should i be an atheist?

life's big questions

lights

reasons to disbelieve

You don't have to look far on the web or in bookshops these days, to find people, especially atheists, telling you reasons not to believe in a god. Here are a few of them:

  • How could a good God create a world with so much evil?
  • There are many inconsistencies and nasty things in the Bible (or in the Koran, or whatever).
  • Science has disproved God. Or perhaps just made him unnecessary.
  • Believers have done many nasty things, so religion is a blight on the human race.
  • If God created the world, who created God?
  • Faith is irrational and we should only believe what can be proven.
  • God is a theory that explains nothing, but only adds to the mystery of the universe.

Of course believers have answers to these questions - I have summarised the arguments and the answers at atheist questions and answers.

But the truth or otherwise of atheism must be ultimately determined by how it stands up on its own. Here are a few questions that test this.

hard questions for atheism

the universe

Our universe began about 14 billion years ago with the big bang. Since then it has expanded rapidly to an enormous size. Scientists have discovered that a number of cosmic numbers (such as the initial rate of expansion, the mass of the universe, the sizes of the fundamental forces of gravity, electro-magnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces, etc) had to be exactly as they were to an astonishing degree of accuracy, otherwise the universe would not exist at all, or not in a form where planets and complex life could begin. Scientists are unable to explain scientifically why this incredible "coincidence" occurred, except by postulating that there are an incredibly large number of universes (many more universes than there are atoms in our universe), and we live in one of the rare ones where the numbers turned out right.

Without God as an initiator and designer, an atheist has to believe that:

  • either the universe appeared out of nothing for no apparent reason, and not just our universe, but zillions of others, or else
  • our universe grew out of other universes, with the chain of universes going back forever - thus an infinite number of universes have existed for no apparent reason (despite the fact that some mathematicians say that an infinite set or series of things is an impossibility).

Both of these options are difficult to believe. On the other hand, if we presume that a God exists, then the universe and its design can be easily explained. (Of course we haven't explained God, but it seems reasonable to accept that a God who could design and create our universe is beyond our full understanding. Atheists are not happy with this explanation because it only pushes the mystery further back, but theists find that perfectly reasonable.)

humanity

Most people believe the human race is special. We believe we have the ability to make choices, and we believe some choices which harm others are morally wrong, and other choices are right. We believe in love and we respond to the beauty of art and music and nature. We believe our minds can discover truth, even the truth about whether God exists or not

But atheists find it hard to explain all this. If we are simply the products of evolution and natural selection, what makes us so special? If our thinking is only the product of the electro-chemical processes in the brain, there is no "us" outside those process to make choices, and we simply think and do what our brains are programmed to do. This leaves no room for freedom of choice, no room for moral responsibility. There are no objective ethics, just what we and our society have evolved to think is right and wrong (so we can't really say the actions of another culture are truly wrong, even if they murder innocent people). And we cannot really argue about the truth with each other, because our logic is not built on truth but on what gives a survival advantage.

Some atheists agree with all this - but it is hard to see how they could live consistently with it. Others deny these conclusions, but struggle to show how their views can lead anywhere else. Theists, on the other hand, are able to explain these aspects of humanity as things that God created within us, beyond the merely physical.

human experence and history

People, now, and through history, claim to have experienced God in some way - perhaps a sense of comfort, or guidance, or a miracle of healing. Some claim to have observed prophets of God on earth (the Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, Baha'u'llah, Guru Nanak, etc). Some even claim to have seen and met with God in human form, in Jesus. Most of these claims cannot be tested in any objective way, but some can be. For example, expert historians have extensively analysed the historical evidence in the stories of Jesus, and some modern day miracles have been examined and a few of them certified and documented by medical panels.

A theist can accept the possibility of some of these experiences being genuine without necessarily being able to prove them. In the case of Jesus, or another of the religious leaders, a believer can examine the historical evidence and draw a reasonable conclusion.

But an atheist has to assert that each and every one of these claims is false, without having examined more than a handful of them. (In this respect, an agnostic is in a far easier position, by being able to remain noncommital about them all.) Many atheists choose to deny that Jesus ever lived, basing their views on a small number of radical scholars (and non-scholars), but ignoring the weight of scholarship of the vast majority of historians.

so, should you be an atheist?

There are many difficulties with belief in a god, and in one of the established religions. But there are also many difficulties with atheism, and the difficulties appear to be more fundamental. Atheists struggle to explain the universe and human logic, freedom of choice and ethics which are the necessary bases for even beginning to discuss the existence of God. And they generally feel they have to go against the conclusions of expert historians on the life of Jesus. Believers, on the other hand, have more satisfactory answers for some of the fundamental questions, and can approach their own set of difficulties from this base.

If you can believe, and live with, the atheist answers to these questions, then perhaps you should be an atheist, but if you cannot, then perhaps agnosticism should be your viewpoint while you further examine the claims and problems of belief in a god.

Please let us know you've visited by leaving a comment - agree or disagree - on the forum.

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