Some atheists apparently don’t like this video, A Fool's Heart, but you can view it here. It recaps some of the effects of anti-Christian atheistic/evolutionary thinking in recent times, beginning with Robespierre, a leader of the French Revolution.

Atheism

by Ken Ammi

Published: 18 June 2009 (GMT+10)

For many other articles on this topic, see Atheism, agnosticism and humanism: godless religions—Questions and Answers

1. Definition of “Atheism”

There is confusion and debate about the term “atheism” and its definition.

The term “atheism” finds its etymology in the Greek combination of “a” and “theos”. What “atheos” means is, as with any term, subject to context (and perhaps personal interpretation). Note that if an atheist states, “I do not believe in God”, this is technically not a statement about God’s existence or lack thereof. Does atheos mean “no God”, “without God”, “lack God belief” or “God does not exist”?

Early Christians were referred to as “atheists” because they did not believe in the Greek or Roman gods. Yet, while they positively affirmed the non-existence of those gods they likely believed that those gods were deceptive demons whom they did believe existed (1 Corinthians 8:4–6).

Let us consider other Greek-derived “a” words:

“Amusement”—no, without, or lack of musing, but does this mean that musing does not exist, that the person is merely not musing at the moment, that there is merely no musing upon a particular topic, etc.?

“Agnostic”—no, without, or lack of gnosis (knowledge), but does this mean that knowledge does not exist, or merely that none exists with regards to a particular topic, or merely that it may exist but we lack it?

Generally, as popularized by the New Atheist movement, atheists prefer the definition of “atheism” as “lacking belief in god(s)”. Thus, by applying the term “atheist” to themselves, such atheists are not technically making a statement about God’s existence or lack thereof.

This definition has been popularized, at least, since Charles Bradlaugh (circa 1876). It appears to be preferred so as to escape the philosophic difficulty of proving a negative—God does not exist—and in order to shift the burden of proof to the theist, since the theist is making the positive affirmation that God exists.

On a polemical note there are two things to consider:

Meeting atheists on their own ground: if they want to define atheism as a mere lack of God belief, grant it and continue the discussion. Making them see whence their position comes and where it leads.

In reference to the above mentioned term “agnostic”, note that Thomas Henry Huxley coined this term in 1869.1 He explained that he noted two extremes: one was the atheist who positively affirmed God’s non-existence (claiming to know that God did not exist) and the other was the theists who positively affirmed God’s existence (claiming to know that God exists). Huxley said that he did not possess enough evidence to affirm positively either position. Thus, he coined a term which he saw as a middle position, which was that of lacking knowledge to decide either way (whether such knowledge actually exists outside of his personal knowledge or may someday be discovered is another issue).

As we will see next, there are various sects of atheism. There is a vast difference between the friendly atheist next door and the activists. Generally, even the activist types who are typified by the New Atheist movement will define “atheism” as a mere lack of belief in God. However, it is important to note that their activism demonstrates that their atheism is anything but mere lack: it is an anti-“religion”, anti-“faith” and anti-“God” movement.

1.1 Variations of Atheism

Atheists may be categorized under various technical terms as well as sociopolitical and cultural ones, which may overlap depending on the individual atheist’s preferences:

Strong atheism, positive atheism, explicit atheism or critical atheism: generally refers to those who positively affirm God’s non-existence. Some current atheists, perhaps influenced by the deleterious effects of the New Atheist movement, actually think that this definition of atheism is a hoax concocted by theists in order to make atheists appear foolish. Yet, this is a traditional definition and one found in various dictionaries, encyclopedias, philosophical textbooks.2

Weak atheism, negative atheism or implicit atheism: generally refers to those who would claim merely to lack a God belief. They would generally claim that they do not believe in God because God’s existence has not been proven (or evidenced). It may or may not be in the future. This sect is similar to agnosticism.

Militant atheism or antitheism: generally refers to atheists who consider belief in God as dangerous superstitious ignorance and seek to abolish it or, at the very least, remove it from the public sphere (public meaning from politics, culture at large, etc.).

Some atheists claim that atheism is a religion3 and others have attempted to establish secular/civic/atheistic religions which we will elucidate below.

Michael Shermer, editor of The Skeptic magazine, draws a distinction between the atheist who claims, “there is no God” and the non-theist who claims to have “no belief in God”.4

As to the sociopolitical and/or cultural terms, these abound and some are: Brights, Freethinkers, Humanists, Naturalists, Rationalists, Skeptics, Secular Humanists andMaterialists.

Some atheists squabble about terminology. For example, “American Atheists” webmaster wrote, “Atheists are NOT ‘secular humanists’, ‘freethinkers’, ‘rationalists’ or ‘ethical culturalists’ … Often, people who are Atheists find it useful to masquerade behind such labels”5 while the “Freedom from Religion Foundation”, claims that, “Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists”.6

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2. Atheism as nature worship or neo-paganism

By “nature worship” and “neo-paganism” I refer to the atheist’s tendency to replace a sense of awe of God and seeking transcendence by relating to God with seeking awe and transcendence in nature. This natural high, as it were, is not merely enjoyed but it is enjoined and said to be holier than theism.

Referring to our ability to “step off the Earth and look back at ourselves,” as was done in Voyager 2, Carl Sagan stated,

“I find that a chilling, spine-tingling, exciting, perspective-raising, consciousness-raising experience. It’s said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.”7

The very first episode of his televised series entitled Cosmos, began with Carl Sagan stating,

“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as of a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”

Presupposing a God-free reality, why atheists seek transcendent experiences remains unanswered.

Michael Shermer stated that his study of evolution was, “far more enlightening and transcendent, spiritual, than anything I had experienced in seven years of being a born again Christian.”8

Michael Shermer made reference to “the spiritual side of science”, which he referred to as “sciensuality”:

“If religion and spirituality are supposed to generate awe and humility in the fact of the creator, what could be more awesome and humbling than the deep space discovered by Hubble and the cosmologists and the deep time discovered by Darwin and the evolutionists? Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. And Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.”9

Michael Ruse; philosophy professor (University of Guelph), ardent evolutionist and professedly an ex-Christian who has argued for the ACLU against the “balanced treatment” (of creation and evolution in schools) bill in the USA, wrote:

“Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality … This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today … "As a social reformer therefore, Huxley, known in the papers as ‘Pope Huxley’, was determined to find a substitute for Christianity. Evolution, with its stress on unbroken law—which could be used to reflect messages of social progress—was the perfect candidate. Life is on an upwardly moving escalator … “Indeed, recognizing that a good religion needs a moral message as well as a history and promise of future reward, Huxley increasingly turned from Darwin (who was not very good at providing these things) toward another English evolutionist. Herbert Spencer—prolific writer and immensely popular philosopher to the masses—shared Huxley’s vision of evolution as a kind of metaphysics rather than a straight science … “Evolution now has its mystical visionary, its Saint John of the Cross. Harvard entomologist and sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson tells us that we now have an ‘alternative mythology’ to defeat traditional religion … If people want to make a religion of evolution, that is their business … The important point is that we should recognize when people are going beyond the strict science, moving into moral and social claims, thinking of their theory as an all-embracing world picture.”10

Addressing fellow atheist Jonathan Miller, Richard Dawkins stated:

“you and I probably do have … feelings that may very well be akin to a kind of mystical wonder when we contemplate the stars, when we contemplate the galaxies, when we contemplate life, the sheer expanse of geological time. I experience, and I expect you experience, internal feelings which sound pretty much like um, what mystics feel, and they call it God. If—and I’ve been called a very religious person for that reason—if I am called a religious person, then my retort to that is, ‘Well, you’re playing with words’, because what the vast majority of people mean by religious is something utterly different from this sort of transcendent, mystical experience [ … ] “The transcendent sense … the transcendent, mystic sense, that people who are both religious and non-religious in my usage of the term, is something very very different. In that sense, I probably am a religious person. You probably are a religious person. But that doesn’t mean we think that there is a supernatural being that interferes with the world, that does anything, that manipulates anything, or by the way, that it’s worth praying to or asking forgiveness of sins from, etc. [ … ] “I prefer to use words like religion, like God, in the way that the vast majority of people in the world would understand them, and to reserve a different kind of language for the feeling that we share with possibly your clergyman [ … ] the sense of wonder that one gets as a scientist contemplating the cosmos, or contemplating mitochondria is actually much grander than anything that you will get by contemplating the traditional objects of religious mysticism.”11

[the un-bracketed ellipses appear in the original transcript denoting Richard Dawkins’ halting way of speaking, the bracketed ones were added]

Richard Dawkins, in Is Science a Religion? said,

“science does have some of religion’s virtues … All the great religions have a place for awe, for ecstatic transport at the wonder and beauty of creation. And it’s exactly this feeling of spine-shivering, breath-catching awe—almost worship—this flooding of the chest with ecstatic wonder, that modern science can provide. And it does so beyond the wildest dreams of saints and mystics … “Science can offer a vision of life and the universe which, as I’ve already remarked, for humbling poetic inspiration far outclasses any of the mutually contradictory faiths and disappointingly recent traditions of the world’s religions … “The universe at large couldn’t possibly be anything other than indifferent to Christ, his birth, his passion, and his death … I want to return now to the charge that science is just a faith. The more extreme version of that charge—and one that I often encounter as both a scientist and a rationalist—is an accusation of zealotry and bigotry in scientists themselves as great as that found in religious people. Sometimes there may be a little bit of justice in this accusation; but as zealous bigots, we scientists are mere amateurs at the game. We’re content to argue with those who disagree with us. We don’t kill them.”

