Atheism: An Exercise of Extreme Blind Faith

Comic from Adam4d.com

“I won’t have blind faith.” That is often the reason that atheists and agnostics use to support their disbelief in God. However, I would use that same reason to explain why I could never be an atheist, or agnostic. As a Christian, I am able to read the historical records contained in the Old Testament, which told of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ with extreme specificity hundreds of years in advance. Based on the historical records contained in the New Testament, I have good reason to believe that all of those prophecies were perfectly fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth – most importantly, that Jesus died on the cross and resurrected from the dead. If those things are true, then God exists and he has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who taught that the true God is the same God who is revealed throughout the text of the Bible. Knowing all of that provides reasonable explanation for how the Universe came into existence from nothing, along with how it came to be so finely tuned to support life on Earth, how life began, and how objective “right” and “wrong” exist within humanity. Theism, specifically Christianity, also provides sufficient and coherent explanations for many other fundamental truths for which atheism struggles to account.

In contrast, atheists are forced to explain said truths with an onslaught of incoherent and unsupported explanations. In an effort to sound reasonable, they say that we can’t believe in anything that cannot be proven by science, or naturalism. However, they ignore the fact that they cannot use science to support that very claim. They often angrily accuse Christians of arrogance and bigotry because they believe that they follow the only Way to God and that every other way is wrong, yet atheists have no basis for their belief that arrogance and bigotry is really wrong in the first place. Similarly, and most unbelievably, as naturalists, they are forced to believe that all of the matter in the Universe came from absolutely nothing, that the non-living produced the living, that mind came from matter, and that the unfathomable organization of the Universe to permit life on Earth was organized by an unguided explosion that was fueled by…nothing – and all of this happened naturally. It’s almost unbelievable to see so many otherwise intelligent people so desperately clinging to their extreme form of blind faith, since even their own beliefs can never hope to be supported by the same “science” that they complain does not support theism. Not only does science not support many of their beliefs, but their daily experiences always demonstrate the contrary: Something never comes into existence from nothing, non-life never creates life, intelligence never comes from mindless matter, and great explosions always create chaos and never perfect organization.

So why do so many people continue to practice such extreme forms of blind faith, despite all of the logical reasons to forsake it? It’s actually been happening for far longer than most ‘enlightened’ Westerners realize. In fact, Paul wrote in First Century A.D., “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him…” (Romans 1:19-21). By my estimation, Paul was correct: The very existence and coming into being of the Universe, along with all that it contains makes clear to the reasonable person that God must exist. However, history reminds us that humans have always wanted to function as their own god, which necessitates a denial of the true God. That same denial provides atheists with an excuse to live as they desire – as their own god – without any acknowledged fear of penalty from a Divine Law-Giver. However, it’s important to recognize that even in our corrupt society a guilty person cannot claim ignorance of the laws he has broken and expect that a judge will allow him to go freely and without penalty. If imperfect human judges are too just to allow a guilty person to escape without punishment, regardless of any of his claims to ignorance, then how much more certain should we be that the Perfect Judge of the Universe will also judge justly? I encourage anyone who is living in such a manner to repent from your sin and follow Jesus, who counted it as his joy to receive our punishment for denying God and worshipping ourselves in his place. It is only by means of our belief in Jesus that is evidenced by our submission to his authority over our lives that we can be forgiven of our sins because he has paid our debt.

I simply do not have the amount of faith required to live my life in denial of God.