Life Without God?

Have you ever read or heard something that you find hard to believe?  Well, this week I read an article on CNN that made me "spitting mad."  A woman blogged and shared it with CNN and titled the blog "Why I Raise My Children Without God." Seriously?!
Because she doesn't believe in God or even in his existence, she is passing a faithless life on to her children.  How sad!  Sad that she's an atheist and sad that she's encouraging that in her children.  These are the subtitles of her paragraphs:  God is a bad role model; God is not logical; God is not fair; God does not protect the innocent; God is not present; God does not teach chidlren to be good; and God teaches narcissism.  Her entire premise that God is not good presents a huge problem.  How does she know what is good and what is bad?  Who taught her that?  Where did she get such knowledge?  Who says what is good and what is bad? 
Oddly enough, the world has a universal "moral code" or "ethical code."  I haven't heard of any civilization which states that murder is good and which encourages everyone to murder others.  Stealing is also something that's bad around the world. 
We say, "Play fair," to our kids when they're small.  How do we know what's fair?  Who puts that knowledge in us?  Where does it come from?  Why do we have to teach our children to be good?  Why do they do "wrong" things and have to be corrected?  From where do laws generate other than people's hearts?
God gave human beings free will.  We can choose to do anything we want to do.  We can steal, murder, lie, cheat, commit adultery (who said that's "wrong"), want what others have, take guns and kill innocent people (or even children), be nasty, mean and spiteful to others -- all because God has given us a free will.  Or we can also choose to do good, save others from danger, help people in need, give from our abundance, be honest, nice, and polite to others.  The choice is ours.
God does have a plan for us -- but I don't believe that anyone ever follows his plan perfectly.  All of us go astray on occasion; the only one who followed God's plan explicitly was Jesus.  He did the will of his Father God. 
Suffering, sickness and pain was not part of God's creation until Man disobeyed God.  We live in a fallen world, fallen from the ideal plan of God and what he created.  His creation will be redeemed one day, but until then, we will see illness and tragedy in this life and will not have answers to the tough questions.
My prayer is that this other blogger (TXBlue08) will find the truth someday.  God is not dead; He's alive and well and always will be.  Ultimately, each and every person will have to account for their actions, choices and beliefs on this earth.  I'm choosing to believe in God.  If being "good" gets me to heaven, I'll get there because I'm a "good" person.  But if belief in God and in his Son Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, I'll still get there because I'm a believer. Either way, I'm in.  Are you willing to take that gamble?  I'm not.