Stephen S. Hall, in Darwin’s Rottweiler Sir Richard Dawkins: Evolution’s Fiercest Champion, Far Too Fierce, said:

“‘Einsteinian religion is a kind of spirituality which is nonsupernatural … And that doesn’t mean that it’s somehow less than supernatural religion. Quite the contrary … .Einstein was adamant in rejecting all ideas of a personal god. It is something bigger, something grander, something that I believe any scientist can subscribe to, including those scientists whom I would call atheists. Einstein, in my terms, was an atheist, although Einstein of course was very fond of using the word God. When Einstein would use the word God, he was using it as a kind of figure of speech. When he said things like ‘God is subtle but he’s not malicious’, or ‘He does not play dice’, or ‘Did God have a choice in creating the universe?’ what he meant was things like randomness do not lie at the heart of all things. Could the universe have been any other way than the way it is? Einstein chose to use the word God to phrase such profound, deep questions. That, it seems to me, is the good part of religion which we can all subscribe to … “What I can’t understand is why we are expected to show respect for good scientists, even great scientists, who at the same time believe in a god who does things like listen to our prayers, forgive our sins, perform cheap miracles … which go against, presumably, everything that the god of the physicist, the divine cosmologist, set up when he set up his great laws of nature. So I don’t understand a scientist who says, ‘I am a Roman Catholic’ or ‘I am a Baptist’ … “I suppose my hope would be that science—the best kind of science, the sort of science which approaches the best sort of religion, the Einsteinian spirituality that I was talking about—is so inspiring, so exciting that it should be sellable to everybody … “We have something far better to offer … Why are we freethinking secular scientists not getting into that same marketplace … and selling what we’ve got to sell? Because it’s a far better product, and all we’ve got to do is hone our salesmanship to the level that they are already doing it.” [italics in original]

Such sentiments appear to be fulfillments of the Apostle Paul’s reference to:

“ … men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man … Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity … because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind … ” (Romans 1:18b–28, ESV).

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2.1 Atheist religion

Let us consider the atheists from the 18th to the 21stcenturies who express desires to establish an atheistic religion. Perhaps we should begin with Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), who conceived of a civil religion:

“There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject. While it can compel no one to believe them, it can banish from the State whoever does not believe them. It can banish him, not for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to his duty. If any one, after publicly recognizing these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe them, let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the law.”12

Two other notable 18th century attempts are Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) who conceived of a new “Christianity” which would be founded upon Humanism and scientific socialism. The secular priesthood would consist of scientists, philosophers and engineers. Lastly, Auguste Comte (1798–1857) conceived of a religion of humanity.

In atheism, when we die we end up as mere fertilizer; plant food. Human life has no particular meaning or purpose and there is no real basis for ethics, love or even logical thought. Atheism provides no footing for a just, caring and secure society.

Forwarding to the 21stcentury we will consider Gary Wolf’s interview with Sam Harris:

“We discuss what it might look like, this world without God. ‘There would be a religion of reason’, Harris says. ‘We would have realized the rational means to maximize human happiness. We may all agree that we want to have a Sabbath that we take really seriously—a lot more seriously than most religious people take it. But it would be a rational decision, and it would not be just because it’s in the Bible. We would be able to invoke the power of poetry and ritual and silent contemplation and all the variables of happiness so that we could exploit them. Call it prayer, but we would have prayer without bull**** … At some point, there is going to be enough pressure that it is just going to be too embarrassing to believe in God.’”13 [italics in original]

Gary Wolf’s interview with Daniel Dennett:

“Dennett tells me that he takes very seriously the risk of over reliance on thought … It interests me that, though Dennett is an atheist, he does not see faith merely as a useless vestige of our primitive nature, something we can, with effort, intellectualize away. No rational creature, he says, would be able to do without unexamined, sacred things … This sounds to me a little like the religion of reason that Harris foresees. ‘Yes, there could be a rational religion’, Dennett says. ‘We could have a rational policy not even to think about certain things.’ He understands that this would create constant tension between prohibition and curiosity. But the borders of our sacred beliefs could be well guarded simply by acknowledging that it is pragmatic to refuse to change them. I ask Dennett if there might not be a contradiction in his scheme. On the one hand, he aggressively confronts the faithful, attacking their sacred beliefs. On the other hand, he proposes that our inherited defaults be put outside the limits of dispute. But this would make our defaults into a religion, unimpeachable and implacable gods. And besides, are we not atheists? Sacred prohibitions are anathema to us. Dennett replies that exceptions can be made. ‘Philosophers are the ones who refuse to accept the sacred values’, he says. For instance, Socrates. I find this answer supremely odd. The image of an atheist religion whose sacred objects, called defaults, are taboo for all except philosophers—this is the material of the cruelest parody. But that’s not what Dennett means. In his scenario, the philosophers are not revered authorities but mental risk-takers and scouts. Their adventures invite ridicule, or worse. ‘Philosophers should expect to be hooted at and reviled,’ Dennett says.”13

Sam Harris, Selfless Consciousness without Faith:

“As I sat and gazed upon the surrounding hills gently sloping to an inland sea, a feeling of peace came over me. It soon grew to a blissful stillness that silenced my thoughts. In an instant, the sense of being a separate self—an ‘I’ or a ‘me’—vanished. Everything was as it had been—the cloudless sky, the pilgrims clutching their bottles of water—but I no longer felt like I was separate from the scene, peering out at the world from behind my eyes. Only the world remained. As someone who is simply making his best effort to be a rational human being, I am very slow to draw metaphysical conclusions from experiences of this sort … There is no question that people have ‘spiritual’ experiences (I use words like ‘spiritual’ and ‘mystical’ in scare quotes, because they come to us trailing a long tail of metaphysical debris) … While most of us go through life feeling like we are the thinker of our thoughts and the experiencer of our experience, from the perspective of science we know that this is a false view. There is no discrete self or ego lurking like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. There is no region of cortex or stream of neural processing that occupies a privileged position with respect to our personhood. There is no unchanging ‘center of narrative gravity’ … As a critic of religious faith, I am often asked what will replace organized religion. The answer is: many things and nothing … But what about ethics and spiritual experience? For many, religion still appears the only vehicle for what is most important in life—love, compassion, morality, and self-transcendence. To change this, we need a way of talking about human well-being that is as unconstrained by religious dogma as science is … I believe that most people are interested in spiritual life, whether they realize it or not. Every one of us has been born to seek happiness in a condition that is fundamentally unreliable … On the question of how to be most happy, the contemplative life has some important insights to offer.”

Sam Harris, A Contemplative Science:

“I recently spent a week with one hundred fellow scientists at a retreat center in rural Massachusetts. The meeting attracted a diverse group: physicists, neuroscientists, psychologists, clinicians, and a philosopher or two; all devoted to the study of the human mind … We were on a silent meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society, engaged in a Buddhist practice known as vipassana (the Pali word for ‘seeing clearly’) … Of critical importance for the purposes of science: there are no unjustified beliefs or metaphysics that need be adopted at all … Research on the functional effects of meditation is still in its infancy, but there seems to be little question that the practice changes the brain.”

ABC Radio National, Stephen Crittenden interviews Sam Harris:

“ … mysticism is a real psychological phenomenon, that I have no doubt it genuinely transforms people. But it seems to me that we can promulgate that knowledge and pursue those experiences very much in a spirit of science, without presupposing anything on insufficient evidence.”

Sam Harris, Science Must Destroy Religion:

“Faith is nothing more than the license that religious people give one another to believe such propositions when reasons fail … scientists and other rational people will need to find new ways of talking about ethics and spiritual experience. The distinction between science and religion is not a matter of excluding our ethical intuitions and non-ordinary states of consciousness from our conversation about the world; it is a matter of our being rigorous about what is reasonable to conclude on their basis. We must find ways of meeting our emotional needs that do not require the abject embrace of the preposterous. We must learn to invoke the power of ritual and to mark those transitions in every human life that demand profundity—birth, marriage, death, etc.—without lying to ourselves about the nature of reality. I am hopeful that the necessary transformation in our thinking will come about as our scientific understanding of ourselves matures. When we find reliable ways to make human beings more loving, less fearful, and genuinely enraptured by the fact of our appearance in the cosmos, we will have no need for divisive religious myths.”

