What if God Didn't Exist?

On this episode of My Brother's Journey, Baron and Greg turn the mirror on their own faith by asking the unthinkable — what if God didn't exist? It's a conversation that's equal parts challenging, clarifying, and ultimately a powerful reminder of why faith matters.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, welcome back to my brother's journey. I am part of the tag team here. I'm Greg Joseph Chuck, and with me is my co-host, Baron Frank. Barry? Yep. Great to see you.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Great to see you too.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Excited to be here. And as you know, we uh we usually start this off with uh prayer. And uh I'm gonna, if you don't mind, I'm gonna handle it this time. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. Dear Lord, uh, we thank you so very much for this time together. Uh, we ask that you would bless our minds and bless our lips and everything that comes out of our mouth, uh, not just on this podcast, but but throughout the day. Um, and also uh please bless Father Bernard and his fellow brothers who are celebrating their 19th anniversary of being ordained to the priesthood. So uh, and hey, while I'm at it, bless all of our parishioners, both at St. Therese and St. Philip the Apostle Church here in Statesville. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

All right. Thanks, Rick. So I'm gonna actually uh start the uh the discussion today. We were gonna talk to it, I'm gonna try to actually keep this, hopefully been 30 minutes to an hour. But uh uh you and I were talking about this. And there's a couple of different things uh uh that kind of came to me in adoration this morning. I was thinking about it. And and one is this idea of, you know, you and I are are are I wouldn't say struggling, maybe be the wrong word, or we we certainly are going through life trying to trying to discern God's will, trying to understand our place in the world and and how to to be who we're called to be. But it got me thinking about about the fact that, you know, what if I told you this morning, just a few minutes ago, told you, you know what, turns out it was all sham that that there is no God. There is no God. There is no God. How would that change your life today? How would that how would that make Greg different?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Well, uh okay, so if you told me that there is no God and it's all a myth and so on and so forth, then um I guess I'd have to hit the proverbial reset button, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

And but think about it in terms of practical terms. What would you do differently today that you would ordinarily not do? Or what would you do that you, you know, what would you not do that you ordinarily do?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Well, I I okay, in in lieu of so if there is no supreme God creator, then by default I would think that I would view myself as this kind of God. In other words and when I say that, uh what I mean is that I would be the center of my own universe. Okay. And so I would determine what's right and wrong, what's good and bad, you know, what what uh what's moral or immoral. Um I used to joke, it's funny you say this kind of now that I think about it. Um so I live on the lake.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Okay. And uh I'm going off on a little tangent, but I'll bring it back to this question. Um and so uh I have a floating dock. All right. And on the side of the lake I live, we have a lot of younger people that own these uh wake boats. Okay. And so they shake the you know what out of my every and the and and they're they appear to be college-age because the only time I see them is on the lake is during the summer, right? And they're there every single day. And they're shaking the hell out of my my dock. Um, actually, I have two docks, and um yeah, so um, and I used to always say, if they ever make me benevolent dictator of Lake Norman, the first thing I'm gonna do is man those boats. So, so you know, I guess if if there was no God, uh, you know, then I would be a kind of benevolent dictator of my own house. I'd be benevolent dictator of of my own neighborhood. Um, and and maybe even broader than that, my community. Um and it would be a very different life for me, I think. I think I would live a worldly life. So it'd be, you know, I would reset what the end, what the end goal is for me. So the end goal, as you know, today as a Christian, as a Catholic, is heaven. That's that's where we're aiming for. The world, if I had to reset, then I would say, well, my the end game for me is to accumulate as much wealth as I could, and maybe power too. Accumulate as much wealth and as much power as I possibly could so that I could somehow utilize it to probably gain more wealth and maybe more power, um, but also to then pass that on to my kids.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

So here's what I challenge you though. Why does it matter? You're never gonna see your kids again, and they're never gonna see you again. Yeah, but they're just people. Okay. And we're all expendable.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Okay, but see, now this is where now uh I still will love my children. Okay, not because if there is no God, because the God is about love and mercy and all that goodness, right? But I still love my kids. I mean, whether I whether I have Christ in my life or I don't have Christ in my life, I'm still going to love my children. And I'm still going to believe, like almost every generation in human history, that you're trying to make a better life for your children, right? So if you look back at human history for hundreds of years, every generation has tried to has sacrificed but how much of that, Greg, do you think is an influence in Judeo-Christian belief versus saying because you came out and say six absolutely without a child, there is no, there is no supreme being.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

We're just we're ants on the earth, and that's that.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, but if you look at, I mean, if you look at all the different dynasties that were out there that were non-Christian dynasties, right? It was still, it was very much about, again, about those that had power, those that accumulated wealth, and they raised their own families, right? And they were typically kings or emperors or lords or whatever they, depending at the time of history, and they bequeathed that to their children.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

