So that’s an assertion I’d like to consider.
Let’s start by imagining that no one has any allegiance to God, that the human conscious inclination toward the divine has been universally eradicated.
Poof! No more (awareness of) God!
So, what’s the next Big Thing people identify with? How about their nationality, the country they’re from? People without religion could still be expected to have their patriotism, right?
Which, in the “Can’t We All Just Get Along?” department, isn’t good. Wars, of course, have always been fought in the name of nationalism, in the defense or expanse of territory.
So in order to get people to live in perpetual harmony with one another, we’d have to get rid of religion and a passionate devotion to one’s homeland.
What next might people do with themselves; with what next might we all be expected to indentify ourselves? How about according to our ethnic heritage? I may not be a Christian any longer; I may no longer be an American--but I’m still a white guy! It seems reasonable to imagine that people without a God or a nation would next identify themselves according to their racial inheritance.
And too bad about that, too. I think we can all agree that racial strife has been the cause of countless murders and wars.
So in order to achieve peace and harmony throughout the world, no one could have a God, a country, or look in any substantial way different from anyone else.
But we’d all still have our minds, right? Whoo-hoo! So we would then create with our minds the best, most unifying idea systems we could think of, wouldn’t we? And since thinking about God would not be possible, that system would have to amount to some sort of Rational Ideology.
You can’t believe in God; you can’t believe in country; you have no ethnic loyalties. But at least you have Rational Ideology!
And that rational ideology would boil down (in one form or another) to communism or democracy.
I think we can all agree that communism was one major flop.
And Hitler (let us never forget) was elected.
So in order to become the sort of peaceful beings the atheists hope we might, we would have to rid ourselves of God, country, race, and extended rational thought.
Which brings us down to the pure, unadorned, exceptionally nondescript individual. And all people must give and receive love. Wherever people are, coupling will happen. And that, of course, leads to children.
The irreducible category for every human being is Family Member.
And each of us is more likely to be murdered by an “intimate” (that is, a spouse or lover), family member, or an acquaintance, than we are by a stranger.
So listen here, atheists! God doesn’t cause people to kill people. Human nature causes people to kill people.
And if we Christians know one thing, it's that the only thing that can save any of us from ourselves is God.
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