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Is Atheism Dead?
At a time when secularism appears to dominate our culture, hatred for the Judeo-Christian ethic is advocated, and the belief in God is ridiculed, I came across an insightful and encouraging book by Eric Metaxas entitled Is Atheism Dead?
Metaxas offers hope that the belief in God will be resurrected and that atheism is dying a slow death (if it’s not on its last legs). He is honest and direct about his intention in writing this book:
I can certainly hope and even expect to convince any rational person that atheism is no longer an option for those wishing to be regarded as intellectually honest.
He pursues this goal with passion, clarity, at times with a sense of humor, and the latest data to support his contention. Here is a summary of the topics he covers, although these do not reflect the amount of writing he spent on each one. Those topics included the following: the Big Bang, the fine-tuned planet, the fine-tuned universe, water and sunlight, how life originated, life is far more complex than we thought, following the science, biblical and archaeological evidence, New Testament archaeology, and the views of atheists.
One fascinating aspect of the book was his description of a “fine-tuned planet,” and the biblical evidence verified by the archaeology.
Many of us have already heard that the development of our planet was so finely tuned that it would have been impossible for it to come into existence by accident. But Metaxas provides even more evidence than I would have ever imagined. His writing gives many examples of these discoveries, but the following comments sum up his view:
It is simply that there are certain things about our universe—and about our planet—that seem to be so extremely perfectly calibrated that they can hardly be coincidental. If these things were even slightly different, life would not even be possible. One classic example has to do with the size of Earth, which just happens to be exactly what it needs to be in order for life to exist here.
[snip]
The overwhelming impression is that the burgeoning welter of perfect coincidences has mounted to a level impossibly beyond anything we can put down to coincidence, so that even the most hostile atheist must at least wonder whether it is all precisely as it is precisely because it was intentionally designed to be that way.
One example, his description of the discovery of the location of Sodom from the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, was especially intriguing. Steven Collins is an archaeologist who was working near the Dead Sea and was contemplating the existence of Sodom. He suddenly realized that the biblical description was contrary to the contention that Sodom was on the south side of the Dead Sea. Sodom, a very large city for the time, was built on a verdant plain! Over the years he had the opportunity to explore the area to look for Sodom, and was amazed by the discoveries he made. He realized that the area had undergone a cataclysmic event as well:
It seemed that this civilization was thriving for many centuries, but then suddenly, around 1700 BC, the civilization had stopped dead—and then did not start up again for seven centuries.
[snip]
The ‘impact event’ has been estimated to be the equivalent of fifteen megatons of TNT, or a thousand Hiroshima bombs. And yet this inconceivably destructive event would only have required a single small asteroid of about three hundred feet in diameter, exploding five miles above Earth’s surface.
Collins believed that this event could account for the destruction of Sodom. With his biblical expertise and understanding and experience with archaeology, he was certain that he had found Sodom north of, not south of, the Dead Sea.
Metaxas also dedicates his research to the stories of the New Testament. He writes of the prediction of the emergence of Jesus, the presence of Jesus in the Temple, and even shows archaeological proof of Jesus’ childhood home.
The author also takes issue with the argument that the atheists like to make, that faith and science are incompatible. He summarizes his argument with these points:
The first is that the false idea that faith and science are incompatible stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of both faith and science. The second is that the well-known story of Copernicus and Galileo as scientists at war with the Church is false. The third is that many of the greatest scientists in history were deeply committed to the Christian faith, and not only saw their faith as compatible with science, but as inextricably intertwined with it. And fourth—and surely the most distressing to materialist atheists—is the almost unknown fact that science as we today know it arose precisely because of Christian faith—not in spite of it.
When we turn to Metaxas’ analysis of the atheists who refuse to believe there is a God/Creator, he again relies on reason. Of course, the data he supplies about the perfect circumstances that contributed to the creation of the planet Earth are convincing, and some atheists, such as the late Christopher Hitchens, acknowledged that these data were the most impressive. But Metaxas spends a great deal of time discounting two of the most prominent atheists, Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Metaxas felt compelled to read their work, to try to understand their side of the arguments against God. Instead of finding rational and data-driven information to support atheism, these men, particularly Hitchens, relied on bluster and rage to support their points. He describes his experience of trying to read Hitchens’s book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Here is how, in part, he describes the book:
I found that I couldn’t make any real sense of what I was discovering. I don’t mean I didn’t understand the meaning of the sentences; that I understood all too well. What I couldn’t make head or tail of was how much a popular book by someone so previously brilliant could be so aggressively—I thought even ambitiously—awful. I didn’t need to wonder too hard how the book could have been popular, because what it did very well—via unconnected anecdotes and mean-spirited hyperbole and witticisms—was confirm and further inflame the deep emotional animus many readers felt toward ‘religion’ of some kind, or any kind at all.
