What is
Atheism? A simple enough question you might think, but even word itself is in
the process of undergoing a redefinition. There are people that are trying to
expand the word to incorporate different views, like Verificationism and
Agnosticism. It is important that we start with this issue and by defining our
terms, as this blurring of the lines is significant and may go in part to show
why Atheism appears to be on the rise.
So, what is
the correct way to define Atheism? Put simply, an Atheist is one who does not
believe in the existence of God, or gods. We reach that definition by simply
following the rules of plain English. We can explain it like this: A capital
“A” is symmetrical, but a capital “E” is asymmetrical, that is it is the
opposite of symmetrical. A person who believes in the existence of God, or gods
is a Theist; a person who does NOT believe in the existence of God, or gods is
an Atheist. That is the meaning of those words. However, Atheists have long
been pushing to revise this definition. Atheist Stephen Roberts (speaking of
monotheists in general) said, “I contend that we are both atheists. I just
believe in one fewer gods than you do.” This is a telling statement and it
lifts the lid on the Atheist worldview for a number of reasons.
·
It
shows that Roberts has no appreciation of the difference between the gods of
ancient mythology; who were sometimes created beings, often limited to
appearing in one place at one time, imperfect in knowledge, localised in power;
and the God of Christianity: Creator of everything, God of everything, omnipresent,
omniscient, omnipotent, spaceless, timeless and immaterial.
·
It
also shows that Roberts views the history of religion as an evolutionary
process; finally resulting in the highest evolutionary state, the abandonment
of all gods, in other words, Atheism. This is an argument we will look at in
more detail, later on.
Evolution
 |
| The Ascent of Man. |
In order to
understand Atheism, we have to have to comprehend, not only how the Atheist
sees the world, but also, how intertwined with the Theory of Evolution it is.
To an Atheist, Evolution is not just a theory of biological Science; in fact
I’ve never met an Atheist that thinks it is a theory! Evolution, to an atheist,
is scientific fact. It is also the Psychological and Philosophical framework
through which he views the world. That being the case, the Atheist sees him, or
herself as being superior, in an evolutionary sense, to those who hold to
traditional, religious views of the world. They see an evolutionary parallel to
religion, that given enough time the majority of reasonable, intelligent people
will dispense with belief in the one God, just as they dispensed with a belief
in “the gods,” and ultimately accept that there is no God. Throughout this
presentation I will repudiate that delusion.
But how “evolved”
is Atheism? Has man truly arrived at this position after years of critical
thinking? Has the history of religion been progressing towards Atheism and has
the abandonment of religious belief been happening chronologically? These are
questions that are actually quite easy to answer, in light of historical
evidence. I once asked an Atheist if he was aware that all the founding members
of The Royal Society (one of the oldest Scientific Academies) were all Bible
believing Christians. His response was, “well, they would have been at THAT
time.” His assumption being, that at one time everybody in England was a Bible
believing Christian. Again, historically, it is quite easy to refute such a statement,
which I will do as we go on.
“The thing
that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which
shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9 (KJV)
As we will
see, Atheism is far from new.
A Brief History
of Atheistic Thought
·
At about 570-270 B.C. Greek philosophers like
Xenophanes, Epicurus and Lucretius start to expound, what today might be
regarded as atheistic ideas.
·
By 106 B.C. a man called Marcus Tullius Cicero
was born. He believed that there was no need for man to be controlled by gods
and designed his own moral framework.
·
Then, just as Humanistic Philosophy is
becoming more widespread, more popular, we encounter someone called Jesus of
Nazareth!
·
Christ and the early church have an enormous
impact on the Middle-East and Europe. God’s timing is perfect, since Greek, the
language of the New Testament is spoken throughout the near Middle-Eastern
regions at this time, enabling the message of salvation to spread very quickly.
Yet following this, we start to see a resurgence of Greek philosophical
thought; particularly Plato and Aristotle and this has quite an influence on
people like Thomas Aquinas a Roman Catholic Theologian and philosopher in the
13th Century.
·
The church starts to move away from
Biblical foundations and incorporate more humanistic thought, as a result, it
becomes weaker. The Renaissance, although not an atheistic movement, introduced
doubt about absolute truth, just like the serpent in the garden of Eden,”Yea,
hath God said?”
