Daft things said to atheists part 9: "I can't imagine it..."

Perhaps the commonest forms of this daft thing that Christians often say to atheists are as follows.:

"Why would you want to live in a world without God?"
"I can't imagine living in a world without God."

"I want to believe that I'll see my loved ones again when I die."
Or the much sadder version: "My belief that I'll see my dead loved one again is all that keeps me going."


It's not about what I want, or what you or I can or cannot imagine. Despite what we can imagine, despite what we may or may not want, God is either real or he is not. Our desires and the limits of our imagination have nothing at all to do with it.

Why would I want to live in a world without God? Well, I don't actually have that choice. If there is no God, as the lack of evidence for any kind of God whatsoever suggests, then the choices are simply to live in the world without God or to commit suicide; however, this world is a pretty good place whether or not there's a God behind it, and the privilege of being alive should never be belittled. On the whole, I like being alive, able to see, hear, taste, feel, love, and all the other things I won't be able to do when I'm dead.

If you can't imagine a world without God, then you are simply showing that, like all humans, your imagination is limited. You believe in God because you were raised to believe; that has no bearing on whether or not God is actually real.

You may well want to believe that you'll see your loved ones again in heaven when you die. Hey, I'm with you all the way - I'd love to believe that. In fact, I'd give anything to see my father, my grandparents and various other people I've loved and lost again. The problem is that our desires don't change reality at all. We may want to believe something, but that doesn't make it so. I'd love to believe I'll see my dead loved ones again, but there is no evidence that would suggest any such thing will actually happen, while there is plenty of evidence to suggest that my consciousness, the thing that makes me who I am, will be snuffed out just like my voice when I die.

If your belief that you'll see your loved one again is all that keeps you going, I feel very sad for you. However, speaking for myself, I'd rather know the uncomfortable truth than believe a comforting lie. If your loved one is dead, he or she is in no pain, and is not suffering in any way. Also, he or she will always be there in your memory. That's not very comforting, I know - there is no way to relieve the pain of grief - but it's the reality that we have to live with. There is no evidence that there is anything more than this life.

Whether or not there is a God (just like any other aspect of reality) is not dependent upon our imaginations, our desires or what we think the world should be like. The balance of evidence suggests that there is most probably no God and no afterlife. We just need to get used to that fact and make the most of the only life we know we will have, in this flawed but absolutely amazing world in which we live.