by Mitch Mccrimmon

Created on: December 26, 2006   Last Updated: February 26, 2007

What would you lose if you stopped believing in God? Could you no longer be happy? Would your life have no meaning? Those who argue against belief in God focus generally on the rational question of whether God exists or whether there is any good reason to believe that he does.

This line of argument is doomed to fail because it doesn't give believers an alternative to their emotional motivation for believing. People believe, not because they have proof of God's existence or even a good, rational reason for believing. Rather,they believe because they don't see how their lives can be happy or meaningful otherwise. There are a wide range of needs that believing fills for people. But some people surely believe because of their fear of death. They can't live with the thought that their life comes to an end when they die. The problem with this feeling, however, is that it can undermine your efforts to create meaning and find happiness in THIS life. It becomes easy to accept an unhappy life by telling yourself that you will be rewarded in the next life. It is also easy to focus on the negative side of one's life, to dwell on what we don't have or what is wrong with our lives. One way out of this negative frame of mind is to think of your life as a dream holiday. Suppose you won a two week holiday of a lifetime with unlimited cash to spend during your holiday. Would you only let yourself enjoy the first week and then spend the second week feeling sorry for yourself because it has to come to an end? I don't think so. The attitude to cultivate is that being born is the greatest prize you could ever win and that you can make out of your life anything you want. No doubt some people have real physical and mental restrictions but then many such people do find a way to be happy so it's not impossible.

The key point here is that people will only stop believing in God when they learn how to make their present lives meaningful and happy without such belief. Still, as with addiction, some will never let go of this belief no matter what.

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