This is Metaxas’s challenge to the atheists who continue to discount religion:
And since atheists loudly ally themselves with reason and rationality, how shall we shrink from asking them to defend their positions reasonably and rationally? We must hear how it can be that atheists maintain we are merely material beings with no transcendent value, but blanch and sputter when it is pointed out that this is what Hitler and the National Socialists believed—and carried out with typical and tragic German efficiency.
If you find Metaxas’s goals as fascinating as I do, I encourage you to read the book. His passion and dedication to validating people’s beliefs in God and his commitment to religion are inspiring. Near the end of the book, he made this statement:
Somehow—in God’s impossible economy—everything is connected. Somehow. Through him. And because the good and beauty and truth in each thing points to him, it reflects off him and points back to every other good and beautiful and true thing that exists.
[originally published at American Thinker]
Published in Book Reviews
I don’t think atheism is dead, just as wicca still hangs around. Its popularity may rise and fall with the times, but it won’t ever go away – nor should it. Belief in this life and only this life with nothing to follow after death may require more faith than Christianity. After all, thinking about growing a soul with all of life’s experiences, only to have it vanish into nothingness upon death requires an incredible amount of belief to maintain.
To elaborate, this makes the likelihood of an atheist questioning the loss of his soul and taking a look at Christianity as a way of preserving it after death more of an acceptable (and desired) option. It could all depend on whether or not he has the guts to admit he was wrong, especially to his peers.
So, no, atheism is not dead. But it could be the “gateway drug” to real faith in a traditional religion . . .
The key for Metaxas is the proof that G-d exists. And he gives plenty of evidence. Whether an atheist is interested in the truth or maintaining his or her false beliefs is up to them.
There are many Christians whose logic , thought processes, and actions do not reflect a belief in God. They may say they believe ( and I think they are most likely telling the truth ) , but nothing in their lives reflects a faith in God. I have read them described as Functional Atheists. I pray and hope that my life reflects my faith.
Atheism was never much of a thing–it is too much work to be that certain about something. I do think there is an upswing of communism and Marxism and anti-religiousness in generation, but I think those things are distinct from atheism.
Except that all of them protest against God and religion.
God is inconvenient to those who believe in the State. They can’t handle the competition.
I recently ran across Steven Collins on YT interviews. His discoveries are amazing. The site he believes to be Sodom was almost certainly hit by a meteor.
One of his assistants was a scientist who had worked on the Trinity project in WWII. When shown a piece of excavated material his first comment was that it reminded him of Trinitite.
Edit:
The all time most downloaded article from Nature.
I see it was recently retracted. Not surprising. There is a link that critiques research about the Tunguska event! And so that discredits the comparison to Tall el-Hammam (believed to be Sodom).
Some atheists don’t want religion interfering with their lusts and self-centered lifestyles. Others are incapable of faith, unable to believe in things our puny brains can’t understand or that our eyes can’t see. Faith is not easy.
No it’s not. But the rewards are beyond measure.
Any of y’all remember Metaxas from Red Eye on Fox?
The book sounds interesting.
No! He must have been fascinating! Yes, the book is so enjoyable, especially because it puts atheists in their place.
He was quite funny and incisive.
Eric Metaxas is a first-rate author. I first encountered his work in his book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. I liked it so much that I bought a copy of Miracles for everyone in my family one Christmas. I liked his biography of Martin Luther as well.
Wonderful book. I enjoyed it immensely. The chief selling point of atheism is a claim that it is closer to being a certainty than unverifiable religious faith. But we find that the claims of certainty are overstated and that the misuse of science is a big part of that.
I also read Hitchens’ book which I enjoyed for the vitriolic prose of which Hitchens was a master, though not a particularly deep book.
Yes, but I have to recommend his Socrates in the City with reservations. He suffers sometimes from the disease of the talk-show host: He talks too much and spends too much time warming up his audience. It’s distracting. With some episodes, Vrouwe and I fast-forwarded through as much as the first 15 minutes.
That said, when he is on his game “live”, he’s great.
