You Didn’t Choose to Be Born - and That’s the Point
The consistent inconsistency of atheistic naturalism
TL;DR: You didn’t choose to exist. That’s not an argument against God, it’s proof that life is gift, not accident. And if you trust survival selection for everything else in your worldview, consistency demands you apply it here too. The only choice that defines eternity is whether you accept the offer that justifies your existence.
The skeptic’s protest is familiar: “I didn’t choose to be born.”
It sounds profound, but it actually proves the opposite of what it intends. No one chose existence. That’s not injustice, it’s revelation. It tells you that life itself is contingent, that you depend on something greater than yourself for every breath. Dependency isn’t a flaw in design; it’s the design.
We were made to receive life, not to generate it. To need love, not to invent meaning. Every heartbeat is borrowed rhythm. Each moment a reminder that we are creatures, not causes.
But here’s where the real weight falls. And where most skeptics reveal an inconsistency they haven’t noticed.
The Survival Selection Trap
If you’re a naturalist who believes survival selection shaped your cognitive faculties, that evolution wired you to respond rationally to threats and opportunities, then you have a consistency problem.
You trust survival logic for everything:
Your fight-or-flight response
Your pattern recognition
Your risk assessment
Your mate selection
Even your scientific reasoning (products of survival-optimized brains)
But when confronted with the claim that God offers eternal life or eternal consequence, you suddenly dismiss survival logic as irrelevant. Why?
This isn’t Pascal’s Wager. It’s deeper. Pascal asked about probability. I’m asking about consistency. You can’t invoke survival selection as your epistemic ground when it’s convenient, then abandon it when the stakes become metaphysical. That’s arbitrary boundary-drawing without justification.
If survival selection is fundamental to how you evaluate reality, then accepting God’s offer is the most rational move available within your own framework. Rejecting it is selecting against survival. The one thing your worldview says you’re hardwired not to do.
And here’s the deeper problem: if you trust your survival-selected brain to do science, logic, and reasoning about the natural world, but you don’t trust survival selection when applied to ultimate questions of existence, you’ve just undermined your confidence in your own cognitive faculties. Why does survival logic produce reliable reasoning in one domain but not the other?
The naturalist who says “I only care about survival in the empirical domain” is now special pleading. Survival pressure doesn’t clock out at the boundary of the transcendent. Unless you’re arbitrarily deciding it does.
The Binary Reality
And here’s what makes this more than abstract philosophy: there are multiple converging lines of evidence across multiple domains that the Christian God exists.
Not generic theism. Not “some higher power.” The God who revealed Himself in history through Jesus Christ. The philosophical arguments (cosmological, teleological, moral). The historical evidence for the resurrection. The testimony of transformed lives across centuries and cultures. The explanatory power of the Christian worldview for human experience, morality, meaning, and rationality itself.
You can dispute the strength of each line. But the convergence matters. When independent streams of evidence point in the same direction, dismissing all of them requires motivated reasoning.
And survival instinct combined with evidence demands a decision. You cannot escape the binary: either acknowledge the potential reality of the Christian God and respond accordingly, or flatly assert “no God” and live with that assumption.
“But I’m agnostic” isn’t a third option when survival is at stake. Agnosticism about a fire alarm doesn’t save you from the fire. Functionally, suspending judgment IS a choice. It’s choosing to live as though the offer isn’t real, which means you’ve answered “no” by default.
This isn’t a false dichotomy. It’s a TRUE dichotomy because the Law of Excluded Middle applies: the Christian God either exists or doesn’t. Christ either rose from the dead or didn’t. The offer of eternal life is either real or it isn’t. There is no middle ground in reality, only in your willingness to investigate and decide.
The skeptic who says “I need absolute proof” is moving the goalposts. You don’t have absolute proof for most of what you believe and act on. You board planes, undergo surgery, trust your senses, and believe in the rationality of other minds based on convergent evidence, not mathematical certainty.
Why demand a higher standard for the one question that matters most?
If multiple lines of evidence point to the Christian God, and your survival-selected brain is designed to respond to threats and opportunities, then refusing to decide isn’t rationality. It’s rationalization. It’s treating the stakes as theoretical when they’re existential.
The Choice You Actually Have
Though we didn’t choose to begin, we do choose what to do with existence. The God who gave life also gives freedom. He doesn’t coerce worship; He invites communion. The cross is that invitation written in blood: an offer to return to the One who gave your existence purpose.
But this is where many stumble: “Isn’t belief motivated by survival just strategic self-interest? Doesn’t God want genuine love?”
Fair question. But consider: recognizing reality and responding accordingly isn’t manipulation. It’s sanity. The person who sees a fire alarm and exits the building isn’t “fake” about fire danger; they’re appropriately responsive to reality. Similarly, recognizing your contingency and responding to the God who sustains you isn’t cynical calculation. It’s alignment with truth.
Faith begins with recognition, not self-generated emotion. Love grows from knowing who God is and what He’s done. And yes, that includes recognizing what’s at stake. The thief on the cross didn’t have years of warm feelings; he had a moment of clarity about his need and Christ’s authority. That was enough.
The Inescapable Stakes
Rejecting God isn’t philosophical neutrality. It’s moral rebellion. Using the very gift of autonomy against the Giver, employing the image of God to deny the God whose image we bear.
As Jesus said of Judas: “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” That wasn’t cruelty; it was divine honesty. Freedom carries consequence because love requires choice. And yes, that means the “gift” of existence comes with stakes: real, eternal stakes.
The skeptic protests: “But I didn’t consent to these terms!”
True. And that’s precisely what reveals this isn’t a transaction between equals. You didn’t negotiate your existence because you can’t. You’re the dependent party in an asymmetrical relationship. The question isn’t whether that’s fair by your standards. The question is whether it’s true.
And if it’s true, consistency demands response.
The Only Question Left
When someone says, “I didn’t choose to be born,” the Christian reply isn’t defensive. It’s redemptive:
“No, you didn’t. And that’s what makes life sacred. You were given existence by grace. And now you’re offered communion by mercy. If you trust survival selection for everything else in your worldview, why abandon that logic now? The only question left is what you’ll do with the invitation.”
You can’t unchose existence. You can only choose what to do with it.
And if your own framework says survival matters, then choosing the offer isn’t weakness.
It’s the most consistent thing you could possibly do.
Soli Deo Gloria
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