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Essay: "Nothing to Lose"

by Dave Gordon
A friend of mine was scoffing at the existence of God today. He claimed that since no one can prove that God exists, then logically God is not real and man can live as if he has nothing to lose. This friend is very much aware that I believe in God, and in an effort to settle his issue of "Does God exist?" he decided to sit down with me.

His questions were filled with anger, yet as he asked me to prove to him that God exists, I could detect a note of pleading sorrow. This man seriously wanted me to prove the existence of God so that his life would not be just a wisp of vanity. I thought carefully for a moment and then answered his question with a much simpler one. I asked him to prove to me that he himself exists.

He slapped the table and said, "I'm sitting right here in front of you!"

I said in response, "Prove it!" I went further in describing a dream I had where everyone looked real, but wasn't. My friend struggled with this question for two full days. He later came back to me and admitted that since he couldn't prove he existed, he was in the same non-existent category as God. When I told him that I could prove he existed beyond any doubt in the world, he anxiously awaited my answer. I gave him a math problem. It was one plus one. I asked him to tell me what the answer was and he quickly replied, "Two." Unfortunately, this answer was wrong. I explained to him that "Two" is just a concept and that when any object is added to another object, it logically becomes one with the object. One plus one can only equal one.

My friend quickly saw that by me proving that he didn't exist, I had joined him with his non-existent God. As crazy as this sounded, it gave us a common ground on which to build. I told him that such a joining can only occur when one object means something to another object. It was in this manner that I proved to my friend that he did indeed exist. I told him that since he was my friend and I cared about what he said and did, this alone was all the factual evidence I needed to settle the fact that he existed.

He then assembled the puzzle of "Does God exist" all by himself. He concluded that even though he had stacks of books written by atheists, he could not escape the fact that God meant something to him. He then made the observation that all the ones who wrote on atheism were hypocrites. Why would they waste so much time and energy in trying to disprove something that clearly meant so much to them? We ended up laughing at the whole matter and we concluded that Atheists were by far the most religious people we know. In their quest to prove god does not exist, their religious passion proves otherwise.

You do have a Father in heaven who loves you, just like you have a mother here on earth that loved you. If you are still skeptical, prove to me that your mother is actually the woman that gave birth to you. You can't. You can only point to what this woman means to you. The same is true in the way I prove God exists. He loves us all and in due time we will stand before him. Therefore, if you live your life like you have nothing to lose, take a moment and ask yourself "Does God mean anything to me?" Your answer to this question will show you that you have everything to lose. God is real! You matter to him and what you do is important to him. Let me simplify this for you: one you plus one God equals one family. Don't lose this family by leaving God out of your life.

-Dave Gordon