Atheists - or antitheists, which may be a more fitting term in this context - proudly present themselves as rational individuals who base their world views on logic, reason, and science rather than on what they term to be vain and empty opiate ideologies. They criticize theists by pointing to the contradictory beliefs that theists often hold, but they ignore the contradictions and inconsistencies that are so prevalent within the scope of their own attitudes and ideologies. Though there are many such inconsistencies, here are a few of the most prevalent:
- War and Murder
One of the biggest lies told by atheists is that the majority of martial conflicts in the world have occurred as a result of people believing in God. Though a number of holy wars have occurred throughout the history of the world, the majority of martial conflicts have not occurred because one nation has deemed another to be a heathen. In truth, the vast majority of such events have occurred simply because one tribe or nation had resources that another tribe or nation wanted.
Now, many atheists like to mention that the holy wars perpetrated by theists are almost always fueled by motives external or even contradictory to their religious beliefs - such as greed. However, this only shows that theist belief is not really at the root of such holy wars, but is simply used as an excuse for them. A prime example of this would be the Fourth Crusade, in which the Christian Crusaders en route to the Holy Land decided to sack Christian Constantinople instead because it promised greater spoils. The problem there was not that the Crusaders were too Christian, but that they were obviously not Christian enough. Even if these people did not believe in God, they would still find reasons to kill each other and steal each other's possessions.
Furthermore, in this enlightened, modern age, virtually all of the great atrocities have been committed by atheists. Compare the nobility of the American Revolution (which cited God as its inspiration) to the nightmare of the French Revolution (which raged on under the assumption that God was dead). Remember that the impetuses of both world wars had nothing to do with who worshiped which God. Also bear in mind that Hitler was more motivated by his hatred of a particular religion than by a belief in one, and that Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot murdered millions of their own people in the name of a new human-worshiping religion that thought itself too advanced to believe in God. - Love
Love is something commonly idealized among atheists, as it is among everyone else. However, if you place any kind of ideological value in love and think that there is anything to it other than the synapses in the brain firing in a particular pattern, you are a religious person. You cannot claim that your world views are purely scientific and then start throwing around the "L" word as if it actually means something. - Fidelity and Procreation
Though atheists surely have their fair share of sots and adulterers, many atheists pride themselves on being able to live according to strict moral codes without needing a deity to tell them to do so. However, if this is based on a sense of love for their spouses, see #2 again. Furthermore, having a moral code that is established solely on scientific fact, would not an understanding of the theories of evolution and speciation require one of such unrivaled intelligence as a freethinking atheist to fill the world with his seed? Would not well-educated atheists be obliged to have even more children than the ever-multiplying theist masses whom they so detest? Short of violence or forced sterilization, that would be the only way to ensure a more enlightened future for the human race.
Instead, though, the very atheists who think themselves to have such lofty levels of cognition seem to believe that the human genome does not need their superior genes. - Altruism
Folks like Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche have made it quite clear that theist principles like humility, charity, and altruism are absolutely irreconcilable with a universe in which there is no God. However, many atheists still cling to these concepts of virtue - not because they can actually make any arguments against the "great" atheist minds like Rand and Nietzsche, but because they cannot bring themselves to let go of these last vestiges of theist irrationality. I will not go into Rand's and Nietzsche's arguments here, though; you can find them in books like The Fountainhead and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In short, both authors quite adequately show that, in a universe with no God and no life after death, there is only one thing that matters: me.
So why do most atheists today still advocate at least some level of altruism? - Abstract Immortality
The more noble atheists deal with the problem of death by focusing on the fact that, though they will die, their memories and the effects of their lives will live on. However, they fail to see that, being composed of mortal beings, the human race is still essentially mortal. Sooner or later, in some way, the human race as we know it will cease existing. Whether it takes a hundred years, a thousand years, or a million years, it will happen. Even if we use spacefaring technology to colonize other worlds, every single sun in the universe will eventually wink out of existence, and everything will inevitably fall victim to entropy. Noble atheists must realize that their memories and their legacies are as doomed as they are. - Literal Immortality
Some atheists like Ray Kurzweil advocate transhumanist doctrines that prophesy of a near future - in as few as 20 years, according to him - in which a singularity event will occur. With the singularity event, humans will be able to use science to achieve immortality. Kurzweil speaks of this singularity event with the same fervor in which the proverbial Southern Baptist minister raves about the Rapture. Fantasizing about post-singularity humanity, Kurzweil proclaims that, being able to live for eternity, we will eventually be able to know everything that can possibly be known.
