Make Friends with a Lonely Atheist

This morning I read a story about atheists who have decided that atheism should be more than a stance, it should be a cause they promote. I can understand them doing this because atheism must be a lonely experience, all in all. They naturally would like to build around themselves a community of others who feel the way they do.

Who wants to be the only one in his neighborhood with his fingers in his ears, shouting "blah, blah, blah" at all the stuff about God that surrounds him and his family? It would be so much more comforting to take the kids to atheist camp and sing songs of free thought around the campfire, songs like "Don't kum byah, non-existent Lord, don't kum byah".

The most interesting thing I saw in the article was words that are on a billboard the atheists put up. It said,

"Being a good person doesn't require God.

Don't believe in God?

You're not alone!"

I would dispute the "not alone" part because I think that not believing in God probably leads to loneliness on a profound and cosmic level. However, much more interesting and thought-provoking to me is the question of what they mean by "good person". By what standard do they evaluate what a good person is? I think they would probably point to the good works they do, but why are those considered good?

I went to an atheists' website and saw lots of pictures of atheists picking trash up by the highway and going on walks for cancer cures. Why is that good? It looks like a lot of time-wasting, sweaty activity that leads to sore muscles. Yet they believe they are good people who don't need God because they do these things that benefit other people.

How did that standard for good come to be? It must have come from someplace outside of themselves because left to themselves with no outside influences to make them think better of it, people generally would not put on a silly orange vest and stab filthy trash all day while cars rushed by just inches from their elbows. Yet, there they are in the picture with piles of black trash bags in front of them.

If I could sit one of those good atheists down and have a friendly talk, I would ask her where she got her idea of "good". She might attribute it to the general knowledge that all people have in their hearts about what is right or wrong. She might say that over the course of human evolution people have learned what works and what doesn't for our survival. Doing nice things for each other contributes to the perpetuation of the species. But why care about that if we all only have one shot at life? Who cares about the perpetuation of the species? Once an atheist's life has poofed out, why would she care if even the whole world comes to an end?

I think that my hypothetical atheist friend probably does good works, not to help perpetuate the species, but out of concern for the quality of her own life. Maybe she lives in fear; fear of being ostracized from other people, fear of not being remembered well, fear of bad "karma". The very thing she criticizes God-believers for doing, acting out of fear (in this case, of God), is what she does.

No matter who is determining what is "good", good has to be measured by some set of standards. Unfortunately for atheists, the generally agreed upon standards were first recorded a long time ago in the Bible. In fact, they were recorded so long ago, so early in human experience, they didn't have time to evolve with the species. The most sophisticated and perfect instructions in good behavior were originally handed down to tribal people who were "not a people" yet. The Israelites, who became a "people" as a result of the laws they received. Then they published the law of their God, the world had its standards for goodness.

It is hard on atheists to try and prove they are good without God. Any good thing they can think of to do, He already thought up. He authored the Book of Goodness. So, maybe they can be good people and pretend the Book is useless and the Author isn't there, but it seems silly. Most of us know better than to think up something that doesn't exist and spend our lives protesting and trying to demonstrate its non-existence.

If there is a very high percentage of the populationwho claim to have a personal relationship with God, and their claims have persisted since the dawn of time, there may be something to it. My sympathies go out to atheists who disagree so vehemently with those claims. It is hard to keep on saying to believers "No, you don't have a relationship with God. He doesn't exist!" and then have them all look back at you like you are crazy.

No wonder they're lonely.