Today is U.S. Independence Day, the day when we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence from England. Perhaps the most famous passage in the Declaration is this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Many people today—those who insist that government and God have nothing to do with each other—seem to forget that this country’s founding fathers based everything on the fact that individuals have rights because God created us all in his image. When you insist that God and any reference to him be removed from public life, you do away with the very reason life has value and people have rights.

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.

God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so.

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. (Gen. 1:26–31)

Many people today—people who like to think marriage is whatever they say it is—also forget that marriage has value because it was instituted by God. That’s not in the Declaration or the Constitution, unfortunately, but that fact doesn’t make it less true. God created a woman to be a helper for the man. He created her from the man’s flesh, and fashioned her so that the two could "become one flesh" again.

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."

…So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man."

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Gen. 2:18, 22–24)

I have never understood how atheists and agnostics don’t fall into utter despair the moment they examine life and ask "Why". I have never understood why someone who doesn’t believe in God would want to be married. I guess it must have something to do with various combinations of materialism, hedonism, altruism, loneliness, hope, and legal benefits, but in my mind none of those can stand against the fact that nothing means anything unless it comes from God. I just pray that my child can grow up in a world that worships God, or at least acknowledges him.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.
(Psalm 33:12)

This entry was posted on Monday, July 4th, 2005 at 9:08 pm and is filed under Marriage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.