Atheism – Freethinker or Non-thinker

Atheists boast themselves to be freethinkers. Is this a reality? Agnostics differ from atheists. Some agnostics classify themselves as atheist but in reality they are not. An agnostic considers himself a freethinker who has logic reasons for not believing in God. The if the reasons he holds are shattered by the facts, an agnostic will look at the explanation and in many cases can have a change of view. An atheist on the other hand wars against the God he says does not exist. Atheist will not acknowledge any facts that oppose their ‘freethinking’ view. It is extremely rare for an atheist to be persuaded by logic or reason because he or she prides himself or herself on not believing and any opposition becomes a personal fight to preserve their identity. I base these definition from personal observation and many conversations with atheists and agnostics.

One contention I have with atheists is that they make claims such as, "one has nothing to fear and everything to gain from honest pursuit of truth" and "make it clear to your adversary that you are not willing to waste your time and energy with him if he is not even willing to concede the fundamental principles of reason", while at the same time, they refuse to look at opposing facts and will not allow reasoning that goes outside of their realm of beliefs. (Quotes are taken from George H. Smith’s lecture entitled ‘Atheism: The case against God.) Atheists are clearly guilty of the abandonment of reason that they proudly condemn Christians of doing. It is true that many Christians do not understand why they hold their beliefs as true. I would say that many professing atheists fall into the same mold. Most professing atheists have done little or no personal study to discover what is true but instead are relying on material that they find on atheistic websites or books. They quote this material as facts that they have discovered, but when you question them, it becomes obvious that they assume these to be true without verifying if these ‘facts’ are so.

I challenge each atheist to do as I have done. I have beliefs that I hold as truth and I put these to the test by reading and researching the claims of atheists that point out supposed flaws in my beliefs. I read a lot of atheistic material and when I find a reference that claims to disprove my beliefs, I check out this reference and research the validity of these claims. I have not found one single ‘proof’ that the Bible is wrong that panned out as the atheist claims. Most of these proofs that are thrown around by ‘freethinkers’ are the equivalent of urban myths that fall short when you delve into history, archeology, or scripture – whichever may apply to the claim of error.

Most claims of error are based on failures of man, doctrinal beliefs that are not found in the Bible, ignorance of the scriptures or ignorance of history. The biggest claim I hear is that Christians are hypocrites. I ask why you would think there would not be hypocrites in Christian circles? Christians are still men. The Bible never says that when we accept Christ that we become divine and without fault. Hypocrites are not only in the church, but they are in every part of society. That is not the failure of God, it is human nature. We always want others to think that we are better than we are and we always try to cover our faults. On the job, each of us knows of at least one person who has been hired that is not qualified. They present themselves as a fit for the job, but when hired we find that they presented a different picture of themselves than what is reality. That is hypocrisy. Do we quit our jobs because there are hypocrites? You can’t learn to identify what is real by studying the counterfeit. There are lots of counterfeit $20 bills out there but how many of us will throw away all of our 20s because there are counterfeits floating around?

The inquisition and the crusades are often used as proof that the Bible teaches men brutality. There are two important notes that are left out of these claims. First, during the inquisition period (crusades fall within this period), the Bible was purposefully kept out of the hands of the common churchgoer. It was punishable by death if you were caught with the Bible. The only Bible accepted during this period was the Latin Bible, which was not understood by the people of this era. There was a concentrated effort to keep the average person from having personal knowledge about the Bible. The Bible wasn’t used as God’s word, but as a tool for manipulation and maintaining power for a handful of religious leaders. The trials of the inquisitions and the punishments did not come from scriptures.

