Atheists state that there is no God, or more broadly speaking, there is no creator.
They say that everything in the universe has come about due to a series of random events.
There was originally nothing, and then there was something.
Throughout billions of years, life has come into existence through a series of randomness.
Theories such as evolution and natural selection try to explain this process.
Atheists will argue that atheism is the default position.
That is, the burden of proof does not lie with them to prove atheism.
They say it is the responsibility of theists (that is, people who believe in God or a creator)
to prove their beliefs.
But in this video, I will argue that atheism requires just as much belief as any religion.
Imagine an out-of-control truck that is hurtling straight towards a cliff edge.
The driver has hit his head and fallen unconscious.
There is no doubt the truck will fly off the top of the cliff.
We all know about the Law of Gravity, or at least, we all know about the consequences
of gravity, even if we don’t know the actual scientific explanation.
An isolated tribal member that has never heard of gravity and science still knows that if
they drop something, it’s going to fall.
It’s testable, provable, and repeatable.
We can drop an apple from a rooftop a million times and it will always fall to the ground,
as long as other factors don’t come into play such as strong updraughts and the like.
Does anybody deny that the out-of-control truck is not going to fall off the top of
the cliff and smash into the ravine below?
Does anybody predict that the truck will just fly in a straight line and continue driving
on the other side of the gorge?
Of course not!
Gravity is something we all know to be true, at least the effects of it.
How gravity happens is a different question – science still doesn’t know the answer.
However, we can all agree that gravity affects us every day – at least here on Earth.
It’s undeniable.
But when it comes to atheism, atheists will tell you that when you die, the molecules
of your body will simply break apart.
You will end up becoming “worm food” as they often say.
You will have no more consciousness, no more thought, and no more knowing.
You will have no knowledge of ever being alive, nor knowledge of anything past, present, or
future.
You will forever be nothing.
My question, how can they possibly know that?
Is it testable?
It is provable?
Is it repeatable?
The truck flying off the cliff is testable and provable – even if we just use a toy
truck in its place.
How somebody feels, or what they experience after they’re dead, is impossible to test.
Sure, we can prove that their body is dead.
But do we have any idea about consciousness?
Do we really know how consciousness comes about?
How do we know that the body is not a vessel for something else – something non-physical?
For example a “soul”.
Atheists will ask things like, “Do you believe in unicorns?
If not, how can you possibly believe in God?”.
But for them to say there is definitely no god, is like saying there is definitely no
aliens.
It’s unprovable – at least with current technology.
Atheism requires belief just as much as Christianity requires belief.
If I see a house, do I ever doubt that it wasn’t created?
I mean, do I ever think that the house just popped into existence?
Of course not!
But I didn’t see the builders build the house.
I didn’t see the delivery truck drivers deliver the bricks.
I didn’t see the bricks being made at the brick works.
I didn’t see the clay and shale being collected from the ground, nor have I ever seen this
process.
However, I don’t for a second doubt that somebody built the house.
When we see a tree, or a rock, or anything else in nature, why do atheists suddenly profess
that these things weren’t created?
How can they know for sure that trees weren’t the design of some grand creator?
They can’t know.
To say that atheism is true requires an element of belief.
But I think more often than not, atheists don’t truly believe in nothingness after
death.
I think deep down they think, or they hope, that there is more to life than just the physical
world around us.
Atheists will often declare that because they are atheists, they try to live life to its
fullest – a noble goal.
They treat life as precious knowing that they only live once.
But I think if they truly believed in atheism, surely they wouldn’t care.
It they truly believed that once they die, they become nothing, then surely it doesn’t
matter what they’ve done in their life.
After they’re dead, they won’t have any memory of having lived.
They will have no knowledge of past events.
They will have no knowledge of anything.
So surely, to be a consistent atheist, one must admit that life is useless, has no purpose,
and is a complete waste of time.
We’ll all end up in a state of eternal oblivion anyway.
Why would it matter what we do with our life?
The fact that (most) atheists state that it does matter what we do with our life, probably
means that they truly don’t believe in an eternity of nothingness.
In an interview with Larry King, American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, talks
about death from a very scientific perspective.
He states that we are simply energy-consuming machines that return to room temperature once
we die.
But he goes on to say that he wants to be buried so that his molecules return to the
Earth.
He explicitly states that he doesn’t want to be cremated, because his energy would then
be radiated out into space.
That very statement, at least in my opinion, states that he deep down believes that there
isn’t just nothingness after death.
If there truly is nothing, then what does it matter where his molecules and energy end
up?
Elon Musk has often spoken of Simulation Theory.
He uses the example of the computer game industry.
Back in 1972, one of the earliest arcade games, Pong, was released.
It was basically a simulation of table tennis which involved two rectangular paddles and
a square ball going back and forth between them.
In less than 50 years, video games have almost become photo realistic immersions with millions
of people playing them simultaneously.
He posits that if we agree that the video game industry is advancing, even by a tiny
amount every year, then eventually video games will become indistinguishable from reality.
You will not be able to tell the difference between playing a game and reality as we know
it.
He then goes on to ask, “How do we know that that didn’t happen in the past and
that we’re not in one of those simulations right now?”.
He argues that the odds that we are in base reality is one in billions.
The point I’m making is that nobody can know for sure what life is, and what happens
after death.
Theists will argue that there must be a God, or gods.
Atheists will argue that there is no God.
But I’d hazard a guess that everyone is wrong.
Nobody can know, and nobody does know.
If there are an infinite number of possibilities to explain our existence, then surely the
chances of us guessing the right one is minute, or even impossible.
Ultimately, the only real position I can take is that I don’t know.
And nor can anybody know.
The term for that type of thinking is called agnosticism.
I am an agnostic and I think that’s the only sensible position.
Atheists might argue that agnostics are “fence-sitters” – that is, we don’t have the fortitude
to choose a side.
But that would almost indicate that there are only two sides to choose from, which I
think is not true.
I see no point in believing in something that we cannot prove to be true.
Just as I don’t know if there are multiple universes or not, I’m certainly not going
to definitively state that there aren’t.
It’s unprovable with current scientific knowledge.
Before the discovery of bacteria and the like, people used to believe that their body was
made up of four bodily humours – black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm.
To be in good health, a person must have the right balance of each of the four.
It was thought that diseases and disabilities resulted from an excess or deficit of one
of these four humours.
Doctors would actually perform bloodletting to try to cure people of certain conditions.
Mostly, it resulted in more harm than good.
Believe it or not, bloodletting was still in use up until the early 20th century!
(To be fair, modern medicine still uses bloodletting for a few particular blood abnormalities).
So regarding atheism, etc., what do I believe?
Not that it matters.
What I believe doesn’t change the truth.
What anybody believes doesn’t change the truth.
But just for interest’s sake, I believe that there must be something.
Call it a God, a creator, a scientific experiment, a video game simulation, or whatever else
you can imagine.
But I think that there must be something.
For all of this around us to just pop into existence seems almost absurd to me.
There must be some other explanation.
Be an atheist if you like.
But don’t for a second try to tell me that atheism isn’t a belief.
If there is any doubt whatsoever, then atheism is simply not the default position.