The Futility of Atheism
From Annabeth:
Nothing can be accomplished without God
The mindset of many atheists is that there is no purpose in life. As for Christians, our purpose comes from God. Without God we have no purpose.
In John 15:5 Jesus says, “”I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
Nothing can be accomplished without God. Atheists seem to think that they hold the power to control their own life, but in reality they do not. No matter what you believe in or who you put your faith in, God is in full control of everyone’s life.
It takes more faith to be an atheist than to be a Christian
Christians do not have to rely on our own understanding or plans or theories. Christians, instead, rely completely on God. Christians have all the answers that they will need in the Bible, while atheists do not have a resource such as that. Atheists are constantly searching for answers, whether it be in articles, books, online, ect.. Atheists do not have true, solid answers.
Atheists tend to rely more on science than other things. Science is not the most trustworthy because science is always changing and coming out with new studies, ideas, theories, and data. Not all scientific evidence is correct! There are certain things in science that are correct, such as scientific laws (like gravity), but others are not definite answers. Atheists like to think of scientific theories as facts, but in reality they still need more evidence and proof. Scientific theories are defined as, a well substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is based on a vast body of observations, experiments, and evidence. A scientific theory, unlike a scientific law, is just an idea of something that might be true. A scientific theory is not a fact!
Science is not as reliable as the word of God. The Bible is often referred to as the “living word of God”. The Bible is called this because the way that God speaks to you through it is different for every person at different times. This does not mean that the Bible changes. The Bible is a source of communication directly from God. God speaks to us through the Bible.
Atheists do not like to believe that they have a direct source of communication between the one who has all of the answers to everything. God has all of the answers because He made everything and He knows everything that will happen in your life. Atheists have no way of knowing the complete truth unless they put their faith in God. Atheists have to blindly trust science and others, while Christians can fully trust the one who has all of the knowledge.
How do atheists obtain moral standards?
The Bible is full of verses that tell us what is good and righteous. The Bible also tells us about what is wrong and detestable in the eyes of God. Good morals come from God and are written in the Bible.
The Bible talks about sin numerous times throughout the Bible. An example is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 which says, “9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Another great example of the moral standards that God has given Christians is located in Galatians 5:19-24 which says, “19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
The verses listed above are just a few examples of the morals that we have obtained from God. Most atheists have not taken these morals to heart, whether they have heard of them and choose not to believe them or they have not heard them and therefore do not have the knowledge that godly morals offer.
No matter the religion someone is a part of, “the work of the law is written on their hearts” (Romans 2:15). This means that we all have at least a small idea of right and wrong. God has gifted us with some morality, even if we do not believe in God. Christian morals can be obtained by reading God’s Word and praying and asking God for guidance and discernment.
The depressing nature of atheism
In the atheist worldview there is no purpose in life. Atheists believe that everything in life is an accident or coincidence, they also do not believe that someone has a plan for their life. Therefore, atheists are left to blindly wonder what is next for them.
Christians have a God that has a plan for their life. God also is there to get us through our struggles. Atheists do not believe in a higher power; therefore, they do not believe in the God that can help them through their trials and tribulations. Atheists think that they must bear everything on their own, but they do not. It is written in Psalm 46:1 that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” This verse proves that God is here to help if you just have faith.
Atheists, also, do not believe in an afterlife. Atheists believe in neither heaven nor hell, but they believe that they will simply just cease to exist after death. Therefore, atheists do not think that there is anything that they can do whilst they are living to secure a good afterlife. Most atheists believe that whatever they do on earth will not matter because “it will all just cease to exist anyways.”
Atheists believe that they do not have any purpose, do not have anything to look forward to after death, have no higher power that can help them, and have no definite plan for their lives. This all seems quite sad, but (thankfully) none of it is true. Atheists can have all of these things if they only believe and put their faith in Jesus.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)
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From Ean:
Atheism occupies approximately 4% of the world population whilst Christianity is still the majority. However, Christians should still be trained to defend against the claims of atheism. Atheism has been on the rise for the past few centuries, but especially in the last few decades, with ~3 million adherents in the USA alone.
Merriam Webster defines atheism as “a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods.”
I have an issue with this brief definition.
What I want all of us Christians to understand is that atheism is a worldview and presupposes many logical inconsistencies and absurd claims that we’ll display throughout this article.
Atheism proposes no objective moral values
There is one nuance that I want to address before I lay out this observation, which is that I am not claiming that an atheist can not know or have objective moral values. I think plenty do, and they use these common sense moral values to argue against Theism and Christianity.
Rather, the issue is that atheists have no objective moral standard on which to ground their moral claims. God is a lawgiver, and if there is no one to enforce that law, what is the consequence or basis for doing good or wrong things? In atheism, there’s no one who can substantiate telling you what’s right or wrong.
