Come, Let Us Reason Together
By Jack Kinsella
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” (1 Peter 3:15)
I saw the following t-shirt slogan the other day. It read as follows:
Atheism: “the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs. Makes perfect sense.”
I gotta get me one of those, if for no other reason than because atheists love to portray themselves as “free thinkers.”
Jordan Froese, writing for the Huffington Post, summed up atheism as he understands it thusly:
“I am an atheist, and I subscribe to the idea that humanity and all of its works are essentially the sum of water, carbon, and random electrical impulses.”
I’ve been analyzing that sentence for a few minutes now and am of the opinion that a two-word change would make it a lot clearer:
“I am an idiot, because I subscribe to the idea that humanity and all of its works are essentially the sum of water, carbon, and random electrical impulses.”
Consider what he is saying, here. The Mona Lisa is the sum of water, carbon and random electrical impulses.
Following his line of reasoning, then so too, is the atomic bomb. The Bible. A crossword puzzle. An energy-efficient home. The computer you are reading this on. The software that makes it work.
A Fabrege egg. The Sistene Chapel. The Great Wall of China. A baby’s smile. A tree.
According to Froese, all these — simply the sum of water, carbon and random electrical impulses. Your ability to read these words are not the result of anything. Instead, they are the result of nothing.
THIS is the position adopted by those who claim that reason is on their side!
Recently, Stephen F. Hawking, hailed as one of the most brilliant scientists alive, made headlines by sharing what he knows about God, the afterlife and outer space.
Hawking certainly deserves the title of the most brilliant scientists alive – he knows things no other scientist does.
Hawking says that he knows that there is no God. Hawking says that he knows that heaven does not exist. Hawking says that he knows that everything was created from nothing according to a random process.
But as brilliant as Stephen F. Hawking is supposed to be, he was rendered speechless by former child actor Kirk Cameron’s two-word challenge:
“Prove it.”
“Ooops!”
Assessment
It always struck me as odd that secular scientists — who would never dream of making a blanket statement of fact concerning a topic they know nothing about and for which they had no empirical evidence — are completely comfortable making blanket assertions– as fact — like “there is no God.”
The atheist’s blanket proclamation that there is no God, or that the works of mankind are nothing more than water, carbon and electrical impulses is actually a much more difficult position with far less empirical evidence in support than is the Christian position.
The atheist position is one of total negativity. There is no evidence to support atheism. There are no ‘proofs’ that God does not exist. The entire atheist argument rests on the absence of any evidence whatsoever.
It is that absence of evidence that forms the body of argument supporting atheism.
Conversely, the Christian has the Bible, two thousand years of Christian history, various and sundry Christian denominations, prayer books, liturgical worship standards, and the support of history.
These are things that can be seen, handled, examined and analyzed. In a word — evidence.
What does the atheist offer in evidence of his position? Attacks on the Bible, Christian history, the various denominations, prayer and worship and history. His only defense is an attack.
He cannot offer anything in support of his position except his own doubts.
The only way that his position is in any way intellectually defensible is in the abstract – he can argue that it is at least possible that God does not exist.
His entire argument rests on that possibility. Moreover — and this is key — it depends on his possibility being the only possibility.
Atheists have another major problem with their worldview that immediately exposes the philosophical bankruptcy of their position. Even if they were successful in refuting evidences offered in favor of the existence of God, that in no way offers any support to atheism.
Even if the atheist refutes all the evidences placed before him, he still loses the debate, IF the standard is really as they claim, that of reason and logic.
At best, one can only argue that so far, they’ve not seen convincing evidences.
Guys like Stephen F. Hawking cannot say there are no evidences for God, because Hawking cannot know all evidences that possibly exist in the world.
At best, the atheist can only say that the evidence presented so far has been insufficient. This logically means that there could be sufficient evidences presented in the future.
If an atheist is intellectually honest, he will acknowledge at this point that he has lost the debate, since his only alternative is to deny that there may indeed be evidence as-yet undiscovered — which then becomes the foundation of his argument.
Spelled out in words, it would read like this:
“My position is that I know beyond all possible doubt that which is unknowable, based on a total lack of evidence in support of my position.”
His opponent’s argument in summary is this one:
“The age and existence of the Bible, the historical failure to stamp it out, together with the faith and inspiration it has engendered, and the billions of people that believe it — all qualify as hard evidences that can be examined, debated and interpreted, but not refuted, since all exist in the real world and can be demonstrated.”
Every single debate between a Christian and an atheist follows the exact same pattern. The Christian presents evidence, the atheist attacks the Christian’s presentation. The Christian always goes first because without the Christian’s prior assertions, the atheist has NOTHING to say.
Picture the debate as it would unfold if the atheist goes first.
“There is no God because I can’t see Him.”
That’s ALL he’s got. He can’t add anything to that without reaching into the believer’s evidence bag for something to attack.
By itself, the atheist position is identical to that offered by our pal Jordan Froese:
“I am an idiot, because I subscribe to the idea that humanity and all of its works are essentially the sum of water, carbon, and random electrical impulses.
And since I have no evidence of my own, the only evidence I am going to offer in support of my position is that your evidence doesn’t convince me.”
“See, I told you I was an idiot.”
The defense rests.