The summer of 2003 seemed like a never-ending baseball game. It was the summer before most of us would get our driver’s license. Looking back, I am sure that is why our parents pushed us to play summer league baseball one more time. They knew once we turned 16, they would never be able to talk us into giving up a whole summer to chase a little white ball around again. My whole gang agreed to give summer baseball one more go round. We traded in our swimming trunks for cleats and began a summer full of practice and games.
Our coaches’ determination and seriousness about the sport did not damper our determination to turn everything into a joke. Practices were typically full of laughter, cutting up, and usually ended up with us running laps because we couldn’t take things seriously. As the summer trudged on, we ended up winning the district tournament, regional tournament, and area tournament. The next step was the state tournament.
The week before the state tournament seemed like any other week to us. We arrived at practice and started our usual horsing around when one of my coaches told me to grab a helmet. I obliged and asked him what we were doing. He said, “We are going to the batting cage.” I quickly replied, “Let me run and grab my bat.” He smiled and said that he had a bat for me. We walked over to the batting cage and he pulled out a tee ball bat from what had to be the Truman administration. He handed me the bat and said to go ahead and get in the cage.
I laughed to myself and stood in the batter’s box while he spun his arm around warming up. After a few moments of chuckling between my friends and myself about the bat I had in my hand, he was ready to throw the first pitch. He wound up and let it fly, straight into my back. I looked at my coach in disgust and he just smiled. The second pitch caught me in my forearm. The third about took off my head. Finally, I asked, “What are you doing?” He laughed and said that he was getting me ready. “Ready for what,” I exclaimed. He said that the purpose of this drill is to learn to take a pitch and not be afraid.
One by one my friends entered the cage and took the same beating. After my smack down, it became more of a game of dodge-ball after the pitch was thrown. Slowly, we realized the purpose of the drill. If you roll your body just in the right direction, even the fastest of fast balls won’t leave you broken, injured, or scared to get back up to the plate. Without a purpose that drill would have been meaningless, and in today’s society, child-abuse. Humanity needs purpose, whether it is understanding a drill or contemplating our place in the cosmos. Without purpose, life becomes meaningless and slightly abusive.
The Christian perspective of human purpose can give hope to those who are lost and broken, but how does atheism explain the need for purpose in life? Can atheism adequately explain what causes us to get out of bed in the morning? Let’s look at a few of the ways I have heard atheism attempt to explain human purpose. First, some atheist claim that human purpose can be found in discovery. The urge to explore the world and the cosmos seems to be ingrained into society and each human being. What other creature looks at a lion and stops to ponder what makes a lion a lion. Most creature’s survival instinct kicks in and runs away, but humanity seems different. Humanity wants to learn and explore the world. I agree that discovery is an important element in human purpose, but I don’t it think holds up to the scrutiny of finding purpose for life. For instance, if atheism is true what value is there in studying nature. The cosmos, the world, the animals, and the laws of nature are just one big accident. What purpose is there in discovering a cosmic accident?
Another typical response atheist gives when discussing human purpose is the need to reproduce and grow. The atheist claims that humanity is wired like every other creature on earth and the ultimate goal is for the species survival. Humanity has no purpose beyond that. However, humanity has a uniqueness. Humans have the ability to wrestle with these thoughts. If humanity actually thought that survival and growth were the only purpose in life and that all life ends in death, humanity would also realize its existence was useless.
Lastly, I have heard several atheists claim that they find purpose in relationships. I agree that there is purpose found in relationship, but atheism does not explain why a meaningful relationship is possible. If humanity is the byproduct of a cosmic accident, the relationships we have are due to accidental chemical reactions to certain people. They can carry no spiritual or true emotional significance at all.
Above are a few of the reasons that committed atheist Friedrich Nietzche ended up in a state of depression in need of psychiatric care. He understood the purposelessness of life if atheism was indeed true. The outgrowth of his committed belief led to his own demise. This is why I believe that atheism cannot be consistently lived out by anyone who still chooses to wake up in the morning and believe their life has purpose. Perhaps, William Lane Craig said it best. He said, “So if God does not exist, that means that man and the universe exist to no purpose-since the end of everything is death –and that they came to be for no purpose, since there are only blind products of chance. In short, life is utterly without reason” (Craig, 77).
Much like my illustration at the beginning of the blog, humanity needs to know its purpose to continue on. With purpose comes drive, with drive comes goals, and with goals comes success. In my story, we ended up winning a state tournament, in Christianity one gets so much more than a trophy, they get Jesus. In atheism, you get nothing. Absolutely nothing. Absolute meaninglessness.
Bibliography
Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3rd. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2008.