Due to the wide scope of religion, even an atheist cannot fully escape it. Various concepts, with which we regularly engage as humans, are inherently religious. This includes, but is not limited to, morality, the purpose of life, and exactly how capable we are, as a species, of mentally dealing with these things.
By nature of atheism, every living thing must be considered an accident, devoid of any real purpose. Even acknowledging the intentions of one's parents, or the beliefs of society, life in general was created without purpose, and will die without purpose. Furthermore, death is an inevitability. Denying it is delusional, delaying it is futile, and no matter what sort of life you live, it will not make a difference in the end. This means the logical implication, and chief end of atheism, ultimately, is Nihilism.
The term "Nihilism" comes from the Latin "nihil", which literally means "nothing". At its greatest extreme, this can mean a Nihilist doesn't believe anything actually exists. But one need not go quite that far to be considered a Nihilist. A more "sensible" form, for lack of better term, is the belief that existence, and the values surrounding it, are inherently meaningless.
This means things like morality and the meaning of life are, at best, pleasant delusions. What men consider "good" or "evil" are not actually good or evil, they are just determined to be so according to what these same men consider pleasing - which itself is ultimately just the result of chemical reactions. In the same way, since life was not actually designed with purpose, we must imagine our own.
Of course, not many atheists are likely to phrase their views like that, but I have done so quite deliberately. When you break down their beliefs to their base elements, that is what they must contend. But anything that is imaginary, by definition, has no actual impact on the external world. If I'm only imagining my life has value - an opinion that was once similarly held by every pig that ended up in a bacon sandwich - then my life does not actually have value. Therefore, even my attempts to find meaning in life are futile. My moral views, similarly, are not binding on anyone, including myself. Sure, there are things like social pressure that may reinforce the delusion, just as the same things have kept many countries subjugated under Islam for centuries. But a collective delusion is a delusion nonetheless, and an atheist would have to admit that, because they believe Theism is a collective delusion, yet atheists have always been outnumbered by at least 7-1.
Personally, I do not expect to ever become an atheist. Aside from the fact Christianity seems vastly superior to any other worldview I have encountered, and therefore I do not foresee myself ever leaving the faith, atheism seems inherently inferior to everything else I have encountered, and so even if I am eventually persuaded away from Christianity, atheism is my least likely alternative. But if I could be persuaded to become an atheist, then I would be forced to also become a Nihilist. That is, unless the same atheist who convinced me there are no gods could also convince me there is a solid, non-Theistic ground on which to base the meaning of life, morality, and other similar concepts.
The problem an atheist has is that in order to defend such concepts, they must logically resort to the same forms of argument a Theist does. See, aside from being inherently religious concepts, meaning and morality are similar to God in that they are also immaterial. They cannot be measured, like a force or dimension. They cannot be bottled, like a liquid. They cannot be seen, like a solid. They cannot be calculated, like a sum. They do not even interact with the world. Rather, they are an assessment of what should be, regardless of what actually is. Ultimately, their existence is dependent upon a mind, but only one mind is so significant as to actually bind them upon all mankind.
That mind, of course, cannot be a member of mankind. It can't be men of the present, for how would their views affect our forerunners? Keeping in mind, most atheists will judge people of the past, often even using them as arguments. For that very reason, it also can't be men of the past, whom we usually judge quite harshly. It can't be men of the future, they don't exist yet, and so their moral views have no bearing on us. All of these groups will also hit the same fundamental problem: Where does their authority come from, even in their own time?
You see, then, that if a man believes in anything intangible, he must logically resort to the same kinds of arguments Theists use, in order to defend the same kind of thing Theists believe in.
But at that point, you might as well just admit you believe in some kind of god. Conveniently, you actually have to believe in a very specific kind of god. You can't believe in a temporal god with its own origin (and probable end), for example, because that would, at best, be as far above us as we are above animals. It may be greater in many ways, but none so significant as to solve the problems we've been looking at in this article. Similarly, it can't be impersonal, because otherwise we are still just a by-product of this being's whims, no more significant than spilled milk from its cereal bowl. It can't be something as simple as the spirit of our ancestors, because what if your ancestors don't agree with my ancestors?
Ultimately, values that are universally binding upon all human beings, for all time, require all human beings to be the intentional product of a single, sovereign, eternally subsistent God. Only the thoughts of such a being could bind themselves upon all human beings who have ever existed, or will ever exist. Thus, the atheist has only three options.
The first, which I'm sure we can all agree is undesirable, is to continue to possess - at this point, knowingly - a logically incoherent worldview.
The second, which is also undesirable, is to remain an atheist, but become (assuming you were not already) a Nihilist. This is more logical due to its internal consistency, but as we'll find out shortly, is also unsustainable.
The third is to come so close to Biblical Christianity that if you only turn a few pages, you will swiftly convert. This is a logically coherent, rationally grounded, evidence-supported worldview that is typically resisted through sheer hardness of heart.
As we have seen thus far, concepts like morality and the meaning of life logically require the existence of a god who is at least similar to the God of the Bible. But to remove all doubt, let us consider our species' biggest dilemma: How do we know we even could figure all of this out?