Sam Harris, Rational Mysticism:

[In The End of Faith] “I used the words spirituality and mysticism affirmatively, in an attempt to put the range of human experience signified by these terms on a rational footing … this enterprise is not a problem with my book, or merely with Flynn, but a larger problem with secularism itself … secularism, being nothing more than the totality of such criticism, can lead its practitioners to reject important features of human experience simply because they have been traditionally associated with religious practice. … Our conventional sense of ‘self’ is, in fact, nothing more than a cognitive illusion, and dispelling this illusion opens the mind to extraordinary experiences of happiness. This is not a proposition to be accepted on faith; it is an empirical observation … The only ‘faith’ required to get such a project off the ground is the faith of scientific hypothesis. The hypothesis is this: if I use my attention in the prescribed way, it may have a specific, reproducible effect. Needless to say, what happens (or fails to happen) along any path of ‘spiritual’ practice has to be interpreted in light of some conceptual scheme, and everything must remain open to rational discussion. How this discussion proceeds will ultimately be decided by contemplative scientists … [who will] develop a mature science of the mind … The problem, however, is that there is a kernel of truth in the grandiosity and otherworldly language of religion … Most atheists appear to be certain that consciousness is entirely dependent upon (and reducible to) the workings of the brain. In the last chapter of the book, I briefly argue that this certainty is unwarranted … the truth is that scientists still do not know what the relationship between consciousness and matter is. I am not in the least suggesting that we make a religion out of this uncertainty, or do anything else with it.”

Humanist Manifesto I (1933) states,

“In order that religious humanism may be better understood we, the undersigned, desire to make certain affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life demonstrate … which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such a vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate social goals and personal satisfactions may appear to many people as a complete break with the past … To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation.”14

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3. Why Atheism is chosen

There may be as many reasons that people choose atheism as there are individuals who make that choice. These range from philosophy or science to emotion or rebellion and various combinations of such factors.

Prominent Argentinean hyperrealism artist, Helmut Ditsch, retells part of his upbringing:

“Until my twenties, I was an atheist. Although I felt the spiritual world, I used atheism as a reaction to a very difficult childhood. My mother died when I was 8 years old. Although my father was concerned with giving us a comfortable childhood, it was … sad.”15 [emphasis added]

Joe Orso, writing on the origin of beliefs, interviewed atheist Ira Glass, who said:

“I find that I don’t seem to have a choice over whether or not I believe in God, I simply find that I do not. Either you have faith or you don’t. Either you believe or you don’t.” Orso: “I was once talking with a Chinese friend. She asked whether I believed in God. I told her I did. I returned the question. She said ‘no,’ and I asked her why not. Her father, she explained, had told her there was no God when she was a child. She hadn’t really thought about it much since then.”16 [emphasis added]

Note carefully the words of Thomas Nagel (B.Phil., Oxford; Ph.D., Harvard), Professor of Philosophy and Law, University Professor, and Fiorello La Guardia Professor of Law. He specializes in Political Philosophy, Ethics, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Mind. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the British Academy, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities:

‘I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers’—Thomas Nagel

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”17 [emphasis added]

Consider the following words of Isaac Asimov, one of the most prolific scientific writers of the last century:

“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”18 [emphasis added]

Gary Wolf , contributing editor to Wired magazine, includes himself in the following description: “we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth.” He wrote:

“At dinner parties or over drinks, I ask people to declare themselves. ‘Who here is an atheist?’ I ask. Usually, the first response is silence, accompanied by glances all around in the hope that somebody else will speak first. Then, after a moment, somebody does, almost always a man, almost always with a defiant smile and a tone of enthusiasm. He says happily, ‘I am!’ “But it is the next comment that is telling. Somebody turns to him and says: ‘You would be.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because you enjoy [irritating] people ….’ ‘Well, that’s true.’ “This type of conversation takes place not in central Ohio, where I was born, or in Utah, where I was a teenager, but on the West Coast, among technical and scientific people, possibly the social group that is least likely among all Americans to be religious.”13

Thus, we find various motivating factors which lead to atheism and have absolutely nothing to do with science or intellect.

Thus, we find various motivating factors which lead to atheism and have absolutely nothing to do with science or intellect.

Paul Vitz, Professor of Psychology at New York University, made a fascinating study of the lives of some of the most influential atheists. In his book Faith of the Fatherless: the Psychology of Atheism he concluded that these persons rejected God because they rejected their own fathers. This was due to their poor relationships with their fathers, or due to their father’s absence, or due to their rebellion against their fathers.20 Along this line of research, it would be interesting to consider the effect that the death of friends and family has had on the rejection of God. From Charles Darwin to Ted Turner the death of friends and family has played a part.

Gary Wolf noted,

“contrary to myth, Darwin did not become an atheist because of evolution. Instead, his growing resistance to Christianity came from his moral criticism of 19th-century doctrine, compounded by the tragedy of his daughter’s death.”13,21

The Associated Press reported on an interview with Ted Turner published in The New Yorker:

“CNN founder Ted Turner was suicidal after the breakup of his marriage to Jane Fonda and his loss of control of Turner Broadcasting … his marriage to Fonda broke up partly because of her decision to become a practicing Christian … “Turner is a strident non-believer, having lost his faith after his sister, Mary Jane, died of a painful disease called systemic lupus erythematosus. ‘I was taught that God was love and God was powerful’, Turner said. ‘And I couldn’t understand how someone so innocent should be made or allowed to suffer so.’ … “He told The New Yorker ‘his father was often drunk, beat him and sent him to military school’ and committed suicide when Turner was 24 years of age.”22

Tony Snow, who was the White House Press Secretary in 2006/2007, and was a Christian, died of cancer in July 2008. He wrote an essay entitled, “Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings.”23 Consider, in contrast, how a God-centered person dealt with his own impending death:

“ … we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the ‘why’ questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick? We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer. The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. ‘Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.’ But another voice whispers: ‘You have been called.’ Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter, —and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our ‘normal time’. There’s another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions … even though God doesn’t promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity … This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.”

In contrast, consider the words of atheist William Provine, professor of the history of science at Cornell University:

“Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us, loud and clear, and I must say that these are basically Darwin’s views: there are no gods, no purposive forces of any kind, no life after death (when I die I am absolutely certain that I’m gonna be completely dead, that’s just all, that’s gonna be the end of me), there is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans either … The question is, ‘Can atheistic humanism offer us very much?’ Well sure, it can give you intellectual satisfaction, and I’m a heck of a lot more intellectually satisfied now that I don’t have to cling to the fairytales that I believed when I was a kid. So life may have no ultimate meaning but I sure think it can have lots of proximate meaning.”24

With regards to his own cancer, a brain tumor, Provine has stated that he would shoot himself in the head if his brain tumor returned.25 Apparently, one less bio-organism is irrelevant in an absolutely materialistic world.



3.1 Natural born Atheist

Satanic and self-deception Another reason for rejecting God (choosing atheism), is a willing acceptance of satanic deception. The angel Lucifer (“luminous one”) fell and became Satan (“adversary”) due to his desire to supplant God. This was Lucifer’s single-minded obsession. He not only rejected God by attempting to supplant Him, but he urged humans to do likewise. Satan urged Eve to choose against God for her own self-fulfilment: He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5 ESV). The tactic is clear: firstly, question God’s statements, then, contradict God’s statements and, finally, urge rebellion in seeking equality with God. This manifests in atheists as Questioning whether there is a God to make statements in the first place, so God did not say anything. Contradicting the statements said to have been spoken by God. Seeking equality with God by replacing God with the self. This satanic deception appeals strongly to atheists as it bolsters two of their desired delusions: 1) absolute autonomy—being free to do as they please, and 2) the lack of ultimate accountability—there are no eternal consequences for doing as they please.

A subset of the question of why some people choose atheism is the atheist claim that we are all natural born atheists. In part this is incumbent upon which definition of atheism we are employing. Obviously, we are not born positively asserting God’s non-existence. Thus, the claim is that we are all born lacking a belief in God. Logically, this claim is accurate only at this point and is actually not successfully applicable beyond this point.

Atheists who make this argument claim that this argument demonstrates that man is not God-made but that God is man-made. In other words, they claim that we only believe in God because someone taught us to believe in God, often during childhood before we were able to consider the claim rationally. Yet, this claim is faulty on many levels, for example:

We are born knowing nothing at all and must be taught, and later take it upon ourselves to learn, anything and everything that we will ever know or believe, including atheism.

We are natural-born bed wetters but that does not mean that we should remain that way.

This is ultimately a form of the logically fallacious ad hominem (“to the man”). This fallacy occurs when what is supposed to be a counterargument attacks the person, the source of the original argument, while leaving the argument unanswered. Thus, just because belief in God is something that is taught does not discredit belief in God. It would be fallacious to claim that God does not exist because human beings invented the idea of God’s existence—God wants us to discover His existence: “you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Furthermore, this claim does not consider that many people came to believe in God in adulthood and having come from a completely secular (atheistic) upbringing.

Although, perhaps we could grant the claim: if atheists want to argue that atheism requires no more intellect than that which an infant can muster, why should we argue?

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4. Atheism and ethics/morality

Here is a video debate between an atheist and the author of this article: Morality: natural or supernatural?

