Why Believe In A God...Atheism, Santa Claus, & Being Good

If you go to D.C. any time this holiday season, you may very well come across this ad (pictured left) on the public buses, paid for by the American Humanist Association. Of course, it has already caused quite a stirring across the country. People are ticked. Bill O'Reilly actually brought a spokesman for the group on to his show the other night and chewed him out saying something to the effect of, "How dare you use Santa Claus. He represents a Christian saint!" Now, I think Bill O'Reilly is a pretty smart guy, but I'm not entirely sure that's a helpful argument. If we can't have a sense of humor about Santa Claus, what can we have a sense of humor about? Personally, I found the ad to be pretty thought provoking. Plus, I haven't heard of any conversions to Christianity through a church marquis or one of those giant black billboard messages from "God," and I don't think we'll be hearing about any converts to atheism through this ad. But...

Just maybe it could have the opposite effect that is desired. Like I said, it's kind of a thought provoking ad. Stop and actually think about it. Why believe in a god? I think the implication from the humanist perspective is that people only believe in a God because they're afraid there would be no morals without one. And they're saying, "You don't need a God to tell you to be good. Why not just be good for goodness' sake?" Well, why not? I'd love to know your thoughts.

And while you're gathering those thoughts, I've got some as well. I think the ad's reasoning may be problematic in a couple of ways:

1) Most believers I know do not believe in God because they're afraid that the world will drift into moral disaster without His commands. On the contrary, they're looking at a world where His commands and moral disaster coexist. And it's been that way since Moses. In fact, if there is any obvious theme in the Old Testament, it is that the people of God, who received directly His commands to be "good," and even faced hardship, exile, and devastation when they were not "good," nonetheless persisted in giving Him and "goodness" the middle finger to the bitter end. And aside from what the Bible says, if we've ever watched five minutes of the local news or tried for even a single day to keep tabs on our own moral performance (that is thought, word, and deed), we know that the Ten Commandments in and of themselves aren't actually all that effective in making us better, much less making us good. Not at all actually. 94% of the people in this country believe in God and still 100% of those people are helplessly contributing to the current moral disaster that is our existence on this earth. So whether you write on a bus, "Be good for goodness' sake," or you write, "Be good for God's sake," we don't care. Either way, it doesn't work.

2) Well, maybe we care a little. Because, to be honest, "Just be good for goodness' sake" doesn't actually mean anything, unless "good" means something in particular. And where are we to get that definition? You either believe the world has an underlying order to it, or you don't. If you don't, then "good" can mean whatever you want it to mean. It will likely be utilitarian. What's good to you might be to conquer, kill, steal, and rape, while good to someone else might be to serve, help, give, and love. How can we say which is "better" if there is no standard? And if you do believe there is some underlying order, that some things are inherently good and some things inherently evil, yet still insist that you do not believe in a god, ask yourself, "Where am I getting this standard?"

3) Now, back to the original question: "Why believe in a god?" A question that may perhaps, ironically, turn us to Christianity rather than humanism. If it is not simply to keep moral order in the world, then why? Well, first, because He is real. And what I mean by that is, of course, if He is real, we should believe in Him. If He is not, then of course I stand by St. Paul, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud in stating that we are to be pitied for believing in such a massive illusion. But if He is real, and He is as good as the New Testament joyfully proclaims that He is...if the God who, out of Love, gave Himself up for a world that completely rejected Him, the God who took away humanity's eternal curse by taking it all at once upon Himself, who planned from the beginning to adopt us as sons and daughters and to make us heirs to his eternal kingdom where those who are poor will be rich, those who are hungry will be fed, and those who weep will laugh...If He is the God who promises to make us perfect forever who once spit in his face and nailed him to a cross if we would only believe that He is all that He claims to be...if that God is real, well then I want to know! And if I cannot know, then at the very least I want to bet everything on the chance that He is. Because I'm desperate. And I'm not the only one. Most of us have been slowly bleeding chips on bad bets our entire lives, and bankruptcy is just around the corner. What if He is it? Actual hope for me and for the world.