I get to do something tonight I have wanted to do for a very long time, I get to be completely irresponsible. I get to play an atheist in front of a group of Senior High students, and boy am I looking forward to it. I have never in my life actually entertained the perspective of what it would feel like to believe there is no God? That is the mindset I am attempting to slip into today, and I must say, it is frightfully freeing.

Just think…No accountability, no expectations, not being responsible for having answers concerning the real puzzles of life. Atheism gives me the freedom to attack others without needing to have a cogent defense in return. I can lob missiles and grenades that destroy while I can cry foul when others try to lob their weapons at me. Maybe that is the lure of nihilistic philosophy – you can attack other people’s worldviews and systems of meaning while yours is built on chaos, randomness, and no meaning. Therefore you don’t need to have answers. How easy is it to defend that? 

So when a person tells the atheist the world is going to pot, all the atheist has to say is, “Don’t look at me because I am nothing more than the product of galaxies smashing and monkeys mating. So who knows if my words are derived from hot gas or a lucky mutation of an amoeba. Regardless of the answer, who cares, meaning is all a crapshoot anyhow.”  Ah, such intellectual bliss!

So what do atheists actually bank their confidence of meaninglessness on?

The Atheist’s Firm Foundation

1. SCIENCE: Ever since the diminutive Frenchman, Rene’ Descartes, arrived on the planet adorned in his Three Musketeers hair and a thin mustache, he gave to humanity a grand example of how to fight the fear of being deceived by demons and men. So he grounded himself on one fixed point of meaning that helped him to make sense out of a scary world, himself. Cogito Ergo Sum, “I think, therefore I am.” In other words, all we can know for sure is ourselves. We can think, feel, taste, smell, and hear to try to figure out meaning. Everything outside of me maybe a lie.  So out of that singular mindset of self came a train of men who used their senses (empiricism) to figure out the world: from Spinoza, Locke, to Hume, they concluded, “all the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into impressions and ideas.” The intellectual consensus agreed, what actually exists is only what reason proves. Cut up a body to try to find the soul and all you are left with is a bloody mess. 
2. SURVIVAL: So then why do we care? Darwin proposed a wonderful answer for those sticky questions that science couldn’t really answer. Like duct tape, Darwin insists that everything is motivated by the “survival of the fittest.” Apply this to anything you want, and that is enough. People, insects, and kangaroos do all things to survive and stay around a little while longer. Makes sense, doesn’t it? That is why the monkey shaved. His biology and years of evolved intuition taught him that when you apply a sharp stone to a hairy face it causes all the female monkeys to become romantic. And voila, the species survives, more baby monkeys are born with clean faces. So you can blame Michael Buble’s success on evolution.
3. SUPERSTITION: So if nothing matters, and the strong are bound to win, why then try to make sense out of anything? Why not just kill people to win? Nothing matters, right? Well the answer, of course, is “Fear”. Fear is an outgrowth of survival, and the only way to calm fear is to tell stories to make you feel better. Marx called it “the opium of the people.” Keep people dumb and happy and they will live longer. So we tell stories about gods and demons, superheroes and evil villains. We play make-believe to help us survive another day. The better we become at storytelling the longer we last. At least that is what we are told by those who don’t believe in the stories. But if the stories give you hope to last longer why not tell more stories? Because the really smart people want to live in the truth. But what is the truth? Chaos, randomness, and “red in tooth and claw.” Well that is not too encouraging. So why not believe the stories if they help you live longer? I don’t know, it is all very confusing.

The beauty of atheism is the stupidity of it all. As a non-accountable ape I will argue that there is no need to argue, nothing matters, no guilt, no shame, no afterlife. In other words, it is taking the easy way out. What if after all the fancy semantics, atheism turns out to be the real make-believe story that is told so I can hide from a Holy God? Talk about the real “opium”. 

So why should I consider not being an atheist?

The Atheist’s Sinking Sand

1. DESIGN: If you really think that this world is the product of chaos, answer me one question, “Why is everything in nature so fine-tuned?” I mean everything. In the human body alone there are 13 systems that work perfectly, and if you introduce one singular malfunction into any one of those systems, the person will die. Hmm, interesting how the earth is perfectly placed in an orbit around a bright sun of energy that has a balancing orb named the moon. The result? Tides, seasons, magnetism, photosynthesis, atmosphere, water, ice, ecosystems, migrating butterflies, and ants…all chance. Really? Wow, you have to be a high-stakes roller to bet the mathematically impossible odds that all of this wonderful world around me was nothing more than time + chance + apes shaving. But you probably read more books than I do so you must be right. Yep, books written by apes with glasses are sure to hold the key to all knowledge.
2. DEATH: So if our goal is survival why does everyone always die? Sure is a lot of sound and fury for nothing. Why are we so scared of COVID? Let the strong live and the weak die. That is the atheist’s credo, not mine? Why get mad at Hitler, he was just responding to Hume’s rational conclusions? One other strange thing about death, if all of our decisions are based on survival then why do some of the smartest atheists (ie– Peter Singer) think suicide is the most logical conclusion of living?
3. DUTY: My biggest question for the atheist is why do they care so much? Why are they often the first ones to get the angriest at the people telling make-believe stories? If silly people want to tell stories why not just let them tell their stories? We are all just trying to survive anyway. Why seek justice for the races, or fight for women’s rights, why do you even use the word good and bad? The reason is simple, you know deep down in your gut that you will have to give an account to someone greater than you (see Romans 1:18-23). Agency and responsibility are hardwired into you, just try to not care, I dare you because you can’t.

So, I am going to enjoy the rest of the day not having to give answers for the pain of others. I may even try to steal if I can get away with it. Who cares? Why not loot, destroy property, and survive by blaming everyone else for my trouble? Atheism is the father of amoral pragmatism.

But you know, there is one tiny little ancient tidbit of wisdom that always scares the atheist out of me, Ecclesiastes 11:9:

“Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.”