Through long practice Western Civilization has developed a standard template for the maturation into adulthood of its people.

A child growing up in a family begins with no knowledge of the world. They depend upon their parents for guidance. To a young child the reassurance that they are loved by their parents is critical, in no small part because they depend upon their parent’s good will.

As a child grows older it learns more and becomes larger and stronger developing toward the day when it will be able to support and protect itself. The dependence on the parents decreases and the child eventually goes out in the world to make their own living.

Children may or may not separate themselves from the parents. Both routes are common.  Some find that, as they mature, they are either given or take on, more and more responsibility, eventually establishing the potential for independence without actually severing the bonds of authority. Others find that they must at some point assert their ability to make decisions that contradict those of their parents. In either case a time usually comes when the child ceases to be ruled over by the parent and becomes the ruler of their own destiny.

In the evolution of systems of government a similar drama is taking place, though this one occurs on a multi-generational, even multi-millennial stage.

In some dim past monarchy was invented and to monarchs were given the powers to govern their kingdoms. Good monarchs looked out for the prosperity and welfare of their people, like good parents look out for the welfare and prosperity of their children. This is the parallel you need to focus on in order to understand the phenomena of Left-wing hatred. As parents rule the home and their children, the monarchs ruled their kingdoms and their people. As good parents must plan and provide for their children, good monarchs were expected to plan and provide for their subjects, defending the kingdom’s resources and people, shaping its laws to make life more possible and providing for the needy in times of hardship. The family and monarchy are fashioned on the same model of top-down authority and responsibility. 

The examples of this similarity and of cross-over terms and concepts are legion. For the sake of brevity I’m going to assume that the reader knows enough about these things to understand that, though family and social authority models may vary over time and around the world, the simplified descriptions I’ve given are almost universally true.

The American Revolution and the success of the Federalists in shaping the new Constitution led to a circumstance in which American citizens became like the children that grow up and leave their families behind in order to seek their fortune as adults and succeed or fail as adults responsible for their own destinies.

In contrast, the subsequent revolutions and wars that overthrew or reduced to a symbolic status most of the remaining kings of the world did not eliminate the role of government in acting like the parent to their citizens/“children.” In those nations they changed who the ruler would be, how they would be chosen and sometimes placed limits on their power that could only be overturned under unusual conditions. Their circumstance is comparable to the family meeting that sets new rules but leaves the parent in charge. The citizens of those nations said, “We want to remain as children, protected and guided by a parent, but we want a say in what decisions you make.” This is very different from the American decision to leave the home of their parent and trust in their own labors and ingenuity to get bye.

But there was a problem for these pioneers on the frontier of social-adulthood. Their children grew up and had children of their own. Those descendants encountered hardships and yearned for the times when they were protected children in their parent’s home. They were not part of the American Revolution. They did not choose to let go of this long tradition of secondary parentage. They did not choose this system, they were born into it and unfortunately, too many of them are not ready to stand on their own two feet. Some yearned to restore the state to the role of super-parent, a powerful force that would guide them, protect them and catch them if they stumbled. 

Today, deluding themselves that they are marching boldly forward into a more compassionate system of government, they seek to restore the parental authority of the state. It’s a big, scary world we live in and they yearn for this consolation. This desire to be parented, to be cradled in powerful arms, to know that they cannot truly fail because their parents are there to support them is an instinctively visceral motivation.

Imagine telling an eight year-old that their parents no longer love them, their parents won’t support them anymore, and they must fend for themselves. Worse, imagine that they’ve tried it on their own, they’ve struggled in the world and found it hard and cold and they’ve given up and returned to their parental home for comfort and support. Their parents, (the democratic-socialists) stand at the door, arms extended in greeting, ready to take them in, but you stand blocking the gateway, telling them they cannot return to their parents, they must go back into the world on their own and either triumph or die.

We who believe in and fight to preserve the Constitution in which the federal government is too weak and too restricted to become our dictator, stand in the way of those that long to return to the comfort of the parental state and they hate us for it. In the core of their guts they hate us. Ask how you would have felt as a child about anyone who threatened to take you from your parents. This is why they hate us.