When we look at the world, we see billions of life forms with which we share it. We even have such a broad definition of "life" that we count viruses, bacteria, fungi, and plants as living organisms. Biblically speaking, this isn't quite the case. They are "alive" in the sense that they move, respire, grow, reproduce, eat, excrete, and respond to external stimuli, but they lack the most critical element of life: Sentience.
But sentience comes in degrees. Various living organisms perceive the world quite differently. Some understand next to nothing, even lacking various senses such as vision. They cannot comprehend light. Others are extremely intelligent, being able to form social groups, bond with other species, and even solve logical problems. This isn't even distributed in the way we often expect. Species we expect to be relatively stupid are often smarter than animals we expect to be barely a few steps below ourselves.
But looking at them, we see it is entirely possible to be sentient, yet extremely unintelligent. But this is not something they either know, or care about. They don't know they're stupid, nor do they seek knowledge. It just doesn't occur to them that they would even need it. Nor can we really expect that if they did know they were stupid, and desired wisdom, they would be able to obtain it.
So of course, the first problem we have is that if you're an atheist, you probably believe you are related to these things. Evolution, while not inextricably linked to atheism, is by far the most popular religions among atheists. And yet, if you believe in Evolution, you do not believe your mind was created with the purpose of thinking. Rather, it is the current end of millions of years of sex and violence. Under such a view, we have no reason to believe we can accurately assess anything not directly linked to survival and/or reproduction. As our supposed relatives demonstrate fairly well, deep, philosophical thought is a prerequisite for neither survival, nor reproduction. This lead Darwin himself to lament "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy."
But even lacking belief in some mythical process of Evolution over millions of years that cannot be proven to have happened, we are faced with the unfortunate fact that wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge are not evenly distributed among our own species. For various reasons, we all think differently. Some of us are more capable of grasping various concepts than others. Some of us have a higher potential to be introduced to those concepts than others. Some of us even have mental illnesses, or learning difficulties, which may, ironically, make us appear very stupid, when in reality, we just have a highly specialised kind of intelligence that doesn't transfer well to other areas. This is why not even those who are considered to be the greatest thinkers among us agree on all things.
With such an uneven distribution of intelligence, we all have to consider the possibility that even if our species is capable of understanding certain truths, we, as individuals, might not be. I may be terrible at math, for example, whereas you may be able to solve math problems I can't even read.
This is actually a very explicit premise of the Christian faith. We all have different gifts, which of course we are expected to use for a Godly purpose. Furthermore, within a Christian worldview, human reasoning is not diminished by this fact. If everyone has different gifts, it does not matter as long as at least some of us have it. We don't all need to be pastors, for example. Nor do we all need to be apologists.
But what reason does an atheist have to believe any human being has any kind of ability to accurately assess a religious claim? We weren't built for it, we weren't calibrated for it, and even if we were taught to do it, we would have been taught by someone who also is not built or calibrated for it. The result? To assume a human being is even remotely capable of assessing a religious claim is like assuming a compass will tell you the correct time.
The result of all of this is that atheists, ultimately, are required to use Theistic reasoning in order to justify both their rejection of Theistic claims, and their acceptance of inherently Theistic claims. In the case of the former, they must use reasoning skills they assume they have to reject the only worldview that can reasonably justify that assumption. In the case of the latter, whether they like it or not, many things they deeply believe in do not exist without divine foundation, and must be argued on similar grounds to Theism.
If Theistic reasoning is so inescapable that even an atheist must resort to, or borrow from it, then Theism is inherently superior. The opposite never happens. There is no scenario wherein a Theist must hold atheistic assumptions in the background. We don't have to use atheistic assumptions to justify our moral beliefs. We don't have to use atheistic arguments to present evidence against atheism. Our worldviews may well be inconsistent in other ways - for when I speak of "Theists", I mean believers in both God and idols alike. But whereas atheists, by nature, rely on Theistic reasoning, Theists of all kinds may take it entirely for granted that atheism is false. We need never assume otherwise.
With it being entirely clear that there must be at least one god, the only question we need answer is "which god?" As a Christian, I am of course going to contend it is the Lord God of Israel, but it would be beyond the scope of this particular article to dive into much more evidence for that than this article already has.
With that being said, if you are an atheist, yet believe in morality, you should by now be aware of how inconsistent that belief is. It's like believing in the law without believing in the government. But if you've been living your life as if there is a law, yet not believing in the government, that means you've been living by your own law. Now you are faced with two problems. The first is that by illegitimately putting yourself in the position of lawmaker, you've actually committed a crime known as "treason". The second problem is that the laws you follow may not actually be the laws that exist. What other laws have you broken? What might the punishment be when the time comes for you to be judged?
Thankfully, there are two possible answers here. The first is that you will be judged according to everything you have done, and like any good judge, God will apply the appropriate penalty for your every sin to you. But there is a beautiful alternative. It's called "The Gospel", which literally translates to "good news". The good news is that God sent His Son into the world to live a perfect life as a man. He was tempted in all things as we are, yet not once did He break God's law. Rather, He fulfilled all righteousness. Yet, He was put to death in our place. Everything we've ever done wrong, He took the punishment for. As a result, all we need to do to receive eternal life is to confess Him as Lord, and believe God raised Him from the dead.
AI usage
AI was used to create the knight in the header image of this article.