Why Reject Faith?

Editor's Note: this article contains the opinion of the author and not that of the National Alliance Foundation. We are however very grateful to his contribution in this manner. 


The question is fundamental, yet still I spend many hours ever-wondering if I will one day see a definitive answer.  Few in the modern day would find it shocking to see or interact with an individual who is adverse to the idea of God--or a religion committed to an supernatural deity, yet their reasoning is quite difficult to explain in particular situations.

To start, why might a middle aged man with a decent, but not overwhelmingly rewarding job as a computer programmer choose to reject the tenets and scrolls of dedication and spiritual loyalty? Such a man has less hopes of a dramatic future with power at his fingertips or the constant companionship of the most attractive to him, and still he holds on to atheist principles. Would this man not desire something more when he dies; a place in which he is made anew and can enjoy the wonders of salvation instead of the cold and empty reality which he feels destined to return to at passing?

In the case of a clever man or woman--I might take the example of Julia Gillard, the accomplished and newly minted Australian prime minister, the attraction to disbelief in God or an afterlife is perhaps stronger, for one like her shall spend most of her life in the spotlight, perhaps reverting to humanitarianism afterwards and never seeking to travel about the world. She embodies a rare opportunity in which a person is seen and admired by millions, never fearing for the future due to her visibility and power in the nation and across the world. Her life will never become dull or unexciting because by the world's standards, she is of greater importance than the typical human, and will likely retain that status until the day when he passes on.

Absent the presence of riches or the profuseness of worldly pleasures in life, there can be less clear explanation for why a poorer human would choose to abandon God for the uncertainty of the afterlife. Where, in this case, would the person find their accomplishment and fulfillments? A life can only be enjoyed so much for one of little financial superiority, and the absence of power greatly decreases a person's chance of critical importance to others, thus undercutting the true satisfaction of a romp through the earth over a period of multiple decades.

Perhaps it is God's grandeur which turns so many away; the necessity to except something so large without absolute certainty or the confirmation of his existence in the realm above. Or it may simply be man's incessant need to explain and control everything; a difficult achievement when one's life is pledged to an omnipresent and potent being.

Still, rejecting faith is an issue in our world because it decays the morality of those who choose it as an option, causing them to cast aside otherwise fortified columns of societal structure. As culture has left religion behind in the past 50 years, the statistics are alarmingly blatant: more crime, less social responsibility, and visible destruction of the old family structure which made the world so better populated in the past. This so called "enlightened age" has corrupted the earth by removing fear of God from people's hearts, allowing them to lead lives which they view as intellectual, all the while as the world falls apart alongside them.

The duty of the academics and scholarly of the world must remain forever more to preserve faith and employ others to its worthy commitment. If intellectualism continues to push for even those with no reason for it to turn to atheistic dialog, the world can only come to a more depraved and unspeakable level of voidness.


Patrick McCann

Adjunct Writer--Faith and America Blog