The second note I feel atheists omit is that there is a much greater example of atrocities than that which is found in the inquisition. In this century, the atheistic governments of the world that have been found to commit far greater violations against humanity. The Soviet block countries were founded upon atheism. Stalin killed millions of people each year of his reign of terror, as did those who followed him. The most oppressed society in history was built upon atheism. The claims of the communist officials was that if God was banished from society that utopia would result. The claims Stalin and his followers made are still being proclaimed by atheist today. They claim that God and religion is the root of all evil and if God is removed, society will benefit. Did society benefit? Half of Europe prospered; half of Europe spiraled into unprecedented widespread poverty. Atheism was the impoverished half. So where is the utopia? It does not and cannot exist on this earth and a society void of God suffers beyond all others. If you don’t think that is a true statement, look at all the communist countries. Is there one that has not suffered? Compare communist failures to America where Christianity has thrived and so has prosperity.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote an article about why women should be freed from religion. They made the claim that the western culture oppresses women and that the Christian religion has done more to harm women’s rights than anything else in history. Is that true? Maybe the Freedom from Religion foundation should study the women of China. They are barely considered human. China has a worldwide reputation for forced girl and women trafficking for the purpose of prostitution. Human rights groups continually protest the Chinese government for turning a blind eye and refusing to enforce even the most straightforward laws prohibiting these practices that are on the books today. Consider this comment taken from the official Human Rights Report of the U.S. State Department, "Women in China who survive termination as fetuses, starvation, and neglect as an infant face very real prospects of abduction, enslavement, coercive abortion, coercive sterilization and coercive unemployment." The absence of Christian values does not seem to have helped these women.

Many African cultures perform genital mutilation on women to prevent them from gaining pleasure from their marital relationships. Look at the Middle Eastern cultures. Do these women have the status that western women do? Compare this to American Christian culture which has prided itself on respect of women. Asian cultures consider the woman to be property and require them to follow a few paces behind men. Compare this to Christian culture that offers a seat to a woman in a crowded room, opening doors for women and promoting chivalry. The women’s equality movements have squelched much of these ideas that hold women as special, but the Christian culture does not promote this abandonment of cherishing women. Freedom from religion foundation claims that the Bible devalues women. Compare that claim to 1 Peter 3:7 which commands the man to give honor to our wives and treat them as joint heirs. If we fail to show them this love, we are warned that our prayers will be hindered.

The claims of atheist do not hold up under examination. Many atheist sites like to quote Mikhail Bakunin who said, "I revise the statement of Voltaire. If there was a God, it would be necessary that we abolish Him." This is the heart of atheism. It is not a disbelief in God, but a revolt against God and anything that represents God. George H. Smith who gave a speech entitled ‘Why I am not a Christian’ (which was renamed from ‘Atheism: a case against God’) says that the significance of freethought is that no one can make you believe anything you do not wish to believe. The significance of the ‘free’ in ‘freethought’ is that you are morally free. These two heavily quoted atheists give us insight into atheism. I believe the desire is to choose your own morality. God gives us moral direction that opposes the atheists desire to do what he or she wants without any constraints. Abolishing God is necessary because if God exists then we know that we will one day be accountable to Him. When someone is in the wrong, they despise anyone that reminds them that they are in the wrong. Christians are a constant reminder of God and this is why they are opposed by atheists.

Atheists ‘disprove’ God by setting up rules that He must fit within. If God does not fit within their conceived rules, that is proof that God does not exist. For example, D’Holbach said that in order for God to be a reality we must be able to comprehend His divine nature and that if God is incomprehensible, it is rational to think that He doesn’t exist at all. This is an irrational argument. The same could be argued about the universe. Scientist now tell us that they believe that we have not even scratched the surface of the universe around us and we may never know how many stars are out there. Under D’Holbach’s argument, if we can’t comprehend the universe, maybe it doesn’t exist at all. That is no argument at all. Just because I am not able to comprehend the magnitude of something does not discredit anything except my limited ability to comprehend. D’Holbach obviously did not realize that he was not infinite in his understanding. That is the arrogance of his atheism.

