Why Atheism Doesn’t Make Sense
In general, the three main classifications for religious affiliations (in relation to Christianity) are atheist, agnostic and, well, Christian. The atheist typically believes there is no God and there is proof there is no God. The agnostic takes a softer approach in that they don’t believe in God, but they can’t be sure either. However, the very idea of being an atheist is actually counter-intuitive. In fact, all atheists are actually agnostics, as you will see.
The claim atheists make is that there is no God and they know this to be true. This statement is particularly powerful because it is an absolute negative, meaning that there is zero instance anywhere in the universe to suggest God exists. Pretty massive claim, right? Because it is.
Think of it this way: If I said there is no gold in China all it would take is someone somewhere to find a single speck of gold ANYWHERE in the country of China. Be it a tooth filling, jewelry, or the raw ore in the earth, if gold was found anywhere, my statement would be false. So in order for that statement (‘There is no gold in China’) to be true, then I would need to know everything about China in the first place. That way I know for certain if my statement would be always true or always false.
If we apply this concept to the atheist claim, we expand the area we search for God to everything. So in a nutshell, for a atheist to make the claim “There is no God”, they would need to know everything about everything, or basically be omniscient — which in itself is a characteristic of God (the exact thing atheists don’t believe in).
At best, an atheist can only admit that they don’t know if God exists. They can’t possibly claim he does not exist, as they would require omniscience. Therefore, there aren’t any true atheists, but only agnostics, which, in my opinion is a big deal. Understanding where exactly one can stand in belief of God can easily dictate their way of life and actions
Alternatively, Christians have the easier case. Since we believe in the existence of God, all we need is one little speck of God to prove he exists (or, at least the agnostic viewpoint is incorrect). This also doesn’t require us to be omniscient either. A verse that comes to mind is Romans 1:20: God is all around us. He always has and always will be. To say you are unsure if God exists (agnostic) means you haven’t been looking hard enough, or been willing enough to look. God is there!
Eric
I am a 21 year old senior at the University of Michigan studying General Biology. After I graduate, I want to got o Pharmacy School to get my PharmD degree and one day own a retail pharmacy. I love to cycle, for pleasure, commuting and work. I also love almost anything relating to technology from news to repairing a computer. I joined TAYA to write apologetic-related blogs, as that is another core passion of mine. I got involved with apologetics my senior year in high school and it really confirmed my faith for me. It is also an area I think the majority of Christians are severely lacking in, so I always enjoy teaching other christians (and non-christians too) why their faith isn't blind! Sometimes the topics I write about aren't very clear, so don't be afraid to email me or ask me (via comment) to explain something more! There is no point in not understanding something because it is likely I didn't explain something well! See you around!
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But who would walk China over to find all the gold. In these modern times, we would use our knowledge to find signs of gold. We would look in one place, and make a fair estimate of another, based of what we know.
In the way we find gold, We can also make some fair estimates about finding a god. From the knowledge we have about people, we can find why they do things, and we can learn about why religion is there.
We don’t need to be omnipotent to know what’s out there, We just need to know one or two things about gold, to know if it’s there or not.
And for the record, many atheists refer to themselves as atheist agnostic. They find sufficient evidence against a god, but as you said, we are not all knowing, and there is always a chance that we are wrong.
Ambermine
07/09/2012
The problem is these fair estimates are grossly simplified. Sure, you can know the appropriate pressure and temperature gold is typically made at and look for places in China that exhibit such behavior. But how can you account for stochastic events, such as a tourist dropping their gold jewelry. In order to make these reasonable estimates, you have to ignore many types of events that would essentially be outliers to the estimations. Applying this to finding God, you would need to ignore events that just aren’t normal (miracles, for example) to say there isn’t a God.
Eric
07/09/2012
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