Atheistism #3: Denying Their Faith

9 Jun 2011

I’m not sure why we continue to let atheists define faith for us. We’ve all heard the popular: faith is believing in something you know isn’t real. Unfortunately, it’s been said so many times that there are a good many people who actually believe it.

The truth of the matter is that if people believed in something they knew wasn’t real, they would be believing a lie, and they would know they were believing a lie. But this isn’t the case.

Christian faith is believing in something that they are certain is real. But this definition falls slightly short because there’s an obvious difference between being certain God is real, and being certain the keyboard I’m writing this with is real, because I can see the keyboard, but I can’t see God. But there is evidence of both! Evidence of this keyboard exists because you’re reading the words that I’ve produced with it. Likewise evidence of God exists because we see the complexity and beauty of the universe in the heavens and our DNA. The fact that life exists is all the evidence I need. Further, we have the Gospels, so not only do we see His handiwork in existence, but we have His Word telling us Who He is! And finally, there is individual revelation (subject for another post).

So, we can refine the definition of Christian faith to read: believing in something that we are certain is real, based on good solid evidence.

The unbeliever can say they aren’t convinced by the evidence, but to say there isn’t any is just a denial of reality.

So let’s take a look at one of the fundamental beliefs of the atheist. As an atheist, there is no supernatural, so that means that everything in existence has come about through purely natural means. That includes life.

For me, the existence of life is a key piece of evidence for God’s existence. I’ve thought about this long and hard using the critical thinking skills given to me by God , instead of the cloned thinking provided by liberal educators. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no way life could have gotten to the point it’s at without supernatural intervention. I’ve even imagined conceding the initial “spark,” but I immediately run into complications. Basically, in order for the first life to survive, it needs the ability to take in energy. I think that an atheist would agree with me in saying the first life wasn’t immortal. So that means when it rose from the dead, it had to already have the ability to take energy from outside itself and convert it into something usable. I don’t think it would have had time to evolve this system as evolution involves reproduction which would involve a lot of energy. I just can’t comprehend the amount of built in energy that would be required to evolve that synthesis system. Which brings me to the second problem: reproduction. In order to evolve, a life form needs to be able to reproduce. The initial life can’t evolve if it can’t reproduce. So the first life would have had to have had the ability to “synthesize” and “reproduce” right out of the gate. And that occurred naturally?

What are you smokin’!?

The atheist response? We don’t know, but we’ll figure it out.

This is a common response, but has anyone stopped to think about what kind of statement this is? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a statement of faith! It’s a statement that says Science will someday tell us what we don’t know now.

So is the atheist’s definition of faith still valid? Faith is belief in something they know isn’t real. Well, they believe that life began purely by natural cause, and they believe this is reality so their definition of faith doesn’t fit.

So we could say that their definition of faith is belief in something that you are certain is real. But like the Christian version with the same definition, it isn’t quite enough. Like the Christian, they can’t prove their statement, Science will know, unless they are allowing their god “Science” omniscience regarding future events and knowledge.

Do they have evidence? They can’t claim that Science will reveal everything, because it hasn’t so far, and they have no scientific gospel peer-reviewed journal from the future. Lab experiments can’t prove life occurred naturally millions of years ago because lab experiments are forms of intelligent design (planned for by intelligent people in specifically designed, controlled environment) and can’t be guaranteed to work the same in the wild. Is there evidence that life began naturally? Well, there are all those theories. So, I’ll give them that, even though they’re weak as far as evidence goes.

So, we can refine the definition of atheist faith to read: believing in something that we are certain is real, based on some evidence.

Of course, the atheist will still argue there’s no evidence for the supernatural. At which time we need to correct them: there’s no repeatable, scientific evidence for the supernatural. And then we need to add, just give it time; one day science will find it.

Tagged: atheism