Since my title is bound to inspire criticism that I’m a “God botherer,” I’ll preface what follows by stating that I wasn’t always the halo-adorned, floating-in-the-ether desert mystic (without the sand or heat) you behold today. I wasn’t raised with faith, and as a 12-year-old was an agnostic who’d say, “I’d never believe or disbelieve in anything there’s no proof of.” Later on I’d be rather dismissive of theists, actually, viewing them as God botherers myself, though we didn’t have that term or as many Richard Dawkins-like secularist warriors back then. I suppose we were, relatively speaking, handicapped in our exercise of supercilious anti-theism.

But that has changed — and I’ve changed. I long ago could’ve moved on to supercilious pro-theism; only, my faith instructs that Pride is the father of all sin, Humility is a virtue and warns that “he who exalts himself will be humbled.” The realization I’ll expound upon today further explains why I’ve changed, and I mention my spiritual evolution not because I’m narcissistic (though that isn’t to say I’m not!) but because maybe, just perhaps, a few non-believers will consider what follows more seriously knowing it doesn’t come from someone “raised to think that way.”

As for those raised to think, did you ever wonder what engenders true respect for human life — in principle? (And, no, this article isn’t “about abortion,” though what’s contained herein is certainly applicable.) Well, we often tend to stress, especially with the greedier among us, that people are more important than things. Material things may be handy and sometimes are beautiful toys, but they are just things and “you can’t take them with you,” as is said. What, though, are people if there’s no God, and hence no spirit world, and we’re a mere cosmic accident?

We then are just some pounds of chemicals and water — organic robots.

We are then, in fact, things.

And people are not more important than things when they are things.

That we are mere things under the atheistic world view is an indisputable corollary of it that has been recognized by atheists themselves. I remember a fellow online who said, perhaps lamentably, that we humans are just robots, “really cool robots.” A botanist named Lawrence Trevanion, seeming more clinical about the matter, has defined people as “objects that perceive” (thankfully, he’s responsible for the health of plants, not people. Though were I a fern, I still think I’d rather be in the care of a “God botherer” gushing with deific sentimentality). But the implications of this belief are serious.

It’s often stressed in America that “our rights come from God,” as our Founders insisted, because we know that what God has bestowed only He can rightly revoke. The logic is airtight. People ultimately yield to greater power, authority and wisdom and, unless profoundly devilish, defer completely to the Ultimate Power (upon recognizing it). How compelling it is, the belief that the Creator of the Universe and Inerrant Author of All has decreed something so. And this, by the way, involves not a matter of faith but fact: human psychology. Generally speaking, it’s how people operate, like it or not.

Is it any different with human life? People will, as a rule, respect it when considering man a divinely created being, infused with a soul and deemed sacred by God. If he’s just an organic robot, however, all bets are off.

What, after all, could be wrong with altering the software or hardware of a robot; that is, what could be wrong with, respectively, social engineering or genetic engineering? What’s wrong with terminating the function of a robot that has become inconvenient or whose flawed operation is beyond remedy?

In fact, discarding a thing that has become a liability is not only what we do; it is the prudent and right thing to do.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that eugenics — the science of improving the human race via selective breeding (primitive genetic engineering) — became prominent on the heels of evolution’s rise, which is most associated with Charles Darwin. Nor do I think it’s a coincidence that the term “eugenics” was coined by Sir Francis Galton, a half-cousin of Charles Darwin. For eugenics is a first cousin of evolution.

Oh, sure, as I illustrated in 2008, the concept of evolution as an explanation of some of the mechanics of Intelligent Design is compatible with theism. But the prevailing concept of evolution is godless and serves to supplant Intelligent Design. This is relevant because if man is a divinely-created finished product, albeit fallen, then we have neither reason nor right to alter the intended design; we may only address imperfections induced by our fallen state. But what if man is just that cosmic accident, the result of chemicals that in a primordial soup just somehow “became alive” and then, somehow, had a desire to continue living and become more complex? He is then just a work in progress, and the only intelligent designer who can facilitate his improvement is us. If God didn’t raise him up out of the mud, then we may rightly reshape him like wet clay.

Now, most interesting here, and perhaps quite chilling, is what someone conversant with psychology may note about this atheistic corollary of man as object: It is precisely how psychopaths view others. As the website Psychopaths & Love states, “Psychopaths actually see people around them as objects….” Moreover, the ones who’ve thought matters through may, during their honest moments (if they have honest moments), admit as much. Coming to mind is cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who mentioned evolutionary beliefs as influential in his descent into darkness. As he essentially said in a post-Christian-conversion prison interview, he’d believed that “we all just came from the slime,” so what did anything matter? (On a related note, he also said to his parents as a teen, “If there’s no God, why can’t I just make up my own rules?” And he did.)

But here’s what is even more striking: If atheism is “true,” this psychopathic world view is the correct one. It is a recognition of reality, without obfuscatory sentimental gush.

To reassure my non-believer friends, and remember I once was one of you, yes, I know the vast majority of you are not psychopaths. As I’ve illustrated, however, this is because you don’t truly live your atheism and all its implications. And even insofar as a few of you might have thought matters through and concluded we’re just “really cool robots,” you (thankfully) don’t feel this on an emotional level. You don’t live down to your beliefs.

So, then, what of my article’s title? After all, some who don’t recognize God then do in practice have respect for human life. The answer lies in a twist on a George Washington saying about morality. To wit: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that national morality [respect] for life can be maintained without religion.” (Of course, respect for life is part of morality.) As is said in commercials, “Individual results may vary.” But the national (collective) picture is clear: The more we mainstream godlessness, the more it and its corollaries will permeate not just minds but hearts. This is why a very sober atheist, whose thoughts I read decades ago, expressed concern over his creed’s wider embrace. He grasped its implications.

He also, like most people, cherished civilization, and he knew faith was a prerequisite for its perpetuation. This compelling utilitarian reason for faith is why the late Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his book Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures that secularists would be wise “to live as if God existed.”

For sure, because human psychology is not a matter of faith, but fact. Give people a good rationale for being psychopaths, for long enough, and a more psychopathic civilization just may be your fate.

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Image: Free image, Pixabay license.