Some would say a phrase akin to, “the people will come to a democratic census on moral values and enforce them as such, (even without theism)”
There are a few issues with this claim, primarily that such a theory is still stuck with the fact that there is no objective moral law enforcer, so what standard do humans have to begin with?
Secondly, that means that whatever moral system is popular, whether objectively wrong or not (in Theism,) will be adhered to, which is a scary thing considering the nature of humans.
Humans are NOT “inherently (or naturally) good.” God’s word tells us this, and beyond the Bible, such an observation is probably the most empirically verifiable detail in sociology.
Why do you think so many people constantly say, “I’m just done with people,” “Why can’t people just get along, be nice and agree on some things,” “There’s just so much evil in the world,” etc. etc.
“The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?”
- Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)
Whenever an atheist makes a moral claim, one may simply ask, “by what standard of morality do you judge?”
This is not to say that whenever moral issues in the Bible are brought up that we should just ignore them, rather that atheists have no way of substantiating moral polemics within their worldview.
Atheism proposes no objective values at all
To build upon the last point, atheism proposes no objective value in purpose in anything.
In Christianity and Theism, God is our purpose(giver) and our drive to work heartily before we go to be with God.
However, in atheism, what is the point of anything if there is no God? What are you living for, what or who are you working for, why do you do anything if you’re an atheist? If there is no God, there is no purpose. What a sad worldview to adhere to.
What’s the point of even fighting for anything in your life under atheism? Even if Christians are “bigoted zealots who are trying to establish theocracy,” you’re going to die anyway at any given moment that you aren’t aware of, and trying to fight in “social justice (keyboard) warrior” stunts, or any virtue signalling is completely useless, because death is the end for you under atheism.
Any honest atheist should just be maximizing their pleasure and indulgence in evil in their short-lived, sad time on earth. Well, that’s probably the point of atheism anyway.
“If atheism is true, your birth is an accident, your death is an accident, and everything in between called your life is an accident.” - Cliffe Knechtle (paraphrased)
Atheism proposes no design, and thus, no reason
Why should atheists even trust their own thoughts? In atheism, there is no logic, reason or (divine) design that has been put into or onto our minds. All of our thoughts, experiences, opinions, expressions and emotions are all just a bunch of random chemicals clashing with each other. Why should you even trust that to begin with? Why should I listen to my own thoughts, or anyone’s thoughts, conclusions and ideas if there is no design behind them? Such a thing is just complete chaos all around.
Here’s a more concise phrasing of this point that I wrote awhile ago:
“Any man who claims that his mind was not divinely designed denies anyone the plausibility of his own conclusion.”
It takes a lot of faith to be an atheist
Let’s look at a summary of worldview claims, juxtaposing atheism and Theism/Christianity.
Atheism: says that there are no objective moral values, meaning that you can never objectively judge that any event to ever occur is good or bad. E.g., Stalin’s actions can not be objectively immoral under this worldview.
Christianity: says that there are objective moral values that we receive from an infinitely just, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God who will provide exact justice and provide salvation for those who choose Him.
Atheism: says that there is no objective meaning to life; no purpose in anything. You are a primordial amalgamation of random chemicals and matter that has no direction in anything it will ever do.
Christianity: says that there is infinite purpose in your life provided by a benevolent God who has promised to prosper you (Jeremiah 29:11), and that every evil committed against you has and will work together for the glory of God, and that every thing we do on this earth is in preparation for a new Heaven.
Atheism: says that there is no direction in anything, and thus no reason nor logic to any line of thinking, philosophy and every idea that comes into your mind. You can’t even trust your own thoughts since there is no objective standard of logic or reason to measure against.
Christianity: says that the God who created the universe is, by nature, infinitely wise, logical and reasonable (Logos in Greek,) and that same God divinely designed everything about you, including your mind. (Psalm 139:11, Jeremiah 1:5) You can trust your own thoughts because there is a logical mind behind them, that was created by an infinitely logical mind.
It’s extremely obvious to me that atheism is a completely self-refuting and futile worldview. It cannot justify or trust its own claims nor polemics against other worldviews.
Atheism is a sad, pathetic justification for worldly lifestyle. When Christ shines light upon the darkness within the souls of those who have strayed from Him, the stray (mostly) don’t accept His promise because of the cross (sacrifice) that is necessary to follow Him instead.
When this light is shone upon the darkness, the darkness retaliates. Atheism is a retaliation and depressing rebellion against God that tries to “intellectually” justify its lifestyle and actions.
However, I want every Christian reading this article to not have hatred or contempt for someone that has strayed from our heavenly Father. For we too have strayed from Him, before we returned.
Jude 1:21-23:“keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”
We must have mercy on those who stray. This article is a polemic against the worldview, not the person. We must equip ourselves to expose the evil lies of such a worldview, fully in truth and fully in love. (EF article on love)
