I respect agnosticism (there might be a God, there might not be), purely from it’s transparency, even though I completely disagree with it. But atheism (there is no God) is a completely different animal. I am going to purely “reason” for a moment, because that is what atheists require me to do, rather than to interject my faith. Here are just a few problems I have with atheism from a reasoning perspective:
1) If no one knew that the earth was a globe until 4th century Greece, how can one possibly state, “There is no God?” That would require certainty and a type of faith that all the facts of the universe are discovered and understood. Again, at least agnostics are, in a way, “open-minded”. They might say, “I don’t know if there is a God or isn’t. I just don’t see proof.” In the meantime, an atheist is passionately stating, “There is no God”. Do they know that they are aligning themselves, historically, with groups that are often more closed to reason?
2) How does one succeed in proving there is no God, and what is the reward if successful? If you believe many quantum physicists, there are additional universes which exist in parallel to our own, such as hypothesized by famous cosmologist Carl Sagan. Personally, I don’t know how it all works, but I know that the bible states that there are battles fought in an unseen world which is not visible to us, as stated in the bible, Daniel 10:13. I’m willing to take a stand on the following ground: I don’t know how he did it, but I believe he did it. The “how” will be revealed in time. And let’s just say that we proved that God did not exist, what is the result of that discovery? For an atheist, they feel that this proof already exists, and they are consequently left with a meaningless life. If not, they haven’t carried the argument far enough. Let me speak directly to an atheist,
“You are alone and your life is meaningless. Your are merely a bag of meat and you are in the process of dying. Nothing you enjoy lasts, and you will not be remembered within a hair’s breadth of your death. Every good thing you do is meaningless and every bad thing someone does to you is not wrong. We are masses of flesh that have evolved painfully and unfortunately to a place of self-awareness. There is no wrong and no right, only what the current majority of human organisms have determined are the current set of rules. Love is not real. It is merely a chemical and biological mechanism incubated through millions of years of evolution that causes the hive to protect itself, procreate, and propigate the species.”
This is a horrifying scenario to contemplate. IF there is no God, there is no meaning, there is no right and wrong, and there is no love. The reward for coming to this realization is that you feel alone in the universe, cut off from others, worthless, and that your life has no meaning, so why even try? No wonder there are so many angry atheists, i.e. Bill Maher. I, Kevin Hail, would be a pillaging, angry, hateful deviant if I were living in a construct like this.
3) If you are an atheist, you are one of two things and usually a combo of both, intellectually curious and frustrated. One of my friends claimed to be an atheist in high school. He is a quasi-agnostic/deist now. In retrospect, he was frustrated because he deeply and truly wanted to know the mysteries of the universe and felt that a God that couldn’t be seen or made visible must be playing games with him, so it was just easier for him to say that this God didn’t exist.
I believe that most atheists are frustrated intellectuals who have chickened out from trying to find God. They look at many of the world religions and see no truth (Hinduism, Islam, and most self-proclaimed Christians). If I were in a burning house and someone rushed to me and said that they could get me out and they took me into another room that was filled with fire and said that they had rescued me, I would say that I’m a better man. I may be burning up but at least I’m not delusional about having been rescued. There’s some solace in that, right?
This is where Christianity enters. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I take him at his word in John 14:6 that he is the only way to Heaven. I believe that there is a God that exists and that I am his creation. If I believe that the Holy Bible is his word to mankind, then I accept his words to me that my life has meaning in him and that those around me in the “body of Christ” are important to me, not just pieces of flesh walking around. In other words, I have a spirit, and am not just an evolved animal.
Let me leave it like this. What if Christians are right about God and their path to him? Let me speak to you as if you are a Christian:
“You are loved. Your life has meaning. You were created specially by the God that created the universe and all of it’s mysteries, seen and unseen. You will not be abandoned. Everything you’ve done to harm someone else has already been forgiven and merely requires your asking God for forgiveness. And every thing that has been done to you has been reconciled and justice has been served, even though you can’t see it yet. You will live forever and the life you live now is the worst your eternal life will ever be. It will only get better, much better. In heaven, you will never cry, feel sorrow or pain. The greatest moments of joy, passion, and satisfaction you have experienced in your life to now will pale in comparison to what you will experience in eternity. Love is real and it is freely and unendingly given to you by God and your brothers and sisters in Christ, for all eternity.”
In the end, it isn’t about reason, and thank goodness for that, because we are pretty limited in our ability to reason. It’s about faith. Are you willing to risk that God is real and that the bible is actually his word and that Jesus is actually the only way to Heaven as he says? Or do you want to hedge your bets and cover your bases because you haven’t been able to figure everything out about God with your dust speck of a mind? I’d take door number 1.
Oh yeah, and here’s this stupid article about a group of atheists trying to enlighten the rest of us:
Atheist ads to adorn New York subway stations - CNN.com
