Why do I even need God in my life? I'm an atheist, it's you who believe that everyone's born a sinner. It's your myth. I don't need your God.
You have asked very good question my friend! First of all, what the word ‘atheist’ means? You admitted that you are an atheist right? The etymology of this word is from two Greek words a and theos. It goes like this: a-theos which literally means ‘without God’. a refers to without and theos refers to God in Greek. It is thus a belief in rejecting the existence of God or any deities. The etymological root began before 5th century BCE. The actual term atheism emerged in 16th century. There was wide spread in the skeptical thought, criticism of religions and free thoughts.
Therefore,
by the definition, you have admitted that you live a life without God, in
absence of God and in believe that there is no God! The atheist argument goes
for the existence of evil in this world and the ongoing suffering and sorrows
of human beings. The great scientist Stephen Hawking also admitted that the
universe originated from nothing and so there is no need of God even to create
anything from nothing.
When
you ask why you do need God in your life, you have to reflect your life first.
You insisted that it is our myth to say that everyone’s born a sinner and you
concluded that you do need no God in life. I remember in the school life, we
used to have moral teachings and lessons. In that teaching we are taught to
quit pride, greed, anger, envy, etc. We are taught different stories through
which the consequences of such attributes are exposed and we are urged to quit
those attributes that gives no benefit. When a new child is born, no one
teaches him/her to cry, but he/she steps to this world by crying lot. When
starts his schooling age, no one teaches him to argue, fight, steal small
things, play pranks, disobey parents, etc. but he does these all. How on earth,
he learnt that? And it is even amazing that too much morality is focused since
schooling age. Why is that so? Can you confidently tell me any part of your
life during which you had no bad thoughts, you had no envy, you had no greed,
and moves on the life? Why will you teach your children moral lessons? So that
your children may quit their bad habits and attributes right? Then now my
question is, how or from where those attributes came from? If you say the
environment is responsible for this and what he sees from his family and
society he learns it. Again my question goes: From where then the human society
learnt those bad attributes from? When this questions passes on seeing backward
in the time, you might then reach evolution of human beings from monkeys. The
question can again be the same for those creatures. Here, the focus goes for
the environment and regarding human beings their generation keep passing on
learning from one another. The revenge, the quarrels, the disputes, the
jealousy, etc. keep on passing along the generation to generation. My question
is only one: How did this all happen? From where does this come from?
However,
when you ask why we need God then it is still a sensible question! Yes, why do
we really need God? Now think a while. Human society is existing along with the
bad attributes in them. No matter how far a person studies in his life,
achieves good grades and then has good job with earnings, gets marriage and has
a happy marital life yet can you be sure he is having a peaceful life? No
matter if an individual is poor or rich, everyone has sorrows in their life,
tension in their life, fear of death in their life, sufferings, and clashes
with people, and so on. The bad attributes in human themselves and their
consequences sums up in suffering and sorrows in society. The social evil are
all the consequences of these matter. There is loot, theft, murder, war, rape,
betrayal, etc. in human society even today’s scientific age. People have no
peace in heart. No satisfaction. Outside they show happy faces, but inside they
have burning flame of sorrows. The desire in us never end up. The attachment
with materialism in us never ends nor can these things satisfy us.
Buddha
if you know was raised in a Hindu environment. With a fear of possibility that
he might leave the palace, his father arranges every luxury to him in his
palace. He was granted with every facilities. But once when he travels outside
the palace, the scenario of human condition he sees tears his heart apart. How
would have he felt when he had seen people with sorrows and suffering while he
was living in a luxury? He then feels that the reality of life is different.
Now a great typhoon, tornado, hurricane, tsunami and earthquake scratches his
heart making him think even deeper about human life and suffering. One more
thing to tell you my friend is that Buddha was never a god. His path Buddhism
was atheistic. He had rejected the authority of Vedas and challenged many Hindu
rituals and practices. You can see no God in his teaching and philosophy. Yet,
a bitter truth is that he had no peace and he then went on searching for the
solution sacrificing his wife and son. Yes, he rejected God and taught karma
and reincarnation. He taught 8 fold paths and 4 noble truths in order to
achieve nirvana. No suffering, no sorrows, and no existence. Even Buddha gave a
time to reflect human society. Now, your logic may go towards saying that this
is modern age. Who’s got such time to ponder upon life? Everyone’s busy in
their own survival. That’s the problem my dear friend! That’s the problem. Today,
saying it is age of science, no one even has small fraction of time to think
upon these bitterness of life. Buddha did not say let me leave this. Who cares?
