Why I could never be an atheist
(written years ago)
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1)
I have gone through some hard times recently. Not only has there been a bunch of discouraging trials, but these trials have been accompanied by “spiritual droughts” of sorts. Long, dry spiritual times, the kind that could leave you wondering if you only convinced yourself all along that there is a God.
He has been so silent, so distant ... and at a time when I needed Him to show Himself most. My soul has ached for more than what He is giving right now. I cry out, but hear nothing. I pray and pray about certain things. And ... nothing happens.
It's gotten to the point where I don’t even really want a particular answer anymore as much as I just want evidence that God is listening and cares.
Just answer something, anything, clearly and obviously, so that I can know You are there! Show me that You care!
I find myself wanting to pull back from God, to retreat into a safe, little, protective shell, telling Him, “Fine, God, I can handle it. I don’t want anyone – even You – to care about me. I can accept it. I'm used to it. I’m strong enough.”
But the truth is ... I’m not.
I’m not strong enough. I’m cracking under the pressure. And I don’t know what to do anymore except wait on God for ... well ... for I-don’t-know-what. I don’t know what I'm waiting for anymore. I don’t know what to expect, what to wait for, what to hope for. I’m more broken than I’ve ever been. And I don’t know how to fix it.
And now I can totally understand how people who are going through hard times and who feel a huge void where God should be might think, “There is no God.”
And now I can totally understand how people who are going through hard times and who feel a huge void where God should be might think, “There is no God.”
They have my sincerest sympathy. It is really hard to cling to faith when God seems so very far away and prayers don’t “work,” when you feel like life has been too much to handle and like you are cracking under the pressure and like God just doesn’t care... and it makes you want to go, “Fine! Then I don’t care either.”
I was thinking of all this the other day. And I asked myself,
I was thinking of all this the other day. And I asked myself,
“Why could I never be an atheist? What is helping me keep my faith in this long, dry spiritual desert? In these spirit-crushing trials?”
1. For one thing, I need God. No matter how quiet He is and how things don’t happen my way, there is a deep ache in my soul that cries out for Him.
And I think we all have that ache. Just look at what happens during any tragedy in the world. We automatically cry out to Him. We ask Him, “Why?” We join together in prayer. We wonder where He was and why He let it happen. Even city officials get on camera and ask us to pray, and no one scolds them.
We might raise our fists at God or we might fall down on our knees before Him, but the point is that we turn to Him. Every tragedy turns our thoughts to God. Because deep down in all of us is a built-in need for Him, for Someone bigger than us who is watching out for us and who holds all things in His hands. And while many people explain it away or ignore it or soothe the ache with other things, we all know it’s there. An ache for God. And tragedies bring our need for God to the surface.
Despite the fact that He is so quiet and that I wish I could give up on prayer sometimes, my soul still cries out for Him. It’s always reaching for Him.
Because deep down, I know He’s real. And I need Him.
Besides... "... Lord, to whom [else] shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).
I know that we're not alone, we're not accidents... and He is always close to us, always listening, and He does care and does answer prayer, even if life is hard and the trials are many and if I get more “no” answers than I like.
“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:17-18)
We know He's real. We all do, deep down. I mean, look at this world. The order. The delicate balance. The miracle of life, of the human body, the eyeball, the brain. It is much more reasonable to believe in God than to not. Atheists have much more to explain when it comes to the intricate order and balance of this world and universe than I do. It takes much more “faith” to believe that all of this is accidental than to believe in a Creator.
Even God himself says His creation is enough for us to find Him, to believe: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
Whether or not He answers my prayers the way I want doesn't make Him more or less real. And I am much more willing to believe (and it's much more reasonable to believe) that there is a God and that He is simply choosing to not answer my prayers the way I want ... than to believe that there is no God just because things aren't going my way.
