Are you tired of all the evil associated with the philosophy of atheism — Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and so on? After all, most murderers, tyrants, and rapists are not biblical Christians, and most have rejected the God of the Bible. Even if they claim to believe in the God of the Bible, they are not really living like a true Christ follower (who strives to follow God’s Word), are they?
Do you feel conflicted about the fact that atheism has no basis in morality (i.e., no absolute right and wrong; no good, no bad)? If someone stabs you in the back, treats you like nothing, steals from you, or lies to you, it doesn’t ultimately matter in an atheistic worldview, where everything and everyone are just chemical reactions doing what chemicals do. And further, knowing that you are essentially no different from a cockroach in an atheistic worldview (since people are just animals) must be disheartening.
Are you tired of the fact that atheism (which is based in materialism, a popular worldview today) has no basis for logic and reasoning? Is it tough trying to get up every day thinking that truth, which is immaterial, really doesn’t exist? Are you bothered by the fact that atheism cannot account for uniformity in nature (the basis by which we can do real science)? Why would everything explode from nothing and, by pure chance, form beautiful laws like E=MC2 or F=MA?4
Do you feel like you need a weekend to recoup, even though a weekend is really meaningless in an atheistic worldview — since animals, like bees, don’t take a day of rest or have a weekend? So why should atheists? Why borrow a workweek and weekend that comes from the pages of Scriptures, which are despised by atheists? Weeks and weekends come from God creating in six literal days and resting for a literal day; and then the Lord Jesus resurrected on the first day of the week (Sunday). And why look forward to time off for a holiday (i.e., holy day), when nothing is holy in an atheistic worldview?
For professing atheists, these questions can be overwhelming to make sense of within their worldview. And further, within an atheistic worldview, atheists must view themselves as God. Essentially, atheists are claiming to be God. Instead of saying there may not be a God, they say there is no God. To make such a statement, they must claim to be omniscient (which is an essential attribute of the God of the Bible) among other attributes of God as well.5 So by saying there is no God, the atheist refutes his own position by addressing the question as though he or she were God!
Do you feel conflicted about proselytizing the faith of atheism, since if atheism were true then who cares about proselytizing? Let’s face it, life seems tough enough as an atheist without having to deal with other major concerns like not having a basis to wear clothes, or no basis for marriage, no consistent reason to be clean (snails don’t wake up in the morning and clean themselves or follow other cleanliness guidelines based on Levitical laws), and no objective reason to believe in love.
Are you weary of looking for evidence that contradicts the Bible’s account of creation and finding none? Do the assumptions and inconsistencies of dating methods weigh on your conscience when they are misrepresented as fact?7 Where do you suppose those missing links have gone into hiding? Surely the atheist sees the folly and hopelessness of believing that everything came from nothing.
In fact, why would an atheist care to live one moment longer in a broken universe where one is merely rearranged pond scum and all you have to look forward to is . . . death, which can be around any corner? And in 467 trillion years, no one will care one iota about what you did or who you were or how and when you died — because death is the ultimate “hero” in an atheistic, evolutionary worldview. Of course, as a Christian I disagree, and I have a basis to see you as having value.
— Bodie Hodge, No Answers in Genesis, Dear Atheist . . . Tired of It All?, May 1, 2021
Well Mr. Hodge. Is it more fun constructing a straw-man? Or is it more fun tearing it down? Are you that bored with your Christian evangelical life? After tearing down the straw -man, you will still find reality looking unblinkingly back at you. Sooner or later you R going to have to deal with it. Reality. Must scare you. You must be bothered sick every night knowing that HELL awaits you. How can you stand it? Scared into total immobility. Not being able to think about anything except your ultimate doom. You don’t have to be trapped. Atheism offers an enlightening way out from that constant morbid fear. We pity all like you who think they have to really live in that fearful and scary world of evangelicalism. Still. We are here for you. Drop the hate. Enwrap yourself in the ❤️!!!!
Haha this guy is a total projection. It is Christians who are exhausted trying to make sense of a Bible telling them that the earth and people have only existed for 6000 years, and a Bible which apparently has all the answers when it contains practically zero useful information psychology, biology and decent living. Why despite that the Bible commits genocide in the form of a global flood, what is Jesus’s advice on how to treat people you simply have a disagreement with, to treat them like ‘publicans and tax collectors’? So ignore them, ignore any and all the good points that they may have, the effort that they may have put in to help you, your family, the friendship and just cut them out like they don’t exist? (a practice Christians are all too eager to do). I think having the freedom to be nice to people, to treat people with dignity regardless of their sexual preference and gender is far more liberating.
Hi, lifelong atheist here. That’s right, I was born right the first time. I was raised secular and didn’t even know there was a word for what I was well into my teens. I was an atheist before I knew the word ‘atheist’. I may work with horses but I’ve never seen so much straw in my life.
Most folks who are writing about atheist topics are not Communists. Communism is another zealous ideology that puts ideology about facts. Communism replaces and unquestionable god with an unquestionable government. That’s of no help and totally at odds with the principles of Secular Humanism.
