A World Without God
I was raised Catholic. Mine was not an average Catholic family—my mother was likely the most devout, uncompromising Catholic I have ever personally known, at times even deeming certain priests “bad” if they dared to challenge any of the current dogma. And she wasn’t referring to the priests who, despite their vow of celibacy, somehow felt justified in forcing children into having sex with them; no, she was thinking of the handful of priests who tried to tell her that God was more fair and forgiving than he was portrayed by the church. My mother kept handbooks on the dogma of Catholicism, filled with bookmarks and notes to ensure that she, and we, never fell short of her unrealistic expectations. Growing up this way was stifling, and terrifying if I dared to contemplate my ultimate destiny should I make one mistake too many.
Despite their prohibition, in my late teens I managed to have a boyfriend without my parents’ knowledge, and eventually we succumbed to human desires. As a consequence, I believed that I was destined for hell; this is what had been drilled into me for as long as I could remember. I was wracked with anxiety initially, but over time I decided that I might as well do whatever I wanted since I was going to hell anyway. That logic did not serve me well; it took me years to experientially realize the value in choosing to do right simply because it is right and not because I feared punishment. Morality aside, I hadn’t even considered there might be pragmatic consequences to this sort of ideology.
As I grew older and I contemplated the inconsistencies and injustices of certain Catholic teachings, I could no longer place my faith in the rather capricious God I had been raised with. As mentioned above, there are clergy members who abuse their positions of ecclesiastical authority and with it, their vulnerable congregants in horrific, damaging ways. How could I continue to support a religion whose authorities only transferred such errant priests to other parishes so they could traumatize yet more children, and spent over $3 billion of parishioner contributions paying off their victims?
Catholicism isn’t the only religion rife with corruption and oppressive, rigid doctrines. Others similarly defy logic, fairness, even basic human rights. Many Christian religions have glossed over the teachings of Jesus in favor of doctrines about him—they focus more on the miracles and less on the extraordinary way he lived as a human. I fully understand why people are turned off by institutional religion. Confused and disillusioned by the time I left home, I put the whole notion of God on the shelf for later consideration. But should we throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater? A few years wiser now, I assert that we can nurture a personal relationship with God without being slave to the rites and rules of organized religion.
For some, however, even that would be a turn-off because it requires something more of us. It requires that we forgo selfishness, that we exercise self-control over our baser, animal tendencies, that we follow the Golden Rule. It demands that we think for ourselves, that we evaluate right and wrong without blindly following a set of predetermined guidelines. At its most noble, it asks that we choose to do God’s will. But we live in a time when few of these things are encouraged. Instead, our culture allows us to indulge our sexual urges without taking responsibility for the consequences—biological or interpersonal; to put our needs and desires before others, including our children; to forgo patience for instant gratification; to worship the material instead of the spiritual. Humanists would argue that they can follow these honorable aspirations of living without God as their inspiration, but they seem to forget that those values had their origins in Judeo-Christianity.
For yet others, the idea of believing in God is unscientific, irrational, laughable, or an indication of weakness. And while it’s true that many religions have denied well established scientific discovery and thereby alienated many rational, critical thinkers, I argue that science and true religion are not mutually exclusive—that science attempts to explain and make sense of the laws of nature and the universe that were drafted and realized by our Creator. Indeed, there are many great scientists, who, upon deeper exploration in his or her field of study, have come to the conclusion that it is irrational to remove God from the equation. “Without God, without religion, scientific secularism can never coordinate its forces, harmonize its divergent and rivalrous interests, races, and nationalisms.”
Where has this rejection of God led us? It has allowed those in positions of power and in possession of wealth to exploit others to their own ends. Many of our political leaders are governed by greed instead of by the call to serve their constituents. Medical and food industries are driven by profit rather than by the goal of providing quality healthcare and sustenance. We see men and women who walk away from their spouses and children because they are bored, dissatisfied, or unwilling to compromise, and because society allows it. The family—the backbone of civilization—is in jeopardy because so many of us are unwilling to assume the commitment and responsibilities requisite for its maintenance. Ironically, it also seems to be the case that as the majority of us now enjoy much higher standards of living than our forebears, we take those luxuries for granted and challenge the very values and efforts that provided them for us. “Without God, neither freedom and liberty, nor property and wealth will lead to peace.”
What is the answer? I believe we must learn to see God as he truly is and not as we humans tend to project our lesser qualities onto him. For this, we should look to the man who most perfectly balanced the challenges and necessities of human life with the dedication to doing his father’s will. We can choose to live by Jesus’ most basic teaching—to love one another as God loves us, with immeasurable affection and compassion, and hopefully in the process we will inspire others to join us. Maybe in addition to (or instead of) attending church service, we can make time every day to commune with our Creator. We can thank him for our blessings, and we can ask for guidance and inspiration as to how we can best love and serve our fellows.
While it is true that many religions have waged wars and committed atrocities in God’s name, removing God altogether from humanity will only result in far worse. “Secularism frees man from ecclesiastical slavery only to betray him into the tyranny of political and economic slavery. This godless philosophy of human society will lead only to unrest, animosity, unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster. Secularism no sooner frees man from the domination of the institutionalized church than it sells him into slavish bondage to the totalitarian state.”