Another hero of atheism is Bertrand Russell. In the book also entitled ‘Why I am not a Christian’, he ‘disproves’ God by attacking the idea of intelligent design by revealing our misguided thinking. He illustrates this misguided thinking with this analogy:

A great many things that have been regarded as laws of nature are of that kind. On the other hand, where you can get down to any knowledge of what atoms actually do, you will find they are much less subject to law than people thought, and that the laws at which you arrive are statistical averages of just the sort that would emerge from chance. There is as we all know, a law that if you throw dice you will get double sixes only about once in thirty-six times, and we do not regard that as evidence that the fall of the dice is regulated by design; on the contrary, if the double sixes came every time we should think that there was design. The laws of nature are of that sort as regards a great many of them. They are statistical averages such as would emerge from the laws of chance; and that makes this whole business of natural law much less impressive than it formerly was.

That might be true if the laws of physics were as simplistic as his analogy of throwing double sixes. There is no comparison of the formation of an atom to throwing double sixes. Bertrand believes that the laws of chance illuminate the need for intelligent design. Do you? Before you answer, consider the following scientific data and compare it to his double sixes analogy.

The smallest known living organism has over 500 amino acids. When amino acids form, they are less than one-millionth the size of a human hair. When they form, they form with side groups of atoms. Scientist have found that all non-living amino acids form with 50% of side atoms on the right side of the acid and 50% on the left. This is true on all non-living amino acids. Living cells can ONLY contain amino acids that are left-sided. ALL amino acids found in every single living cell contains only left-sided amino acids. In the most favorable environment of scientific labs, these left-sided amino acids have never been duplicated. No scientist has ever created a single left-sided amino acid that is critical to the formation of life. All amino acids in the lab form with left and right-sided atoms. If scientist in perfect conditions can't duplicate one single left-handed amino acid, how could the 500 necessary for life form and then unite by chance? The scientific odds of even one left-sided amino acid forming by chance is 10 to the 123rd power. In other words 1 chance in 10 followed by 123 zeros. i.e. 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 80,000,000. And evolutionists say Christians have blind faith. But those are not the odds of life forming, that is only a the odds of a single amino forming as left sided. It gets worse. That is only one of the 500 specific types of left-sided amino acids necessary for the simplest life form. 20 specific aminos are needed for the simplest cell, but 500 in order for life to sustain in itself. The odds get worse. Those 500 different types of amino acids have to 'evolve' within a fraction of a millimeter of each other just to give them the chance of uniting. It gets worse. They also have to 'by chance' evolve at the exact same moment in time in a process that scientist say takes hundreds of millions of years. Elements break down the amino acids, so timing is critical. The chances of all these resources falling into place at the exact same time with the exact needed elements at the exact same place on earth within a few millionths of a millimeter of each other are 1 to the ERROR..Calculation overflow. Sorry, my the resources to calculate those odds are more than any PC can handle. I’m not sure I have enough memory to even write the number. Those odds are just for the amino acids forming, this doesn’t include all the other ingredients needed to sustain a living cell. Carl Sagan said that if you took all the information found in one single cell and converted it into data that it would fill over 100 million pages of the encyclopedia Britannica. And if only one item was missing, the entire cell would cease to function and die. So not only do all of these elements have to form against insurmountable odds, every single element must all be present at the exact same time or the cell will fail.

Can you honestly side with Bertrand and say that rolling double sixes compares to these insurmountable odds of chance? Bertrand also heads down the path that other atheist follow. He blames God for the sins of man. There is one thing I have yet to understand about this argument; why does the atheist oppose any idea that God has a right to intervene in our lives, and then go on to blame God for the sins of man? It stands to reason that if God gives us a free will to choose that He would also honor our choices even if He knew there would be painful consequences. If God did not allow us to make a wrong choice, then it would not be freedom of choice at all. The argument that if God allows us to choose wrongly then He doesn’t have the right to judge us since we use His creation does not hold water either. We also live in a free society. If we break laws can we argue that it is the governments fault for giving us the freedom to commit crimes? I do not see the logic behind this argument.

