If there is no God, then . . .

"If there is no God, then . . ."

I've been mulling over that phrase lately. 

One of my biggest questions is, "Who's right?" as in, "Everyone believes they are right and can prove it by Scripture, but too often, people come to diametrically opposed conclusions.  They can't all be right.  So who's right?"

One answer I thought of was, "If there wasn't a God, I wouldn't have to worry about that question!" 

Well, that would be easy.  If there is no God, I wouldn't have to worry about the question of "who's right?" 

Last night I Googled the phrase, "if there is no God" and one of the hits I got was from a Huffington Post article by Sam Harris, an outspoken atheist who's the author of many books, including The End of Faith.  For him, the argument against a God boils down to:  If there is a God, he either has no power to prevent or end suffering and disaster -- or he does and just doesn't care to use it. 

I am going to pull what is probably a cop-out and say, I don't know why God doesn't prevent pain and suffering.  That is way beyond my pay grade, and I am very impatient with simplistic answers to the very real problem of evil. 

But last night, as I noodled the question of, "if there is no God, then . . .", it hit me that if there is no God, then any wisdom, any knowledge, any comfort, any strength I have can only come from me and from the people around me.  If there is no God, no Supreme Being, no Higher Power, then all I have to rely on is outside knowledge I get from the world around me, and the only people I can rely on are those around me.  And if they are anything like me, they may not have the wisdom I need or the answers I need.

I know myself.  I am a poor source of strength, wisdom and knowledge.  If I only have myself to rely on, I am going to get in real trouble, real fast. 

There are a lot of answers I don't have.  I haven't fully solved the question of "who's right?" and I can't even begin to give anyone answers to the questions of "why evil?"  I can tell you that Adam and Eve screwed up in the Garden of Eden and we've all been paying the price ever since.  I can't tell you why the shooting in Parkland, Florida happened on Wednesday.  I can't tell you why a mother and son died in a freak accident in 2009.  Oh, I can give you the clinical details--a 19-year-old picked up an assault rifle and started shooting; a tire blew on a freeway and a van flipped over.  But why that van?  Why a shooting in that particular place?  I don't know.

And I can't say that I'll never revisit the dark valley of depression.  I have the illness, and it strikes at very inopportune times.  It's why I visit a doctor and a counselor and why I take medicine. 

But if I have to rely on what is only within myself, I won't make it.  I have to have--I need to have--something that is outside myself, something that is greater than I am, stronger, wiser, and a lot more compassionate than I am. 

Why the God of the Bible, then?

I confess that part of it is the fear of hell--I'm not a fan of eternal punishment--but if I understand Christianity, God gave first.  He gave Himself first, in the form of his Son, Jesus, and He asks us to give ourselves back to Him in return.  Other religions ask us to give, but did their god give themselves first?  Do they demand sacrifice and adherence to their way of living without giving them the supernatural power to do so? 

My questioning isn't over.  But I do have at least one answer to, "if there is no God, then . . ."

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.