I want to spend a few minutes addressing those of you who have decided that you are Atheists, that there is definitely no God. It may be helpful to initially ask the question ‘What God is it that you don’t believe in?’.
I am fully aware that there are many different ideas of who God is, and sometimes the representation of God given to you (even by Christians) may seem lacking in credibility. If you think of God as being an old man in the sky with a white wispy beard looking something like my younger brother Duncan (for those of you who know him), then I can appreciate your unbelief! This is one of the types which is often laughed at in the media, understandably! (No offence bro, I love you really!!).
Recently, I was watching an episode of Peep Show (series 2) where one of the main characters Jez shows his indignation for this god who he refers to as a ‘big toga-wearing bearded killjoy’.
There may be other examples of different gods that you don’t believe in like the god of the gaps, (a theory sometimes used to give explanations for areas of the world which science has not found an explanation for as yet) or a god who asks people to blow themselves up and kill others to show their devotion as believers. I also share my disbelief in all of these gods with you.
The Philosophical Problem
So why can’t you be an atheist?
Well, if to be a theist (belief in a God, still active in his creation) means having knowledge that there is a God who exists, being an A-theist is to have an absolute knowledge that no God exists. Philosophically this position is actually impossible to hold, for the simple reason that no human being has absolute knowledge of the whole universe, so at best all that an Atheist can say is ‘From the areas I have been to (eg. Brighton, East Sussex) I have not discovered a God.’ This does not mean that God does not exist, merely that in your travels you have not discovered him, as yet. This means that technically everyone who doesn’t believe in God is agnostic (in the general sense) on this issue (doesn’t know). This is a point that even the popular scientist Richard Dawkins concedes in his book The God Delusion.
Fire, Fire, the house is on fire
Once we have realised that we can be ‘at worst’ an agnostic this then leaves us with two approaches to agnosticism, which are best understood in the story format below.
If someone one day rang you in your office at work and told you that your house was on fire, you would have three options before you (broadly speaking), (a) you could go home and check that the house wasn’t on fire, (b) you might just make a phone call to a neighbour to confirm that this wasn’t the case, or (c) you could just hope for the best, that there wasn’t really a fire and be ignorant of this impending situation. Surely option (c) is not one that we would advise of others in this example, nor one we would take ourselves?
Let’s take it one stage further then. What if your wife and children were rumoured to be inside as well? I’m sure that we would agree that a phone call would not be enough to ease our concerns, we would need to stop whatever we were doing at work and go and check it out for ourselves.
I would suggest if you do not know if there is a God, then it is the kind of thing that you can’t afford to be ignorant about. You can’t be the person who doesn’t bother to look into the facts at all, nor can you simply rely on a simple phone call to find out. For some of you this may represent being reliant on other members of your family who think it’s stupid and rely on them, or relying on the cynical superficial media coverage which focuses on ‘Priests who are paedos’. Maybe you had a bad experience meeting a Christian once before, and this has put you off. I appeal to you not to lightly throw out the ‘baby’ with the ‘bathwater’.
You need to investigate this grand claim for yourself. If the God of the Bible exists then the cost is too great for you to be ignorant of the facts, and the benefits to glorious to miss out on. I’m not just talking about heaven and hell here either, this incredible truth will revolutionise your life in the here and now too.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster
Some people will object at this point and say ”Well technically we can’t be sure that some other object like a Flying Spaghetti monster, a tooth fairy or Father Christmas doesn’t exist, therefore given that we can only be agnostic on these issues (even though in reality we know that they are extremely unlikely to exist) we should put God in this same box.”
This may sound plausible enough as a rational argument, but upon closer inspection it falls apart because it presumes that there is no evidence for God in the same way in which there is no evidence for a flying spaghetti monster.
On this site you will find a more in depth analysis of some of these points, but I will briefly outline some of the ‘footprints’ of there being a God which we can go and investigate. Here I will summarise the points of the arguments briefly:
1. A Created Order
Whether we like it or not, the world sure looks as if it has been created by an intelligent designer. The universe had a beginning, whether you want to call this a big bang or not, things of this grandeur do not begin by themselves, they have a creator behind them.
http://reason.cck.org.uk/who-made-god/
http://reason.cck.org.uk/hasnt-the-theory-of-evolution-shown-the-bible-to-be-false/
2. Fine-Tuning of the universe
The World has been made in such a way that it is incredibly fine-tuned, and if several scientific constant’s where very slightly different, we would not exist at all.
http://reason.cck.org.uk/how-does-modern-science-show-that-there-is-a-god/
3. Scientific Investigation
Because there is a God, there is a law-giver and because of this as scientists we are able to assume that the world has order to investigate. Without this assumption of order, we would have no basis for believing that there was an ordered universe for us to investigate. Everything would be chaos.
John C Lennox – Has Science buried God?
4. Meaning in Life
If there is no God, then ultimately there is no point for us being here, except to do whatever we like. One day it will all be forgotten anyway, and so we may as well ‘eat, drink, for tomorrow we die’. If you’re not having a good time, then why not just end it now? Yet, we know that there is meaning to our existence, which comes ultimately from our creator.
http://reason.cck.org.uk/is-life-without-god-meaningless/
http://www.bethinking.org/right-wrong/intermediate/the-practical-impossibility-of-atheism-in-the-meaning-value-and-purpose-of-life.htm
5. The existence of Morality
If there is no God, then there is no objective morality either. We need someone to provide a standard of what is right and wrong or we just do whatever we like, and as society norms change so will our sense of what is right and wrong. At its worst this becomes, if it feels right then do it.
http://reason.cck.org.uk/can-morality-exist-without-god/
6. Jesus Christ’s Life & Resurrection.
The greatest evidence for me that God exists is that around 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ lived on Planet Earth as a man. He went around doing incredible miracles and giving remarkable teaching. However, the pinnacle of his work was actually completed in his death and resurrection as he took upon himself the sin of the world, and then on the third day rose again. Dead men don’t rise…and the evidence points so strongly that Jesus did. How? Christians believe that he was raised by the power of God (1 Cor 6:14).
http://reason.cck.org.uk/tag/resurrection/
http://bethinking.org/resurrection-miracles/intermediate/the-resurrection.htm
To some of you reading this, this will sound fanciful…but I invite you not to take my word for it, but to look into it yourself.
Conclusion:
So does God exist? It’s a big deal for sure, and one which could potentially change your life forever depending on what you find out. If you consider yourself an atheist or agnostic then do not close off your heart. Before you start your investigation, why not ask God to reveal himself to you if he exists. For all the intellectual questions we have (which are totally viable) the bible says that it is a decision of the heart to not pursue God (Psalm 40:1), so I invite you to ask God to show himself to you as you look into these matters.
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