An atheist will often claim that we must prove the existence of God and that because a Christian cannot prove beyond a doubt that God exists, atheism will not accept this God. Is this rational reasoning? There is nothing except personal experience that can prove God without any room for doubt. The personal experience explanation is the biggest criticism I hear atheist make about the Christian belief in God. I partially agree with this opposition. Personal experience does not carry a lot of weight if it stands alone. It is like a character witness in a trial. A character witness in itself means little, but coupled with good evidence it carries a lot of weight. Even in a trial, the jury cannot make a judgment without any doubt whatsoever. The only way a verdict without doubt could be reached would be if all twelve jurors were eyewitnesses to the account in question. A verdict is reached by a careful examination of all evidence – both pro and con to the defense. The biggest failure of atheism is not that they question God or the Bible. The biggest failure of atheism is that they refuse to acknowledge the credibility of any evidence that does not support their predisposed verdict. If an atheist is a true thinker, he or she will look at evidence that supports and contradicts their ideas. The same is true about a true disciple of Jesus. I frequently read atheistic writings such as Voltaire, Bertrand Russell, George H. Smith and many other heralded freethinkers. I like to read testimonials similar to those I found on a site dedicated to those ‘freed from fundamentalism’. When I find a viewpoint that is articulated and based on a set of stated facts, I research for myself to see if my beliefs withstand the so-called contradictions to my views. If my beliefs withstand, I can have confidence that my beliefs are true. If I hide my head in the sand, I cannot have this confidence. Many times atheist accuse me of hiding my head in the sand, but I read and analyze their claims. I believe the reverse is true. I have found most atheists get their beliefs solely from other atheists and rarely read writings that refute atheism. I challenge any atheist to read former atheists writings such as ‘The Case for Christ’ by Lee Strobel or ‘Evidence that Demands a Verdict’ by Josh McDowell. As a Christian I am often accused of being closed-minded. Is there any substance to this claim? I am biased, as is everyone else. We are always biased toward our beliefs. The error is not holding a belief as true, but the error is protecting that belief by avoiding evidence that may contradict that belief. I frequent resources of those that oppose and attempt to dismantle my beliefs.

Perhaps the most credible witness is the ones who have at one time held a belief in God and may have even served in the ministry but now have decided that God is no longer real. It is these testimonies that have the possibility of carrying the most weight. I read these with interest to know why a person professes a belief in God and later denies His existence. I spent many late nights reading these testimonials (some of which are detailed and lengthy). I have noticed two reoccurring patterns. First, these ‘freed fundamentalists’ have been driven by a desire to attain the favor of God by personal efforts. They clearly had no concept of grace and worked fervently to climb the hill toward God’s approval. But being human, failures always set them back. We often picture God as an angry God waiting to whack us with His stick of judgement each time we fail to measure up. That is not the God the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that the goodness of God leads us to repentance. It is God’s loving kindness that picks us up when we fail and leads us down the path that will draw us into a closer fellowship with our Creator. When we try to make God love us by working to earn His favor we will get discouraged or burn out sooner or later. I will not go into detail here, but this burn out is based on a misconception of the nature and love of God.

The second pattern is that these ‘freed fundamentalist’ grow up with parents who are ministers or missionaries and lived double lives. In front of other people they gave an air of holiness and presented a righteous face, but at home they did not live what they said they believed. These children grow up seeing mixed messages that leave them confused about whether the Christian lifestyle is athentic. A true disciple lives the life at home as well as in the field. This failure sends the message to a family member that Christianity isn’t genuine. This isn’t a failure of Christianity, but of our human nature. Most people – even those in the ministry – do not understand grace. Grace is the foundation of the Christian life. When someone plays the karma game and tries to earn religious points, they have a hard time trying to keep that front up at home. Living by faith in the grace of God changes our perspective. When I live life with God as the object of my affection, the love of God will touch those around me and especially those in my home.

Many atheists quote sayings similar to this comment by Mark Twain, "Faith is believing in something that you know is not true". What Mr. Twain is describing here is blind faith. Blind faith is closing your eyes to any evidence and determining to believe what you have already purposed to believe. It is true that many people – both Christians and atheists – are guilty of this mindset. So the question is not whether or not Christians believe this way, the real question should be, is this what the Bible teaches about faith? After all, it is the Bible that is in question here, not the beliefs of a select few. I can say without question that a true Biblically founded Christian does not believe in blind faith. I do not believe in blind faith and the Bible does not teach blind faith. The Bible defines faith in Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". In other words, the promises of God are so real to us that we consider them as tangible substance because we know God will keep His promises. We base this principle on the evidence of things not seen. The key is the evidence. We can’t see God with our eyes but we know God is real and His word is true based on the evidence that we have seen. We can’t see God, but we can see the evidence.

