Scientific Atheism has permeated much of our society and is, in my opinion, the system of thought that attacks the Christian faith more than any other. In our day there are many well-known Darwinists who are very antagonistic against Christians such as Richard Dawkins who stated, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” The late Christopher Hitchens stated, “We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.” Men such as these will state that there is no evidence to verify the claims of Christianity, which in their view is irrational, and yet, they will continue to hold Darwinian evolution as the more reasonable worldview.
The burden of proof does not reside simply with people of faith, but also on the atheists. The question to consider is, “Does the atheist worldview comport with reality? The four main questions of life are: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. We want to know why we are here, and what is our destiny. Does Darwinism give reasonable answers to these questions? Concerning origin, in their view, we are nothing more than cosmic accidents. We have no meaning in life but what meaning we seek out for ourselves as the existentialists teach. If we go by the Darwinist view, man is not free, but is totally determined. Dawkins states, “The universe we observe has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is and we dance to its music.” Does this view correspond to reality? The evil atrocities that have been done throughout history or even in our day cannot be criticized because those who commit such things are totally determined and are simply dancing to their DNA according to this view. Now, something to point out is this, the same ones, whether Dawkins or others, who agree with the above statement, only agree with it so long as no one else violates their well-being. What about destiny? What is man’s destiny according to atheism? Nothing! Man has no destiny. He comes from nothing and he is going to nothing, and his existence is absurd. The atheist existentialist Jean-Paul Sarte said that in the end, man is nothing more than a useless passion.
Atheism, or specifically Darwinism, cannot answer why we are here or how we got here. Atheism cannot give a foundation for morality, or an explanation of why we ought to value others and treat them with dignity. Atheism cannot answer how something (the universe) came from nothing, and living matter was somehow produced by non-living matter. It isn’t Christianity that is irrational when contrasted with Darwinism, but Darwinism itself. We must understand that Darwinism is not science, but should be relegated to the area of philosophy. Both Christianity and Darwinism attempt to give answers of how the world came to be and how life began. Neither the Christian nor the Darwinist were there in the beginning, and both have to form ideas based on what we observe today. Which view is more reasonable? To be continued…
Writer Bio
Joshua Banks is senior pastor and founder of Shepherd’s Rock Bible
Church in Kingsport, TN. He holds a Bachelors degree in Ministry from
Luther Rice University, a Master of Arts in Theological Studies, and a
Master of Divinity both from Liberty University. Joshua and his wife
Amanda, along with their 5 children, reside in Gate City, VA.
