In the world of apologetics, atheists are chihuahuas; always barking, and that everlasting bark is far worse than their bite. While they will often make the omniscient claim that there is no evidence for God, the irony is they are evidence. From the way in which they defend their worldviews to the way in which they attack ours, they show the absurdity of atheism every time they talk about the subject. Their statements are loaded with tacit admissions that our case, as Theists, is stronger, and that they know it, they just don't care. In this article, we'll look at a few examples.
Redefining "faith" and "belief".
It is often said that cheaters never win, and winners never cheat. This is simply because if you know you're good enough at a game to win it, you don't need to cheat. But atheists aren't good enough at the apologetics game to win their case. Therefore, they have to redefine certain words. The most popular two are "faith" and "belief".
Whereas belief and doubt are, and have historically been, polar opposites, modern atheists have taken to claiming belief and doubt are synonymous. You cannot believe in what you know, they say. "Do you believe in gravity?", they ask, expecting a negative answer. It throws their whole case off when you simply point out that yes, I absolutely believe in gravity, because I affirm the truth thereof. By definition, I believe in gravity. Having an irrational fear of the word "belief", as if "I believe in X" is a sign that you somehow do not believe in X, is, ironically, a much bigger sign that you doubt X.
In a similar way, they redefine "faith" as either "belief without evidence", or worse, "belief in spite of evidence". Neither of these definitions have any basis in history, nor are they logically justified, nor is it the common use of the word (or equivalent words in other languages) anywhere on Earth. It is an ad hoc definition of the word "faith", designed specifically to stack the deck against any explicit faith claim before the debate even begins. If you define faith as "belief without evidence", then anyone who claims "I have evidence for my faith" is immediately discounted as illogical. Therefore, faith, or more specifically Theism, is ruled out automatically.
This is a tacit admission: Under normal "rules of engagement", using standard definitions of words, atheists simply cannot win the debate. They have to stack the deck against Theists.
Redefining atheism
Interestingly, atheists do not only attempt to redefine words on our side. Another more recent development in atheistic apologetics is to attempt to borrow credibility from Agnosticism. Historically, atheism has been defined as "the belief that there are no gods", or something along those lines. Pick up any dictionary written before the 2,000s (and a fair few written after that time), you will find that kind of definition. Even now, on September 28th 2023, typing "Define atheism" into Duck Duck Go returned the following three definitions:
Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
The doctrine that there is no God; denial of the existence of God.
The denial of theism, that is, of the doctrine that the great first cause is a supreme, intelligent, righteous person.
But when you define atheism as the belief that there are no gods, it bears a burden of proof; one which every atheist knows they cannot fulfill. Solution? Break atheism down to its etymological roots. "It's ah-Theism", they say, "which simply means no belief in gods". Therefore, Theism can be broken down into four subsets: Gnostic Theism, Agnostic Theism, Gnostic Atheism, and Agnostic Atheism.
The Gnostic Theist is the one who believes there is a god, and he knows it. The Agnostic Theist believes there is a god, but isn't as sure about it. The Agnostic Atheist is... a classical Agnostic. He doesn't know if there are any gods. Finally, the Gnostic Atheist says there are no gods, and he is sure of it.
The first clue that this is just a dirty trick designed to get atheists off the hook is that "Gnostic Atheists" are the overwhelming majority of those who use it. You might get the occasional Agnostic who goes along with it ("Agnostic", of course, meaning "without knowledge", thereby being the most vulnerable to such deception), but with almost no exceptions, any atheist who will attempt to divide Theism into these four categories is a "Gnostic Atheist" trying to escape the burden of proof. They believe there are no gods, but they know full well it's an indefensible position. Even many atheists who do set out to disprove Christianity often come back as Theists. Knowing their claims are indefensible, "gnostic atheists" seek any excuse to avoid defending them, even to the point of hiding them.
"Can't prove a negative"
But some atheists go slightly further and suggest they should be an exception to the rule. "You can't prove a negative", they assert. Where they take that varies, but of course it must always conclude with them not having to prove their assertion that there is no God.
Almost every response to this argument is low hanging fruit, starting with simply re-stating Theistic claims in negative ways. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Thus, we can say "there is no way the Bible was written apart from divine inspiration". Well, now what do we do? Is Christianity suddenly the default? Do Christians no longer bear a burden of proof, since you can't prove a negative?
Of course, this wouldn't even work, given that you absolutely can prove a negative! An example I'm particularly fond of is when atheists attempt to pit other gods against Yahweh (which I'll come back to a little later in this article). Since atheism has no credibility, it cannot stand one on one encounters, so atheists love the "divide and conquer" tactic, attempting to distract Christians by pitting them against other Theists. I remember one atheist telling me something along the lines of "prove there are no other gods, and I'll use your method". He broke down when the method I used was to use the logical law of non-contradiction: My God exists, therefore other gods simply cannot, as that would be a contradiction, which is logically impossible. Of course, he couldn't use that method to prove my God does not exist, since that method requires proving He does.
Of course, in that scenario, I bore some burden of proof; I claimed God exists, and used that to prove my negative statement that no other god exists. But that really is the point. I had a burden of proof even for my negative statement. Atheists have a burden of proof for theirs. Thus, by trying to escape it, they ultimately admit they cannot fulfill it.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"
Perhaps one of the most ironic attempts atheists make to escape their burden of proof is to make the extraordinary claim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". This one, in particular, backfires, given that atheism is an extraordinary claim. Historically speaking, human beings have been quite Theistic. This is because we have divine instincts, which have been scientifically proven to exist, and require suppression, at a very early age. Therefore, Theism is not an extraordinary claim at all.
