About three years ago, I sat outside my college campus, hiding under a patio umbrella from the sweltering Floridian sun.

I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Not at first, anyway. But I couldn’t help but overhear the strange conversation between two boys a few tables away from me.

“If I didn’t believe in God,” one of them was saying, “there would be nothing stopping me from murdering you, right here.”

I frowned. What the heck?

By the boy’s tone of voice, it was clear he had no hostility towards his friend. It wasn’t a threat. It was a common evangelistic argument I’d heard from Christians before: Without God, there is no moral law; and without a moral law, there’s no reason for us to behave morally.

The non-believing boy just nodded in response, listening graciously as his zealous friend made his whole case for belief in God.

I didn’t hear the rest of their conversation. Or at least, I don’t remember it. That one sentence stood out to me so strongly, and it rang in my mind for months and years after.

“If I didn’t believe in God, there would be nothing stopping me from murdering you, right here.”

Something was just… wrong about that. Eventually I figured it out, and I had the urge to fly back in time, march up to that boy and shout, “If that’s true, how come this boy, who doesn’t believe in God, isn’t murdering you right now? If belief in God is the only thing that keeps us from behaving badly, how come millions of nonbelievers and atheists aren’t running around committing random violence?”

I’d pause, reining in my anger. Why did this upset me? I was a Christian. I was all for evangelism. I just thought this argument for God was rubbish. For some reason I couldn’t explain, it deeply frustrated me.

“And with all due respect,” imaginary me would say to the boy, “if the only thing stopping you from murdering random people is your belief in Jesus, then you have serious problems. And they’re a lot deeper than so-called ‘original sin’.”

The danger of godlessness?

Years later, during my own faith crisis, I started digging into apologetics on a frequent basis. And lo and behold, I came across this argument again.

It seems that many that Christians are terrified by the idea of godlessness. “It’ll lead to immorality,” they say, a thrum of anxiety in their voice. “If there is no God, no moral code, and no after life, what’s the point of anything?”

They proceed to describe horrific futures of godless people descending into aimlessness, nihilism, selfishness, and pleasure-driven destructiveness. Without God, there is no meaning to life; without meaning, there is nothing to live for but yourself.

The implication is that if people lose their faith in God, they will immediately think, “F**k the rest of the world. Forget decency. I will live as I will, for myself. Because nothing matters.”

And society will crumble, bla bla bla.

Ultimately, I found this narrative absurd.

And in my own life, a different narrative played out instead.

Another view

Here’s how I see it.

One day, our sun will explode. (Unless the Biblical prophecies are true about some sort of divine return.)

I am a speck in the vast cosmos. I am a blimp in the vastness of time. Billions of years proceeded me, and billions more will follow after me. My life is a breath, like David said.

It is this view of reality, this opening of my eyes, that – unlike apologists predict – makes me less the center of the universe.

It humbles me. It makes me want to do the best I can with this tiny breath of a life I have. It makes me want to live with purpose and passion and fullness and wholeness.

Rather than making me more selfish, it broadens my view of the world and enlarges my heart for humanity. For my fellow intelligent primates.

Rather than making me more selfish, it broadens my view of the world and enlarges my heart for humanity.

It makes me want to discard irrational religious rules, yes, because life is too short and death too final for that! But it also makes me want to improve the lives of people around me.

It make me want to fight for liberation of the oppressed, for equality of the marginalized, for elevation of the disadvantaged.

In short, a world without God doesn’t motivate me to be more selfish, as apologists claim it should. It motivates me even more to be able to reflect on my deathbed that I had done something meaningful with my life.

Something that mattered.

Switching the narrative

On the contrary, it is the worldview of everlasting life and Christ’s prophesied return that, frankly, takes away my urgency for doing good.

It makes me feel slightly less concerned. Jesus will come back soon anyway, right? He’ll put everything in its place. Pain and tears will be no more. And I have forever to live a meaningful life, even if I don’t live one now.

Granted, this is all just a thought experiment for me. I still believe in God, even if I’m not sure about the popular interpretations of Revelation. Or Genesis. Or most of the Bible, really.

But I digress.

Though I believe in God, I do have days where I seriously doubt him. Where I wonder if everything about him is just made up. If spiritual experiences are some sort of evolutionary advantage created by my brain, nothing more.

And it’s on those days, those days I think more like a secularist than a Christian, that my morality (at least, morality as I would define it) does not suffer.

My compassion does not suffer.

My empathy does not suffer.

My desire to be a better person, to grow and improve and learn, does not suffer.

If anything, these things are amplified. (Oh, the horror!)

I’ve found that for me, contrary to the assertions I’ve heard from Christian apologists, I don’t need religion to have ethics. I don’t need a set of cosmic, divine rules to care about human decency, or to have a sense of right and wrong.

I don’t need Christianity to maintain my passions for justice, equality, and human dignity.

I don’t need Christianity to be disgusted by human wickedness, including the potential for wickedness in my own heart.

I don’t need Christianity to be grieved and by human suffering, and to be moved to action to alleviate it.

The truth is, these cords run deep into the core of who we are. With or without religion, it may feel good for a little while to live for yourself… but ultimately, it is unfulfilling.

Ultimately, it is universally more life-giving to live for others, to feel that your life has purpose.

This sense of purpose can be found in Christianity. It can also be found in humanism, and in a plethora of other worldviews.

Is one worldview more “moral”?

I still choose to be a Christian for a number of reasons.

But if that were to change, I know I would still be me. I would still, I believe, have the same heart.

And I can tell just by looking around me, reading the news, and studying history, that being a Christian does not necessarily and universally imply greater ethical behavior.

You might even argue that some of our history’s worst atrocities have been committed by self-identifying Christians. We can argue later, though, whether or not the countless pedophiles, rapists, ethnic cleansers, slave owners, terrorists, abortion center bombers, and medieval torturers were “real” Christians.

As they say, “only God knows their hearts”. (Imagine me repeating this cliche phrase with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.)

By the same study of friends and family, news, and history, I can see that being a secularist or a member of other religions does not necessarily and universally imply inferior ethical behavior.

I see beautiful acts of service and compassion from humans of all creeds, and of no creeds. I see self-sacrificial love, respect, and unshakable convictions of right and wrong from people of all stripes.

The same goes for hatred, terrorism, and cruelty. It can sprout like a disease from anywhere.

Including Christianity.

What is the point, then?

Whenever I hear the argument from apologists that godlessness leads to immorality, I can’t help but groan, because it’s so unconvincing.

“If there’s no God, what’s the point of anything?”

I’ll tell you what.

If there’s no God, then it’s not true that nothing matters.

If there’s no God, then everything matters.

Because everything is impermanent.

And it’s up to us to enjoy it, to appreciate it, and to make it as beautiful as we can while it’s still here.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that idea incredibly empty and depressing. I find it to be rather inspiring, motivating, and life-giving.

So much for godlessness being a disaster.

Image credits: Pixabay