God & Value of Life

God Gives Value to Life

When we look at nature; the stars, the moon, the sun, the earth, the ocean, plants, animals, we often think, “Where did all of this come from?”  Is everything just the result of an accidental combination of atoms?  Or, is there a designer and creator who made the universe?   These are some of the most important questions of life.  They are important to our future as humans and they are also important to Christians.

If everything happened by chance, then humans and animals would have the same value.  When people believe that everything happened by chance and that humans have no greater value than animals, the result is that human life loses its value.  One famous philosopher who holds this view argues that killing of animals for meat is wrong but that killing one-month-old babies for the parents’ convenience is not wrong.  When people follow this idea
to its logical conclusion, the results are frightening.  Animals are treated like humans and humans end up acting like animals.  People end up spending thousands of dollars to take their pets to the veterinarian but do not care about children who are starving around the world.

Atheism, the belief that there is no God, has no standards of right and wrong that apply to all people at all times.  Humans and animals would have the same value and could be killed at the convenience of those who have power.  Without God, there would be no one to give humans rights that cannot be taken away.  When governments believe in Atheism, they tend to think of themselves as gods with unlimited power over their citizens.

When governments take this philosophy and turn it into law, the result is mass killings of their own citizens.   If one studies the history of the 20th century, one will find a pattern of genocide in many nations.   If we add all of the killings of innocent citizens by their own governments together we get a number around 127 million people.  These are not deaths from wars with outside nations but these are systematic killings of private citizens by their
own government.  Governments are supposed to protect their citizens and the governments that have a basic belief in God, religion, and morality above themselves, generally try to protect their own citizens.  However, the governments that do not believe in God, see themselves as the predators and their citizens as their prey.

An example of one of these governments that applied the philosophy of Atheism is the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot.  Saloth Sar learned this philosophy as a young man.  Later, as the prime minister of Cambodia from 1976-1979 he was free to act on it.  Without God to give human life value, millions of Cambodians were killed for the political convenience of the Khmer Rouge.  The Angka, Pol Pot’s organization took the place of God in that it controlled all of people’s lives and could kill at will.  S-21 (Toul Sleng) and The Killing Fields (Choeung Ek) are visible reminders of what happens when atheism becomes the law of the land.

In his book entitled Tortured For Christ, Richard Wurmbrand who wrote this:
The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil.  There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man.  The….torturers often said, “There is not God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners.

On the other hand, if God created the universe, especially if it is the God of the Christian Bible, things are completely different.  We have just talked about how that without a God who created the universe, there is no objective morality, humans have no special value, and the governments can give and deny human rights such as life and freedom at their convenience.  However, if God created the universe, then God alone has the right to determine right and wrong for all people in all nations in all centuries.

Genesis 1:26-28
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

In this passage, we read that God made humans in the “likeness and image of God.”  This means that human life has some special value over the animals.  God also placed humans in a place of authority to use and manage the earth and all of the living things in it.  As humans, it is our responsibility to be good managers of the earth.

In Genesis 1:28-29 God gave humans the right to eat plants such as fruits and vegetables.  Later, after sin came into the world and the great flood, God gave humans permission to eat meat in Genesis 8:3-7.  From the beginning, God prohibited the murder of humans.

If God exists, humans have value and rights that God gave them even before any governments existed.  Therefore, humans have rights and value that no government can take away.  The Bible encourages people to obey their governments but governments must also obey God and respect the rights that he has given to all humans.

Now, let’s think about how important it is for God to exist and to have created the universe to the Christian religion.  John 3:16 is the most famous verse in the Bible.  It says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in himshould not perish, but have everlasting life. ”  If God does not exist and did not create the earth including humans, Christianity could not be true.  In this verse God loved the world and gave Jesus.  If there is no God, there is no one to give Jesus.  Therefore, there is no one to save people who believe.  People may believe in Jesus, but if there is no God, they have no one to believe in that will save them.  Without God’s creation of the universe, Christianity is like a building without a foundation.  It will not stand.  The good news is that there is strong evidence that supports the belief that God created the universe.