Technically, ethics refers to what should be and morals to what is or; prescription and description. Atheists differ on the issue of ethics and morality; some claim that there are absolutes and some do not. As to the question of whether atheists can make absolute moral statements, this is tantamount to the first year theology student who, when asked, “Do you believe in infant baptism?” responded, “Sure I do; I’ve seen it done.” Yes, atheists can make any statements about anything at all—the question is: are the statements viable?

Atheists make epistemic statements about morality but do not provide an ontological premise for ethics.26 That is to say that they can muse upon issues of morality and come to any conclusion that they please. However, these turn out to be arbitrary personal preferences that are expressed as dogmatic assertions.

Some atheists do make attempts at providing an ontological basis for ethics. These range quite widely—from considering the behavior of apes to Game Theory.

In the first case, it is, of course, being presupposed that we share a common evolutionary lineage with apes and that their behavior tells us something about ours. Even when such observations successfully correlate their behaviors to ours, it is merely a description. Moreover, from such correlations it is inferred that morality is part of our overall evolution. This amounts to intuition or urges which we are free to act upon or disregard.

In the second case investigators concoct games that they claim dissect human behavior. With regards to Game Theory, Benjamin Wiker notes,

“By using games with fewer rules than Candy Land, the Darwinian game theorists are claiming ‘to uncover the fundamental principles governing our decision-making mechanisms.’ We’d better take a closer look, starting with their presuppositions … The answer seems to be that whatever has survived must be the most fit; therefore whatever exists must have been the result of natural selection. Fairness exists; therefore, it must be the result of natural selection. Q.E.D. It is always convenient to have a theory that cannot possibly be proved wrong.”27

Another supposed basis for ethics is that “an action is unethical/immoral if it causes harm to others.” Thus, it is the nature of the consequence caused by the action that determines whether an action is ethical or unethical. The fundamental problem with this definition of ethical behavior is that an action ceases to be unethical if no adverse consequences are experienced. As such, nothing is inherently wrong; an action is only wrong if it causes harm to another.

Consider the example of adulterous behavior: under the “do no harm” definition of ethical behavior, adultery is wrong because it harms the other party in the marriage (i.e., the faithful spouse). This harm can include mental anguish, the spread of disease to the faithful party and the loss of affection from the adulterous party. An additional adverse consequence includes unwanted pregnancies outside of the marriage. However, what if an adulterous act did not lead to those outcomes (e.g., a husband, who has had a vasectomy, occasionally has sexual relations with women free from sexually transmitted diseases while on trips to foreign cities)? In such an instance would adultery cease being unethical? Would the husband’s behavior turn from ethically neutral to unethical only if he were to confess his adultery to his wife, or if he was otherwise caught, thus causing her mental anguish?

It seems that there is something else behind, or beyond, the consideration of causing harm. In fact, there must be something else. Why must there be something else? Because it is precisely by knowing that which causes others harm that I may come to know how to push their buttons, how to manipulate them, how to take advantage of them, how to suppress them, etc. I may find that I can assist my survival by causing such harm to others and so, on this view, their harm is for my benefit. There must be something beyond that which makes causing harm itself unethical.

An ethical code based on God is determined by God’s communication to man of what is ethical and unethical. This is because God’s ethical code to us is derived from God’s very triune, relational, ethical nature. This nature is ethical and relational as it is unified by virtue of God consisting of one in being and yet, diverse as it is experienced and enjoyed amongst the three persons of the Trinity. Under such an ethical code, and in contrast to any Godless moral code, a given action such as adultery is still wrong even in absence of adverse consequences to another party. Thus, under a God-authored ethical code some actions are inherently wrong.

Furthermore, the atheist has no basis for saying that it is wrong to harm others anyway. Why should it be wrong to harm others? This supposed basis for ethics fails at this very point.

Let us consider some atheist’s statements about morality:

Dan Barker, co-founder of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, claims that, “Darwin has bequeathed what is good” and refers to Jesus as “a moral monster”.28 He includes the following within his understanding of Darwinian goodness,

“I support a woman’s right to choose an abortion. I think it’s a good thing. I think abortion is actually a good thing for society. If I can borrow a religious word, a word that my mother-in-law uses, I think abortion is a blessing for many, many, many women.”29

This appears to be in keeping with his general view on human worth, value and dignity, “a fetus that’s the size of a thumb that has—what? What? Would you put it in a little locket and hang it around your neck?”30

Dan Barker has also stated, “There is no moral interpreter in the cosmos, nothing cares and nobody cares” and he bases his humanistic morality upon his reasoning whether, it will ultimately matter what happens to us or a vegetable: “ … what happens to me or a piece of broccoli, it won’t. The Sun is going to explode, we’re all gonna be gone. No one’s gonna care.”31

He does not seem to consider that the fact that the concept which holds that “There is no moral interpreter in the cosmos, nothing cares and nobody cares … we’re all gonna be gone. No one’s gonna care”, quite logically and easily, leads to inhumane immorality.

Dan Barker has further stated:

“Atheism and Freethought and true humanistic morality are, are so much more clear, so much more useful, so much more reasonable so, you know, without all the negative baggage of theology and judgment and hell and, and you know, and the supernatural. My goodness, you know, I used to believe in the supernatural and, and now to realize I don’t have to try to prop up this phony supernatural system in, in reality it’s very freeing, very relaxing. I’m not afraid of being judged and going to hell anymore. I’m responsible for my own actions, the consequences are natural and I live with them and, and it actually turns out that most atheists and agnostics are more accountable; they are more moral they, they have more responsibility in their lives because they realize that it, it’s what matters is this world not an imaginary supernatural world … true humanistic morality which is much superior to Christian morality.”32

Dan Barker has also offered motivating factors for moral actions that are quite common within atheist thought—these are self-serving motivations, whereby one should be good not for goodness’ sake but in order to benefit oneself, for example,

“if you wish to be … a healthy person” (meaning mentally healthy).

“if you wish to be labeled ‘ethical’ by other people.”

“if you wish to be viewed by your society as ‘a good person’.”

“if that’s something you wish.”33

Likewise, examples include the following statement by The Humanist Society of Scotland:

“It’s best to be honest because … I’m happier and feel better about myself if I’m honest.”34 [emphasis and ellipses in original]

However, why being honest should make us happy remains a mystery.

Reginald Finley (aka The Infidel Guy) and Matthew Davis put forth the following reason for moral behavior:

“if one does horrible things to people, that person will eventually have horrible things happen to him.”35

This is hip My Name Is Earl36 watered-down karma, but is obviously pseudo-morality based on self-preservation (perhaps aptly Darwinian).

With regards to Dan Barker, let us lastly note that he also argues that rape is not absolutely immoral. His “reasoning” involves a hypothetical scenario in which malevolent aliens from outer space attack Earth.37 He and other atheists have made some very troubling statements about rape. Further examples include Sam Harris:

“If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, Harris explains, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion.”38

He also believes that rape is not only perfectly natural (contrary to contemporary morality) but that rape played a beneficial role in our evolution,

“there are many things about us for which we are naturally selected, which we repudiate in moral terms. For instance, there’s nothing more natural than rape. Human beings rape, chimpanzees rape, orangutans rape, rape clearly is part of an evolutionary strategy to get your genes into the next generation if you’re a male. You can’t move from that Darwinian fact about us to defend rape as a good practice. I mean no-one would be tempted to do that; we have transcended that part of our evolutionary history in repudiating it.”39

www.expelledthemovie.com Atheists such as Richard Dawkins have trouble finding logical reasons to denounce rape as unacceptable behavior

Richard Dawkins was asked about rape during an interview:

Justin Brierley (JB): If we had evolved into a society where rape was considered fine, would that mean that rape is fine? Richard Dawkins (RD): I, I wouldn’t, I don’t want to answer that question. It, it, it’s enough for me to say that we live in a society where it’s not considered fine. We live in a society where uhm, selfishness, where failure to pay your debts, failure to reciprocate favors is, is, is regarded askance. That is the society in which we live. I’m very glad, that’s a value judgment, I’m very glad that I live in such a society. JB: When you make a value judgment don’t you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it’s good. And you don’t have any way to stand on that statement. RD: My value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past. JB: So therefore it’s just as random in a sense as any product of evolution. RD: You could say that, it doesn’t in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural. JB: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six. RD: You could say that, yeah.40

Professor of the philosophy of science, Michael Ruse, makes similar statements:

“Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than are hands and feet and teeth … Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction.”41

Apparently, having feet and hands was not predetermined, nor that we have five fingers rather than six, nor that rape is immoral versus it being moral.

Furthermore, two evolutionists wrote a book claiming that rape was a device for men to perpetuate their genes42—one of the authors tied himself in knots trying to explain why rape was still wrong under his own philosophy.43

Richard Dawkins urges us to rebel against Darwinism with regards to morality, based upon his personal and societal preferences. His premise for prescribing rebellion is that,

“nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”44

the atheist really does not have much of a basis for moral decisions, other than the atheist’s own preferences, which ‘should’ go against the Darwinist conception of nature because … well, because it is morally better to do so!