·
Skepticism and unbelief begin to spread
across Europe with the help of people like Niccolo Machiavelli, who inspires
the synonym “Old Nick,” as a term for the devil.
·
In fact Hugh Latimer, a well-known
Christian reformer and subsequent Protestant martyr in the 1500s warns King
Edward VI that many Englishmen have stopped believing in the existence of
heaven and hell.
·
We have an evangelical revival taking
place in the 1700s with people like
Jonathan Edwards going back to Bible basics, thousands getting saved and yet
John Wesley remarks, that there had never been “a more wicked and godless
generation than this.”
·
In the 1800s Charles Darwin questions
the Biblical account of creation and Freidrich Nietsche announces that “God is
dead.”Yet, we also see, again, thousands coming to Christ through the preaching
of D.L. Moody, William Booth and others.
So it can be seen that far from being something new, or
something that has evolved, something that has been the result of progressive
thinking; Atheism has always been around. Even before the birth of Christ and has
been accepted by some and rejected by others.
Intelligence
Job, in
chapter 42:3 of the book that bears his name says to God,”… Therefore have I
uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.”
There is no
room in Atheism for things that men “know not.” There is an expectation that
man may (eventually) will know ALL things. This is part of the conflict that it
has with Christianity. The Atheist sees himself as knowledgeable, intelligent,
well informed, wise; whereas the Bible simply calls him “the fool.”
One of the
selling points of Atheism is that it is for the intelligentsia, the educated,
the discerning and prudent; certainly not for “the fool.” There are high
profile atheist personalities like Professor Richard Dawkins; Scientists,
Philosophers, Academics and so on. But the majority of Atheists are not
Scientists, they are not Philosophers; they are Shop Assistants, Bus Drivers, Plumbers,
Nurses; they are Mr and Mrs Average: Average education, average knowledge about
the world around them. They are more likely to have watched a David
Attenborough programme on Evolution, than to have actually read a book like
Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” Is it
intelligent and prudent to risk the whole of one’s eternity on a book that one
has never read? In fact when it comes to Eternal things, Atheists are generally
ignorant. Now I don’t mean that as a term of abuse, I am not name calling, or
suggesting that Christians have a higher level of IQ than atheists, but what I
am saying is that Atheism thrives on ignorance: Ignorance of the Bible,
ignorance of Christian Theology, ignorance of Church History, ignorance of
World History. Books like Christopher
Hitchens’ “God is not great” and Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” work by lumping
all Christian denominations and sects, however disparate together; all
monotheistic religions, suggesting that they are all basically the same.
Catholics and Protestants simply become “Christians.” This is so that
Christianity as a whole, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians,
Calvinists, Arminians etc. can be found guilty of perpetrating “religious”
atrocities like the Crusades. This position is intellectually and historically
dishonest. It ignores the historical fact that the Roman Catholic church, in
the time of Henry VIII and Mary I, martyred as many, if not more, Bible
believing Christians than anybody else in the world. It is a position that
refuses to recognize that Islam and Christianity are mutually exclusive and
therefore fundamentally incompatible. To suggest that the three that I have
just mentioned are in some way on the same side is wilful ignorance, or worse,
it is deliberate falsehood!
These books
are not intellectual, or academic books. They are often rhetorical, and
gung-ho! Sometimes resorting to prose, they are aimed at the emotions, rather
than the head.
Let me give
you an example of what I mean. This is a quote from a book called “In Defence
of Atheism” by Michael Onfray, published in 2006. Chapter 5 entitled
(ironically enough) On Christian Ignorance, page 52. “…believers and
churchgoers, often undereducated, informed only by the crumbs of information
they are fed by the Clergy. Sunday Mass has never glittered as a place of
reflection…” he says.
