“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”

G.K. Chesterton

The Blind Atheists

by Mark Karapetyan

A few months ago, while I was speaking and answering questions in Virginia on the topic of “why I am not an atheist,” an ex-Christian gentleman, named Jeremy, quickly approached the microphone and mocked me: “You sir are the blind one here, not the atheists. You are the one who believes in an imaginary God in the clouds that no one can see. I used to be a Christian, but now I am an atheist because I believe that God doesn’t exist.”

“Allow me to ask you a question,” I responded: “If God doesn’t exist, why are you denying His existence?”

“I’m sorry I don’t understand” he interrupted.

“Fair enough, let me explain” I replied: “You say that God does not exist; why, then, would you deny the existence of someone that doesn’t exist? If you are an atheist, whom are you denying?”

Jeremy had the strangest look on his face, as if he were solving one of Einstein’s space-time mathematical equations. He thought for a few seconds, rubbed his head, and looked at me puzzled wondering: “I still don’t understand what you are asking me.”

“Okay, fine, let me ask the question in another way. Tell me: why are you an atheist?” I inquired.

Jeremy smiled, cleared his throat, puffed up his chest as though he were preparing for battle, and bravely explained: “I am an atheist and very proud of it; I don’t see God, so I can’t believe in Him.”

“You don’t see gravity or love either, so why do you believe they exist?” I challenged. He cleverly sidestepped the question by avoiding it and answering my question with another question. “You know science has disproven God right?”

“How and when?” I insisted- (I wasn’t going to let him off the hook easily).

“Well, I myself don’t know the details, but I know it’s out there,” he assured me.

“You are mistaken, my friend,” I interrupted, then continued: “Science, through the recent discoveries of the Hubble telescope, and through Einstein’s theories, have actually proven the existence of a very powerful, intelligent, supernatural first cause that is spaceless, timeless, and immaterial, which is exactly what we mean by God. Now, would you like me to tell you why I am not an atheist?”

“Yea sure,” he hummed.

I smiled, cleared my throat, and puffed up my chest as though I were preparing for battle and explained:

“I am not an atheist because atheism is illogical, blind, and meaningless. First, atheism is illogical because its foundation is built upon absurdities and fantasies. Atheists believe that God doesn’t exist because no cause was needed to bring the universe into existence. Then, however, they fail to provide a single example of anything in the universe that just pops into existence for no reason, by itself, and without a cause! They deny the scientific law of causality without questioning the cause for their denial of the law of causality. Their thinking becomes self-defeating and illogical. Am I really to believe that in the beginning there was nothing, then, nothing exploded? Really? The existence of any and every physical object in the universe must be explained either by itself or by something outside of itself. If you think about it, every object in the universe can be traced back to a first cause, which is greater than the effect itself. The only reality that doesn’t need to explain its own existence is a reality that is uncaused, like God. The laws of science couldn’t have caused the universe to pop into existence because they didn’t exist when there was no universe; they only appeared after the universe exploded into existence at the point of singularity. Therefore, whatever caused the universe must be supernatural, outside of the natural laws. All of the evidence points to a ‘mind before matter’ and not ‘matter before mind’. What makes more logical sense, that nothing caused the universe, or that something caused the universe? Nothing + nothing = nothing (0+0=0, not 1, and not a universe).

“Second, atheists are blind because their beliefs are based on blind faith. Atheists and other skeptics actually believe that life on earth is the product of millions of years of chance plus matter plus time and boom! The primordial soup started the first cell in which, through the process of natural selection and evolution, humans eventually emerged. How is this scientific when the process wasn’t even tested, repeated, or observed? Doesn’t the scientific method call for repetition, observation, and testing? Atheism struggles to account for appearances of design in nature.

When we consider the design of the human body, of animals, or of insects, for example, we see evidence of intelligent design. When we look at computers, we see evidence of intelligent design. When we look at smartphones, we see evidence of intelligent design. When we look at paintings, cars, and airplanes, we see evidence of intelligent design. Why do atheists look at a simple thirteen letter long message such as “John loves Mary” and immediately assume an intelligent mind behind the message, but then look at the unbelievable complexity of the human DNA message that is 3.5 billion letters long, not just 13, and assume luck? Atheists, however, believe that everything we see is the result of Mr. Random Chance favoring life over non-life.  Randomness has never, and will never, produce design. Randomness will never produce computer software, skyscrapers, beautiful paintings, or electronics.

Not only that, but if we, humans, are the product of random chance plus time, why do we even trust our brains and thoughts? They are unguided, uncontrolled, random, and the result of luck, are they not? Ignoring the signs of design in favor of accepting atheism is a blind faith. It seems to me that atheists are the ones with blind faith, not Christians. No atheist can explain how an impersonal, unguided, meaningless and amoral universe somehow randomly by chance caused humans, animals, insects, and plants.

“Third, atheism is meaningless because without God, nothing is meaningful. The British militant atheist Richard Dawkins once described the God of the Old Testament as “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Richard Dawkins is an atheist; he doesn’t believe that God exists, yet he just got done telling us that the God which does not exist is all these mean, evil, nasty things he mentioned…how can God be these things when he doesn’t even exist? Who are atheists actually denying when there is no one to deny?

Why do atheists fight theists tooth and nail to deny a negative? Who goes around spreading a negative concept like telling people that they don’t have money? Atheism is dead on arrival, because for an atheist to claim to know that God doesn’t exist means that the atheist possesses all the knowledge in the world to know that they know there is no God. That is impossible; it’s impossible to prove a negative proposition. The person making a negative claim cannot logically prove nonexistence and here’s why: to know that “A” does not exist, would require a perfect knowledge of all things (omniscience). To attain this knowledge would require simultaneous access to all parts of the world and beyond (omnipresence). Therefore, to be certain of the claim that “A” does not exist one would have to possess abilities that are non-existent. Obviously, mankind’s limited nature precludes these special abilities.

The claim that “A” does not exist is therefore illogical. As logician Mortimer Adler once pointed out, “the attempt to prove a universal negative is a self- defeating proposition.” These claims are “worldwide existential negatives.” They cannot be established by direct observation because no single human observer can cover the whole earth at one time in order to declare that any “A” doesn’t exist. For example, someone may claim that a yellow bear exists and someone else may assert that yellow bears don’t exist. The former only needs to find a single yellow bear to prove his proposition; the latter must search the entire universe and be in every little corner and place at once to ensure that he hasn’t missed a single yellow bear somewhere at some time, which is impossible to do. This is why it’s meaningless to claim that God does not exist. Without God, there is not meaning. Without God, there is no hope. “Without God, there would be no atheists.” Their title of atheism is dependent on the existence of God.

When I was done speaking and explaining, Jeremy looked at me and asked: “What was my question again?”

Voltaire once said: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

When God is absent from a family, a society, or a nation, and atheism is the dominant mantra, then everything is permissible. The German, atheist, philosopher Frederick Nietzsche predicted that the 20th century would be the bloodiest century to mankind because of Godlessness. Just like he predicted, millions upon millions around the world from communist China and Russia, to fascist Italy and Germany perished under atheistic regimes that ignored the divine and had accountability to no one.

Next time an atheist tells you that God doesn’t exist, ask them who are they denying? Then remind them that “there would be no atheists if there were no God!”

“Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.”

C.S. Lewis