It is narrow-minded, self-centered pride to think that God should always answer my prayers the way I want Him to. It is foolishness to decide that there must not be a God just because life isn’t going my way. There is far too much evidence for a Creator for me to base my belief in Him simply on what He does or doesn’t do in my own little life.
And so while I might doubt and wonder about how God acts and why God does what He does, I do not doubt His existence. And if I believe He is exists and that He is good and loving and watching over all, then I can trust Him, even when my world is turned upside down.
2. And one major reason I don’t doubt His existence is something I've talked about before: the five months of demonic harassment that I went through in 2009-2010. It is as fresh to me today as it was then, although it's not scary anymore. In fact, I think of it basically every day. It has radically changed my life and my faith.
And although it was terrifying at the time, I thank God for that experience. Because that alone (along with the “light as a feather, stiff as a board” game that really worked when I was an adolescent) would be enough to convince me that there is indeed a supernatural world out there. I do not doubt at all the existence of angels and demons, heaven and hell, God and Satan.
So when these long, dry “spiritual deserts” come, I can still rest assured that I never “made up” God in my head, just to satisfy some need to have a god. He is real. And I know it. And I will cling to Him because I have had a small taste of what evil is like ... and I didn’t like it at all. I choose God!
Anyway, that is a very personal reason for me, one that many people cannot relate to or won’t understand. (I wish you all could, but I also wouldn't wish that kind of confusing, scary experience on anyone.) But there are other reasons why I could never give up my faith in Christ.
3. And another one is that I've studied the other options and found them wanting.
I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was eleven during an altar call at a Christian camp. But when I was in college, I decided that I needed to study all the other major religions (which I will briefly explore in another post), to see if they had any real answers or hope or truth.
What if I was wrong all along and one of them was right?
I had to find out.
And I will admit that I was a little afraid to start that research. Quite a bit afraid. What if I learned that I didn’t have real reasons to believe in the Bible, to put my faith in Jesus? What if I realized that I had built my faith on shifting sand? What if I found more hope in some other religion than in Christianity? What if?
But I knew that I had to do this research, that I had to go into it with an open mind and an honest desire to know the truth.
And I did.
And I was relieved and delighted to come through it only more convinced that the Bible was the truth and that Jesus is the Savior. (I'll post about evidence for the validity of Jesus and the Bible later - more reasons why I believe the Bible is true and that Jesus is who He said He is.) None of the other religions offer the kind of hope and reasonable answers that I found in the Bible, in Jesus. None of the other ones have as much to back it up as the Bible does. And I was able to close the book on that research, on wondering if some other religion had it right instead of Christianity.
For me, there is no other choice. If Jesus isn’t the answer and isn’t the way, then there is no other option in any other religion. It’s either Jesus or nothing!
And so in that way, I guess maybe atheism would be the only other option for me. Yet, as I said, atheism isn’t the answer for me, either. So it’s really only Jesus.
4. Another reason why atheism isn’t the answer for me is because of what they stand for: NOTHING!
Atheists spend their days, their lives, fighting for a future full of nothingness, for the idea that people don’t really matter eternally, that we have no real lasting value, no real purpose, no one watching out for us, and no real hope of things ever being better. What a hopeless and discouraging view!
And the funny thing is, the vocal atheists spend their days actively fighting against the idea of God, whom they believe doesn’t even exist. So basically, looking at it from their perspective and considering that they don’t believe in an afterlife, they spend the only life they have fighting against nothing and for nothing.
So nonsensical. So sad. So pointless.
Why would anyone waste so much time and energy trying to convince people that we don’t really ultimately matter? That no one is looking out for us? That we are accidents with no real value or purpose? That what happens here on earth doesn’t really matter in the long run? Why would they want to believe that themselves?
[My theory: Atheists use a lot of words and fancy arguments to cover up for the fact that - deep down - they know there is a God. (Or at least they don’t want to seriously consider it because that would mean major changes in their lives.) They don’t want to have to bend a knee to God. They don’t want to be accountable to God. They don't want to follow anyone else's rules. They want to be their own gods. But with that comes a life and eternity away from the real God, away from the Creator who loves us and sustains us, who gives our lives meaning and purpose, and who will right all wrongs in the end and dish out ultimate justice.]
