Does Man Need God In Western Civilization: Young People Are Hungry For The Truth!

Malcom Muggeridge said, " "It would be difficult for anyone looking around the world today to resist the conclusion that something has gone very badly indeed with what we continue to call “Western Civilization.” This awareness tends to be distorted and muffled – if not obliterated – by the media, which manage to induce us to take for granted the continuingly explosive situations that confront us on every hand, and to see as an enlargement of our freedom and an enhancement of the quality of our living the steady and ominous erosion of the moral standards on which our traditional way of life has been based." - The True Crisis of our Time

In our day and age it seems that for the most part, mankind has slipped from any cognition of morals, values, and God forbid, a loving creator. But when we're angry, or upset, or something terrible has happened, or we've slammed our fingers in a door, what do we exclaim? "God!" "Jesus Christ!"

Why? Perhaps we know deep down there is an ontic referent regarding how things ought to be, and when they don't go rightly, we exclaim in intensity, the name of our creator. How often do you hear someone exclaim "Oh Buddha!?" Or Krishna, or Zoroaster?

When God is evicted from the public square, from the scientific institutions, from the public schools, from the colleges, what happens? We've seen a growing depravity in the culture epitomized by perhaps a certain Miley Cyrus, once an idol for millions of young female children on the Disney channel, later seen on MTV naked mounted on a wrecking ball swinging back and forth. Which may be an accurate picture of what the television media is doing to the minds of our young people: wrecking them. Wrecking them with sexuality, drug culture, greed, and materialism.

I've spent several weeks on vacation, recharging my batteries, and spending time with my mother and step dad. They watch a lot of TV. As I've browsed through the channels and viewed the "programming" I'm even more convinced of my previous conviction: The mainstream media through television, radio, internet, and product advertising are at the forefront of the decline in culture in the United States and Europe. And the process of globalization has made that depraved declining media available to the entire world. Then what comes to mind is a piece of scripture from Revelation that says "For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries." (Revelation 18:3)

Does man need God? To me it seems that he does. There was always the village atheist in the old times. But now it has become a popular mainstream belief. The belief seems to be that science explains reality, and that's all we need. But is that true? Does science adequately explain the origins of mankind? Not at all. Science is based on observation. There is no theory regarding how the universe got here. Evolution is discussed, but where did the material and energy come from? A big bang is theorized, but who caused this big bang? Thankfully there are excellent arguments, like the Kalam Cosmological argument which explain how the universe needs an uncaused designer. Intelligent design is a reasonably view, it certainly is. I would say much more reasonable than a universe that "creates itself from the law of gravity" as Professor Stephen Hawking has suggested. But that is an illogical statement, as Professor John Lennox has pointed out.

Never-the-less the question remains, does man need God? To me, it seems that man desperately needs God. I grew up without God. My parents took my sister and I to Catholic church, but to me it was so antiquated and detached from reality that I never made even a meek connection to it. But I needed God. I needed God when the commercials and consumerism had convinced me I needed so many products and subscriptions and new toys. I needed God when I was so obsessed with NFL football that I collected volumes full of football cards. I needed God when I spent endless hours playing Nintento, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox, PC, and Xbox 360 games. I needed God when my parents divorced and my world was shattered. I needed God when I turned to drugs and drinking to blot out the terrible emotions I felt. And I needed God when I kept asking.. "Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? What should I do with this life?" And in the same way as I need God, so all humanity needs God. Because God shows us the truth. He shows us the way. He shows us how to overcome death. He shows us Jesus Christ, and invites us to believe in him and live a completely different life as a result. But not to believe in some story or book or legend, but to believe in a Living Jesus Christ, and a Christianity that is not just talk or myth, but extends into all reality around us, across the cities, the forests, the rivers and oceans; and is lived out in the physical world, not just in talk, but in true devotion to follow a living God named Jesus Christ.