What Do Atheists Believe? The behaviors and arguments of atheists suggest that atheism is a worldview that sees the universe as self-existent and humans as alone in the cosmos, without any transcendent creator or supernatural being to assist them or hold them accountable for how they live.
Without a doubt, the most direct and radical challenge to Christian faith is the denial of the existence of any god. In the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, atheism has gained much more influence than ever before.
While atheists are a minority in all Western countries, they have had a disproportionate impact on culture as staunch advocates for the secularization of society.
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Who Says God Is Dead?
A Gallup poll in 2022 revealed that belief in God in the United States has reached its lowest point, with young people and liberal Americans leading this decline. Although 81 percent of Americans believe in God, this figure has dropped by six percent since 2017.
Gathering international statistics is challenging because most surveys focus on the level of religious practice rather than belief, but existing evidence indicates an increase in irreligion, which includes atheism, skepticism, and people who do not identify with any religious tradition. In 2020, approximately 1.1 billion people worldwide were non-religious. China and other former communist countries like the Czech Republic and Estonia are among the most irreligious countries, although some Western countries such as Sweden, the UK, France, and Belgium also have high percentages of non-religious people.
Read More : 10 Names of God Every Christian Should Know
What Is the Belief of Atheism?
Atheism is generally understood as the belief in the non-existence of God. However, most atheists reject this definition. They argue that the term atheism derives from Greek, where “a” means “not” or “without” and “theism” means “god” or “gods,” concluding that atheism is merely the absence of belief in gods.
This means that an atheist does not necessarily deny the existence of God but simply lacks belief in any gods. This allows them to completely dismiss claims that atheism is a dangerous or corrupt philosophy because atheism is not a philosophy at all, but merely a lack of belief in a particular philosophical concept.
Moreover, atheists usually argue that since they lack belief, while believers hold a belief, the burden of proof is entirely on the believer to provide a reason for believing in God. The claim that atheism is not a stance that needs defense is contradicted by atheists themselves.
For example, B.C. Johnson repeats the standard claim that since atheists merely have a “lack of belief in God,” they assert nothing and therefore do not need to justify their views. However, just before this claim, he explains the purpose of his book: “For some time now, atheists have needed strong reasons to establish their position.”
Attempting to defend their definition of atheism through etymology misunderstands the origin of the word. “Atheism” comes from athe-ism, meaning “belief” (-ism) that “there is no god” (athe-), not as a-theism, meaning a lack of belief in God. Defining atheism in a way that includes infants, animals, and even inanimate objects as atheists—because all these lack belief in God—would be absurd. When atheists are not concerned with definition, they usually use the term to refer to those who have rejected the concept of God.
Although atheists often deny that they have adopted such a dogmatic atheism, they frequently insist that God does not and cannot exist. Thus, atheism tries to have it both ways. Atheists claim to have no belief in God, but then vehemently deny that God can exist. Atheists deny that atheism needs defense, but then offer arguments in defense of atheism. The behaviors and arguments of atheists suggest that atheism is a worldview that sees the universe as self-existent and humans as alone in the cosmos, without any transcendent creator or supernatural being to assist them or hold them accountable for how they live.
Therefore, atheism involves naturalism, which is the belief that matter and energy are the only things that exist. For most atheists, atheism also paradoxically includes secular humanism, which is the belief that life is meaningful and humans must set their own purpose for living and solve their own problems. Given these claims, atheists cannot legitimately place the burden of proof solely on the believer. The only alternative to such humanism is nihilism, which is the belief that life has no purpose or meaning.
Atheists naturally take offense at the biblical declaration that “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God'” (Psalms 14:1; 53:1). The folly of atheism reflects the universal human inclination to turn away from God and follow a path of self-choice, as the following lines confirm (Psalms 14:2-3; 53:2-3; Romans 3:9-12). Atheism is foolish not because atheists are unintelligent, but because their rejection of God leads them into folly. We see in this folly what all of us would be subject to apart from God’s revelation.
Is the Concept of God Meaningless?
Atheists often claim that the concept of God is meaningless or incomprehensible, so they do not even know what believers are talking about when they use the word “God.”
Although atheist philosophers have made great efforts to demonstrate this, it is clear from their own writings that they understand what believers mean by the term “God.” This is why atheists must work hard to show that the concept of God is meaningless! They claim to have found specific logical problems that show the concept of God to be inconsistent, but this almost always depends on definitions of God or divine attributes that are not part of historical theology and therefore do not disprove God’s existence.
How Do Atheists Respond to Arguments for the Existence of God?
