When we think about what it means to be human, about the things that differentiate us from inanimate objects or lower life-forms, we think about our capacity to reason, to exercise our freedom to make choices, to recognize right from wrong, to love and to create and to appreciate beauty. It is these things that make us human. It is these things that constitute our humanity.
It is my contention that God is necessary to our humanity. In other words, God is a necessary predicate of our freedom, of morality, of love, of creativity and of aesthetic appreciation of beauty. Conversely, atheist philosophies — including Marxism, the Objectivism of Ayn Rand, scientific materialism or Unitarian Universalist humanism necessarily require the rejection of our humanity. These philosophies necessarily and logically require the rejection of the proposition that there is such a thing as right and wrong, the denial of our ability to make choices, and necessitate the view that love and beauty are not real.
It is only by embracing the reality of God that we may retain our humanity, our capacity for moral choices, for love and for the aesthetic appreciation of beauty. (read more)
Posted by Sue Mosher at August 23, 2003 11:28 PM