Could you imagine telling a child who is dying early of a disease, “Sorry, that’s a tough break. But this is nature’s way. You are really nothing more than a ball of accidentally-alive cells anyway. And don’t worry, you won’t remember any of this later because you're going to simply vanish. And it won’t really matter that you suffered. It won’t really matter what happened in your life, because we all just disappear in the end anyway!”
Or how about telling a person who was horribly abused by someone who never got punished for it, “Well, I’m sorry that it happened but it doesn’t really matter. Nothing really matters in the end for any of us. It doesn’t ultimately matter if you were the abused or if you were the abuser. We all go to the same place and have the same ending: nothingness. And I am sorry that there is no real justice for you in the end, no consequences for the person who abused you. But they will end up in the same place you do. And it will be like they never did anything bad and like nothing bad ever happened to you. So it really is just a tough break that this is what your life has been like. I wish I could say that things will be better for you one day, that justice will be served, but I can’t. So sorry!”
Do we say that kind of stuff when bad things happen?
Of course, not even an atheist would say these things because it is so insensitive. But it is essentially the gist of their beliefs, if they are honest with themselves.
[Update 3/11/20: I wonder if this is why the celebrities singing "Imagine" during this time of social-distancing hit such a sour note. Because it's a song about the "greatness" of having no heaven or hell. (Tell that to those who just lost their loved ones to this virus and who are afraid of dying themselves!) About having no hope that there is a God who will watch out for us, help us, or make things better in the end. About how "wonderful" it would be if everyone lived for themselves, for today, doing whatever they wanted, with no thought for the consequences tomorrow. I mean, seriously, it's not hard to "imagine" the horrors that people would unleash on others if they lived only for themselves, for today, with no fear of the repercussions. That's not a dream; it's a nightmare! I mean, if you think a few people hoarding toilet paper or beating others up over toilet paper is bad, just imagine what would happen if everyone lived for themselves today, if there were no consequences for our actions. I know those celebrities were just trying to help, to bring a smile to people during a hard time, but they were completely clueless about the utter hopelessness they were spreading in a distressful time when people need hope and security more than anything.]
So back to my question ... Do we say those kinds of things to hurting people? To dying children? To abused people? To scared, hopeless people looking for some encouragement?
No, we don’t.
We say, “It’s not fair.”
It’s not fair that a child dies of cancer. It’s not fair that a family member dies in a natural disaster. It’s not fair that wars ruin lives and families. It’s not fair that diseases ravage people’s bodies. It’s not fair when someone is abused.
And why do we say, “It’s not fair”?
Because we know – deep down – that we were made for something more, something better, that life is supposed to be a certain way. We know there are things that shouldn't happen, that there are certain rules that shouldn't be broken. (Romans 2:15 shows us that God wrote His laws on our hearts, so we know when we're breaking them: "since they know that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness...")
You can’t say “It’s not fair” unless you have something to compare “fair” against, unless there is some ultimate standard by which to measure the quality of life.
In a world without God and without eternity, it really should not ultimately matter what happens. If life is accidental and random and unplanned and created by unthinking forces, we can’t complain when it isn’t the way it’s supposed to be ... because there would be no “supposed to be” about it. And death and disease and violence would be as “fair” as life and health and goodness. (And you could even consider them beneficial, if they serve a purpose for mankind as a whole.)
And eventually, we would all end up in the same place anyway. It wouldn't ultimately matter if we lived long, healthy, kind, gentle lives ... or if we suffered tremendously ... or if we made others suffer ... or if we died early of a disease. “Fair” and “supposed to be” would never enter the picture because there would be nothing solid to measure the quality of our lives or our choices against.
But deep down, we know. We all know that we were made for more and better.
