Well, in one regard, at least: if Christ is not raised from the dead, our faith is in vain.
The modern world insists that we cannot deny ourselves: "to thine own self be true," though I think that it often misapplies this quote from Hamlet in ways that Polonius would not have intended. Yet the gospel says that we must deny ourselves if we are to follow Jesus.
This is the only way I have found to live my life as I believe I should. It is taking me a painfully long time for it to make all the difference I think it should. Frankly, there are so many aspects of myself that I have set aside along the way that I cannot imagine what my life would be like if it were not built on my belief in God, in Jesus' resurrection from the dead, in the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. Indeed, the very foundations of my concept of how I "should live" are so tightly bound up with my faith that I would be utterly lost without it. I don't know how I would keep my natural tendencies in check, how I'd keep from devolving into a selfish wretch.
The antitheists insist that my spiritual experiences can be dismissed as tricks of my mind, misinterpretations of events that can be easily explained without any invocation of the supernatural. In fact, they argue, for my own betterment and that of society as a whole, they should be. Building our lives around them is utter foolishness, and does more harm than good. Indeed, where is the point of denying ourselves, particularly fundamental parts of ourselves, if there is no God? In that case, am I not truly just a frog hoping to be turned into a prince by a magic kiss, acting as if it has indeed happened?
If the antitheists are right, my faith just makes me a pretender, perhaps even an utter fraud, for no purpose whatsoever.
(This is not written in despair.)
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