Chapter Three

How to Live Without God

If you are still here, then presumably you have decided (or at least are tempted) to live without a God of the traditional sort. Perhaps you feel that there is some sort of spiritual entity out there, or perhaps not. Perhaps you like the idea of life after death and will take a chance on it, or perhaps you prefer to think that the game really does end at the final buzzer. Any of these choices are fine.

Here’s the catch, though: living life is not primarily a matter of what you believe. It’s more a matter of what motivates you, what inspires you, what gives meaning to your existence, what gets you through times of disappointment and despair, what lifts up your heart, and what, when it is all over, you will look back upon with satisfaction and joy.

One of the best things about most religions is that when they are really working right, they help with all of those things. God’s commands motivate you, his goodness and love inspire you, the prospect of eternal salvation gives meaning to your existence, your faith and prayers and the community of your fellow-believers help get you through the worst times, the fullness of the spirit lifts up your heart, and when it is all over here on earth, you can look back at a life that has led you to the gate of heaven.

Let’s see you do that, you existentialist agnostics!

If more people flock to evangelical prayer meetings than to lectures on Søren Kierkegaard, this may be a big part of it (that, plus the fact that gospel music gets the blood moving better). The reality is, we humans need inspiration and hope and belonging.

Suppose everything you have read in these pages so far is correct, and you agree with it. Then you may perhaps congratulate yourself that you have the Truth, or some piece of it. Well, Shania Twain and I are not impressed – that’s not going to keep you warm on a Saturday night.

If you no longer (or never did) derive motivation, inspiration, a sense of purpose, and all of those other good things from a religious context, then we need to figure out where you do get them from. Where, in a world where God is not watching over things and is not there to reward the good and punish the guilty, where there probably is no afterlife, and where there are no cosmic standards for anything, does motivation and inspiration and meaning and value and joy and satisfaction come from?

Unless we can answer this question, you might be able to live a cold and miserable life without God, but you cannot live a good and fulfilling life without God – so, frankly, you would be rather a dunce to even try to do it at all. Fortunately, help is at hand!

In the previous chapter, we saw how you can live a moral life without God. Now let’s see how you can live a rewarding life without God.

We can approach this by looking at each key aspect of a good life separately. When we do so, what we shall find is what we already discovered about morality: that religion generally doesn’t do so a good a job as one might think, and that we can usually do as well or better without it.

These are not abstract issues. This is your life we’re talking about. So let’s get to it.

return to Table of Contents