Atheistic absurdities

 

1. The central question

There is a serious issue, which has been created by the acceptance or not of the existence of God. This is not just a "philosophical" or theoretical matter, but a practical one - it is a matter that affects and influences our actions and our entire lives.

If God does exist, then there is a reason for the existence of Creation.  There is a purpose to my existence and to yours. There is a point of reference (God) for determining what is right and what is wrong; what is moral and what is immoral; and finally, there is a hope (for us Christians, a certainty) that there is something far more to life than the injustice that we see in the world around us - something that we can hope for and struggle for, knowing that with that struggle, we are fulfilling the very purpose of our existence.

But: if God does not exist - if there is no purpose to and reason for the existence of Creation and everything is just the product of coincidences, then everything appears differently; the "right" and the "wrong", the "good" and the "bad" are confused and there is no point of reference by which we can define them.  If everything rests on the subjective opinion of each individual as to how they should act and live, and if the injustice of this life is all that we can expect of this limited life of ours, then what is left as a purpose of living? What should one struggle for?  For the truth?  What meaning can truth and lying have, in a universe that only consists of coincidences?  So what, if a person has lived his life in delusion, if the only thing that awaits him is the grave?  It is to be expected then, that his logic will say "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die".  If God does not exist, we might as well reap the small pleasures of this life while we can - without moral obstacles, without any compunction, without truth.

 

2. A utilitarian approach

It is naturally logical for a Christian who tries to live his faith to struggle for those things that he regards as eternal and divine ideals; to struggle for justice, for the truth; to convince others about his faith, which he is confident will help them to be saved.  But an atheist? Why should he struggle for all these things?

Let us look at the matter from a utilitarian point of view - from the point of view of an atheist (because if there is no God, then all that is left is the individual's profiting).  So, let us assume that God does not exist. Let us assume that Christians are struggling in vain, and that in the end, they too will acquire what everyone does:  "a grave", and nothing more. So, do Christians really have something to gain?

Yes, they do. Because naturally (although it is not the basic reason for their faith), if God exists, they will gain the heavenly kingdom (Theosis, Glorification). But if God does not exist, they again will have benefited, because they will feel solace throughout their life - they will have someone to tell their woes to in times of ultimate desperation, when other people are unable to console them. They feel that they have someone to protect them during their fears, and a life that feels like it is worth something and is meaningful. And yes, people like these are much happier than others, who don't believe.  So what if they don't live with all the comforts? So what if they don't get to savor everything? At the moment of death, none of the things that they savored will remain.  But for the faithful, the moment of death is something that they have anticipated, with hope and with courage, and not with fear and disappointment.  And that is what true FREEDOM  is about: not the hopelessness that the pessimist author and philosopher Kazantzakis had labeled as "freedom"(*). To the faithful, their entire life is pleasurable, because they live it with faith and hope, without any fears and desperation; because even when confronting death in the person of a loved one, they remain steadfast to the hope that they will meet again. If the universe is just a coincedence (as Atheists want it to be) and truth is something relevant (as modern trends try to persuade us) then why doesn't this make a man of faith happier ?

These words are not a mere theory.  I myself, who am writing all these things, had carried out my own personal research some time ago. I started to ask people of various ages and faiths to tell me how they would characterize their life in one or two words. The responses that I collected were very many, but the conclusion was only one:  I did not record a single believing person who declared himself to be miserable. And not a single faith-less person that declared himself to be blissfully happy!

(*) Inscribed on his tombstone: "I HOPE FOR NOTHING. I FEAR NOTHING. I AM FREE"

 

3. Irrational zeal

Thus we see that the atheist inevitably turns out to be the loser. Either God exists and he misses out on all the blessings, or, God does not exist, and he loses his tranquility and blissfulness, and even the very meaning of life. AND THIS IS THE HUGE CONTRADICTION THAT EXISTS IN CERTAIN ATHEISTS:

Yes, we Christians have an actual reason for struggling for what we believe to be the truth. We have a reason for "evangelizing" about our faith.  But what is the atheists' cause for propagandizing? If God doesn't exist, then what is the purpose of truth and falsehood, in a life without a purpose and a meaning - a life that terminates in a grave; in a mankind which has no future, but only comprises a recycling of the earth's chemical elements, from the moment of birth through to the grave?

