ntil the age of 19, I was an atheist. I thought that to believe in God was at best naive foolishness. When I met a number of Bible-believing Christians at Southampton University, I was horrified. I wondered, how such intelligent young adults could believe in God and allow this belief to affect the way they lived in such a radical way.
After a year of questioning, reading the Bible and seeking the truth about life, the universe and spiritual things; I became a Christian. I was not brain-washed or influenced by others. I had done investigative research, and I was determined to disprove Christianity as a belief system. However, much to my surprise I came to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and my whole life had to change. But why do people continue to be atheists, and why is it such a prevalent view in Britain today?
Richard Dawkins the famous atheist author wrote, My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism.’ He also said, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. (Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker.’ (1986)
You see, atheism is actually a faith position. Since the exact conditions of the formation of the Universe cannot be reproduced in the science lab for atheism or creation, you have to have a level of faith to either believe that the universe came into being through a huge explosion, or through the mighty work of a creator God.
So, you might think to yourself, ‘I am an atheist, because logic tells me there is no God.’ However, it is not logic that has convinced you to be an atheist. It is a philosophical standpoint, or a faith position. It takes a lot of faith to believe that the intricate and incredible universe we live in came about by a random and chaotic explosion. I mean, can you think of an example in real life where an explosion has caused order or a creative process to begin that formed something intricate? Really, atheism that claims to be reasonable and rationale (contra-faith) is like a castle built on the sand...
Interestingly, a piece of research was done at the University of Oxford to see if children were atheists naturally, or if they actually naturally had room in their world view for the idea of a creator God. 10 years of research was conducted when children, whose parents were atheists were interviewed. During these interviews they were asked if they believed there could be a God. The conclusion to this research published in 2008 was that ‘children are born believers in God.’ Justin Barrett, the University of Oxford. Barrett also stated that: ‘Children's normally and naturally developing minds make them prone to believe in divine creation and intelligent design. In contrast, evolution is unnatural for human minds; relatively difficult to believe."
So from this research, it seems that we are conditioned in our society to be atheist. We are influenced by the views of parents and friends, T.V , and indoctrinated in our classrooms into atheistic evolutionary thought. We are conditioned therefore to grow up into devout atheists whose religion is born out of Darwinian philosophy.,
Atheism is a faith position. Since the exact conditions of the formation of the Universe cannot be reproduced in the science lab to support atheism or creationism/Christianity. Science has never been able to demonstrate that everything comes from nothing or that life can come from non-life.
It’s important in this article to consider ‘The First Cause’ theory. This has 6 stages listed below.
- Everything that begins to exist has a cause
- The Universe began to exist
- Therefore, the Universe has a cause
- The effect of the First Cause is the Universe. The Universe is made up of time, space and matter. The First Cause must be greater than these. THEREFORE, THE FIRST CAUSE MUST BE TIMELESS (ETERNAL), SPACELESS (INFINITE) and all powerful.
- The First Cause is invisible (e.g forces and laws)
- The First Cause is Intelligent (e.g codes, DNA, maths equations)
- The First Cause sounds remarkably like an all powerful, eternal and infinite creator God!
There are other things to consider when thinking about the debate surrounding atheism vs. Christianity.
Firstly, the Bible teaches us that the wonderful world around us speaks to us consistently about the fact that an awesome creator God made everything we can see. The world around is so complex and even strands of DNA contain incredibly complex language code.
There is so much that scientists are discovering in the world around us that a new scientific movement has been born. Intelligent Design is the name given to the view that an intelligent being was behind the creation of the Universe. Many ‘intelligent design’ scientists are not Christian/Jewish or Muslim, but have come to believe that an intelligent being had to have created the world in which we live. The Bible says; ‘since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.’ The living God has evidenced His existence in everything we see.
Human beings also have another reason to believe in God. It is called our ‘conscience.’ Humans seem to have an innate understanding of what is right and wrong. Although morality differs in different cultures and contexts, there are certain things that we all know are inherently wrong- murder, rape, child abuse, violent attacks, lying, unfaithfulness in marriage….
We as human beings seem to have a God given understanding of what is right and wrong. The Bible says that though we might not have the law of God written in the 10 commandments given to us, we do in fact ‘do by nature things required by the law.’ Human beings demonstrate the fact ‘that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.’ (Romans 2:14-16)
So atheism denies two truths about the world around us, and about human beings themselves. Atheism suppresses the truth. We need only look at the universe surrounding us, or the earth that we live on to see that an all powerful, intelligent creator God made everything we can see. We need only look within ourselves to realise that we have a moral code written into our DNA and minds in our conscience, which is given by God Himself to give guidance for how to live.
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