|
Musings
Atheism
Introduction
The best evidences for the existence of God proceed from human nature. The
way man naturally thinks and acts consistently points to something akin to
the Christian God. On the contrary there are no evidences for atheism. The
atheist can try and give alternative explanations for the arguments given
for God, but he cannot put forth any positive evidences of this own. In what
follows we will consider whether human nature, as it has always been, is
more consistent with a world in which there is no God, or one in which there
is a God consistent with Christianity.
Man has Always Believed
As far back as we have written records man has always believed in God, Gods,
and/or the supernatural. There is no evidence that man has evolved these
beliefs. By all accounts it seems to be inherent in him. Most atheists will
acknowledge that as far as written records are concerned man has always
believed. They may say that man evolved such beliefs before he learned to
write, and so we have no record of such an evolution, but it is impossible
to discuss non-evidence. Some atheists will claim that we can glean
evidences from the remnants of pre-historic man, but such evidence would be
speculative and fragmentary at best, and so for our purposes would come
under the category of non-evidence.
The atheist will also say that before man could understand certain natural
objects or events such as the sun, moon, eclipses, lightning etc. he
explained them by resorting to the supernatural. This may be true, but it
doesn't explain why man, being a product of atheistic evolution, found it so
natural and easy to believe in the supernatural. The question that the
atheist must try and honestly answer is whether it would it be more natural
for man to believe in God in an atheistic world or in an theistic one.
Objective Morals
Man has always had what I would call objective morals. In other words, he
has always pointed away from himself to someone else and declared him to be
morally right or wrong. Subjective morality would be to declare that
something would be right or wrong for oneself but not necessarily for
someone else. Morals become objective when one declares morality for others
in addition to oneself. As soon as we do this we are assuming an inviolable
law to which we are all subjected. Only God could provide such a law.
A knowledgeable atheist will agree that in a godless world there are no
objective morals, but he will claim that man evolved such an idea in order
to best survive. Why man would need to act as if there is a God in order to
best survive in an atheistic world is a question for which I have never
heard a good answer. In any case there is no evidence that man evolved such
an idea. As far as we have written records man has always thought this way.
For an atheist to counter this he has to once again go back to the
non-evidence of pre-history.
When confronted with the idea that God is the only possible authority for
objective morality some atheists will claim that society is an alternative
authority. The problem is, if one takes society as his moral authority, then
he must be willing to submit to whatever morals his society declares. If he
does not, then morals go back to being subjective. When an atheist is asked
whether, if he had lived in Nazi Germany he would have accepted the
slaughter of the Jews as being morally acceptable, or if he would have
accepted the enslavement of black Africans in 19th century America, he
invariably answers no. Obviously then society is not a violable option from
which to obtain objective morals.
If the atheist is not willing to accept the moral authority of society the
only authority left is the individual, but if the individual is his own
authority then there is no objective morality. Once again all morality
becomes subjective.
Some atheists contend that there is no such thing as objective morality
because different societies have different morals, and there is no
particular moral which is accepted by all peoples. Whether or not this is
true is debatable, but irrelevant to the present argument. When we are
talking about objective morality we are only speaking of man's seemingly
natural propensity to declare something to be right or wrong, not only for
himself, but also for others. For the sake of this argument the particular
moral is irrelevant, as we are dealing with man's general tendency not with
his specific choice.
All of this, by the way, is consistent with Christianity which says that man
was created by God who declares rights and wrongs for all of mankind. As a
result we all have an intuitive sense that there are objective morals, but
since we are fallen, estranged from God, and on our own, we often times
disagree as to what those morals should be. This is exactly what is seen in
the world in which we live, and exactly what Christianity would predict that
we should see.
Life Has Meaning
As far back as we have
written records man has always believed that life has meaning over and above
merely meeting his biological needs. It can be anything from loving God, to
helping others, to enjoying himself, conquering the world etc. As with
objective morals the specific meaning does not matter. We are simply
concerned here with man's propensity to believe that life does have meaning.
