More On the Godless Universe

The following is a response to a friend of mine who asked me to elaborate on my statements concerning a Christian universe being a better prospect than a Godless one. I hesitated in posting it here, but at the end of the day I think there are things here that should be put in the public forum.

“How would respond to an atheist who believes their life to have more of a point after they gave up belief? Or would you even respond?”

Well, on the one hand my response would be tempered by my relationship with the person in question. There are people I can speak openly with and there are those with whom I must be gentle because I value their friendship. Not just shutting up to get along but some worldviews are so alien from one another that they have to treat each other carefully. Were I to encounter the argument on paper and set about to write a response, my response would go something like this:

                If we were capable of imagining that we had no preconceived notions of Christ, humanity, the world, etc. and were given a choice between a universe where we could live a finite life in as much pleasure as we wish or a universe in which we had the opportunity for eternal life bathed in truth and love and some discomfort, I’d imagine most people would choose the latter. The new atheist has made a similar comparison and concluded otherwise. I believe the reason for this is that they have compared the ugliest Christianity to the sun shiniest Atheism. You’ll note sometimes that an atheist will make a case for a specific Christianity before knocking it down (straw man). I had a friend once that was a Calvinist street preacher before becoming an atheist. When I expressed an interest in pursuing God in the most original context possible (Orthodoxy) before rejecting Him completely, my friend made it his mission to convince me that Calvin’s Christianity is the only possibly true Christianity. Think about that for a minute.

                The atheistic universe is one in which the Universe started one day and will eventually entropy into non-existence. In the intervening time it develops some interesting things, like humanity, that could be appreciated for a while by things like humanity and when either disappears there is no longer anything to appreciate or anything to appreciate it. It’s like the poem Ozymandias, except there won’t even be anyone to appreciate the irony. It might as well have not existed. I am reminded of a description of that time in a Doctor Who episode where “the furnaces were burning and humanity screaming into the night”. Damn God for not existing.

                The Christian universe is one in which the Universe was started and will eventually be sanctified in a final state of perfection. We were created to crown it and we are co-working with the Creator to sanctify it. Even at the end of Time we will continue infinitely into the ever deepening wisdom and love of an infinite God. In Orthodoxy, we even have the hope that all will eventually be saved, even if it is an EXTREMELY cautious hope.

                This is nowhere near an argument for the existence of God. It could just be that bad. It is only a demonstration of how one model is preferable to the other. The new atheist feels that we are free to work out our morality divorced from that of our primitive ancestors. The problem is that a morality based in the fickle and ever changing landscape of popular culture is a morality that is fickle and ever changing. Right now, those who experience same sex attraction are experiencing a certain level of social benefit but I would wager money that the tides of ideologies will change and they will suffer terribly. Remember how the serpent promised us we would be gods and brought us lower than we began. There is something to be said for having your stake (cross?) anchored in something eternal.

                There is only one good reason to believe that an atheistic universe is better than a Christian one and that is that in an atheistic universe there is no answering for anything. Choice and Freedom are maximized. They also mean nothing.