God Running is a place for anyone who wants to love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to.

I’m not sure exactly why, but I’ve found myself involved in apologetics oriented conversations lately. Recently I was discussing the question of whether or not morality can exist without God. The person I was discussing this with said, yes, of course morality can exist without God. And I disagreed. And the other person said, morality can exist for an atheist because it can be based on societal consciousness. And do you know what?

He’s right.

An atheist can indeed be a moral person with his morals based on societal consciousness. The only thing is, that morality is a subjective morality.

There can be no objective morality without God.

Because if morality is based on societal consciousness, and the consensus in society worldwide is that, oh let’s say, greed is good (which is probably the situation we’re experiencing right now in the world) then I think you’ll agree with me the societal consciousness is objectively wrong.

Or, let’s say Germany won the Second World War. And their influence dominates our culture. And the consensus in society world wide is that all Jews must be exterminated. Again we find we’re in agreement the societal consciousness is objectively wrong, even egregiously wrong.

Or let’s say there’s an apocalypse. And the only human survivors are you, and me, and a handful of men from a remote jungle tribe. Let’s say there are twenty of these men from the jungle tribe. You’re survivor number twenty-one, and I’m survivor twenty-two. Whatever those twenty believe, whatever their values, that’s what’s moral. Because, it’s societal consciousness that determines morality — remember, we’re taking God out of the picture. But the handful of men left on earth, from the remote jungle tribe: they believe cannibalism is good. In this scenario, what you and I believe about how bad it is to kill and eat other human beings is wrong. Is there a more obvious example of why morality based on societal consciousness is subjective?

So yes one can say an atheist can be moral, as long as their morality is subjective.

But without God, there is no objective morality.

Teach me your way, O Lord,
    that I may walk in your truth;

Psalm 86:11

Notes:

Image of man walking with Jesus by Helen Thomas Robson via Pixels.com

Available on Amazon!

Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus)

Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others.

Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including:

• Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.
• How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).
• The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.
• How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.
• How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.
• How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).
• How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).
• How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.
• How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.

With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.

A life of loving like Jesus.

(Kindle, hardcover, and paperback now available on Amazon.)