Overall, the atheist really does not have much of a basis for moral decisions, other than the atheist’s own preferences, which “should” go against the Darwinist conception of nature because … well, because it is morally better to do so!

4.1 Atheism and the “problem of evil”

The first “problem of evil,” as far as atheist/theist debates are concerned is the fact that atheists define “evil” based on personal preferences. This means that they cannot logically formulate an argument for the problem of evil without first providing an absolute definition of evil. Some make appeals to the fact that evil, let us refer to it in the form of suffering, is a tangible, physical sensation. Yet, this amounts to a bio-organism’s subjective interpretation of sensory input.

Two pop-culture musical groups had something to say in this area: Jane’s Addiction sang, “Ain’t no wrong now, ain’t no right. Only pleasure and pain” (from the song “Ain’t no Right”). The Red Hot Chili Peppers followed this up by singing, “I like pleasure spiked with pain” (from the song “Aeroplane”). Thus, these modern day philosophers took us from morality based on sensory input to the recognition that we are, in reality, speaking of interpretation of said input.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 ) stated the classic form of the problem of evil. His syllogism may be stated:

If a perfectly good God exists, then there is no evil in the world. There is evil in the world. Therefore, a perfectly good God does not exist.

The logic behind the argument, again attributed to Epicurus, runs thus:

“Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.

If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent.

If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked.

If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?”

Evil is indeed a very difficult problem. This is not because it is philosophically or theologically difficult but because it is emotionally difficult. In seeking to respond to the problem of evil we are pitting real pain versus abstract concepts. Emotion versus intellect makes for an uneven fight—how do you argue against an emotion? Thus, responses to the problem of evil are generally seen as heartless or dry-as-dust academic theorizing.

Biblically and philosophically, Epicurus’ first syllogistic point is false since a perfectly good God who allows free will can exist and thus, his syllogism fails.

Epicurus’ logic behind the argument fails because he proposes a restricted number of options—it is a false dichotomy.

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or He can, but does not want to.

Yet, biblically and philosophically a third option is that God wants to abolish evil and can, yet He functions on his own timing and He has not done it yet because He has a higher purpose in allowing evil to persist for a time.



Note also, as we point out on this site, God did not create the world with evil; it is the result of sin, and is a privation of good. See the discussion under No actual evil in the finished creation and this refutation of an atheist.

4.2 Atheism and the “Euthyphro Dilemma”

The “Euthyphro Dilemma” calls into question the very basis, foundation, grounding or premise upon which theistic morality is built. Its name comes from Plato’s work Euthyphro (written in 380 ) wherein Socrates proposes the dilemma which states:

Is something good because God proclaims it to be good? Or, does God proclaim something to be good, because it is good?

Translations vary such as gods for God, virtuous or moral for good, etc.

Socrates’ question to Euthyphro caught him on the horns of a dilemma:

Is something good because God proclaims it to be good? Which is to ask whether something is good merely because God proclaims it to be —in which case goodness is an arbitrary construct and at a whim God could change that which is good into that which is bad and vice versa. Or, does God proclaim something to be good, because it is good? Which is to ask whether there is something up, above, beyond and separate from God to which God must adhere—does God have to act according to a moral standard which is outside of Himself in which case God is not all sufficient and in fact, obeys a higher standard than Himself.

While many theologies fail to answer the Euthyphro Dilemma, biblical Trinitarian theology does not fail. Let us briefly consider how various theologies fare:

Generally stated, in dualism we have in view two co-eternal gods. Two separate and distinct beings, two separate and distinct “persons”. This concept consists of one “good” god and one “evil” god. In such cases the goodness of the one is measured against the evil of the other and vice versa. Moreover, the one considers itself to be good and the other evil. Thus, theological dualism presents arbitrary morality in that which one is good and which one is evil is purely subjective.

Generally stated, in strict monotheism we have in view one single being, one single person. Since such a god lacked companionship or relationship, it had to create beings with whom to enjoy that which it lacked and may therefore be considered imperfect or incomplete. Regardless of the reason for creation, the strictly monotheistic god existed alone from eternity and so companionship or relationship are simply not a part of its nature so that such a God generally treats its creations as a dictator whose will is absolute and unrestrained. Such a god is typically not personal or, perhaps more accurately, not personable. This is because both their personal morality and their moral prescriptions for their creation are arbitrary since it had to concoct them upon having other beings with which to deal.

Generally stated, in pantheons, polytheism and henotheism we have in view more than two gods who are either eternal or were created by one or two previously existing gods (sometimes a male god and a female god, such as in Mormonism). They were not lacking in eternal relationships since they did enjoy them with each other. Yet, being distinct gods (distinct being, distinct persons) they are not exactly famous for conducting moral relationships with each other, but are rather infamous for their quarrels and warring. Since these supernatural beings could enjoy good or bad relationships with other supernatural beings, other gods, they were not generally interested in relationships with humans. They generally considered humans to be play things—they may manipulate our fates, they may take human form and fornicate with us, but there is little, if anything, that they did that they could have considered moral relationships. Since Euthyphro worshipped such a pantheon, it was perfectly reasonable for Socrates to think there was a standard of goodness to which the gods were beholden.

Lastly, generally stated, in Trinitarian monotheism we have in view one God and yet, three “persons” each of whom is God, each of whom is eternal, each of whom is distinct and yet, each of whom are the one God; one coeternal, coexisting, coequal being consisting of three “persons”. The God of the Bible has been referred to as “one what and three who’s”.45 This God is not alone in eternity and yet is not in relation to separate eternal beings. Since each member of the Trinity is eternal, each has enjoyed eternal relationships. This God is not lacking in relationship. God enjoys a relationship that is both unified in purpose and diverse amongst the persons.46

Thus, is something good because God proclaims it to be good or, does God proclaim something to be good, because it is good? Ethics is based upon the Triune God’s nature. God’s nature is relational and benevolent. This relationship is eternal and free from conflict. God enjoys relationships and encourages His creation to enjoy like relationships. In this view, an afterlife is conceived of as the enjoyment of relationships with other humans grounded upon the mutual enjoyment of an eternal relationship with God.

God does not merely exhibit attributes; God is the attributes, “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16). Thus, God did not have arbitrarily to invent ethics; God’s very nature is the ethos.

So the solution is that it is a false dilemma—perfect goodness is an essential part of His character, not something outside Him. God indeed commands things which are good, but the reason they are good is because they reflect God’s own nature. So the goodness does not come ultimately from God’s commandments, but from His nature, which then results in good commandments.47

4.3 Atheism’s “problem of evil”

Imagine considering the problem of evil and (illogically) concluding that God does not exist—what happens next? Well, you look around the world again and notice that evil still exists and now you do not even have God to blame. Rejecting God does nothing about evil. Thus, atheism does nothing about evil. Of course it does nothing—it cannot do anything and is not supposed to do anything. Atheism is merely an idea and thus, has no volition by which to do anything at all. Indeed, and that is just the point: atheism is an idea, but God is a being who can and does various things about evil: God can condemn it absolutely, God can make provision for redeeming evil, God can abolish evil.

Atheism not only does nothing about evil; atheism actually makes evil even worse. Atheism guarantees that evil is for nothing, it has no greater purpose or meaning; it guarantees no redemption of evil.

However, it is inaccurate to state that atheism guarantees that evil is for nothing and has no greater purpose or meaning. This is because in the absolute materialism that atheism implies, evil is very purposeful in that it benefits the evildoer. The evildoer commits evil acts, and as long as they are not caught they evade the judicial systems of this world and simply get away with it, the victim suffers and may suffer for decades while the evildoer enjoyed committing evil deeds.

Also it is inaccurate to state that atheism does nothing about evil; it actually makes it go away by pretending that it does not exist. A tsunami that drowns thousands of people is not “evil”; it is a large wave. A hurricane that destroys cities and kills people is not “evil”; it is high winds. An animal, whether human or otherwise, that kills another animal is not “evil”; it is acting according to all that there is; its own will. It may be inconvenient, we may not like it, we may attempt to do something about it, against it, but it is not evil; it just is.

The fact of evil in the world is one of the very best reasons for rejecting atheism.

4.4 Atheism’s Euthyphro Dilemma

Let us propose an atheist’s version of the Euthyphro Dilemma:

Is something good because atheists proclaim it to be good? Or, do atheists proclaim something to be good, because it is good?

If something is good merely because an atheist proclaims it to be good, then goodness is an arbitrary construct and at the whim of atheists who could change that which is good into that which is bad and vice versa.

There is a disturbing trend amongst many atheists, particularly the New Atheist sect, whereby they define parents raising their children according to their own faith as ‘child abuse’.

Atheists tend to claim that we somehow intuit the ever-evolving morality, or as Richard Dawkins puts it, the “shifting zeitgeist” (German for “spirit of the age”). As to how we discern the zeitgeist’s latest maneuver, “one can almost use phrases like ‘it’s in the air’.”48

Do not think that this means that Richard Dawkins has no absolute standards by which to determine what is evil. He has stated, “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question.”48 Yet, he has made a definitive statement about what he sees as absolutely evil, “It is evil to describe a child as a Muslim child or a Christian child. I think labelling children is child abuse and I think there is a very heavy issue”49 (more on this below in the Religion as Child Abuse section).