See, I am having such a luxurious life. No he did not say but moved on to find
solution, the liberation, the moksha, the nirvana! He meditated and became
enlightened. Even when you say about scientific age, do you know the Vedic age
in ancient India around 1500 BC afterwards? The sages, rishis, learnt gurus
were expert in mathematics, astrology, astronomy, psychology, philosophy, and
so many sects of education. The Vedas had such remarkable teachings. Such
education and busy life was there since ancient times and yet they had also
time to focus their life. When you study the Hindu text you can find cry of
human heart that they need liberation from sorrows and suffering: asatoma
satgamaya, tamasoma jyotirgamaya, mrityurma amritamgamaya i.e. their plead for
living a life in truth, living a life in light, and living a life of eternity. What
was the reason? The falsehood they were surrounded with, the darkness they were
captured with and the death they could not bear with. Even Aadi Shankracharya
stated with great pain and requested to God to destroy the death as it is
unbearable for taking uncountable reincarnations in cosmic cycle of life.
I
just mentioned few example from other religion just to show their reactions. They
searched for the solution when they realized the consequences. But I am bring
here a challenge to know the source of it! Now, let me go to the Bible. The
Bible reveals how this all came to be. God never created human beings to have
such a life of suffering. The world God created was good. He did not create
human beings and angels like robots but he provided them free will under
exercise of his sovereignty. The reality is: God doesn’t need us but we need
God! God doesn’t need even this material universe. He is self-sufficient. Yet
he created us because he wanted to show his love for us. He wanted us to know
difference between rule of divine and rule of evil, he wanted us to make right
choice and choose him, he wanted us to realize his essence. He thus created
angels and us with free will but it was an angel who first had desire to uplift
himself higher than God. Yes, God gave him desire and free will but he did
wrong choice. He chose his own desires of achieving great position rather God
his creator. The same virus now transferred to first human beings. Even if they
had been already warned by God, they chose to listen Satan. The temptation was
there, and they both failed. They did not trust God, they did not rely on his
word, they did not obey him. They chose to live in their own way. They cut off
their fellowship from God. Due to this fear of God, they became farther and
farther from God. They were created pure but after their wrong choice, they had
to suffer the consequences. You may ask why God did not stop them? Why created
them knowing that they would fall? My friend, even knowing that children should
struggle parents do not quit giving birth to their child. This is courage to
face the struggle! God had courage to face this ultimate challenge! Else he
shall be a coward! And, in class Maths teacher teaches students many times to
use right formula for a certain question. Now, in exam time, when a student
does error, teacher comes to visit the exam hall and sees his mistake, he feels
sad but doesn’t stop! The warning has already been given! God had already
warned them but rather they listened to falsehood!
The
separation from God, using other ways to escape from His wrath, greed for something,
attachment towards something, blaming one another, murder, envy, etc.
everything began and started corrupting the world and human generation. Every
newly born child stepped the world with same virus and had to face same
consequence. They lost God so their attachment went to other things to satisfy
their desire. They lost the truth and so lived under falsehood. They lost the
Life so they were ruled by death. They lost the light, so they were all in
darkness. The generation passed away, true God who is light and life was
forgotten. It was all wrong turn, wrong choice my friend! Some reject God and
become an atheist when he sees such mess in the world. Some submits himself to
nature due to its good use, the power it exhibits to humans and becomes animist.
Some submits himself to their self-made gods and become polytheism so that they
can have some hope for their survival. They seek some higher being who cares
them, who assists them. This all was the origin. We need God. We all are born
sinner which is not accusation to humans but a bitter reality. We all have lost
our potential of doing good. Why would God simply intervene? God made us to be
with him but now the messed up environment made us to train ourselves in this
world how we shall choose God’s will upon the evil choices. What are you going
to say to your offspring when they ask how it all became?
[Note to the reader: This was just an attempt of how would I respond their query and objection and this has not been written with an aim of convincing.]
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2 Comments
Keeping doing Kevin. .God bless you more
ReplyDeleteThank you very much :)
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