“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
-George Berkeley
A very close friend of mine (name withheld to protect his identity) by a stroke of truly unexplainable inspiration wrote what would have been considered by the vast majority of humanity to be seriously the best blog post ever written. Life was about to improve drastically and not just for him either, but life for the entire world. This post would go on to be translated into every written language on Earth. The post was that stinking good. It was seriously the best blog post ever written.
The problem with this win-story and the reason why you’ve yet to be moved by such an amazing post is because there are some extremely unfortunate events surrounding it. You see, this friend of mine followed the inspiration of his post long into the night writing and rewriting it on his laptop; knowing even then, with shaky hands, that this essay was going to be hugely influential. Once it was finally finished, he didn’t want to unleash it in the middle of the night so he decided to sleep on it and publish his post first thing in the morning (apparently, he wanted the Americans to enjoy it first).
However, in the middle of the night, his cat (name withheld to protect her identity) bumped a mason jar off of his desk and onto the windowsill. As the first light beamed through the window, just the right angle was reached and the convex shape of the jar began to focus the solar light onto the nearby desk, causing the desk to begin to smolder. By the time this dear friend of mine woke up, it was too late. Smoke…Flames…Sirens.
He ran out of his room as fast as he could while looking over his shoulder at the flaming desk, knowing that the laptop which held the best blog post ever written was sitting in the middle of those flames. This glance went on for just a few too many milliseconds. He turned back to his exit to find his right foot balancing on top of a round cat toy…
The next moment he can recall, an EMT was holding an ice pack to his head and asking him some questions. This friend of mine was asked to try and recall everything that had happened. Thoughtfully, he worked his way backwards in time to the tumble in the hallway, the fire, the mason jar tipping over in the night, the stupid cat, the blog post…THE BLOG POST! He held his head between his hands and tried to remember what he wrote the night before, but it was gone. The hard drive in his computer was gone and the hard drive in his head had apparently lost the memory of the content of the post.
So what was the post about?
Answer: it doesn’t matter.
Without a single mind to observe the reality of the best blog post ever written, its contents become completely meaningless. I wonder what would have happened if this friend of mine knew ahead of time that his post would go completely unnoticed (even to himself). Would he still have written it? It would be absurd to do something so fruitless!
Just like the lost blog post though, without God every effort of our own would be just as absurd and fruitless. If humanity were just a random inspiration of chaos doomed to eventual heat death, then how is anything we’ve ever accomplished or ever will accomplish any different than the heat death of a hard drive containing the best blog post ever written? We just burn up. No one to notice, no one to care.
“If God is dead, then man is dead, too.” -Francis Schaeffer
Fortunately, there is a transcendent mind who does notice and care.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” -Genesis 1:1
“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” -Colossians 1:16-17
And this is not the end.
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” -Luke 14:3-4
The Christian is free to live a meaningful life consistent with his worldview. On the other hand, if the Atheist chooses to try to live a meaningful life, it must be separate from–and in contradiction with–his worldview which asserts that this humanity-sized blog post will eventually be erased and forgot about completely.
simpleandy. 