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FAQ #11

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Since I don't believe that there is any life or existence after I die, why should I care about what Christianity has to say about anything?

Perhaps the best reason is, that belief has no relationship to reality. What does that mean? Take a look at a children's cartoon program or the characters in a comic strip. Remember the cartoon character who is running because he is being pursued? He runs off the edge of a cliff, but he keeps on running until he looks down and sees that there is nothing between himself and the ground which is a 1000 feet below; it is only with that realization that he then falls to the earth. Everyone laughs, because they know that the laws of gravity do not operate in that manner. People fall to the ground if they go over a cliff, whether they know there is a cliff or not.

Many, if not most people, treat their religious beliefs like cartoon characters running off a cliff. They believe that they can believe whatever they wish, and even when they come to the end of their lives, those beliefs will prevail even if they are false. For them, belief is superior to reality and will protect them from falling, even though spiritual laws are just as real as that of gravity.

You should care about what Christianity has to say regarding your soul because it is true. You may believe otherwise, but it will not change reality. You may claim that there is no truth or that it cannot be known, but the Bible says otherwise and reality will prevail. You may claim that there is no God or that if a God exists, He will not judge or send people to hell for eternity. Those beliefs are convenient and they may soothe the conscience, but the reality is that they are false and one day every human being will stand before God to be judged and those that fail will go to an eternity in hell.

In addition, you should care about what Christianity has to say, because virtually every aspect of your life has been affected by Christian belief. Do you claim a moral basis for modes of conduct in your life or affirm a system of right and wrong? Then you are adopting Judeo-Christian principles of belief which have a religious foundation. Without a claim to a higher authority, based on an all-powerful God, who establishes certain unalterable criteria, then you have no claim to a moral value system or standards of right and wrong. Moral values are based on absolutes and absolutes cannot exist without an authority who has the power to enforce those absolutes. If you are a citizen or inhabitant of the United States, then your governmental system was established by persons who based their moral, religious and governmental beliefs on the authority of Christian principles and the God who established those principles. The authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States are not based on that document and the statutes that have been passed, but on the principles established by the God of the Bible who has the power to enforce the principles that the Constitution and laws represent. The Constitution states that men are endowed with certain "inalienable rights" which cannot be abridged. These rights can only be inalienable if they issue from an authority and power greater than the Constitution and greater than man. If those rights issue only from the Constitution then they are worth only the amount of the paper on which the Constitution is written. If those rights issue only from the man who is in power, then they are not inalienable, but subject only to the ability of the person in power to protect them.

Moral values and stability originate from a belief in a power superior to the one subscribing to that belief. Since your existence, as you know it, depends on that belief and Christianity claims to be a product of the God who established those standards and beliefs, then it would do you well to inquire into just what Christianity has to say in the book that Christians claim to be authoritative, the Bible.

END OF ARTICLE
by Gary A. Hand
On Doctrine

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
On this website:
Man's Natural Blindness In The Things Of Religion - Jonathan Edwards
Unbelievers Contemn The Glory And Excellency Of Christ - Jonathan Edwards

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