If we Christians merely believe in a lie, why are all the atheists in such a huff? Why do they infiltrate Christian forums and chat rooms on the internet and strive to convince us that we are wrong? What will they gain if they do convince us?  And what will we gain if we are convinced?  Their desperation?  A lack of meaning to our lives? Their conviction that the only thing to look forward to is the grave?  Then what is the meaning of "our lie" (if we pretend for a moment that it is a lie), if God doesn't exist, and there is no meaning behind the word "truth"?  Are they perhaps trying to help us see the truth?  What truth? What do they have as a point of reference for "truth"? To what end, and for what reason, if "purpose" and "reason" do not exist in the universe?

What do I mean when I say "zeal"?  Well, observe the comment that was made by a certain woebegone individual who declared himself an atheist, when responding to the arguments posted by a Christian, in a Christian forum:  "The reason I am responding to this text is to prevent those who might read it from being misled."  And the logical questions that come to mind here are:  "What meaning can 'misleading' have, in a universe and a life that has no meaning?" And:  "I wonder why this atheist person is so concerned if others become convinced by Christianity?  What will he gain, if he succeeds in directing other people away from Christianity? Paradise? Or will he perhaps lead them to something better that they can hope for?" . This doesn't make any sense - whatever "logic" you may be using, atheistic or other.

 

4. Possible reasons for atheistic irrationality

I am not content with posing questions only.  If I believe in a "meaning" and a "reason" for the existence of the universe, I want to extend my thoughts, into every possible "reason" for the actions of certain of my fellow-men, because I cannot accept that those atheists are acting entirely irrationally. Surely there must be some reason that prompts them to behave that way...

I discovered three categories of reasons: 1. Utilitarian reasons, 2. Psychological reasons, and 3. the desire to deceive. So, let us analyze them a little, as I believe that they comprise the basic reasons most atheists behave in that irrational manner:

a. Utilitarian reasons:

• What is it about the faithful that annoys an atheist, to the point of making him oppose them?

• Is he annoyed by the fact that their lifestyle, their abstaining from libertinism and extreme forms of pleasure expose him as a libertine?

• Could this be his way of fighting against morality per se, so that he can live the way he wants, without the censure that libertinism usually inspires in society?

• Could it be that by confronting them, the faithful will not look upon him with pity?

• Could he be striving to assert his presence as someone omniscient, so that he - and his like - can feel that he is justified in not believing, thus "amassing points" in his favour?

b. Psychological reasons

• Could he be jealous of their serenity and their certainty regarding the meaning of life, when he can't even find a compass to do it?

• Could he subconsciously be seeking substitutes for an ideology and a direction, and, given that he can't find any in faith (which he doesn't possess), strive to substitute them with faithlessness?

• Could he subconsciously be trying to convince himself of the correctness of his chosen path as an atheist, in order to not be intimidated by the possibility of his being wrong and eventually being surprised by finding himself in the presence of a god?

• Could he perhaps so intensely love "truth" (irrationally of course, if he doesn't believe in the existence of God), that, by regarding the nonexistence of God "truth" proceeds to propagate this belief with a missionary zeal?  According to the atheist mindset, the sense of justice in all beings (and naturally in mankind) is the product of a "blind" evolution (not even a Theistic one) - one that developed among the species of socially-behaving animals, so that they can co-exist for evolutionary reasons.  Of course according to this view, Man is merely BLINDLY following the instinct of justice, in which is included the sense of truth as a "justice against the deception of a falsity".  In this case (if God does NOT exist), this person is simply a victim of blind instinct, or, if God DOES exist, then he himself has perverted the God-given sense of justice for the truth.

• Could he perhaps be searching for reasons to believe but cannot bring himself to openly admit this, and instead, is fighting against the thing that he secretly desires but is afraid to admit?

• Could he be suffering from a psychological trauma of his childhood?

• Could he have perhaps been subjected to BRAINWASHING by someone or something, and is acting unconsciously and irrationally, without thinking through the presuppositions and the contradictions in his actions?

I would like to pause a little at this last point, because I am certain that (especially) the persons who wander in and out of Christian forums on the internet have been subjected to brainwashing to a large degree.  These people always resort to mostly the same arguments, which they sometimes copy-paste in forums that they visit.  These arguments are of an anti-Christian content; they accuse the Old Testament, they are forever looking for contradictions within the New Testament, they strive to prove that Christ never existed, they have amassed every crooked thing that various pseudo-Christians have perpetrated throughout History or any other assorted falsified information, and they use it as an accusation against the Christian faith.  In other words, these people are using those arguments to actually attack Christianity!  They don't resort to any philosophical reasons to support their atheism.  And the fact alone that most of them use the exact same arguments is clearly indicative of the fact that there is a COMMON SOURCE of arguments.  Someone is supplying them with all these arguments, and they are being used as blind instruments against the Christian faith.  These people lack even an elementary perception, which would have allowed them to see that others are USING them .

