Blog #2: What if there was no God?

It was sunrise in Florida on a clear December morning with temps near 80.

Sitting on a sand dune, the ocean view is spectacular. It was the kind of day that made you think about life, creation, and, yes, God.

The ocean stretched to the horizon where clouds were puffs and behind them was infinity.

The whole concept of God sounds so good, so inviting, and so wonderful. It’s a perfect place with security, comfort, and goodness.

But what if there is no God?

Gee, I winced, what an awful thought.

I considered the possibility.

Boy, a lot of people are going to be disappointed, I said to myself! My parents, having been faithful Catholics, really thought there would be a Heaven for them; after all, they earned it. They were good people.

What about all those poor souls seeking Jihad? They are going to miss the virgins, the glories of dying in the name of religion, and all that?  Islamic terrorists scream, “Allahu Akbar”, and hope to die as their price of admission to Heaven. They believe it enough to strap on suicide vests. Such is the strength of their belief unless they are coerced.  How awful is that?

Muslims are not the only ones who chase the heavenly dream with, perhaps, misguided counsel that death is better than dishonor in the eyes of Mohammed.

Many spend their whole lives with a single purpose to serve and satisfy God. They are represented in all religions.

Each of these religions has its story – the word of God written by men, edited by men, interpreted by men, and enforced by men. Can it be nothing more than the collective hopes and dreams of mankind to explain the unexplainable? To bring some kind of meaning to life?

Some will say that if you did not pick the right religion, you are out of luck and doomed.

And then there are the followers, by the billions. Mankind, in all cultures, and disparate peoples across all lands, developed the concept of a “Supreme Being” or spiritual force that provides a clear purpose to life itself. No matter if you are Jew, Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Mormon, Shinto, Sikh, Baha’i, or a member of dozens of other religions, the basic concept revolves around a God-like idea.

After all, why are we on this earth? It is to serve God, so they say. And if you do, the reward is heaven and everlasting peace and happiness. The penalty may be just the opposite and a motivating factor to ensure compliance.

All religions document their stories, much of them based on fear.  To me, it seems the single most powerful purpose, however, is that it gives people hope when they need it most. From hope comes the strength to endure the impossible.

Without hope, how could humanity survive all those hard times from the very beginning? Mankind has spent most of its existence on this planet in survival mode – in severe hardship and/or at war. For tens of thousands of years, our life span was so short that reaching 30 years of age was an achievement.

Without hope how could we live as we did?

Well, maybe if we all knew there was no God, intelligent design, divine spirit or another kind of deity - then maybe humanity would live very different lives.

Sitting on the beach and looking out across the wide ocean, I considered the possibilities.

If you really knew that no heaven or hell existed, then all focus would have to shift to how you want to live the precious years one has in what is really a very short life span, even if one’s life is more like 75 years, for most, it is far less.

We would have to rely on our own capabilities, efforts, and choices. As we all know, life is really about choices one makes of free will and the consequences of those choices made year after year.

It also means we just have to have faith in something that includes a set of positive values that we respect, promote and honor or not. That something could simply be the love of family. All mankind is a family on a very fragile planet that we seem to be ruining slowly but surely.

My eyes shifted to the plastic bottles and litter floating in from the ocean.

If there is no God, then the life you have is all you will ever get. That means, when it is over, there is nothing more. You become dust. Whatever hand you were dealt in life is what you have to work with, unless you change it somehow.

Too many just accept the hand they got and become victims, bemoaning what could have been.

If there is no God, then there is no spirit. No afterlife. No reincarnation. No other place to go; over and out.

For all the believers, they won’t even know that they got tricked.

For all the evildoers, they get a free pass.

When life deals with some kind of shock, setback, or difficulty, one would have no God to appeal for help.

Hmmmm, I thought. This is a concept that is far too hopeless for us to accept even these days. In many ways, we are still in survival mode. Too many of us on this planet are still savages. We need faith and belief in a greater power that will offer redemption. We also need the basic values offered by religion, such as the Ten Commandments, that enable order and refrain from evil acts.

We just have to have “hope” that keeps us going even in the toughest of times.

False hope?

Please, I thought, so many need real hope to keep going in the face of man’s continued inhumanity.

I sure hope there is a God.

I prayed.