One popular quip among the more leftist students around the University of Iowa (and probably elsewhere) is “I reject your reality and substitute my own.”  This is an obvious case of moral relativism.  If our reality is boring or uncomfortable, then it must be wrong.  One of the aspects of reality that leftists reject is the fact of a divine and perfect God.  They deny God, and substitute Him with a deity of their own making: secular government.
    One of the primary reasons the atheist Left must object to the truth of God is that this truth places moral imperatives on all those who believe.  It makes them uncomfortable to be commanded to separate the world into degrees of good and bad.  Yet they do this, regardless, perhaps without noticing; they vilify George Bush and Christians, primarily because these are symbols of the good/bad mentality that they violently reject, while simultaneously saying that you shouldn’t judge people.  There is no doubting that, despite its belief in moral relativism, the atheist Left does, indeed, divide the world into degrees of good and bad, the Good being fellow leftists, communists like Hugo Chavez and Che Guevara, and often extending to enemies of America and God, such as the radical Islamist terrorists.  The Bad are George Bush, Republicans, Christians, and often America or the West in general.
    This might sound hypocritical.  It is, but I don’t find it all that unusual.  The point is, when you remove God, the whole Christian worldview goes with Him, leaving a void which must be filled with something.  We humans have a natural need to make sense of the world we live in.  We need a way to separate the desired from the undesired.  Leftists find this in the government.
    Why the government?  While conservatives see the federal and state government as an entity that should be wielded cautiously and sparingly, the Left sees the government as a divinely competent system, capable of remedying all of society’s ills.  This belief in the utter competence and efficacy of the government is what leads many Leftists to harbor sympathy and even enthusiasm for the communist ideology.  Under communism, God must necessarily disappear, His role being consumed by the government, which must then act as Father, Mother, and Mentor over the people.  While all experience denies that any government has the ability to perform all (or any) of these roles effectively, it is not the habit of the Left to allow rationality to impede their utopian ideals.
    The incompatibility of expansive government with the virtue of society has been demonstrated right here in America.  During the Great Depression, unemployed Americans would stand on street corners holding up signs that said, “I don’t want charity, I want a job.”  Can anyone imagine a vast majority of our Greatest Generation complaining that the government isn’t doing enough for them?  Nowadays, thanks to our ever-expanding federal government, this opinion is extremely prevalent on one end of the political spectrum: the Left end.  Our high taxes dampen our industry while over-wrought welfare programs supersede our initiative and creativity and encourage us to behave irresponsibly, with the belief that the government’s “safety net” will ensure our wellbeing.  Many, I believe, have found this safety net to be more akin to flypaper.
    In substituting the Government for God, the atheist Left has sealed themselves into slavery to an imperfect ideal.  Despite all evidence against the notion that government can solve all social ills, they continue to pine after it.  In this deified government, the Left sees salvation.  They see an entity that can protect us from every inconvenience of life--hardship, accountability, morality—at the simple expense of our personal freedom and our souls.  My God may not always protect me from trouble, but His rewards are greater than any secular government can offer: “God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.”
    No creation of Man has the power to provide any of these things.