notes about atheism

Atheism

	from`athée`, atheist, from Greek `atheos`, godless : `a-`, without; see a-¹ + `theos`, god;


	Psalm 14 ¹ The fool [footnote-one who is morally deficient] says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. ² The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. ³ All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. ⁴ Will evildoers never learn- those who devour my people as men eat bread and who do not call on the LORD ? ⁵ There they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous. ⁶ You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the LORD is their refuge. ⁷ Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Agnosticism – “I don't know”

As Christians, we have a definite set of laws that God has given to us to live by.

As an example:


	1 Corinthians 6 ⁸Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers. ⁹Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

But what if someone is an atheist? What if they don't believe in God? What if they believe that they can do whatever they want because there are no real consequences other than what makes them happy or unhappy?

Is selfish happiness the only indicator of whether something is good or bad as a lack of absolute morality indicates? Can a person live thinking only of themselves?

no moral law in universe

Any morality is arbitrary, subjective

each can have their own morality. What's not right for you is right for me. Though I may think that it's wrong that someone sleeps with a different person every week, there's nothing wrong with it for them. They're not hurting anyone. The benefits they get out of it outweigh any problems it causes for them. It doesn't weigh on their conscience. It becomes a way of life

Though I may think it's wrong that someone drinks himself unconscious every weekend, it's ok for him. He's not hurting anyone else.

And if we're just thinking about morality as being subjective, perhaps the benefits of something are so great that they outweigh the pain a person might cause to someone else. Perhaps you think that the thrill you get from having an affair outweighs the pain you might cause your wife. You probably try to justify it...I'm not breaking any laws. Perhaps the pleasure you get out of being drunk outweighs the problems with your family it causes.

As you can see from these examples, one problem that can come from not believing in an absolute morality is incredible selfishness. A persons only concern might be whether or not they get caught. Never mind the pain and destruction they cause around them.

Another problem that comes from having your own subjective morality is that it can be a slippery slope. I did this and it wasn't that bad. Why not go one further? I got away with stealing this small thing from a store and it didn't really hurt anyone. I didn't get caught. Why shouldn't I take this slightly larger thing?

Though I might think it disgusting that someone cheats on his wife, if there is no absolute morality, he can do it because it's what makes him happiest. What's technically wrong with it? It's not really against the law. Sure, he may hurt his wife, but the pleasure he gets out of it outweighs that.

If it gives someone a huge amount of pleasure to hurt someone else, then their happiness should out-weighs the needs of the victim. If we were to take it to extremes, we have cases like Lenin, Stalin and Hitler who exterminated so many people just because they did not agree with them. And after all, if there is no God then there are no lasting consequences for anything. Do what you will while you're living and have no worries about eternity. Not to say that all atheists are so extreme as these corrupt leaders, but on some level, there is an ignorance of eternal consequences. There is sort of a care-free attitude in deciding whether something is right or wrong.

As Christians, we know the rules that we must follow in dealing with those around us. We know there are eternal consequences for a life of evil. We don't physically force people into Christianity because it is a sin for us to be violent. Lenin, Stalin and Hitler had no such limitations. They could do whatever they wished to whomever they wished and nobody would question them because of the fear. And things got worse and worse.

And as this thinking that it's all relative becomes more common in our country today, we see the slippery slope. People have come to expect to be allowed to do whatever they want without consequences. Many people in this country have come to hate authority...to see it as always being a bad thing. Many believe they should not have to obey any authority, whether it be parents, government or anyone in authority. But a Christian learns obedience to God first. And we are also told to submit to those in authority.


	Romans 13 ¹Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. ²Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

A Christian has faith that God is over all. God is the highest authority. He even has control over the authorities of men. They may work for good as some of the Godly leaders of Israel did in the old testament and rewarded. Or they may work for evil...perhaps even to the point that God brings them down to his glory. Anyway, we never know the mind of God, so we must simply be obedient to whoever is in authority over us. Of course, we must be subject to God as the highest authority.

What atheism says about the origins of the universe

Read about what the bible says of creation.


	Genesis 1 ¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.

Evolution claims you only believe in evidence, but asks you to have faith in unproven theories You must have faith to believe in evolution.