We don't have to search very long to discover where that source is, or who is propagating those arguments. One glance at a paper & magazine stand, at the kinds of magazines that are found there (or on the shelves of certain bookshops), is enough for us to realize who is responsible for this brainwashing.

We are referring to certain ANTI-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS, which are waging war against the Christian faith and which of course have a personal benefit in propagating their false arguments against it to gullible people.

But how do they manage to convince people to fight against the Christian faith, when they themselves don't believe in those religions and theories?

They resort to psychology.  Observe the methods they use:

To begin with, NATIONAL PRIDE. Because, whether we like it or not, pride is a basic passion in all of us. Each one of us has a need for self-respect and can be flattered by praises. So, when someone is an atheist - and without any philosophical backing for his atheism - he looks for things that can substitute faith.  And he usually finds them, in the notion of "National Pride", if he is a native of that land (in our case, a Greek).  Feeling - as an atheist - that he is a "nothing", the others come along and tell him "ah, but you are SOMETHING: you belong to the glorious nation of Hellenes, who had brought civilization to the world, who...... who....... who.....".  This will make him feel flattered. He will feel that he truly is "something", not because he himself is, but because .....his ancestors were !!!  At this point, he has swallowed the bait, and the neighbourhood grocer (this is not intended as a demeaning comment - I myself am a grocer) suddenly feels like "one of Pericles' descendants" and feels the urge to now continue the "cultural opus of his ancestors".  But how?

This person has already substituted human nature's natural zeal for God, with a blind, narrow-minded zeal for his tribe, which makes him feel important and therefore elated.

Of course, apart from those "antiquity-possessed" individuals, there are also the....."progress-possessed" ones.  The latter are under the warped impression that "religion is obscurantism" and that "science has the solutions and the answers to everything".  Now this category (for self-seeking reasons of pride and self-respect) wants to feel that they are "progressive".  And such is the bombardment that they have been subjected to by claims of that kind that they regard as a given fact that "religion is obsolete".  These people are wont to study the comical and superficial books of the Westerners' so-called "acclaimed Bible critics" (whose arguments however are turned against God and the religions of the West), as well as assorted foolish theories of the kind that any science fiction author can concoct. And they overlook the fact that if there is no God, then there is no reason for them to embark on any such research...

Thus, after someone has read a sufficient number of such books - whether as a "Nationalist" or a "progressivist", he will inevitably feel omniscient and become even more conceited.  He will feel like a genuine philosopher, even though the poor fool may lack all knowledge of the bare essentials of philosophy (which are of course cleverly kept hidden from him), along with the basic principles of the Orthodox faith.

3. The desire to deceive

This is the last reason that I could think of, that would explain the irrational attacks by certain atheists against the Christian faith.  What do I imply, with this reason?

That some of those people are not actual atheists; they are actual members of anti-Christian religions but they pose as atheists. And they have a number of reasons for doing this:

1. To conceal their true motives.

2. To keep a "low profile", because if we knew what their religion was, we would be able to easily prove it wrong. Whereas, by posing as atheists, they can "strike", without being the recipients of arguments. In this way, they can argue "from a safe distance", with the Christians finding themselves constantly in a defensive conversation, without the possibility of a true "counter-attack".

3. To appear as supposedly "without any self-seeking motives" towards Christians and third parties.  By declaring themselves "neutral" atheists who don't have any religious interest, no-one can confront them with accusations like: "You're saying that, because you have another religion".

4. To conceal their ignorance. Because if they say that they belong to this or that denomination and are confronted with arguments that debunk their group, they will not know how to respond. So they "hide" behind the safety of the word "atheist".

5. The false declaration of being "atheist" also hides a measure of psychological insecurity, because if they need to believe that they are "atheists", this helps them to avoid becoming upset when the religion that they are affiliated to is proven by Christian arguments as an erroneous one.  By treating that religion as something "alien", they can preserve their inner peace.

All of the above have been set out, not only so that Christians can recognize the frauds (pseudo-atheists, pagan nationalists) and the misguided atheists, but also to point out to them in a discussion the contradictions in their position, i.e.:  to be fighting against God, when this has absolutely no meaning, in a world that (they claim) has no God!

N.M.

 

 

Translation:  K.N.