Animals seem to be content to follow their instincts while fulfilling their
biological needs. Man on the other hand acts as if life has meaning over and
above these instinctual drives. But life can only have meaning if an
intelligent being gives it such. If there is no intelligent being at our
origin, which I guess in this case would be the Big Bang, or maybe the
formation of the first cell, then there can be no inherent meaning to life.
Man as an intelligent being can and does give meaning to his life, in fact,
it seems to be natural for him to do so. The question the atheist must
answer is why, if man's life is inherently meaningless, does he naturally
find the need to give it meaning? He will most likely say that it evolved in
man to help him to better survive. But once again he must ask himself why
man must act as if there is a God to best survive in a godless world.
If on the one hand there is a God, then life has meaning and man would
naturally act as such, and this is exactly what he does. On the other hand
if there is no God, man should be perfectly content to live a meaningless
life in a meaningless world, and he has never been able to do this.
Free Will
In an atheistic world
all thoughts would be produced by the interaction of the mind with the
environment. There would be no mechanism, such as, an independent soul to
supersede this interaction and come up with independent thoughts. All of our
actions would be mapped out for us by which thought produced by this
interaction presents itself to the mind in the most favorable light.
So despite virtually all human beings for all of history believing that we
make independently free choices on a daily basis, the atheist must believe
that this is all an illusion. He must believe that we only think that we
have free will. In reality we are merely the unwitting slaves of the
mind/environment interaction. Such a belief is depressing, and does not
explain man's natural sense that his thoughts are independent and free.
The Idea of God
As stated above all
thoughts in an atheistic world are produced by the mind interacting with its
environment. An interesting question therefore arises. How does the
interaction of an atheistic mind with an atheistic environment produce
theistic thoughts?
An atheist will generally respond to this question by stringing a few
thoughts together to show how by simply reasoning on the basis of what he
sees around him he can come up with the concept of God. The problem with
such a counter argument is that he cannot show that this is an atheistic
world. Therefore he cannot show that his reasoning is the result of an
atheistic mind interacting with an atheistic environment. It very well could
be that this is a theistic world and his ease in stringing together thoughts
that lead to God is because God has created us to easily do so.
What the atheist has to do is to come up with a mechanism in an imaginary
atheistic world to free him from the natural course of an atheistic mind
interacting with an atheistic environment naturally producing atheistic
thoughts. If the atheist says that it is impossible to imagine such a world,
then isn't he saying that the only world possible to imagine is one in which
the idea of God is easily attained? If this is the case, then once again the
atheist must honestly ask himself whether the easily attainable idea of God
would be more likely in a theistic world or in an atheistic one.
The Desire to Live
Forever
If this were an
atheistic world there would be no eternal life. All life would be mortal. If
mortality were our natural state, one would think that we would be
comfortable with it, but we are not.
Why is it that in all other aspects of life man lives according to his
nature and seems to be content to do so? When we are hungry we eat, when we
are tired we rest or sleep, but we struggle with the idea of death. We see
it as an unwelcome intrusion just as Christianity says that it is.
Christian theology says that we were created to live forever, but because of
sin we are subjected to corruption and death. This not only explains why we
have a strong desire to live forever, but it also explains why we see death
as such a tragedy. It seems to me that once again Christianity does a better
job in explaining human nature as it has always been then does atheism.
Conclusion
In
the preceding paragraphs we have considered two models - an atheistic world
and a Christian world. We have looked at human nature in the way it has
always been for as long as we have written records. It seems to be clear
that we as humans act in our day-to-day lives, even when we are not thinking
about it, as if there is a God, and we thrive best in the world in which we
live when we do so. The atheist finds himself in the unenviable position of
trying to explain why man must act as if there is a God to best survive in a
world in which there is no God. Our job as Christians is much easier. The
reason why we as human beings have always acted consistently with the idea
that God exists is because he does.
|