There is so
much wrong with this short quote that it is hard to know where to start. “Often
undereducated” how does he know? Has he spoken to the multitudes of people that
attend church in the western hemisphere? Does he have the details of their
academic qualifications in front of him? “Often undereducated” how often? What
are the figures? Who did the survey? When was he privy to this information? It
is clearly an embarrassing, prejudiced and ludicrous generalisation! “Informed only by
the crumbs of information they are fed by the Clergy.” Well, is Michael Onfray
not aware that there are congregations, like the Brethren, that do not even have
a Clergy? Once again, how does he know
that this is the only information they “are fed?” They may read books, surf the
internet, visit libraries, learn informally from Christian friends, learn from relatives,
Christian work colleagues, they may
listen to Podcasts, watch DVDs, read Christian magazines, go to
conferences, sign up for distance
learning from Theological Bible Colleges, read commentaries, or study the Bible itself! How is Michael
Onfray able to speak so knowingly about things that are unknown? Did you notice,
by the way, how “Christian Ignorance,” suddenly became Roman Catholic Ignorance,
as he shifts focus to the “Sunday Mass?” The very concept of the mass is an
offence to Protestants, but this does not discourage Michael Onfray from
planting them in the same bed, covering them over so you cannot see whether
they are apples or oranges!
He claims that the Mass is, apparently,
somewhere that “has never glittered as a place for reflection.” Once again, how
does he know? Is he some kind of modern-day Gnostic? How does Michael Onfray
know what people are reflecting on, or not reflecting on, in the Mass? Martin
Luther reflected enough during the Mass to examine the true meaning of
righteousness, a reflection that ultimately changed the church and the world,
through the Reformation. That’s some reflection?
Argumentation
We live in
an age where many young people are becoming atheists and are convinced of their
intellectual superiority over Christians. To quote an internet atheist, T.J.
Kirk “You are stupid!” he says. Fortunately, bold assertion is not the end of
the argument. It is after this, that many young Atheists start to struggle.
They are not conversant with Biblical theology, even a basic Sunday school level
of understanding is a rare thing as society becomes more secularized. I
remember an American Evangelist friend, saying that he had just witnessed to a
college student who thought the Bible was written by King James!
Dr William
Lane Craig, a respected Christian debater and Research Professor at Talbot School
of Theology, has received many emails and messages from Richard Dawkins’ fans.
When asked to characterize them generally, he described them as
“unsophisticated, inept, sophomoric; they cannot think logically, uninformed,
silly, ignorant and the result of an education system that has been
dumbed-down.” These are not simply insults; they are conclusions that we can
provide evidence for by examining the more popular forms of Atheist
argumentation.
The
inability to think logically is manifest from one of the more widely used
Atheist arguments against the existence of God. It is known as The Genetic
Argument and goes something like this:
The Genetic
Argument
“The only
reason you are a Christian is because you were born in the west, in a (quote)
“Christian country.” If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would have been
a Muslim, if you had been born in Scandinavia at the time of the Vikings, you
would have believed in Thor, if you had lived in Ancient Greece you would have
believed in Zeus and Apollo etc.”
This is what
is known in philosophical circles as a Genetic Fallacy. The fact that someone
may become a Christian because of cultural, geographical or social influences,
in no way disproves the existence of God! People become Christians for all
different reasons. People change their religion, people brought up in a
religious family, may become Atheists, people brought up in an Atheist family
may become Christians; none of this has any bearing on whether God exists.
The
Evolution of Religion Argument
The
Evolution of Religion Argument, which we touched on earlier, is a mantra we
will encounter again and again in Atheism. It would go something like this:
Mankind used to believe in a pantheon of Gods, then that belief evolved into
Monotheism and soon it will become a belief in no gods… But wait a moment. Is
that really true? Did everyone used to believe in a pantheon of gods? The
ancient Hebrew Shema says,”Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” Conversely,
Mormonism, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, came out of a
culture of American Evangelical Christian Monotheism and devolved into the most
pantheistic religion (and in fact one of the fastest growing) in the world! In
fact it is the Bible that presents the truth about religious history.
“Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man (as we see in
Greek and Roman mythology), and to birds, and fourfooted beasts (as we see in
African and Native American Indian Mythology), and creeping things, (as we see
in elements of Egyptian Mythology.)” Romans 1:22-23 (KJV)
The truth is
that man began with a belief in one God and because of sin, that belief has
degenerated at various times and in various places into a belief in many gods
and eventually, when all godly wisdom is abandoned and the heart hardened
against the conscience, the result is a belief in no God.
Also, if religion is evolving, why do
pantheistic religions and monotheistic religions exist simultaneously, alongside
Atheism? On closer inspection, many of these arguments simply do not bare
intelligent scrutiny.
Scientism
and the “Chance of the Gaps” argument.