First, clear away all of the junk that gets in the way of considering this question. It doesn’t matter that there are and have been many different religions. It doesn’t matter that the Bible and other religious artifacts do not necessarily agree with current scientific opinion. It doesn’t matter that there may be contradictions within these texts. None of those issues would be sufficient to either prove or disprove the existence of a God even if they could be definitively resolved.

Second, try to set aside the need to have been right in your previous opinions. I’m going to explain why and how, even if you are currently an atheist, you should believe in God. But, if you’ve already closed off your thinking on this subject you’re just wasting time in reading this.

Third, I think it’s highly unlikely that you will agree with me when you finish. It will take some time to let this sink in and to test the defenses you will probably put up against it.  Atheists tend to think it’s theists that aren’t using all of their rational faculties. I’m telling you that ‘the pot’s been calling the kettle black.’ It’s atheists that haven’t thought the matter through thoroughly enough though “Heaven knows” the same can be said of most theists as well. The question is … do you want it said of you?

There is no compelling evidence that I am aware of that proves to me that there is a God or any equivalent. But there is something we can grant religion with little dispute. Most of our modern religions have provided, presented or included the foundations for a societal and extra-societal moral code. 

You may believe that theistically derived moral codes are really just human inventions. Certainly, all of them have been conveyed to us through humans. It doesn’t matter. The belief that these codes were supernaturally inspired lends them an authority that no human source could.   That authority, imaginary or not, provides a common premise upon which human beings can interact peacefully and even cooperate. Without the supposition of greater than human authority one man’s opinion is no better than another’s.

Atheists have tried to establish moral principals based on common human experience for more than two hundred years. The track record of their success is at the very best, no better than the record for theistically based moral principals. If you want to be a “realist,” there is simply no historical evidence to support the idea that a humanist-based moral code is in anyway an equivalent to theist-based ones and all are derivative of religious moral tenets. If you prefer to think that all religious moral tenets are the product of, either delusional theists or dishonest atheists then the question becomes did those delusional theists promulgate moral codes as good as any atheists have come up with? Or, did those dishonest atheists understand something you don’t?

In the theoretical realm, if we have a morality based solely on human motivations and experience there is no rational reason one person shouldn’t take advantage of another in an if they think they can get away with it? I won’t waste your time reiterating this ‘back-and-forth’ that you’ve no doubt heard before. It all boils down to the atheist hypothesizing the creation and recognition of a humanistic moral code based on the sympathy and self interest we have through our common experiences as human beings. It stretches the imagination to believe on the one hand in the “limitations of self awareness” through the senses and still conclude that some imagined power of  sympathy is going to keep one human from exploiting another’s relative weakness. Once you eliminate the consequences of revenge from one’s victims or getting caught and punished or any of the other social consequences that one is just as likely to encounter in a theistic society as an atheistic one, there is simply no motivational inhibiter to stop you from taking advantage of the weaknesses of others. What human-based, (that means self-based because every human is alone within their own senses in a world constructed of their own experiences), reason could there be not to?

What the above means is notthat there must necessarily be a God, but that throughout its history, civilizations, led by humans who were either right, delusional or pragmatic, have recognized that for human beings to coexist in relative peace and with a hope of relative cooperation, they must found that covenant upon something that is at least believed to be greater in some way than human beings. Civilization requires some sacrifice of individual desires. In exchange, the individual gets access to the support systems that civilization provides. Reconciling conflicts in our desires requires some way to see the sacrifice as justified by a greater value and it requires some system of authority that is seen by the individual making the sacrifice as qualified to recognize, arbitrate or override their own opinion. Belief in a god gives humanity a means of establishing such an authority and justification greater than the opinions of individuals. Without it, civilization would not have been possible. 

No one can prove God’s existence and no one can prove that there is not a god. So we are left with the freedom to choose to believe in a god because we think that such belief makes the world a better place, or to not believe in a god for the same reason. I have argued that choosing to believe in something like God is the only wise choice, but you can cling to the foolishness of atheism if you want to.