THE HOPE OF ATHEISM

An atheist just sent out a message to advertise a talk. I thought that it was very reflective of the faith of atheism: 1. There is no evidence of Intelligent Design, and 2. We humans are great because we are able to navigate a design-less world with a body containing “so many design flaws”:

·       As professor of biology…explains how our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, a big pile of compromises. But that's also a testament to our greatness -- humans have so many design flaws precisely because we are very, very good at getting around them.

In order to make room for “our greatness,” God must be dethroned from any place exulting His greatness. According to the atheist, our bodies are filled with “design flaws.” However, these flaws show off our heroism in persevering despite these “imperfections.”

I don’t want to challenge the first part of atheistic faith. So many have already demonstrated, far more ably than I could do, that we are a wonder of coordinated design. Instead, I am more interested in examining what atheism puts in the place of God.

Ultimately, their hope is a vain attempt to invent meaning in a world that they regard as meaningless, purposeless, and godless. However, our nature requires that we believe in a world of meaning and purpose. If our lives have no purpose, then we must invent a purpose, one which we find pleasurable, as when we assert our greatness. However, such a hope will fail us. It had failed the late and great novelist Norman Mailer:

·       “I think we are all healthier if we think there is some importance in what we’re doing. …When it seems like my life is meaningless, I feel closer to despair. I like life to have meaning.”

Well, what’s the matter with a diet of endless sex, cruises, gourmet foods, and thoughts about our greatness? The pleasure just doesn’t last for very long, like the whiff of a rose whose scent can only be enjoyed for a brief moment.

King Solomon had everything that anyone could ever desire – endless power, money, women, and any other pleasure he wanted. Yet he was miserable and despaired of life:

• Ecclesiastes 1:8-9 “All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

·       Eccl. 2:17-18 “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.”

Even though he was reputed to have been the wisest man in the world, his wisdom wasn’t able to provide the very thing that he longed for – meaning and purpose. Nor did he ever consider the possibility that his wisdom or power could create them or his money buy them.

Nor can we find this fulfillment by merely stroking ourselves with the assurances that we are great, even if we call ourselves “brights,” “freethinkers,” or other grandiose terms. Such a hope is a vain and self-centered hope and looks as appealing as someone playing with himself in the street.