Back to the atheists’ Euthyphro Dilemma; the question is whether something is good merely because the atheist proclaims it to be good. Or is there is something up, above, beyond and separate from the atheist to which the atheist must adhere—does the atheist have to act according to an ethical standard that is outside of the individual, in which case the atheist is not all sufficient and in fact, obeys a higher standard than the individual (or a group of individuals known as a society).

If something is good merely because the atheist proclaims it to be good, then if two atheists disagree, the same action could be both good and evil, which conflicts with the law of non-contradiction.50 At this point a common objection is raised to the effect that two people disagreeing proves that there is no absolute ethic (standard, moral law, moral code, etc.).

Yet, this is tantamount to arguing thus:

Claim: “In the USA it is absolutely illegal to run a red light in a non-emergency response vehicle.” Response: “If that is the case, then why do some people operating non-emergency response vehicles run red lights? It must not be true that there is such an absolute law.”

All this shows is that there is a hierarchy of morality, also called graded absolutism. That is, there are higher and lower laws, and if there is a conflict, one should obey the higher law and is exempt from the lower law. In the above case, the duty of an emergency vehicle to arrive as quickly as possible to help in an emergency makes them exempt from the duty to stop at a red light. In general, the hierarchy is duty to God > duty to man > duty to property.

George F. R. Ellis (a theist) noted the following:

“The foundational line of true ethical behavior, its main guiding principle valid across all times and cultures, is the degree of freedom from self-centeredness of thought and behavior, and willingness freely to give up one’s own self-interest on behalf of others.”51

Moreover, if something is good merely because an individual, or a society, proclaims it to be so, then Nazism was good for the majority of Germans who outnumbered those whom they persecuted, but it then became evil when the fitter and more numerous Allied Forces defeated them.

It seems apparent that there is something up, above, beyond, separate and transcendent from the atheist to which the atheists must appeal to for their moral declarations. During his debate with William Lane Craig entitled “Does God Exist?”52 James Robert Brown, an atheist, stated,

“you can’t just make up facts, including moral facts; you’re under obligation, moral obligation without God, you don’t need God for this, you have a moral obligation to not murder, not rob people … All I ask you to do is believe there’s no God but still murder is wrong. There are moral facts, as well as physical facts, as well as mathematical facts, that’s all I’m asking … It’s just a basic fact, a basic moral fact, that murder is wrong.”

This is what I pointed out in the “Atheism and Ethics/Morality” section about atheists making epistemic (knowing) statements about morality but not providing an ontological premise (origin/source) for ethics. Brown merely asserts the immorality of murder by referring to himself as a “moral realist”, which, at least in his case, appears to mean that he can just make any statement he wishes with regards to morality and moreover, dogmatically assert “you’re under obligation, moral obligation … moral obligation … moral facts … moral fact.”

Yes, atheists can think through moral issues and come to a conclusion. They may even consider these conclusions to be absolutes or obligations, but these are merely impotent claims that only carry force of obligation when the governmental/societal iron first is behind them, and then are only potent if the moral-obligation-breaker is caught. But what about being moral for the simple and pure motive of being moral without expectation of reward and punishment? This will be considered below in the section entitled, “Theism’s reward and punishment versus Atheism’s pure motives”.

Succinctly stated: atheism discredits condemnation and condemnation discredits atheism:

Atheism discredits condemnation because their condemnation is merely an expression of personal moral preferences, arguments from outrage, or impotent epistemic assertions.

Condemnation discredits atheism because atheists’ deep and heartfelt urges to condemn immorality demonstrate that they are appealing to a moral standard that is outside of the individual.

4.5 Theism’s reward and punishment versus Atheism’s pure motives

Theism’s reward and punishment

An argument against Christian claims of God-ordained ethics that has become ubiquitous in atheist circles is that Christian morality is actually immoral since, so the claim goes, it depends upon threats of punishment and enticements to receive rewards (this applies to various religions).

The first thing to point out is that Christianity does not hold to a works-based salvation doctrine and thus, good deeds do not “buy” Heaven. Yet, to the charge that, even so, Christian morality is based on the expectation of reward in Heaven or punishment in Hell, let us secondly note the intolerance: if you are the sort of person who is perfectly moral but you are moral due to fear of punishment, atheists condemn you—you are not allowed to disagree with them; or you can disagree and suffer their looking down their collective noses at you.

Atheists presume that they can read the minds and/or discern the motivations of those whom they condemn. How do they know who is behaving morally because of reward and punishment? Apparently, they merely consider whether someone adheres to such a presumed belief system. Yet, even then; how do they know? Let us consider Christianity, for example. Christians would likely answer “Why be moral?” by referencing “For the love of God and the love of humans who were made in God’s image.”

Consider this scenario: a soldier receives the honor of a Purple Heart. During the ceremony an atheist stands up and shouts that the soldier is undeserving since they were merely acting out of fear of punishment and expectation of reward: “If they deserted they would fear charges of treason and they were heroic merely due to expectation of being rewarded with a Purple Heart!”

Let us consider another scenario in light of the fact that all secular, atheistic, “non-religious” countries/nations/governments/societies premise their laws upon reward/punishment:

You are driving your car with an atheist as a passenger. You come to a red light and stop. The atheist asks you, “Why did you stop?” You answer, “Because I do not want to cause an accident whereby someone could get hurt or killed. I am empathetic and compassionate and do not want to harm anyone.” Yet, the atheist protests, “Oh, please! You know very well that if you run that red light you could get a ticket and you are merely stopping in order to not suffer the law’s punishment for lawbreakers!”

But does the fact that it is also illegal mean that I am not truly compassionate? Does it mean that my compassion is a façade for my true motivation which is avoiding punishment? Not at all. Thus, this argument may be ubiquitous but it is narrow, unrighteously judgmental and fallacious.53

Atheism’s pure motives?

The twin fallacy to the “Theism’s Reward and Punishment” claim is the claim that, sans divine reward and punishment, only atheists have pure motives for morality, or “doing good”, since they are doing so merely for its own sake. This was the assertion behind the American Humanist Association’s bus ad campaign which stated, “Why believe in God? Be good for goodness’ sake.”

Yet, just as with any twins this fallacy shares its sister’s unfounded presuppositions:

It is presupposing to know the atheist’s minds and/or discerning their motivations.

But what else could be motivating the atheist? Surely it is pure goodness? Perhaps.

However, that would be a utopian and unskeptical, narrow view. The atheist could be motivated by multitudinous impure factors, such as those which I already noted in the “Dan Barker on Morality” subsection to the main section on “Atheism and Ethics / Morality”:

“if you wish to be … a healthy person … if you wish to be labeled ‘ethical’ by other people … if you wish to be viewed by your society as ‘a good person’ … if that’s something you wish”33 “I’m happier and feel better about myself if I’m honest.”34 “if one does horrible things to people, that person will eventually have horrible things happen to him.”54

Thus, the atheist may be seeking public approval, may seek to give in order to get, may even be seeking to be thought of as a purely motivated atheist, etc.

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5. Religion as child abuse

Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0) Atheists such as Daniel Dennett say that parents’ teaching their children their faith in God is child abuse.

There is a disturbing trend amongst many atheists, particularly the New Atheist sect, whereby they define parents raising their children according to their own faith as “child abuse”.

Daniel Dennett wrote,

“ … many declare, there is the sacred and inviolable right of life … On the other hand, many of the same people declare that, once born, the child loses its right not to be indoctrinated or brainwashed or otherwise psychologically abused by those parents.”55

Richard Dawkins stated,

“It’s one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in?”56

Also,

“A phrase like ‘Catholic child’ or ‘Muslim child’ should clang furious bells of protest in the mind … Catholic child? Flinch. Protestant child? Squirm. Muslim child? Shudder.”

Also,

“‘How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?’ Dawkins asks. ‘It’s one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?’”57

Also,

“It is evil to describe a child as a Muslim child or a Christian child. I think labelling children is child abuse and I think there is a very heavy issue.”58

As I just noted above, Richard Dawkins stated that ascertaining whether Hitler was right, “is a genuinely difficult question.”59 Yet, he does, most assuredly, state that, “It is evil” to label children with their parents’ religion—at least he has standards.

The ultimate goal is, of course, that this, “might lead children to choose no religion at all.”60

These militant, society stepping in, tactics seem to overlook the fact that children are referred to as such due to cultural and social consideration and not primarily theological. For instance, Judaism has Bar Mitzvahs when a child becomes an adult and makes a commitment to the faith. Likewise, various forms of Christianity have confirmation. Etc.61

What is the logical conclusion of this atheistic agenda? Apparently it is “evil” (“child abuse”) for parents who believe in God to teach their children to believe in God, but it is “good” (not child abuse) for atheists (or government-paid teachers?) to inculcate atheism (disbelief in God) into all children. This is the same twisted thinking that drove Stalin, Hitler and Mao et al., and resulted in the deaths of 100 million people.62

So, atheists have circumvented parental authority and have indoctrinated children into atheism and Darwinism via public schools. But Christians are fighting back. One of the great mission fields that is gaining momentum today is child evangelism. Missionologists are increasingly focusing on the 4/14 Window, which refers to the demographic group from age four to fourteen years old. This group is being reached in public schools through Bible clubs, for example. Specialized and innovative tracts for children have been developed. Much more needs to be done. Scripture declares, “Train a child up in the way he should go and he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). It is imperative for Christians to reach children before secularists do, and not after.