So so you would you would then kind of equate material goods passed down to a generation as a show of love?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yes, I would. I would, I would, yes, most, most definitely. Like, yes, that's the way I would look at it. It is, but and again, I think maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's kind of, you know, so I would, I would more than likely define success. I'd have some sort of scorecard, and it would be kept by how much wealth did I accumulate. And, you know, to your point, how much did I, you know, it does wouldn't matter what I spent on myself, right? Wouldn't matter what I spent on my wife or or anyone else, really. I could I could give it away, I could uh and not leave and leave my children penniless. I could do that, certainly. Um, but I think because of love, I would, I would, I would live a very good life and I would do whatever I wanted to, but I would still probably have enough left over that I could bequeath that to the children and let them live a very good life as well. I think that's probably what I would do if uh if if if you know given your your hypothetical that there was no God and uh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

How about you? Well, I think I think the immediate responsibility, like, you know, if if you think of, and sometimes, you know, you know, I'll be honest here, you know, sometimes my my faith will require me to do something that I'm wouldn't come natural to me. Forgiving somebody who offended me. Um, you know, uh, being sacrificial love. Sacrificial love is not something that comes naturally to a lot of people. Well, if all of a sudden that that driver's gone away, I don't have to worry about that anymore. Okay. As you said, live for yourself. And I think at first, for somebody who has maybe seen some of that as being kind of uh, you know, again, this this Lord out there who wants us to to push us to do things that that don't come natural to us to learn to love better. Well, now that requirement's gone. So I'm now self-centered. Okay. And at first, I think I'd be kind of maybe that'd be somewhat liberating. But I think then you play that out, and it's kind of like you can you mentioned living on a lake, and I thought about this Greg too, because I live on a lake as well, and have for you know quite some time. And because I've lived on a lake for some time, I hardly see the water for what it is. You know, because because now I've seen it forever, okay? Right. So what do they say? Familiarity breeds contempt. Yeah. All of a sudden, that at first, that that liberation of all the rules, so to speak, would be that's awesome until you get around to saying, wait a minute, where's the hope? I can't, there's nothing to hope for because it's all right here in front of me. All the material goods and stuff like that, no matter how much I've got, this is it. And when lights go out, they go out. I'll never see my kids, nor their husbands and spouses and children, and anything else. I don't see any of that. So it doesn't matter. And and now you've it's an absence of hope. That it I think is just you know, that that makes you think, wonder, why am I even here? What is that, what is the purpose of any of this? So the reason I bring that up is because again, that that idea that we get into this kind of this cycle of taking these things for granted and taking God's luck for granted and opportunities we have. But if you just if you take that away, that possibility away, then you start to realize what you actually do have.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

And and so coming back into it and saying, well, what but there is a God and He does exist. And because of that, I have hope for things that are far beyond material goods and something like that. I have hope of seeing my kids and my grandkids and my great-great-great-great-grandkids sometime in the future because of what God did for me. And that should change life in the other direction. That should make you see things, you know, hopefully through God's eyes and through the eyes of hope to say, well, the sacrifices I make now and and the the challenges that I have and the and the ability that I have to to to be an instrument of God in this world, I should I should thrive on it.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yeah. No, I I I think you're absolutely right about that. And you know, I there are so many stories out there of people who had pursued worldly success and wealth and all that. Parties and were at the you know, i i in in the eyes of the world, they were at the very top rung of the ladder, right? And have come back and said tremendous emptiness, tremendous emptiness. Like I've seen it all, I've done it all, I had it all, and in the end, it wasn't that great. It wasn't that great. And and I think there's a lot of truth to that. I think um, and I think you know, when you're when you're busy kind of climbing the ladder or building a new business or or whatever, uh, you get very focused on kind of that day-to-day, make, you know, doing the right things, trying to provide for your family, trying to earn a better living for yourself. And sometimes we forget that, hey, the prize has really nothing to do with that. Okay, the prize is is still, do you love and serve the Lord? And even as you um, even as you accumulate wealth, even as you become more quote unquote successful in the world, are you using that for his purposes or for your own? Right? And again, this is one thing that I I think Father Bernard has challenged us on that I and I and I love this teaching that he's shot across my bow more than once, and that is it's not yours, it's the Lord's, it's not your money, it's not your house, it's the Lord's. He allowed you to he in his goodness, he allowed you to be successful and to gain all that, but it's his and I think that's a really healthy perspective to have.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah. So yeah, I love analogies and I love, you know, I I love parables, you know, because uh I'm glad that Jesus kept it simple for somebody simple-minded like me. But you know, it it got me thinking too about this. So we're talking about, you know, this okay, God either exists or it doesn't exist. It's a binary question, you know, much like they say that you know you can't be a little bit pregnant, right? You know, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

That's right, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

And so my question is is that if you kind of use that as an analogy, you know, can you be a little bit Christian?