We know that when a person is abused, it's wrong and unfair. We know that they should have had a better life than that. They should have been treated better than that. We know that the abuser was in the wrong, that there is a standard that all of us should be - will be - held accountable to. Not just a human standard of what is socially-acceptable behavior, but a real, deep, abiding, binding standard of right and wrong ways to live and treat people. And so, we want to see justice done. And we are outraged when it is not done on earth. (See "Why We All Want There to be a God!")
We know that when a child dies, their life ended too early, that it wasn’t fair because they had a lot more living to do. We know that they mattered tremendously and that their value goes much deeper than what they could contribute to society. They matter because they are human. And there’s something about being human that gives us incredible value, no matter our skin color, health, physical ability, circumstances of life, etc.
And deep down, we all know that our value isn’t determined by society (oh, the horrors that can happen when society determines our worth!) but by something that transcends our frail, tiny, human standards and values.
And Christians know that it’s because God created us and made us in His image, that He loved us enough to send Jesus to die for our sins so that we could live, and that our souls will live after the body dies. We matter because God made us and loves us all, from the littlest unborn baby... to the sickliest child... to the most sinful and broken people... to the lowly, overlooked, abused people... to the powerful people who think they have to all together and don't need God. We all matter equally. We all have tremendous value. Because God made us and loves us and Jesus died for us all. And our lives on earth matter because death isn’t the end of us. Our lives, however long or short, however good or bad, will greatly affect our eternities.
But atheism is a great excuse for living any way you want, with little regard for how it affects other people. Because in the end – if we all simply disappear – it wouldn’t matter how any of us lived, would it? ("Imagine")
It wouldn’t ultimately matter if you were Hitler or Mother Teresa. It wouldn't matter if you helped others or hurt others. It wouldn't matter if you were selfless or selfish. Nothing you did or didn't do would ultimately matter - because no one would be keeping score.
If there is not an ultimate, supreme, objective standard for right and wrong then there is no real right or wrong. If there is no Creator, no Supreme Judge, then it doesn’t ultimately matter how we live because, in the end, none of us has any lasting value and we are accountable for nothing and to no one and there are no real, lasting consequences. ("Imagine")
And if this is the case, then how would we determine “right and wrong”? If it hurts someone else? But why should hurting people be considered wrong, especially if it benefits someone else? Just because we, at this time, in our society, say it’s wrong? If we were in a primitive, lawless society, would violence all of a sudden be okay, just because we allow it and because that’s the way things are?
And how do we determine the value of people if there is no objective morality or standard? Is the value of a baby’s life based on if the mother wants it or not? My orphaned teenage mother thought about aborting me when she got pregnant with me shortly after being released from the orphanage. Was my value, my right to live, based on whether I was convenient or not? Is our value based on whether we have some sort of genetic defect or not? Are we less human if one of our genes is abnormal? If we're missing a body part? If we go from healthy to severely crippled because of a tragic accident? If we have brown hair and brown eyes instead of blond hair and blue eyes? Was feeding the Christians to lions “morally acceptable” because the Romans believed it was? What about primitive societies that used to bury live babies with their dead parents because they believed in taking the child to the afterlife with them? Is that okay, just because they think it’s the way things should be done? Could you whisper those words of comfort to that baby as you placed it in the ground, crying and kicking, and shoveled piles of dirt over it?
Where do you get your measuring stick for the value of people? For who matters? For what matters? For which behaviors are right and which are wrong? If you believe right and wrong are relative, that we set our own standards for right and wrong, are you willing to stand by that opinion after someone breaks into your house and steals your things because they needed them more?
I think that if most people were honest with themselves - if they listened to the deep down parts of themselves, getting past all the fancy atheistic arguments and their fear of being accountable to God - they would hear it, that Voice that says ...
