Answering an atheist

How does one go about answering the objections to religious faith raised by atheists? (It unfortunately takes much more time to frame a cogent argument than to merely spew invective and ad hominem attacks, such as my friends and I have experienced lately.) Well, for what it’s worth, here are a few ideas to consider.

It should be apparent that everyone, even the atheist, takes some things on faith. No one has personal experience of everything, and there are some things that no one can experience directly. For example, no one has seen air or an electron, but we all (or at least most of us) believe that they exist. We can see their effects (e.g., trees moving in the wind or “tracks” made by subatomic particles under certain conditions), but cannot actually see those things directly. No one now living has seen a live dinosaur or a dodo bird. Most have never seen a Tasmanian tiger (the last known specimen died in a zoo in 1936). No one has direct experience of the Roman Empire. How do we know they ever existed? Well, because people we choose to trust for one reason or another tell us about them and we take what they say as true. We accept their authority. That’s faith. Could they be mistaken, or even lying? Yes, they frequently are. Sometimes their hypotheses, theories and explanations about the natures of some things don’t hold up under deep scrutiny. Very often they do (at least so far). But it would be irrational to reject what they say without first testing to see if it might be valid. Is it also possible that lots and lots of people say the same thing, and are still wrong? (Think of the institution of slavery.)

Some atheists hold the opinion that religion is just wishful thinking. Now, is religion wishful thinking, or is atheism lazy believing? Sometimes we reject (or more precisely, ignore) some things simply because we don’t care. Or we may have a hidden motive for rejecting certain things (oh-oh! if X is true, it might spoil my fun), so we choose to “deny” them rather than change our behavior.

It is irrational to say, “I don’t believe in anything I can’t see, touch, smell or taste. (Even if I hear it I might not believe it.)” Why? No one can see justice. You can’t touch love. You can’t taste courage (although some claim they have tasted fear). But these are things that (nearly) everyone understands and accepts as real. They exist.

Do people born blind accept the existence of color? I’m sure most do, although perhaps some do not. The mere fact that someone has no direct experience of a thing is no real argument that that thing does not (or did not) exist. It’s true of the Roman Empire. It’s true of color. It’s true of God. (Granted, this in no way proves that God does exist, but merely demonstrates the irrationality of denying His existence simply because one cannot see Him.)

A believer is someone who has seen (recognized) the effects of God (sometimes called “grace”), otherwise he wouldn’t believe. Those who deny God’s existence generally make that claim because they haven’t seen the effects He has on other people or the world around them (or they don’t accept what they do see as being effects of God).

What about the soul? Is the soul the same thing as brain activity? If a man has brain activity, we accept that he is alive (that he has a soul). When the brain activity stops, he’s dead (his soul has either departed or ceased to exist). Well, I’ll grant that brain activity is one indication of the presence of a soul. But are they actually identical, or is the brain activity merely an effect of the soul (as wind is an effect of air)? What about someone in a coma and on life-support? No apparent brain activity. Does he still have a soul? Who’s to say he doesn’t. Sometimes people recover from that condition, sometimes they don’t. It is possible to measure brain activity (or at least we think that’s what those blips are), but who can measure the soul? How would we know that the thing we were "measuring" was indeed the soul and not something else?

In the end, everyone wants to be happy. Most people will do just about anything to secure happiness, even choosing at times to deny themselves a present good (e.g., physical comfort or pleasure) for a greater good later on. Sometimes that choice itself makes them happy, often to the amazement of some other people around them. Are they being rational? If they have deliberated the matter and have good reasons for their choice (whether or not they are able to articulate them), they probably are. What is happiness anyway? Who can define it comprehensively? How does one explain the fact that so many poor and suffering Christians are happy, while so many rich and powerful atheists are miserable?

Do you like to gamble? How much are you willing to risk to “ride” your particular choice all the way to the end? Have you ever heard of Pascal’s Wager? It goes something like this: If the Christian is wrong and the atheist is right (that there is nothing after this present life, the soul simply “winks out” at death like a blown-out candle flame), then the Christian isn’t out anything except a few fleeting pleasures now and then. If he was satisfied with the choices he made during life, so what? BUT, if the Christian is right and the atheist is wrong (about the existence of an eternal heaven and hell), then the Christian has much more to gain and the atheist has so much more to lose, don’t you think? How much are you willing to risk on your choice? (As the bumper sticker says, “Those who live like there’s no hell better be right!” Or better yet, "Those who do not believe in God are going to be VERY SURPRISED when they meet Him!")