Like a jury in a trial. We stand in judgement of the evidence. Which verdict do we believe to be true? Some of the evidence can be see with our eyes, but most of what the Bible tells us is based on the testimonies of eye witness accounts and not our own witness. The atheist discredits the Bible because he or she cannot be an eyewitness. I have heard more that one atheist say that they would only believe if God would reveal Himself undeniably before their eyes. This poor idea makes for bad judgment. How much of our knowledge is based on personal experience? The problem with personal experience is that a person can testify to it after making a decision but it does not help in the decision making process. We believe science, not because we have done every experiment first hand, but we believe based on credible people who did these experiments or testified that they or another person did these experiments. The same is true for almost all of our knowledge in almost every subject. An atheist told me that the genealogy listed in the Bible was not credible because there was no one alive today that could say they saw each of these people. He applied this type of argument to the Bible’s claims and to every piece of evidence that validates the Bible’s claims. This is not an argument but an excuse not to look at evidence. Historians do not dispute these records. If this logic is applied, every piece of history is discredited on every level. To reach a true verdict, you must examine all of the evidence. Atheists avoid contrary evidence and only view what is filtered through atheistic circles. This one-sided pool of evidence gives a verdict based on desired outcome and not based on evidence. I challenge each atheist to look at the evidence that opposes their view presented from credible sources and then compare to the evidence that supports atheism and make a judgement based on a reasonable doubt. Instead of seeking out those who are easily discredited, challenge the facts presented from credible sources who can present a logical basis for their conclusions.

You are a juror. You are presented with evidence from many sources. A juror’s job isn’t to plan for the outcome, nor is it to throw out the verdict based on the fact that you can’t remove 100% of doubt. Your mission is to look at all of the evidence and weigh the facts. Based on all of the evidence you should give your verdict based on reason. The evidence points to a reasonable conclusion. You are not promised zero doubts; you are offered enough evidence to make a true conclusion. If you only view one side of the case, you will not be able to say that you have made a truthful decision. You are not an eyewitness, but there are many eyewitnesses testifying what they saw. A single witness – even a credible witness – does not clearly reveal the truth. A single piece of evidence also does not clearly reveal the truth. But all the evidence combined should give you a clear picture of truth. Atheism alone cannot give you the answer, nor can the Bible alone. But multiple eyewitness accounts are credible in a case. There are several verifiable claims that support the Bible. You already know what atheism says about God, now look at the evidence that doesn’t agree with atheism. Look at history, genealogical records, archeology, claims the Bible has made that was previously unknown to the world. Look at those who once held to atheistic viewpoints who can explain why they have changed their minds. If someone once held your views and now testifies why he has changed, are you justified in refusing to look at his claims? I challenge each atheist to read ‘The Case for Christ’ by Lee Strobel. If you are a truth seeker, you will be willing to review these contrary testimonies. Otherwise you are a non-thinker who is hiding from the truth. You can’t truly say you know why you believe until you have put it to the test by comparing it to opposing testimony. That doesn’t mean going to atheistic sources to find out what the atheists say the opposition says; this means that you study the facts for yourself and read first-hand what thinkers say validates the Bible.

I am classified as a non-thinker yet I frequently read material written by atheist challenging my views. Are you who classifies yourself as a freethinkers unwilling to read material written by a previous atheist? Don’t be afraid to challenge your ideas. In the words of George H. Smith in his speech ‘Atheism: The Case Against God’, "one has nothing to fear and everything to gain from the honest pursuit of truth. It can never be against your interest to know what the truth is." Are atheists really interested in truth, or is this just lip service?

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