In my endless quest to figure out the world, I've observed the role God plays in the way we view what's around us.  I've learned there really are no atheists — just people who don't understand the god they serve.  Everyone has faith in something, and many believe in God without even knowing it. 

To me, the more important question is not "What is God?"  The more important question is "What does it mean to believe in God?"  People stumble on the first question, and then they abandon the pursuit altogether — before reaching the more important latter question. 

If God is the creator of all things, then it follows that the universe provides a way to understand God — what most of us come to define as "truth."  God's truth is everything in the natural world, including the laws of physics, biology, math, human nature.  When we deviate from God, we deviate from truth.  When we serve God, we serve truth. 

God's truth — or simply "truth" — is immutable.  All we can do is hope to understand it and to serve it.  It's humbling to know that the truths of the universe God created are not subject to change.  We can work only within the laws of nature. 

When we deviate from God, from truth, we lose sight of the fact that we are confined by the universe God created, and we come to believe we can transcend these limitations.  We come to see truth as malleable.  We begin to disregard the immutable laws of biology, of human nature — of any of God's immutable laws. 

This view of God is simple yet deeply complex.  It keeps us grounded.  It is a shield against the hubris of mankind.  We see that, as more people are encouraged to turn away from God, they turn their innate desire for faith in other directions — toward the mystical beliefs that are not grounded in God's immutable laws. 

One simple example is transgenderism, the belief that a man can be a woman or vice versa based on a sense of identity.  A person can even identify as non-human if his belief/faith is strong enough.  However, someone using God's laws (basic laws of biology) can empirically disprove the person's conclusions definitively.  A biologist or archeologist can review the bones of a woman who died 1,000 years ago and quickly make a definitive determination about her sex regardless of that person's fleeting belief.

Turning from God not only leads to a self-serving and flexible sense of morality, but is downright dangerous to society.  As we turn from God, we grow in hubris, and we believe on faith that we can transcend God's immutable laws of nature, including the immutable laws of human nature.  We are tempted by the idea that Karl Marx taught: that human progress is linear and always progressing toward a higher order.  We forget the importance of history.  We forget that history serves as a teacher only because of the one important constant: human nature.

When we believe that human nature is malleable and limitless, then history becomes meaningless.  Working within truth, we understand that we can compare similar circumstances from 100 years ago, from 1,000 years ago, from 2,000 years ago, and predict with substantial accuracy how things will turn out under similar conditions today.  This is all possible with our simple understanding of God's truth: that human nature does not change.  

We see repeatedly what happens when man turns from God and loses sight of these limitations.  The great socialist movements of the 20th century serve as a cautionary tale.  The Nazi party of Germany, the Fascists of Italy, the Communists of Russia, China, and Cambodia: through these socialist revolutions, man lost sight of the limitations of human nature and sought to create utopian societies based on rules that transcend human nature.  The results were catastrophic: the horrific deaths of more than 100 million people. 

Without God, we fail to recognize truth.  We become vulnerable to fanciful and dangerous beliefs.  We fail to recognize the dangers of agendas pushed upon us by godless people.  We fail to recognize that "equity," DIE, and ESG are simply a repackaging of communism, and that it again seeks to defy the basic laws of human nature founded on our innate and constant sense of justice, of meritocracy, of individuality, and of our basic human incentive structures.  We fail to recognize how these seemingly new ideologies play into our more base natures of resentment and tribalism, and we naïvely believe we can overcome these base desires.

God is synonymous with truth.  The closer we are to God, the closer we are to truth.  If you already believe in truth grounded in the immutable laws of nature, then you already believe in God.  The more we are aware of the connection between God and truth, the more we passionately and fearlessly defend truth.  With this understanding, we passionately and fearlessly defend society and those we love against the falsehoods pushed by those with hubris who believe they can transcend God.

Image via Pixabay.