept of appreciating beauty. We sing about it, write about it, focus on the search for it, and yes, we find it. Although our individual definitions vary we all find beauty in the things in our world, even if that beauty is something like a well executed play on a football field or a well finessed debate in the boardroom, instead of a painting by Da Vinci, a symphony by Mozart, or the smile on your childs face. Or even a sunset, a flower or a single skin cell. Beauty is all around us, and though you can coldly say it is only in the eye of the beholder, it does exist, despite insisting that it really doesn't. A world without beauty would be a pretty bleak place, one without order, one without truth, one without love, one without God.
But we don't live in that world...Do we???
Remember, God is Love
