Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
Provide material proof of the existence of god. Reproducible proof.
Anywhere.
Ever.
Don’t strain yourself. Nobody else can either. And most of them are smarter than you.
Not as important to me as it would be to a committed materialist. I don’t need it. You do.
You are talking about a theoretical number. It is not a functional number.
For a typical protein length of about 300 amino acids, more than 10390 (20300) different polypeptide chains could theoretically be made. This is such an enormous number that to produce just one molecule of each kind would require many more atoms than exist in the universe.
Only a very small fraction of this vast set of conceivable polypeptide chains would adopt a single, stable three-dimensional conformation. The actual number of functional proteins is estimated between 1000 and 2000.
I never met on atheist who was a good salesmen for atheism. They inject themselves in our joyous conversations like a turd in a swimming pool.
The Freedom From Religion foundation is an odious, hateful group that bullies believers and perhaps enriches itself and others with their lawsuits. As to your last sentence, I’m not going to expend any energy saving you from hell. You have no soul to save. A soul is a spiritual concept, something atheists have willingly disavowed.
This is true. It violates all kinds of scientific parameters.
Child molesters make me think there isn’t a god. Furthermore, we effectively don’t try to wipe it out scientifically with research. I don’t get it.
Like socialism, it will never die, unless we teach the new generation, it will be repeated
How do we wipe out child molestation with research? Has trying to change human behavior thru science ever worked?
Via “social acceptance.” Is your “lifestyle choice” currently listed in the DSM as a pathology? Have it removed! Viola! Science to the rescue.
My brother-in-law is a PhD neropsychologist who mostly does clinical work but is a researcher. He says someday they are going to figure out that it’s genetic. I really wish we would hurry up. I can’t imagine looking at a good looking 11-year-old girl wishing she was younger so I can do her. These people are extremely sick and they don’t have any power over it. They need to hurry up and figure out a way for them to turn this off.
Weren’t most child molesters molested as children. It seems this might be more of a learned behavior. I don’t have the statistics on this but I do question if it’s genetic.
I have an idea. Why don’t they hurry up and solve this? This has to be the number one worst thing the government can solve after public goods. These people are so sick.
They just caught a Minnesota highway patrol guy that was doing it in his uniform. He had photos of it and he thought it was amusing.
Which demonstrates the divine aim of The Big Guy . . .
I’m very dubious a geneticist can solve complex human behavior. Honestly, I don’t want geneticists trying to control human behavior. Sounds dystopian to me.
I want them to figure this out. Hurry up.
I think I understand atheism and agnosticism: “I reached out, but God didn’t answer,” or “I looked into this, and I didn’t find the answer as to why there is so much human suffering or a way to prevent or alleviate it.” Some atheists and agnostics are determined to be as good and kind and generous as anyone could be, partly to prove that one doesn’t need religion to be those things. :) That’s a good thing.
What I have never understood is why so many atheists–certainly not all of them, and I’ve known quite a few–are angry at people who believe in God. What does someone else’s belief matter to anyone else?
If you don’t at least worry about if there is a God, it’s more than sensible to kill people and take their stuff.
That’s a great observation, Marci. It seems like an irrational response. I’m going to make a guess that it’s simple jealousy: that you have something that they don’t have, they don’t know how to “get it.” I’ve never had that discussion with an atheist, so I don’t know for certain.
That depends on how you interpret the word sensible. If you mean feeding animal instincts, yes, but if you mean as in a functioning reasoning process, no. Even self-proclaimed irreligious Marxists(atheists) have some understanding of what the word progressive means.
I must add that just because I pointed out in the above statement that Marxist understand that personal growth is part of the meaning in the term progressive, Marxist leaders will snuff that out in the pursuit of power over people, witness what we have experienced in our large urban cities in public education of minorities. It has only gotten much worse as the borders have been open for unchecked migration.
Indeed. Nothing in Marxism celebrates the individual, and their ultimate goal is power over everyone.
Most of what Marxists do is pretense to make things they favor look and sound better than the facts.
Exactly. It’s bad enough now. I’ve heard Dennis Prager talk about this endlessly and I agree with him on this. Our whole system is set up on inflation and that is theft. Plus they lie about the rate. Yet everybody’s an inflation enthusiast.
Oh dear, the old claim that atheists must think it’s fine to rape, torture, and murder people and steal their stuff because they don’t believe in an imaginary, all-loving, all-powerful magical being who permits such things to happen in the first place.
The belief that theists have a monopoly on morality is just silly, especially given the enormous catalog of crimes committed over the centuries in the name of religion.
What does someone else’s belief matter to anyone else? You should ask your fellow theists, many of whom are members of religions that have historically executed blasphemers, unbelievers, and worshippers of competing magical beings. On the other hand, I know of no occasion on which an atheist ever murdered someone for being a believer.*
* ETA: Yes, I’m familiar with the Chinese Civil War, the Cultural Revolution, the Russian Revolution, etc. I’m thinking primarily of the West, which hasn’t as far as I know suffered a prolonged campaign by atheists to kill believers.
Watch videos about the Soviet Union leadership and get back to me. Look at what the Democrat party is becoming. Behaving like the Vikings is logical if you don’t fear God. Inflation is stealing and we do it anyway.
I never said that.
Discovering a genetic link to all these abnormalities when we have abortions, and when we have amniosentisis? What could go wrong?
The genetic component was just my brother-in-law’s informed opinion. I just think we should do a hell of a lot more about this instead of letting it happen and then throwing the creeps in jail. I’ve had enough trouble getting over my dad’s narcissistic personality disorder. I can’t imagine being young and going through that and it seems like they don’t do anything to fix it.