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6. Atheism’s arguments against theism, or Atheism’s “atheology”

This section will not reflect what one would expect in considering the particular arguments that atheists raise against the existence of God. The reason for not focusing on particular arguments is that they all have something in common. Thus, it seemed most important to focus on the commonality so that it may be detected within any of their arguments. The only argument that we will consider directly is, “Who made God?”

It is not hyperbolic language to state that every one of atheism’s arguments against God’s existence is premised upon the atheology of the individual atheist making the argument. While “atheology” would technically mean “lack of” or “no” theology I am employing the term in order to bring attention to the fact that atheists are some of the most theologically minded, often quite dogmatically, people—thus, the “a” for “atheism” and “theology” for the study of God or systemization of doctrines about God.

Atheism’s arguments against God’s existence are peppered with statements such as, “Why would God … ” or “Why wouldn’t God … ” or “Why does God … ” or “Why doesn’t God … ” or “If God was, then God would … ” or “should … ” or “surely could … ”, etc. These are all theological statements because they are premised upon presupposed attributes of God.

For example, if God was, then God would be omnipotent and loving; loving means not allowing any pain, evil, or suffering and so either God is not loving or is not omnipotent and if God is neither loving and/or omnipotent then God is not (various likewise examples could be concocted).

Yet, this statement, though admittedly fictional, is based upon typical atheist statements. And it is premised upon various theological assertions: God is, would or should be omnipotent. God is, would or should be loving. Loving means not allowing pain, evil, or suffering. God would or should either not allow it or would or should eradicate it based on our preferred schedules, etc.

Also, note that atheism’s arguments against God’s existence do not exist in a vacuum. That is to say, the atheist does not exist in a realm of utter ignorance of the world, then come to certain conclusions as to what would constitute evidences of God’s existence, only then emerge from the vacuum and look around the world and conclude, “Therefore, God does not exist.”

Rather, the atheist considers what is and what is not, what does and does not occur and only then makes statements as to what God would or should do, knowing that those things do not occur (this is all generally speaking since, for example, the atheist would claim that God does not perform miracles even though God does so).

Thus, rather than seeking to instantly answer the atheist’s argument, the first response should be to ask the atheist to substantiate their premise, their atheology. Following are some examples of relevant questions:

How did you arrive at your atheological positions?

Why should we confine our understanding of God to your atheology?

Why do you define love the way you do?

Why do you set certain restrictions on God?

Why do you demand that God do as you dictate?

Therefore, the atheist’s argument should first be dissected and inspected for atheology.

6.1 Who made God?

This atheist argument has been very popularly restated as, “Who designed the designer?” This is, by his own admission, the very central argument of Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion.63

The following quotations demonstrate the ubiquity of the argument:

Richard Dawkins (in The Blind Watchmaker) wrote, “To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.”

Flickr (Creative Commons) Prominent atheist, Christopher Hitchens, like others, asks the philosophically naïve question, “Who created the Creator?” The answer is in Sunday School 101.

Christopher Hitchens (in God Is Not Great) wrote, “who designed the designer or created the creator? Religion and theology have consistently failed to overcome this objection.”

Daniel Dennett (in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea) references Richard Dawkins and declares that it is an “unrebuttable refutation, as devastating today as when Philo used it to trounce Cleanthes in Hume’s Dialogues two centuries earlier.”

And of course, Richard Dawkins (in The God Delusion) quotes Daniel Dennett who is quoting Richard Dawkins and proclaims that Daniel Dennett is correct in approving of Richard Dawkins!

This argument, although very popular and promulgated by atheist scientists and even atheist philosophers, is a premier example of what is generally termed “Sunday School Atheism”. It is called this because it is a Sunday School level question and one that Sunday School children are able to answer before achieving puberty.

God is eternal and thus does not need a cause.

To elucidate a bit, in the next section we will consider the cosmological argument which makes clear that everything that begins to exist has a sufficient cause. Since God never began to exist, God did not have a cause.

But is not claiming that God is eternal a mere way out of the problem of who made God? No.

Since time began to exist, time had a cause. Since time began to exist, whatever caused time is timeless (aka infinite or eternal). It is the linear time that we experience that makes cause and effect relationships possible: an effect follows a cause. Yet, since God exists outside of, or without, time, cause and effect relationships are impossible and thus God is the uncaused/uncausable first cause. It was God’s first action of creation that brought the space-time continuum into being and set cause and effect relationships into motion. Therefore, in God’s timeless realm there is no such question as “Who made God?” since this is a time space domain based question which simply does not apply. It is like asking “To whom is the bachelor married?”64

Note, however, that atheists have no problem believing in an uncaused first cause, at least when it is not supernatural, but Nature, as they promulgate the following assertions:

It is ignorant and superstitious to believe that God made everything out of nothing.

It is rational and scientific to believe that nothing made everything out of nothing.

It is ignorant and superstitious to believe that God is eternal.

It is rational and scientific to believe that matter (or energy) is eternal.

God is an effect and must have had a cause.

Matter/energy is the uncaused first cause.

If God made everything, then who made God?

Matter made everything and nothing made matter.

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7. Arguments for God’s existence

This section will be as irregular as the previous in that it provides the most basic sketch of various arguments.

This is for three reasons:

In an article meant to criticize atheism, substantiating theism is not necessarily required. Elucidating each argument and seeking to defend it against attempts to topple it would be an undertaking which, as per 1), is not necessary and would expand this article beyond its present, and already hefty, size. It is important to note that these arguments function most effectively when considered together since individually they tend to be specific to a particular point. Therefore, it seems necessary to present various specific arguments and recommend how they may work together to form a more encompassing argument.

Let us consider these arguments, some of which are presented in various forms.

7.1 Forms of the cosmological argument

The universe had a beginning Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else Therefore, the universe was caused by something else (a creator)

Every part of the universe is dependent If every part is dependent, then the whole universe must also be dependent Therefore, the whole universe is dependent for existence right now on some Independent Being

Every event that had a beginning had a sufficient cause The universe had a beginning Therefore, the universe had a sufficient Cause

Every effect has a cause The universe is an effect Therefore, the universe has a Cause

An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed If an infinite number of moments had to elapse before today, then today would never have come But today has come Therefore, an infinite number of moments have not elapsed before today (i.e., the universe had a beginning) But whatever has a beginning is caused by something else Hence, there must be a Cause (Creator) of the universe

An actual infinite cannot exist An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite Therefore an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist

The temporal series of events is a collection formed by successive addition A collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual infinite Therefore the temporal series of events cannot be an actual infinite

Some things undeniably exist (e.g., I cannot deny my own existence) My nonexistence is possible Whatever has the possibility not to exist is currently caused to exist by another There cannot be an infinite regress of current causes of existence Therefore, a first uncaused cause of my current existence exists This uncaused cause must be infinite, unchanging, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-perfect This infinitely perfect Being is appropriately called “God” Therefore, God exists This God who exists is identical to the God described in the Christian Scriptures Therefore, the God described in the Bible exists

7.2 Argument from cosmological natural theology

Time, space and matter came into existence at a certain point in the finite past. Since time, space and matter began to exist they had a cause. Therefore, whatever caused them was time-less (or eternal), space-less (not subject to locality, or omnipresent) and matter-less (immaterial, non-physical, or spirit).

7.3 Forms of the teleological argument

All designs imply a designer There is great design in the universe Therefore, there must be a Great Designer of the universe

7.4 Forms of the ontological argument

God is defined as a being than which no greater can be conceived. Such a being can be conceived. If there were no such being in reality, then a greater being—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists—can be conceived. Yet nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. Therefore a being than which no greater can be conceived—i.e., God—must exist.

God is the entity of which nothing greater can be thought. It is greater to be necessary than not. God must therefore be necessary. Hence, God exists necessarily.

7.5 Forms of the moral law argument

Moral laws imply a Moral Law Giver There is an objective moral law Therefore, there is a Moral Law Giver

There are objective moral laws Moral laws come from a moral lawgiver Therefore, a moral lawgiver exists

If atheism is true, everything is permissible.