But does he believe it's possible that there just might be another being in this vast universe who has achieved all knowledge before he has? No, that is ludicrous. - Feelings
Many atheists proudly say that they do not need dogma to tell them what is or is not right. They do not lie, cheat, kill, or insult because they "just know" that such things are wrong, and not because some old book tells them so. However, ask an atheist to provide logical and scientific proof that such actions are unacceptable, and all of their arguments will boil down to the fact that it "just feels right." They do not care for the hedonistic arguments of Nietzsche and Rand, because they know better. But when theists say that they believe in God because it "just feels right," that is proof of a lack of intelligence. - Meaning
I have heard it many times: "No, I don't believe in God or final judgment, but I have still found meaning in life." However, when your friend says this, ask him what great meaning he or she has found, and the response is sure to disappoint you profoundly. The truth is that those who say this have found no such meaning - they have simply found a way to keep living in the hope that they will one day find real meaning in life. - Mutability
For her book A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin composed the following epigram:Only in silence the word,
The argument is that, in order for a word to mean anything, there has to be silence before and after. Le Guin feels that this is representative of the meaning of human life, in that she feels that one's life cannot mean anything if it does not end. However, she misses a very vital aspect of her comparison: In order to have meaning, a word must also have an audience that lives on after it and is forever changed by it. Though a word takes only a moment to be spoken and heard, it is meaningful because it lives on both in the speaker and in the hearer. However, if human life ends with death, and if there is no God, then our existence is nothing more than wind blowing through trees that somehow frames a word for no one to hear. Mortal humanity as atheists view it cannot be its own end and meaning. See #5.
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight
on the empty sky. - Suffering
"I suffer. Therefore, there is no God." It's the common mantra of the bitter atheist. Nevermind that a substantial portion of our suffering is probably deserved. Nevermind that a substantial portion of our joy is probably not deserved, or that we would not even appreciate it if not for our suffering. The idea that an omnipotent and benevolent God would never let us suffer at all is ludicrous - especially when even He, being perfect, suffers still.
Despite the obvious level of childishness evident in the previous statement, some do take this argument to a more valid level. As Sam Harris says:Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of 6 billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this girl s parents believe at this very moment that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this?
This is a very powerful and compelling argument, because the suffering of which he speaks is obviously forced upon one who does not deserve it. However, the argument is still wrong.
No.
The entirety of atheism is contained in this response.
What atheist can give us a future in which the human race commits no such atrocities? Even if such a future exists, what atheist can give us any level of assurance that everything will eventually be well with that little girl, and that she will be healed?
We have the answer in the Holy Scriptures.
Lazarus was dead and gone. Not even modern medicine could have brought him back. And yet, Christ raised him from the dead, healing his body as if he had never died and setting everything right with him. The Lord could have saved Lazarus earlier, but He tarried for the express purpose of having the opportunity to show His power over death. He did this to illustrate the fact that, just as He has power over death, so does He have power over sin and suffering. In Alma 7, we read of how, through the Atonement, the Lord takes all of our infirmities upon Him and helps us overcome them. In Rev. 21:4, we read of how the Lord will wipe away all of our tears and raise us up out of all sorrow.
Just as the Lord caused Lazarus to rise from the dead, that girl who is raped will be made whole in the Lord, who will not only treat her wounds, but remove her scars as well. For all of their conjecture and argument, the atheists of the world cannot bring such salvation for those who have suffered unjustly - just as they cannot construct any ideology sufficient to keep humans from committing such wrongs against each other in the future. And if they argue that theist ideology has likewise failed to do so, I think G. K. Chesterton said it best: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."
No atheist ideology is sufficient to make men moral or help them to achieve any higher purpose - just as no atheist ideology is sufficient to save us from our sins or our circumstances.
