A person can only have a meaningful life if they believe in God. Discuss this statement.

Christianity provides a strong moral framework for people to live their lives. Fundamentalists will look to the Bible to form their opinions about different issues and they will try to spread the word of God. Conservative Christians will look to the Church for guidance and might perhaps follow Natural Law. More Liberal Christians will believe that the New Testament message of agape and situation ethics are the most important thing and so not only will they be kind to all other people, they would also use this and apply it to certain areas of live, such as relationships and their opinion on abortion. Although Christians would regard this as the English heresy, Christianity does provide a good moral standpoint for how someone should live their lives, and so I believe that even if you don’t believe in God, Christianity can still help you lead good and fulfilling lives.

There are also many things that can’t be explained by science and so if you believe in Christianity, you can have a greater understanding of the world around us. For instance, Science still does not fully understand the Creation of the Universe and so if you combine the two, then you can understand God and his creation better as they are complementary questions: science answers the how and religion answers the why. Conservatives might look to the Pope for guidance who believes that science and religion are complementary.

For these reasons I think that as long as you live a life with good Christian morals, I do not think you have to believe in God, although as stated by Pascal’s wager, the consequences if you are wrong and God does exist outweigh the disadvantages that come with belief in God.