Godless Atheism and the Texas Church Murders

Selwyn Duke says what I have been trying to say relative to the Sutherland church shooting, only Duke says it better, and more clearly than I have managed to say it. Duke's article is at the American Thinker today and is entitled Godless Atheism and the Texas Church Shooter. Duke writes:

“If God does not exist, everything is permitted,” wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. Mentioning this in association with Devin Patrick Kelley, the militant atheist who last Sunday perpetrated the worst church shooting in U.S. history, is bound to raises hackles. Of course, few atheists will descend into committing murder; in fact, I’ve known some I’d call “good people.” Moreover, note that I myself once not only didn’t believe in God, but like Kelley thought religious people were “stupid.” Yet is it possible a straight line can be drawn between atheism (the belief) and increasing crime and immorality? Ideas do have consequences, after all.

Duke's point here is that unless we rely on a higher power than we men and women, everything becomes matters of preference. We can dress it up with pretty words, but at the bottom, that is what it means, and Dostoevsky is correct that everything is permitted. The idea that there are actions that are moral and those that are not, indeed to even discuss values, becomes a matter of consensus based on human preference.

This brings us to the true meaning of “You can’t be moral without God”: If divine law isn’t real, no one can be “moral” because you cannot conform to a non-existent standard. “Moral” is as incomprehensible a term in a universe without Truth as “physical” would be in one without matter. So, if God doesn’t exist, neither atheists nor theists can be moral — only in or out of fashion.

The reality, my atheist friends should note, is that embracing any moral is a matter of faith. We cannot see a moral under a microscope or a principle in a Petri dish. Science cannot prove murder (or anything else) is wrong — only possible. For science merely tells us what we can do, not what we should.

People generally don’t come to terms with these implications of atheism because most don’t take their world view to its logical conclusion; many also wouldn’t want to, for it means staring true meaninglessness in the face. It means that all the causes moderns fill their lives with are mere vanity. Tolerance can’t be better than intolerance, love better than hate, or respect for life better than murder in a godless, Moral-Truth-bereft world.

For me, I have been where these people are, as Duke says he was too. It was the realization of the ultimate meaninglessness of everything, the sense that there is nothing, that our lives mean nothing, and go nowhere, that caused me to keep seeking.  Looking into the abyss I took Pascal up on his wager.  The road of faith before seemed weak, turns out ti be the greatest of strengths.  To place oneself in the hands of a being we can neither see, nor understand, but rely on him to make it right, actually takes guts and strength. And once I began to have faith, I could see that I had really been running on nothing but faith all along.

So what does this have to do with the Texas shooter?  What does this have to do with gun control?  Just this, if you believe that man is truly the measure of all things, and that there is no moral truth, only men's preferences, then our right to self defense is not a God given, pre-existing right that can not be infringed (morally) but is a privilege once granted to our people at some previous time in history,   It has no meaning in today's world.  Also if you believe this way, then Government is indeed the only thing that can civilize an otherwise barbaric people.  Unfortunately, the government cannot be everywhere, and prosecutors cannot bring even an approximation of true justice, if one can say that such exists.

What the framers intended, was that we would be largely self governing.  The laws would be based on Christian teachings and the moral law.  Government, in this scenario, would necessarily be limited.  The people would have a right to arms as a way to keep government in check because, as every Christian knows, we are all poor miserable sinners, in need of the saving Grace of Jesus Christ.  Under this system,  there is no need for the police to be everywhere, no need for prosecutors to provide perfect justice, because God provides the ultimate justice.  Note that murder would be rare because to kill another human being, is to kill an image of God.

What I am saying is that there is no need for gun control, and in any case, it would be ineffective if the reason is to eliminate peoples ability to murder each other.  More people are killed with other instruments and tools.  On the other hand, if it is to put a totalitarian system in place, which I believe to be the real reason, it will not have an effect.  I know the power the elites think they will get by forcing all of us to live as they think we should.  But it is an illusion, and illusive.  Too late they will realize the emptiness of their lives.  Meanwhile, if there are 300 million guns in America, only one of those guns actually was used to murdered 26 people and injured 20 others.  The other 299,999,999 guns did not do anything.