Value and Purpose in a Godless Universe:
This won't take long. In a universe with no God there is no purpose and there can be no values. I had some people ask questions about my last post. So just to clarify, this is how the world would look without God. This is how the atheist has to view humanity in order to be consistent. Granted, you won't find an atheist that lives this out, because consistency is not at the heart of atheism, randomness is. If nature is the only thing available then you can't protest the result. In nature the consistent pattern is that the strong survive in order to advance the species. In a godless world you can have no altruism. What's inside of us that propels us to feel sympathetic toward the weak, handicapped or marginalized in our society? Shouldn't we want them all exterminated if nature is our guide? In the heart of the atheist there is terrible inconsistency in sympathy. The interesting thing that I've found in studying is that the atheists (at least the bright ones) realize this and wrestle with it.
Outspoken atheist and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg wrote the following towards the end of his acclaimed book The First Three Minutes: "It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless." You see, the really intelligent atheists agree with my given statements in their own words. Everything is pointless in this universe, especially if this is all there is. Weinberg nailed it, without God the universe doesn't just "seem pointless," it really is.
The Noble Lie Option:
Here we have a truly terrible dilemma to face in this godless world of ours. The atheistic stance provides no road to a happy and consistent life. In order to live consistently within the boundaries of atheism, a man will find himself profoundly unhappy. In order to live happily, one must be profoundly inconsistent. In this realization there are atheistic philosophers that have come up with options, so let's walk down that road.
In an address to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in 1991, Dr. L.D. Rue proposed that we simply lie to ourselves so we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we and the universe do have value. This became know as the "Noble Lie" option. In his statement Dr. Rue said, "The lesson of the past two centuries is that intellectual and moral relativism is profoundly the case." He expounded on this by saying that "the consequence of this realization is that the quest for self-fulfillment and the quest for social coherence fall apart." A life void of defined meaning leads to relativism, and in relativism the search for purpose and fulfillment becomes privatized. Each person will in turn chose his own set of values and meaning.
Rue didn't present the "Noble Lie" as the only option, he went further. He also offers us the "Madhouse Option." This is one option in which each person will pursue self fulfillment regardless of the consequences of the destruction of social coherence. To round out his list, Rue presented the Academy with the "Totalitarian Option." In this option the state imposes social coherence at the expense of personal fulfillment. Now to be clear in this, Rue leaned toward the Noble Lie option and presented the Madhouse and Totalitarian options because he somehow assumed that those would be so absurd that the Noble Lie would just make sense. In closing the speech he further defined the Noble Lie option as "one that deceives us, tricks us, compels us beyond self-interest, beyond ego, beyond family, nation and race." When studying this speech I couldn't help but feel sadness towards this worldview. The verdict is out, and the decision has been announced. In order to survive, a godless man must live in a pattern of self-deception.
Going Forward:
This post closes out the worldview of the atheist from the words of their own. I want to be clear that I went out of my way to avoid the "Barnes and Noble" atheist crowd that are more concerned with selling books than finding answers. The men I quoted were all atheist, but at least they knew it was a social failure. In only being able to use a blog format I want to say that this was about 5% of the information I had to study, but studying the material did nothing but solidify my faith in Biblical Christianity as the best possible end result in the quest for meaning, value and purpose in life, and my next post will show you why to a small degree. I believe it's obvious, but I still want to take the time to show where Christianity fills in all the gaps and answers all the questions that atheism can't. At some point I will take a more scientific approach on atheism, but for now a philosophical one is really a better starting point (plus it's the subject matter that I'm studying). The sad thing about atheism is that it's really just a quest to explain the beginning, but once they rejected God as the source of creation then there was no turning back when they had to explain the present and future. The Noble Lie is all they have to fill the void of eternity.
Most atheists seek to be free from religion since they view it as a series of rules that one must adhere to in order to pacify God. What they fail to realize is that all Christians have already been set free. As Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up." To also pull a quote from the great C.H. Spurgeon on the subject of Christian freedom, "There is nothing in the law of God that will rob you of happiness; it only denies you that which would cost you sorrow." You can't be set any more free than that.
Someone confronted me recently to say that my time and money would be better spent pursuing Biblical degree programs other than apologetics. Their concern was that it did nothing for evangelism. I've just started in what will be a long process, but I can honestly say that I couldn't disagree more. It's emboldened me more towards evangelism. It's awesome to know that you don't have to put your intellect in one pocket and your faith in another in fear that you simply don't have the facts. Christianity IS NOT blind faith. It's history, and it's supported by an infra-structure of facts and logic.