SPEAKER_01 13:50

So I think the answer to that is no. Um, but I think too many of us think the answer is yes. Okay, and let me again, I'm you this is not gonna surprise you. I I am like you, I'm a simple man, and I look to others that are smarter than me and holier than me to kind of help me on my journey. And yet another priest who um, God rest his soul is no longer of this world, Father Mark Beard. But one of the things that I he said in the homily is I know you've heard me say this before, but they probably have not heard it on the podcast. Um, and that is every day when you wake up, you intentionally are either moving toward Christ and becoming a better Christian, or you're intentionally moving away from him. And you know, that one like hit me right between the eyes when I heard him say that. Because at first I was like, what? And he's like, No, you can't be Catholic and call yourself a fence sitter. It doesn't work that way. You're either all in for the Lord and you're heading toward him, or you're like, hey, I don't have time for you, Lord, and you're off to do your own thing. And the more I thought of that, the greater the conviction was. I'm like, he is absolutely right. Like when I wake up that morning, I have a choice. God, that's the beauty of God. God doesn't dictate anything, God gave us free will. And I have the choice to start my day off worshiping the Lord, praying to the Lord, thanking the Lord, offering my day to the Lord, or I can just jettison all that, make my scrambled eggs and bacon and get off and do whatever I want, golf or go to work or whatever it is, right? And kind of, hey, I don't have time for you, Lord. And sadly, in my life, too many of them, I wasted way too many years doing exactly what I just described. I didn't have time for prayer, I didn't have time for any of that. I was, man, I'll tell you what, my my mind at the moment I woke up and I was in the shower, my mind was already whirling with what I had to do, what I had to achieve, who I was gonna see, what I was gonna be proposing. Just, you know. But yeah, I made a conscious decision to not even think about the Lord. Now, as you say, as I'm older and as I'm beginning to figure out like, where's my place in life and what does God really want of me, I'm realizing that yeah, you can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you aren't. You're either a Christian and living for Christ or you're not. You can't be a fence sitter, it just doesn't work that way. And I'm absolutely convinced of that. And uh and my challenge to myself at least is Greg, you got to get in the game every time you wake up in the morning. And the game is love of Christ, do his work because again, the end goal is heaven, it's none of the other nonsense that unfortunately you wasted so many decades pursuing. At the end of the day, it's how do you get yourself, your wife, your family, your neighbors, and even strangers to heaven to be in the presence of the Almighty, of our Creator forever and ever for all of eternity.

unknown 17:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

That's gotta be the end of the game.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah. Well, and bringing back to this analogy, and what I was thinking of, it's like, you know, again, you know, you can't be a little bit pregnant. So, you know, and when a woman's pregnant, she's not pregnant with a squirrel or a toaster. It's a it's a human, okay? And and you think about if you equated that journey, if you will, you know, with our own lives, and think of replace the the heavenly child that's gonna be born with our with our with or the earthly child rather, with the heavenly body, you know, our heavenly life. That you know, as you go through that that pregnancy, you know, there's an anticipation, there's a there's a there's an excitement. You have no idea what that child's smile is gonna look like, who they're gonna grow up to be, what, what grandkids they may bless you with, or kids they may bless you with. You have no idea, but you have this hope. You know, and and so just like you can't be a little bit pregnant, if you're not a little bit Christian, if you're actually all in, then you actually get to have that same hope and that same anticipation, not knowing a lot, and knowing as you get closer and closer to that, there's all those anxieties come with it, and going, well, are we ready? Are we, you know, gosh, am I am I does the nursery ready? Am I ready for this kind of stuff? Am I ready to be a dad? But that's the same type of thing with with our heavenly journey.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, and you know, I uh just one other thing as as you say that, I I think you hopefully learn, or at least I'm beginning to learn, and and I'd love to hear your perspective, but that no matter what happens to your to you during that day, in a way, doesn't really matter because it's all the Lord's anyway. Yeah, and so like if the Lord wants you to, for whatever reason, not have a great day, okay, just accept it. Hey, the Lord doesn't want me to have a great day today. Um I got to a point in my career, toward the tail end of my career, where I used to intentionally want to uh do certain things that would put me in a in a better position for promotion or a pay raise. And I started toward the end of my career just saying, you know what, I'm not gonna do that anymore. I whatever the Lord, you know, it's in the Lord's hands. So what does it matter? Like, why am I why am I getting myself all wound up about you know, doing this, that, or the other in preparation for my review or whatever? Just let give it all to the Lord and just it's kind of like when the Lord tells the apostles that um you know, don't worry when they bring you in front of governors and kings about what you're gonna say. Because the Lord's gonna give you the words to say, the Holy Spirit is, right? It's kind of the same thing. It's like, you know what? If you live that way every day, it doesn't really matter. You know, just know that the Lord is there when you wake up, the Lord is there every minute of the day next to you. He lays down with you at night. I mean, he's right next to you. And if you can begin to embrace that and accept that, yeah, it really doesn't matter what happens, good or bad. No, it doesn't. Yeah. So well, I can't believe this. Holy God, we've we this was a great I I really enjoyed this discussion. It that it was a unique one, and I love that. I I think we want to always stay unique and true and authentic, and I know we're doing that. So thank you, brother, for that one.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

All right, well, listen, uh, want to thank you again for tuning in and being part of my brother's journal journey. Hey, seek Jesus in all you do and be fishers of men. God bless you. Please join us again. Viva Jesus.