7.6 Dostoevsky’s argument from the consequences of positive Atheism

If atheism is true then man is “the chief of the earth” If man is “the chief of the earth” then he can abandon absolute standards (i.e., morality) If man can abandon the absolute standards then “everything is permissible” Therefore, if atheism is true, everything is permissible

7.7 The argument from joy

Every natural innate desire has a real object that can fulfill it Human beings have a natural, innate desire for immortality Therefore, there must be an immortal life after death

7.8 Ronald Nash’s argument from numbers

An argument proposed by Ronald Nash is known as the argument from numbers. This is how Ronald Nash explained it:

“ … when I used to teach philosophy to undergraduate college students, I would sometimes ask them to tell me what the number one is. They would usually reply by writing some of the many symbols we use such as ‘1’ or ‘I’. I would then explain that such symbols are not really the number we are seeking but are only convenient ways we use to refer to the real number one. No wise person should ever confuse a symbol for something with the thing itself. So what then is the number one? The first step is to recognize that the number one is a concept. What is a concept? The short answer is that it is an idea. The next step is to ask where the concept of oneness exists. The idea of oneness, like all ideas, exists in minds. The third step is to note that the number one is eternal. If someone has trouble with this claim, ask when the number one began to exist. Not only has the number one always existed, it is impossible for the number one ever to change. If the number one were ever changed, it would cease to be the number one. After all, if the idea of oneness changed, let us say, into the number two, then it would no longer be the number one. So where are we? I believe we can show many people that the concept of oneness is an eternal and unchanging idea that exists in some mind. And, the only kind of mind in which this kind of eternal and unchanging idea could exist must be an eternal and unchanging mind. When I reach this point in my little example, some student in the back of the classroom usually raises his hand and asks if I am talking about God.”65

This argument is very interesting in that it can be employed in the service of various considerations. For example, you may replace the term “the number one” with “the laws of logic” and produce a similar argument.

Let us now consider these as a whole and note how they demonstrate some of God’s attributes:

The cosmological argument demonstrates God’s omnipotence—that God is infinitely powerful.

The teleological argument demonstrates that God is an intelligent being—a purposeful Creator.

The ontological argument demonstrates that God is a necessary being—the uncausable first cause.

The moral law argument demonstrates that God is a moral being—He will never act against His moral nature.

Dostoevsky’s argument demonstrates that without God as the premise for ethics, subjective, individual, relative morals are all we have.

The religious need and joy argument demonstrates that God is the fulfillment of the ultimate human need—nothing but God will fill the void in a human soul.

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8. Atheism and science

Although the scientific endeavor has nothing to offer atheism, atheists have co-opted it and employed it as a façade which they wrap around atheism in order to make it appear as if it is deserving of the merits of scientific respectability.

The contradiction in the atheist’s attempt to employ science towards their end is:

They claim that science only deals with the material and therefore, has nothing to say about the immaterial or supernatural. They claim that science has disproved the immaterial or supernatural.

Evolution is the atheists’ origins myth, designed to do away with God the Creator; creation without a Creator.

Despite this, some atheists claim that the way that science disproves the immaterial or supernatural is by increasingly finding material causes for material effects. However, this does not trouble the Christian because God created the material realm and it follows logically that material effects will have material causes and such causes and effects do not exclude the immaterial or supernatural such as God, or miracles.

Such atheists have restricted their thought processes and thus, would have to deny a miracle or appearance of God even if it took place before their very eyes. These atheists would opt for a “faith”-based belief that someday someone will find a materialistic explanation; or the fallacy of expected future human omniscience. Or they may, also without evidence, appeal to hallucination even if numerous people witnessed the same event, such as the Resurrection of Jesus,66 (hallucinations occur within the brain and thus, are not shared). Or they might simply be satisfied with thinking that they will never know.

In any event, for those atheists who have their minds made up as to God’s non-existence, it follows that there is no evidence for God’s existence. This restricts their thinking because their chosen worldview would not allow them to see reality for what it is, would not allow them to follow the evidence but would numb their cognitive faculties67 as they stare into the corner of absolute materialism—atheism is the Valium® of the people.

It is a bit like the different approaches of two people to understanding a magician’s trick. Both attempt to understand the manner in which the trick was performed. One will go beyond that and seek to ascertain the characteristics of the magician by considering the method of the trick. However, the other says, “I now understand how the trick works, but there was no conceiver of the trick, the trick was not designed, the trick is just there and that’s all.”

Science gives satisfaction to the curious because of its explanatory scope. If a Christian claims that God created life, the scientifically-minded atheist would ask, “How?” Certainly, the Christian is likewise curious, but the Christian’s inability to explain how God did it makes the atheist disinterested. Yet, it is important to note that this amounts to the atheist’s attempt, or pseudo-attempt, to place all things within the purview of science, which is an unscientific (philosophical/religious) position (how can all that is knowable be known to be knowable through science?).

When it comes to atheism’s co-option of science and their self-proclaimed reliance upon evolution, Greg Koukl has made a very telling and succinct statement,

“the point of evolution: mother nature without father God.”68

In other words, evolution is the atheists’ origins myth, designed to do away with God the Creator; creation without a Creator.

Let us note the words of P. E. Hodgson:

“Although we seldom recognize it, scientific research requires certain basic beliefs about the order and rationality of matter, and its accessibility to the human mind . . . they came to us in their full force through the Judeo-Christian belief in an omnipotent God, creator and sustainer of all things. In such a world view it becomes sensible to try and understand the world, and this is the fundamental reason science developed as it did in the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, culminating in the brilliant achievements of the seventeenth century.”69

So it is rather ironic today that many connect science with atheism. It is really a Christian enterprise.

Peter Harrison, Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford, pointed out:

“It is commonly supposed that when in the early modern period individuals began to look at the world in a different way, they could no longer believe what they read in the Bible. In this book I shall suggest that the reverse is the case: that when in the sixteenth century people began to read the Bible in a different way, they found themselves forced to jettison traditional conceptions of the world.70 “Had it not been for the rise of the literal interpretation of the Bible and the subsequent appropriation of biblical narratives by early modern scientists, modern science may not have arisen at all. In sum, the Bible and its literal interpretation have played a vital role in the development of Western science.”71

So it is rather ironic today that many connect science with atheism. It is really a Christian enterprise.

8.1 Atheism and miracles

Atheists often argue that miracles cannot occur because the laws of nature, or natural laws, are immutable. By a conveniently self-serving inference they further argue that since miracles do not occur, the supernatural, God, must not exist.

What are the laws of nature?

Here our interest is not necessarily to list and describe them but to point out that what we term “the laws of nature” are our generalizations about how the natural world normally works, which are inferred from observations of the natural world. One question to keep in mind is whether we have discovered all of the laws of nature. That is, is our knowledge complete?

Are they immutable?

In order to answer in the affirmative we must first presuppose that we know all of the laws. Assuming that we do, we must further assume that we know of every possible action and interaction of these laws in every possible scenario and in every possible combination.

What if they are not immutable?

In such a case, God, who not only invented them but who lives outside of their influence, can manipulate them.

What if they are immutable?

In such a case, God can still “break” or “bend” them According to such a scenario God would have created what we understand to be immutable laws for the very purpose of displaying His ability to break or bend them and thereby alert us to the miraculous. In fact, without such laws we would be unable to detect miracles. An even better understanding is that miracles are an addition to the laws: a man sinks in the sea if his weight is greater than his buoyancy (Archimedes’ Principle). A rope and a helicopter do not violate this principle, but add another force to the system. Similarly, the Son of God could likewise add another force to enable Himself to walk on water, without violating Archimedes’ Principle. The materialist argument against miracles decrees that the universe is a closed system, with “no divine foot in the door”.

Can God break, bend, or manipulate, the laws of nature?

Some atheists claim that God cannot exist for the very reason that the laws of nature cannot be broken/bent/manipulated. However, since God created the laws of nature, God holds the patent on them, has the template of them, God put them into place and can manipulate them—like a guitarist who strings the guitar can place them in any order, can tighten or loosen them as he pleases and can thereby make the strings produce whatever pitch he pleases.

One-time atheist, C. S. Lewis, offered a classic response to David Hume’s arguments against miracles:

“Now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, if in other words they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle.”72

iStockphoto Atheists have higher rates of suicide. See later: 11.2 Atheism and suicide

The basic atheist opinion on miracles is certainly that they do not occur. But beyond dismissing all miracle claims out of hand, atheists are likely to, without evidence, claim that what are thought to be miracles are, in reality, merely the outworking of natural laws in rare and unexpected ways. Therefore, they place their “faith” in expecting that in future, science will find material explanations for unexplained miracles (the science of the gaps). Considering this view, one can only wonder how or why any atheist would deny any miracle claim. Why would they not state something to the likes of, “Jesus did, in fact, resurrect from the dead but it was due to a genetic mutation, a coincidental intermingling of natural laws,” etc.?

For more, see: Miracles and science

8.2 Origins

As to the issue of how life began on earth, various theories have been proposed and various experiments have been carried out.

John Horgan, Scientific American’s senior writer from 1986 to 1997, wrote an article that surveyed a multitude of abiogenesis theories which have all failed. He begins the article by stating, “Scientists are having a hard time agreeing on when, where and—most important—how life first emerged on the earth.”73

Let us take a quick look at some of the comments of John Horgan and others,

“Some investigators concluded that the first organisms consisted of RNA … Although this scenario is already ensconced in textbooks, it has been seriously challenged of late … molecule cannot easily generate copies of itself … “Man