Chuck chuck bo buck bananafana fo fu…

…nny article Bore Me to Tears linked to today, from last November. Chuck Colson, a guest columnist for The Christian Post, wrote one of those wonderful Can We Be Good Without God? (Heck no!) articles. Bore Me To Tears focused on the amusing angle that without a god we may as well eat our own children like guppies do. Can’t be wrong if no god says it is, right? Yeesh.

Apart from God, we have no reason to take morality seriously.

Of course we do. We all have to live in our societies, we all have to agree to abide by societal laws. Many of those laws come from moral codes, codes of ethics, and laws that have proven throughout history to be decent, sensible laws that help societies maintain some sense of order. Are there flaws? Sure, but it’s not because atheists exist. Flaws in education systems have nothing to do with whether or not atheists pray. Rampant drug use and gang related violence doesn’t exist simply because atheists aren’t in church on Sundays.

Sure, we can do a few good things here and there without God. In fact, it would be great if atheists this Christmas were to give gifts to poor children or the children of prisoners like we do with Angel Tree.

I don’t have any stats to back up this statement, but I’m sure atheists/humanists wouldn’t feel compelled to wait until Christmas to donate time, food, or money to a good cause. There are secular groups available if people don’t want to help religious groups pass out their beliefs with a loaf of bread, though. Do some hunting.

But to think we can be good, that we can build a good and humane society without God, is pure folly. And it’s a folly with catastrophic consequences, as the untold millions of victims of the atheistic utopianisms of the 20th century bear witness.

I wonder who on earth he could mean there. I don’t recall any atheist catastrophes being studied in school. A lot of faulty Marxism, but no faulty atheism. Ever see much in the news about Estonia or Sweden? I don’t. Both of those countries record very little in the way of religious leanings and so far I haven’t heard of any attempts to take over the world.

Or as we see today in our depleted savings accounts—the result of a subprime crisis caused by immoral actions on the part of mortgage lenders.

Bankers never go to church? Seriously? None of them believe in god? That’s the argument for why people got sucked in and lost everything? Spare me.

So if those ads make news in your town, or if you happen to see one plastered on a local bus, why not start a conversation with an unsaved friend about the impossibility of being “good for goodness’ sake”—that is, without God.

Yes, why not? That’s way better than vandalizing the billboards just because you don’t agree with them. Maybe that unsaved person will laugh in your face because the assumption that people can’t be good without god is completely worth laughing about for as long and as loud as we can manage. It’s so funny that people can still think such things in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Oh, the human condition. What a joke we are, every day. Funny funny funny.

And then offer your friend rational arguments for the existence of our Heavenly Father—the kind offered by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. You might even send a copy to your local humanist society as a Christmas present.

And then they may pass you a copy of Letter to a Christian Nation or some other worthwhile reading.

Who knows? They might develop rational doubts about why they are so obsessed with a God they believe doesn’t exist.

We’re not obsessed with god. If anything, we’re obsessed with demonstrating how unnecessary belief in god is in order to have a good, productive, moral and ethical life. But even that isn’t quite right. I don’t wander around shouting about my atheism while I do my good deeds. That’s right, sir. An atheist just held this door open for you and your cane. What do you have to say now? Nyer nyer! No god’s better than your god! Ha ha, sucks to be you, you believer!

Hardly. I just work, live, and do. If people assume I’m religiously motivated and god-fearing for why I do what’s right, should I be correcting them or holding my tongue? I don’t think I need to get into a debate about goodness sans god every time I’m in the mall or something. That’s silly, isn’t it? Or does it need to be done?