As for the OP: The best data we’ve got shows atheism/agnosticism/religious non-affiliation as a joint category is on the decline:https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
Bonhoeffer’s story is so wonderful. Maybe I should get that one for myself!
What has always struck me is the sameness of atheist arguments. The “New Atheism” wasn’t “new” at all – Aquinas pretty much summed up the atheist arguments in the 1200s and effectively dealt with them; there hasn’t been anything really new since.
Metaxas essentially confirmed that, Jean.
The “new” atheists were unaware that there would be outside reading.
The “new” educators have this deficiency as well. Life experience overcomes much false teaching.
To answer the question posed in the title, no, atheism is not dead, and the arguments in support of it are as powerful as ever, the “fine-tuned planet” theory notwithstanding.
It is estimated that there are around 100 sextillion planets in the universe (1 followed by 23 zeroes). Yes, numerous astronomical, physical, chemical, and biological circumstances had to have aligned to support life on our planet, but to attribute this to divine agency is to forget about the other 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 -1 planets on which we will assume life doesn’t exist. Despite the infinitesimal chance of it doing so, life arose on Earth because it could and didn’t arise elsewhere (as far as we know today) because it couldn’t. Why bring god into it?
If there is an all-knowing, all-powerful god, it is clearly a psychopath who knowingly created its own main enemy and who delights in torturing and killing children by giving them cancer and other ghastly diseases, sponsoring tooth decay and genocides, and so on. No friend of humans, to be sure.
Deists do themselves no favors by tolerating within their ranks fringe elements like proponents of Young Earth creationism and others who support literal interpretations of the Bible. You have to be so ignorant of so many scientific disciplines to believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old it’s just embarrassing. Why associate with such people?
Monotheistic deists and I both don’t believe in hundreds of religions; I just don’t believe in one more than they don’t believe in. As the Freedom From Religion Foundation advertisement almost says: I’m Yarob, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.
life didn’t just arise spontaneously for it to be able to continue. It wasnt some bizarre occurrence for all the perfection it entailed.
I’m so sorry. How awful to have such an ugly perception of G-d. G-d doesn’t do those things; he sustains us in other ways.
Ah, the increasingly untenable “there are so many planets, there must be life on one of them besides Earth” argument. Gosh, one in ten followed by 23 zeroes. In other words, a negligible number compared to the odds of forming one protein (one) by chance, which are:
So, basically zero chance at all ever. Unless a guiding intelligence intervenes. And that’s just giving away the “game” on amino acids. Life-favoring amino acids, that is. There’s no real reason to do that, but for the sake of argument, sure.
I just love seeing the adherents of that most primitive and backwards of superstitions, the worship of luck, trot that one out. It’s like their existential desperation to see their worldview validated exceeds their grasp of probability mathematics or something. Yeah, it definitely does. The benighted believers in the “derp, derp, just happened” theory (philosophical materialists) have far less reason to expect life elsewhere in the universe than theists do.
What impressed me most from Metaxas’ book, HvA, is how he used facts and reasons to make his arguments, but atheists don’t. They just rely on their disbelief.
I see your quotation is drawn from something published or quoted by an arm of the Discovery Institute. Never heard of it, but Wikipedia is helpful:
Evolution not real? Sorry, there is no chance I will trust anything they have to say.
Wikipedia is so unreliable that I’m not able to use it as a source on another site on which I publish. It’s mostly Leftists propaganda these days.
Provide material proof of evolution. Reproducible proof.
Anywhere.
Ever.
Don’t strain yourself. Nobody else can either. And most of them are smarter than you.
So where did it come from? Isn’t it rational to question if a higher being created the conditions for life to flourish?
The old atheist trope of bad things happen so how can God create such a world. Why wasn’t heaven on earth created so bad things don’t happen. Even the most devout religious types don’t clearly know God’s intentions.
So a few whackos disproves the existence of God? Besides, tossing out people who believe in the salvation of Jesus Christ over their views about the age of the earth doesn’t seem very Christian to me.
Atheism will never die, because it is so very tempting, especially when one is young and foolish (I used to be an atheist in my youth, so I am including myself in that “young and foolish” category).
Why not? It seems logical that there has to be an uncaused cause.
Ah, the old “problem of evil.” Nothing is new under the sun…Problem of Evil – Thomistic Philosophy Page
And there are wacko atheists, evil atheists, stupid atheists. So what? Does that disprove atheism?
Thanks, Jean.