Evolutionary theories say that at one point, the universe was the size of a marble. The theories say that all matter in the universe in a little ball the size of a marble. Where did it all come from? I dunno but people come up with some interesting theories. Theories involving time and energy doing weird things. It takes some strange theories to explain how something came out of nothing, which you'd usually think was impossible. But if you have enough faith in the people coming up with the theories, you go along with it. Faith that the laws of nature were different before everything existed. Maybe faith that the matter of the universe has somehow just always existed as the bible says that God has always existed. Faith in theories that change from year to year. And yet the whole idea of it all is that you don't need faith. You're supposed believe it because of direct evidence. But that's why it's called a theory, because it can't be absolutely proven.

Paul talked about thinking more of the opinions of men than of the word of God

Romans 1


	¹⁸The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰For 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 men are without excuse. ²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. ²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.

We read here about the worship of nature and other tokens. Misplaced worship that should belong to God. We might consider the faith that is placed in the theories of men rather than God to be in a similar vein.

Evolution is part of a system of belief that frees people of meaning to chase after whatever their desires are.

Again, if we have faith in God, we believe that he is outside any laws of physics. God is eternal. He has always existed and will always exist. The concept of eternity or infinity is difficult for us to understand. If he wanted to meld impossible amounts of matter into stars and planets, he just said it. We don't theorize on exactly how he did it within physical laws as we know them. He is God. We simply have faith that he did.


	Hebrews 11 ¹ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ² For by it the elders obtained a good report. ³ Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

We admit Christianity requires faith in that which we have not seen.

I cannot prove to someone in the street that Jesus, the son of God came to this earth and died for us.

There is the account of Thomas who refused to believe Christ had returned from the dead until he had physically verified it for himself.

John 20


	²⁴Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it." ²⁶A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." ²⁸Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" ²⁹Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." ³⁰Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. ³¹But these are written that you may^[¹^] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The bible is the historical account of God's dealings with man, Jesus' coming to earth to save us from our sins and also the confirmation of these matters through the performance of miracles. We accept it as a historical account. Like many historical accounts, we haven't seen that which we believe in. This is faith, the evidence of things not seen. None of us has ever seen Jesus whom we base our lives upon. But Jesus himself said we would be blessed as we have faith in him whom we haven't seen. We can read in various places about faith and its importance in our lives. My point is that the bible itself admits that we need faith to believe in God and that he created everything around us. Jesus isn't walking around today ready to talk directly to people so that they'll believe in him.

Ethan once made an interesting point about this that if people are truthful, they have to admit that they believe in things that they have never seen proof of. Whether that might be some abstract concept such as love. You cannot experience love with any of your direct senses, but you feel it in your heart. Or perhaps there are things we believe through a historical account, such as men landing on the moon. Were you there when men landed on the moon? No. You saw videos of it. Most people believe it happened, but because of conspiracy theories, you can find people who think it was all staged on a movie set and no one ever really went to the moon. And I suppose I think of creation this way too. I look around at the complexity of the world, the workings of physics. If there were no God to set everything in such perfect balance, how simple it would have been for the earth to be wiped out way before now, or how life never would have existed because the environment needed for life never would have come into being. But others look around and believe they see the result of a series of evolutionary changes. But whatever the case, each person has some belief about it.

I've been talking about some problems with atheism. I don't claim that anything here could absolutely convince an atheist of the existence of God, but I just wanted to talk about some problems with atheism. I don't know of any way we can physically prove the existence of God to someone. If Jesus came and performed miracles for each person, our membership would be a lot larger. While I as a Christian might look around me and marvel at God's power in his creation, another person thinks of it as the result of evolution. But thankfully, anyone...no matter how staunchly they have denied Christ in the past can still turn to him in faith and find Christ mercifully waiting for them. Anyone can start a new and beautiful life, following Jesus. It really is a beautiful way to live when you contrast it with a life without God. God's is the better way. [He defines goodness so much better than we do, as Waylen described the working of faith and love this morning to bring about true goodness.] We don't have to live like everyone else. God has told us how to behave in the interest of others rather than out of our own selfish desires. He teaches us what the best way is. It may not be an easy way since we become the enemies of the world when we do it, but isn't it a wonderful idea to live a life being productive in service to God rather than selfishly taking all that we can for ourselves. Isn't it comforting being assured that there is something more than this existence? Isn't it comforting to know that there is a heavenly father who created the universe and is even now watching over us?