Ideas Have Consequences!

     I believe, without any equivocation, that God exists. I believe that the God of the book known as The Bible is the one and only God. Everyone who is born will be presented with a choice to (1) believe that God exists or (2) to NOT believe that God exists. How one chooses to believe has serious consequences for him and the world in general. Ideas do have consequences.
     Looking back over the history of mankind we can observe some of the consequences of this choice that has been made by others. It seems to me that whenever one chooses to believe in God the results are generally positive and life affirming. When one chooses to not believe in God it seems to me the consequences are generally negative and life denying.
     In the twentieth century man declared that "God is Dead!" All that man is and all that he might become can be found inside him. Man intrinsically possesses all the tools that are necessary to make his world a utopia.
     Adolph Hitler believed in the superiority of the German race and the inferiority of all other people. His form of National Socialism resulted in the extermination of millions of Jews, Christians and other peoples. Hitler's ideas ushered in a period of suffering such as the world had not known.
     Joseph Stalin believed that a strong central government controlling all the elements of society, manufacturing, farming, housing, education, religion, etc. was the path to a communist utopia. The result was millions of his own people being deliberately starved to death by the State. Millions of other peoples were killed for the good of the "State" on the orders of Stalin.
     Chairman Mao in China was responsible for the deaths of millions of Chinese people. His brand of communism was ruthlessly totalitarian.
     When the founding fathers began discussing the formation of a new form of government, the existence of God was self evident to them. They recognized that men were flawed and had a bent towards evil. They crafted our government with the intent that it would be limited because they feared the evils that governments perpetrate. That is why they established checks and balances in our Constitution so that no part of government could usurp authority over the others, thereby protecting the God-given liberty of the citizenry to the greatest extent possible. They believed that our rights derive from God, not from the governments of men.
     John Adams once observed that our form of government would only be successful for a "moral people."  A fair reading of our history shows that as we choose to move away from a belief and reliance upon God, and as we choose to move away from the morals that were once commonplace, we are beginning to see the consequences of that choice.
     It was God fearing men and women who worked tirelessly to eradicate slavery. It was God-fearing men and women who strove to insure that no one was disenfranchised from their civil rights. It is God-fearing men and women who work tirelessly to affirm the value of human life. Why do they do this? They do this because God greatly values human life.
     I believe that God exists and that He is good. I believe that God fearing men and women seek to do good because they believe God exists and that God is good. Ideas have consequences. How do you choose?