What If There Is No God?

He was about twelve years old; the freckles on his face gave him a Tom Sawyer appearance. A week at the beach had tanned his face and reddened his nose. When he saw our church banner, he strode across the boardwalk and paused in front of a pile of children's books.

Deliberately pointing his small finger at a colorful book titled “God Loves You” he loudly proclaimed, “There is no God! It’s all the Big Bang!”

I was taken back; it was such authoritative misinformation from such a small person. I countered as pleasantly as I could, “Who started the Big Bang?” But it was no use. He became angry and shouted again, “It’s all a Big Bang,” turned away, and was gone.

An hour later he reappeared. This time he was walking with adults along the boardwalk. I pointed him out to a fellow worker and said, “There’s my friend.” The boy overheard and shouted, “You’re not my friend,” and marched on with his companions.

The strangest thing was that I realized I hadn’t been his friend. I had fenced with him on a childish level; but his faith was well established in the anti-God world of pseudo-wisdom. What could I have done? What should I have said?

How I longed to hug him, point to the sky above, and show him the size of the universe. I wanted to talk to him about the complexity and value of his own body and mind. But someone got to him before I did. They taught him that the whole world was without purpose. . . that he was without value, without hope.

He wore his disbelief like a protective weapon and shot his words like bullets. But he was the victim of his own words, and the repeated words of others. Where had that anger come from? There was no amusement, no challenge allowed, no room for intellectual discussion.

I thought of other children far across the world whose families strap them with bombs and send them into public places to do as much damage as they can . . .as they die. They sacrificed their young lives on an altar of anger; for what? So that others can live in a world controlled by fear and hate?

Our country has become a nation of frustration. We have locked God and godly argument out of our own schools and educational institutions. Our children are in the grips of drugs, disenchantment, frustration, and hopelessness. Denial of God is denial of truth, of meaning, of purpose. How can we reach my young friend and those like him?