According to the Bible, no one is an atheist. Proverbs 14:1 reports that a fool says in his heart that there is no God, but that doesn’t mean he believes it. Romans 1:18 says he knows God and suppresses that knowledge. So atheism is not someone believing there isn’t a God. Atheism is living like there isn’t a God. Many more people do that than the typical polls show. In other words, on the atheist front, we’re in worse shape than you think.
Someone just wrote about this at the Big Think, entitled, “Atheism is not as rare or as rational as you think.” Will Gervais in the article makes at least the point in my first paragraph here, and even more. The Bible says this, so it must be true, but I find it by experience.
As I write this on a Saturday after out evangelizing for a couple of hours, I talked to an “atheist” today, who graduated from Vanderbilt, and he is affiliated with Weber State here. He announced he was not interested, because he is an atheist. He also said he did not want to argue at his door, but he did talk awhile, which is very often the case with “atheists.”
I asked the “atheist” if he thought, all this around us came about by accident. I find no one wants to say, yes, to that, because they know it isn’t true, which means they aren’t atheists. Then he said with a bit of a smirk, that after the Big Bang happened, everything came out of that.
The Big Bang is apparently a throw-down, trumping all else. In fact, a Big Bang says there is a beginning. It doesn’t help an atheist to stay that way, if he believes in a beginning. Some kind of explosion though still will not explain the amazing complexity all around. I didn’t bring that up, because I assessed that it would end the conversation. I took the tack, as I often do, that air, plants growing, all these did not come by accident, but people take these, and as Romans 1:21 says, are unthankful. These are atheists. God exists. They’re just unthankful He does.
An atheist is someone who doesn’t want a God. He has one. He just denies it. An atheist tries to block God out in part by saying he’s an atheist. He knows he’s wrong.
Gervais portrays many atheists, and it’s true, as appraising themselves as intellectually gifted individuals. Their position is intellectually bankrupt. They reject the truth based on their own lust (2 Peter 2-3).
Many atheists will say that those who carefully weigh things do it with science, all natural criteria, which is very intellectual, really Ivy League. No. The world did not appear and has not been sustained by merely natural means.
In his piece, Gervais uses science to show how professing atheists are stupid. Stupid is another word for “fool,” which bring us back to Psalm 14:1 again. The fool says he’s an atheist. He’s not being smart.
Since every atheist just denies God against his own knowledge, who are the real atheists? They live like God doesn’t exist. I think we could go further than that. They form a god, which allows them to live like that want. Evangelicalism is full of atheism. They deny the true God because they don’t like His requirements or expectations, which are against how they want to live. They’re worshiping themselves as Romans 1:25 says, and yet they say they worship God or follow God’s ways.
If atheism is denying the one, true God, there are far, far more atheists than any of us can give a percentage.
Kent,
I couldn’t agree with you more, as I grew up in an “Atheistic” household. Once I accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, when I failed to live by the Scriptures, I was constantly ridiculed. They lived by science and nature, and how to live was up to them alone. It could not be challenged. They formed their own God, or rebelled like Satan to be like God. I am amazed even after 43 years, how God was so merciful to reach me when I was young. I know I am eternally grateful. Thanks for the post.