But even if it was, the claim itself is false. No claim, no matter how extraordinary, should require extraordinary evidence. Denial of ordinary evidence, of which the Christian faith in particular has a lot, is quite dishonest. Of course, you might want to say "well yes, you have ordinary evidence, but I have evidence for this alternative". But denying a well-evidenced worldview, and especially denying that there is any evidence for it, on the basis of the fact the evidence doesn't fit your definition of "extraordinary", is, at best, delusional.
And it rather confesses that you know it. In ordinary circumstances, no one raises the standard of evidence beyond what is usual. They do this when they know the ordinary evidence is sufficient to give credibility. Thus, every atheist who says "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is effectively admitting there is more than enough ordinary evidence for Theism, if not Christianity, to convince a reasonable mind.
One less God than you
Earlier in this article, I said I would return to atheism's divide and conquer tactic. To do this, I want to use an example of an extraordinary claim made by one atheist in particular: "I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Atheists so love the divide and conquer strategy that they even use it when they are not in play. A Christian Facebook page might say something about God, and a numpty will show up and ask "which God?" Because they're all possible, right?
But if we're being honest here, this is not only a ridiculous attempt to temporarily distract from the sorry state of atheism, but it is also a tacit admission that you need to lump all gods together in order to refute them all together. That's why even popular atheists, like Neil Degrasse Tyson, will use the very existence of science as "evidence" for atheism. They will claim we used to attribute unknown phenomena to a bunch of gods, but now we understand the naturalistic reason behind them, and so "God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that gets smaller and smaller as time goes on."
But then we ask any competent historian, and we find that actually, science is rooted very specifically in the Christian faith. Loren Eilsley, for example, tells us "The philosophy of experimental science…began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation… It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption."
In other words, using science to disprove Christianity is like using fish to disprove the ocean. It's true, there are religions in which various gods take manual control of the universe. But science is based on the very premise that God isn't like that. That not only did God create a rational universe, but that He has set it up in such a way that deviation from the norm would be considered a miracle. Or, as they are also known, signs. Thus, it is in fact this argument against Theism that is an ever-receding pocket of theological ignorance, which gets smaller and smaller as we do any amount of study of history, or philosophy, or even, yes, science.
When we consider this simple fact, there are only two options:
The first is that atheists making such criticisms are excessively and unforgivably ignorant. In this case, the very attempt to criticise Theism should be ignored. What sense does it make to listen to those who don't know what they're talking about, and even seem proud of it? This is the foolish leading the foolish, and the end destination is more foolishness.
The second is that atheists know God stands apart from the other, less reasonable gods. But because they are less reasonable, they are easier to refute, and so by lumping Him in with them, they make Him appear easy to refute, too. But why trust someone who has to borrow straw men? It's one thing to misunderstand Christianity and attack the misunderstanding, it's another thing entirely to look at a completely different religion, then attack that and pretend you have disproven the Christian faith.
All of this, of course, to distract from the fact literally any god is better than no god at all! See, our aforementioned Theistic instincts are not baseless. As reasonable creatures, we can reason from C to A. If C is a house, B is the construction team, and A is the architect. An atheist who says "we're all atheists, I just believe in one less God than you" is like someone who says "we're all a-constructionists, I just believe in one less architect than you".
It sounds silly, doesn't it? If you find a house, you know someone designed and made that house. You might not always know who. Were there many builders, or one? And are they separate from the architect/s, or did the designer/s also build the house? The house itself is sufficient evidence to prove the involvement of at least one human being, and denying their existence is laughable. And if you want to make a laughable claim, you hide it behind philosophy.
Just as a house is sufficient evidence for at least one home designer, the well-made universe in which we live is easily sufficient evidence of at least one god. Who is that God? Well, we're dealing with atheists, so that's the wrong question. What do we do when those atheists claim we are also atheists with respect to every other god? We show that this claim is as laughable as their claim that there is no God. Because atheism is the claim that there is no God, so how can I be an atheist?
To use a similar term, consider the term "bachelor". By definition, a bachelor has never been married. In the world right now, there are many married men. Let's suppose a bachelor and a married man were discussing the merits of marriage. The bachelor intends to remain unmarried for as long as he lives, but the married man tells him he's missing out. But the bachelor says "I contend we are both bachelors, I just married one less woman than you."
Suddenly, the absurdity of the claim becomes apparent. A bachelor, by definition, has never been married. Therefore, it doesn't matter how many women a man is not married to. If he has, or has ever had, even one wife, he will never be a bachelor again. In the same way, as long as a man believes in just one god, it doesn't matter how many gods he does not believe in, he is not an atheist. And atheists, especially if they possess even half the critical thinking skills they are famous for boasting in, absolutely know this fact.
Conclusion
You see, then, that the vast majority of atheistic apologetics is actually a tacit admission that atheism is invalid, and the Christian God, in particular, stands out. Atheism, as the Bible tells us, is quite foolish, and requires a conscious effort to remain in. As it is, nature itself testifies to the existence of God, to the extent where we are without excuse. Furthermore, God has written His law on our hearts, giving us a limited awareness of who He is, and what He expects of us. When we watch atheists kick against these goads, we see just how accurate the Bible is in this regard. From how they argue in their own defence, to how they argue against us, atheists show that they already know atheism is an unreasonable conclusion, whereas Christianity stands above all other worldviews. Why else would they have to change the normal rules of reason to suit themselves?