Atheists claim that traditional arguments for the existence of God are illogical and therefore do not justify belief in God. They often misrepresent theistic arguments and then point out the logical flaws with pride. For example, Gordon Stein presents the cosmological argument this way: “Everything must have a cause. Therefore, the universe had a cause, and that cause was God.” He then points out the obvious problem: “If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause.”
Although some versions of this argument are based on causation, in these versions, the premise is not that “everything” must have a cause, but rather that all finite, temporal, contingent, or changing things must have a cause. God does not need a cause because He is infinite, eternal, necessary, and unchanging. Atheists know this, but they constantly misrepresent the cosmological argument to score an easy point against theism.
Perhaps the most blatant misrepresentation of a theistic argument presented by Stein is his treatment of the argument from God’s self-revelation in the Bible. He summarizes the argument this way: “The Bible says that God exists and the Bible is the inspired word of God. Therefore, what it says must be true, and [therefore] God exists.” But the obvious fallacy is: “This is a circular argument and begs the question” because calling the Bible “the word of God” presupposes “the existence of what we are trying to prove (God).”
However, no Jewish or Christian philosopher or theologian argues that the Bible proves the existence of God merely because it asserts the existence of God. Instead, they argue that the Bible reveals the existence and nature of God to us in various ways that demonstrate its divine origin.
In other words, we believe in God because we find abundant evidence in the Bible that God is real. There is nothing illogical about this claim and it is certainly not question-begging. Stein also argues that the Bible is full of contradictions and factual errors. This objection is more serious, and if true, it would contradict the claim that the Bible is an inerrant revelation from God.
However, Stein and other atheists ignore the extensive Christian literature that provides precise and logical responses to the problems raised. They also ignore the positive arguments for the Bible as an extraordinary revelation from God, such as fulfilled prophecies or the life and resurrection of Christ. Skeptics often make significant factual errors about the Bible. For example, George Smith claims that “most modern theologians agree” that the Gospels, “or at least three of the four,” were “written between 40 and 150 years after the death of Jesus.”
But his numbers are wrong: most biblical scholars agree that all the Gospels were completed by 95 AD or at the latest about 60 years after Jesus’ death. The absurdity of Smith’s dating is demonstrated by the harmony of the four Gospels produced by Tatian around 155 AD. J.E. Wells, another atheist, argues that there is no good evidence that Jesus actually existed and that the Gospels are simply myth. Although space does not allow for a detailed critique of this theory, a few points show its absurdity.
No serious historian and even radical and hostile biblical scholars (of which there are many) believe that Jesus did not exist. The Gospels contain culturally embarrassing details (such as the short time Jesus was on the cross or the first witnesses to the risen Jesus being women), which indicates that they were not simply made up. And the idea of a crucified Messiah, or worse, a crucified God, was so offensive in Jewish and Greco-Roman culture (1 Corinthians 1:23). The theory that Christians burdened themselves with a central belief that is absurd for any reason other than its historical reality is more incredible than the Gospel story itself!
What Else Do They Have to Say?
All atheists consider the reality of suffering in the world as an argument against the existence of a good and all-powerful God. Some state it as a logical argument: the existence of any suffering contradicts the existence of God, and therefore God does not exist. Others present it as an evidential argument: the existence of so much suffering makes the existence of God unlikely or implausible. While there is an ongoing debate over these arguments, the majority of theistic philosophers believe they have been definitively refuted.
Some skeptics agree that the problem of suffering does not logically disprove the existence of God. However, they argue that suffering causes emotional resistance to the idea of God and thus leads people to adopt atheism. For example, the novelist Samuel Butler concludes that the theory of evolution eliminates the need for a designer God, while the cruelty of nature eliminates the possibility of a benevolent God.
Atheists respond to the moral argument for God in a similar way. Theists argue that without God, objective moral standards are impossible, while the existence of moral obligations indicates the existence of a transcendent source of those obligations. Atheists respond by claiming that objective morality can exist apart from God, or by denying that morality is objective, suggesting that morals are a product of evolution, social conditioning, or individual preference.
Some skeptics also argue that God can be explained away as a psychological projection of human desires, needs, or fears. They see the Freudian theory of religion as a wish-fulfillment, which posits that belief in God is a creation of the human mind to cope with the harsh realities of life.
However, the existence of psychological or social explanations for belief in God does not disprove the existence of God any more than explaining why someone believes in a physical object disproves the existence of that object. The question of God’s existence is a philosophical and theological one that cannot be resolved solely by psychological analysis.
Ultimately, atheism presents itself as a rational and scientific alternative to theism. However, it often relies on misrepresentations of theistic arguments, fails to address the full scope of evidence for the existence of God, and dismisses the profound experiences and testimonies of countless believers throughout history. As such, atheism requires just as much scrutiny and critical evaluation as the theistic worldview it seeks to replace.