Morality has a basis is evolution. We are evolved to be creatures of community and game theory experiments with our fellow aps shore that morality exists independently of religion or even being human.
Do you ever wonder, like the puddle in a pothole how perfectly shaped that pothole is? How perfect that pothole fits the puddle? If the universe did not have regular laws we probably couldn’t exist. That’s proof that humans exist, not a god.
I thank labor unions for the weekend. You see before labor unions most folks worked 6 days a week, not five. Labor unions, not a god belief, also put an end to most forms of child labor and gave us safer working conditions.
I don’t proselytize as an atheist. I’ve spent a decade reading the bible the Quran an it’s of the Gita, The Book of Mormon and so on. I spent all this time learning this stuff so I like to find folks and talk about this stuff. Sometimes it’s people that I agree with; sometimes it’s people I don’t. Not really proselytizing. I’m actually not too concerned with what religion people are. What I’m concerned with is how they’re using that religion to dictate laws that I then have to follow. Or how much they’re using that religion to influence people I love. You see love is also a evolutionary adaptation that is the result of chemical processes inside our brains. It doesn’t make my love any less real; I just understand how it works better.
Evolution is just a fact of nature. Everything from chemistry to plate tectonics confirms the evolutionary fact that we’re all related. And while this may not be scientific, the idea that we’re all related is incredibly comforting to me. We share a kinship with every living being on this planet. That gives me a great desire to learn, explore, and care for all of these creatures that I’m related to.
The universe isn’t broken; it’s just operating within the laws of nature. But Christians see the universe as broken. If they accept the story of Adam and Eve as literal they have to see this universe is broken because the ancestral sin of Adam and Eve desiring to understand the world around them brought sin upon us all and broke God’s perfect universe. But as an atheist I don’t have to worry about any of that. I don’t have to conform to strict gender roles because I am a woman and thid responsible for Eve’s transgression. I don’t have to live with that guilt. And neither do my dear Christian friends. Drop the guilt, stop seeing the world as saved and unsaved. Much love and beauty comes from removing the divisive nature of religious belief and acknowledging our shared humanity.
Believers think they’ve got an advantage on non-believers – a divinely ordained purpose, special standing as Not Animals, and the prospect of eternal life – but in reality they have a disadvantage because all they have is the illusion of having the upper hand.
Hodge does get a remarkable number of things wrong in that short post, too. He manages to misunderstand and/or misrepresent:
The Big Bang (an expansion of everything, not an explosion of nothing);
Radiometric dating (by its very nature it describes date ranges not precise dates);
Evolution (fossilization is the exception rather than the rule, so there isn’t a fossil for every organism that ever lived and died);
Morality (rules imposed by a god are every bit as subjective as rules crafted by humans);
What atheists believe (most of us are agnostic atheists, not gnostic atheists declaring “There is no God”; hence, simply not believing is sufficient and we don’t have to prove anything;
The purpose of clothing (rather useful when it’s cold outside!)
And even love. (Seriously, who needs an “objective reason” to believe in something that we can actually experience?)
Suffice to say that Hodge doesn’t do his worldview any favours when he spouts such tripe. Why would anyone aspire to such risible ignorance as he demonstrates?
Abbreviation of ancient wisdom applies here: ROTFLMAO. (What do you mean, the Internet wasn’t invented in the Pleistocene?)
Those aren’t just straw man arguments, those are straw bale man arguments, because you can’t construct such whoppers without baling the straw for extra strength.
I definitely get the impression that he doesn’t know any actual individuals who don’t happen to believe in gods.
I don’t think I’ve ever previously seen an article that so completely covers the leading tropes of atheism. Every single one was dreamt up by religionists, without consideration to what they were actually saying, and are close to the point of being so bad that they ‘aren’t even wrong’! Michelle Wrenn above covers the points well, so I won’t repeat them, save to say that bringing the likes of Stalin into the equation actually makes matters worse for the believer. Stalin and Hitler used all the tools that religion provides, from minority groups that could be used as objects of hate to credulous populations, and effectively became gods themselves. They are graphic examples of the dangers of unbridled belief systems.
rolls eyes
Wow, Bodie, seriously…think about doing a finite amount of research on atheists before slinging your time worn atheist trope. There is actually more knowledge than you find in Christian web sites and books. Google is your friend. Admittedly google tends to return results that match your likes, but a little effort can help you find some real information on atheists that is not warped by Christian world view.
I actually feel sorry for this person as they are so deficient in critical thinking skills and basic logic.
Whew! That is a huge, steaming pile of toxic nonsense, all but buried in the straw of destroyed straw man arguments. None of it, as my esteemed grandmother used to say, makes a lick of sense. Every bit of it attacks what Christians think atheists should think, not what they actually think. Bodie, have you ever actually talked to an atheist?
“Essentially, Christians are claiming to be God. Instead of saying there may be many gods, they say there is only one God. To make such a statement, they must claim to be omniscient (which is an essential attribute of the God of the Bible) among other attributes of God as well. So by saying there is only one God, the Christian refutes his own position by addressing the question as though he or she were a god!”
— Hindu Bodie Hodge
bodie’s quite an idiot. and no surprise that he’s also a coward.