“You matter eternally. There is a right and a wrong. A ‘fair’ and an ‘unfair.’ And you were made for more than this. More than the tragedies and diseases of this life. More than the abuses and trials and heartaches. More than a meaningless existence that doesn’t matter in the end to anyone but your family. You are not an accident. You are more than a pile of accidentally-alive dirt. And you are not alone on this planet. I am watching over you. I gave you life. I am calling to you to trust Me, that I am still in control, that I am working all things into something good, and that I will right all wrongs in the end. What happens to you matters. How you live matters. You matter to Me! And I love you so much that I died for you so that you could live eternally with Me. Please believe in Me!”
We know it’s true. We all know it!
Whether you admit it or not.
Think for a moment about the big questions of life: Why are we here? Where are we headed? Do we really matter?
What answers can atheism give to these?
“Why are we here?” We are accidents. All this amazing order and complexity and the delicate balance of life developed over billions of years, give or take millions and millions of years, by accident. If any one thing had been different, none of this would be here.
“Where are we headed?” Well, if we are cosmic accidents then we have no soul and no part of us will live on after we die. We are headed to nothingness.
“Do we really matter?” If we are accidents with temporary bodies and no souls then there is no ultimate lasting value to us, no real purpose or meaning. We matter only to those who know us for the brief time we are here on earth or for what we accomplished, but it doesn’t really ultimately matter how we live or what happened in our lives. Because nothing lasts in the end.
Compare that to the answers we find in the Bible, in Jesus:
“Why are we here?” Because God is a relational Being. And He wanted to have a relationship with people, with those who choose to love Him. Any of us who date or get married can relate to that desire. God made people because He wanted people to love and He wanted people to love Him back.
“Where are we headed?” God created us with souls. He created us to be a part of His eternal family, to live with Him in eternity, if we choose it. And this lifetime is our chance to decide if we want to live with Him or apart from Him. And in eternity, we will get what we wanted. We will either spend eternity with Him in heaven or apart from Him in hell. We do not simply cease to exist, fading into nothingness. We have a soul that will live on. And this is either comforting or terrifying, depending on where you are headed.
“Do we really matter?” Yes! We really matter to the One who created us. He loves us because He created us. We don’t have to do anything to deserve or earn that love. He loves us just because we are His creation. Because He wants us. And He loved us and wanted us enough to send Jesus to die for us, to pay the price for mankind’s sin, to bridge the gap between us and Him that was created when mankind rebelled against Him in the Garden of Eden. To Him, we are worth the price of Jesus’s life. That is some major value! Some real hope! To know that we matter eternally to the One who made us, that He made a way for us to once again have a relationship with Him, if we will choose to let Jesus’s death pay the price for our sins. And if not, then we choose to pay it ourselves by being eternally separated from God. The choice is ours!
I could never be an atheist because there is no real hope in it. No real meaning or value or justice or purpose or answers or anything. So what if you get to live life the way you want for awhile, without having to follow the rules of some dusty, ancient Bible! So what if you get to pursue whatever you want and be sexually free for awhile! (And isn’t that really what draws a lot of people to atheism, the love of money and success and pleasure. They get to buy what they want, focus on themselves, and have sex when they want and with whomever they want, without anyone telling them that what they are doing is wrong.)
Rather than having that kind of so-called “freedom” for a little while, I would rather have the hope that things will someday be better than the pathetic-ness of this life, that people really do matter, that we don’t just cease to exist when we die, that all wrongs will be made right, and that God is watching over me and I am not left here on earth alone to navigate it by myself. To me, that is comforting and freeing, not restricting.
Atheists might think they are having more fun in this lifetime than Christians. But Christians have a strong Father to lean on, more hope of true and lasting rewards, and the joy of knowing that God cares for us and that the best is yet to come. And that is a wonderful trade-off for being willing to bend a knee and let God be God.
“... He has also set eternity in the hearts of men ...” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
“For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already ...” (John 3:16-18)
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6)
“if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.... ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” (Romans 10:9-10, 13)
“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve ... But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