Atheists
often find fault with the argumentation of Christians, by asserting that when
Christians can’t find evidence for something, or an explanation that is based
on material evidence, they just say,”God did it!” This is the so-called “God of
the Gaps” Argument. Yet, Atheists maybe
guilty of hypocrisy if they apply this criticism. If when they are challenged by the mysteries
of creation they say “it happened by chance” are they not saying “chance did
it!” They are guilty of a “Chance of the Gaps Argument.”
To believe
that Science has all the answers, even when there is no physical evidence to
support the hypothesis, is nothing less than the exercising of faith, not in
God but in Science – hence we get the word “Scientism.”
The term scientism is used to:
Indicate the improper usage of
science or scientific claims. Using Science in contexts where science might not
apply, such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific
inquiry. It would also include an excessive deference to claims made by
scientists, or an uncritical eagerness to accept any result described as
scientific.
The Evidence of Absence Argument
Some Atheists have stated that one cannot prove the
non-existence of a thing. Yet, this is a logically incorrect statement. We can
prove that there are no square circles, no married bachelors, no Theist
Atheists. As Christian Cosmologist Martin Rees put it, "Absence of evidence is
not evidence of absence.” No Atheist has ever been able to prove that God does
not exist.
Factual Demographics
The idea that the world is becoming Atheist
and leaving behind a belief in God is certainly not supported by the
demographics. So let’s talk facts:
UK
In the 2011
Census, 14.1 million people, about a quarter of the entire population (25%) of
England and Wales, said they had no religion. This was after a strenuous
campaign by The British Humanist Society to get people to tick the “No
Religion” box. So that still leaves three-quarters of the population who are
not ready to rule out the existence of God.
USA
According to
a 2011 Gallup poll, more than 9 out of 10 Americans said "yes" when
asked the basic question "Do you believe in God?"
World
According to
The World Factbook in 2010,”atheists comprise an estimated 2.01%... of the
world population. In fact there has been an increase in people defining
themselves as having a belief in God, particularly in Eastern European
countries, due to the collapse of Communism. There is a growing freedom of
expression and belief that shows that people, even people brought up in a
mandatory atheistic political system, are still searching for God.
Conclusion
If Atheism
is not the choice of the majority of people across the globe (and clearly, and
demographically, it is not), if Atheism has not proved that God does not exist,
if the conclusion of Atheism is not based on irrefutable evidence, then what is
it based on? In a word, it is based on faith. It is based on a belief system
that sees the world in a particular way. It is evangelistic in its approach to
those who do not share that belief system; in short it is a religion, or at the
very least, a kind of cult. The object of its worship just happens to be man.
Now, perhaps
you think I have gone too far in saying that? Think again.
In January 2013, Stand-up comedians Sanderson
Jones and Pippa Evans started the first “Sunday Assembly” in North London as
they "both wanted to do something like church but without God."
“The Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation that
celebrates life… Our vision: a godless congregation in every town, city and
village that wants one…all the best bits of church…and awesome pop
songs!”(Sunday Assembly website.)
Atheists gather together, sing songs, support
charities and listen to readings and talks. In Brighton there is an Atheist who
goes out Street Preaching. It is, exactly as they say, a church without God; a religion that
worships man. That is idolatry and all idolaters will have their place in the
lake of fire. (Revelation 21:8)
Until
Christians realise that this is what Atheism is, they will waste many hours
debating and arguing and trying to convince Atheists through the application of
logic and reason. It won’t work. Atheism does not respond to logic and reason,
that’s why the Bible calls the Atheist a fool. They protest that they do not
see any evidence for the existence of God, but they do; Romans 1:19 says “that
which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shown it unto
them.” In fact in verse 20 it says, “they are without excuse.” Any belief
system that replaces God with someone, or something else is idolatrous, it is
spiritual and devilish; that is the source. There is a spirit behind it that
has blinded the eyes of their minds. There is a strong man as Jesus puts it in
Luke 11:21-22 and the armour in which he trusts, is peoples’ scepticism,
ignorance and pride. If we are to plunder and spoil his goods, then we must
prayerfully approach Atheists with an understanding that what is needed is the
Gospel, for it alone is “the power of God unto salvation.”
Copyright
2014 © Paul Jennings.
