From the book “Separation of Church and God, The Final Judgment”
“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”
[Isaac Asimov, Free Inquiry 2(2):9, 1982.]
“The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God…” (Psalms 14:1)
Anytime someone looks for proof, or disproof of God, through science, he will be disappointed. He is looking for God in the wrong place. In our time, God is revealed to man through the Bible, and nowhere else. Not through religious men, or physical things of science. I believe that the above quotation is indicative of the vast majority of atheists. People become deceived by something like evolution, or false religion, and search no further for God, even though they do not have much confidence in their own beliefs. To be blunt, if you require scientific proof as to the existence of God, before you will believe in Jesus Christ, you will be condemned to the Lake of Fire.
Faith is the way. Absolutely no one can proclaim that God does not exist. How arrogant would one have to be to pretend to have such knowledge? In order to know that there is no God, you would have to posses all knowledge. You would have to be God, to know that there is no God. This is not rational thinking. If someone says “I do not believe there is a God, based on the empirical evidence that I have seen,” he is an agnostic, and at least he is admitting to a lack of faith.
No matter what you call yourself, or what your reason for unbelief is, the end will always be the same.
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:36)
Man’s Intellect
You hang your Ph.D. on your office wall and consider yourself a really knowledgeable guy. Are you an intellectual? Are you really? How much do you really know? Let’s take a test.
Biology: Precisely describe all trillion parts of a human brain cell, its function and origin, and describe the process of each part required to produce memory and consciousness, in relationship with all other applicable parts of the brain, and verify your answer.
Astronomy: How much time has elapsed in solar hours since the absolute beginning of the universe until this hour? Using your answer, what percentage of eternity does time make up?
History: Name all events that occurred on the earth in the last twenty-four hours, and each preceding day going back to 600 BC, and explain why they occurred.
Language: Precisely translate the Chinese myth ‘Pangu’ from Chinese into all current 6912 known languages listed in the Ethnologue from memory, and explain the meaning of the myth in all extinct historical languages.
Physics: Was there a time when nothing existed? If so, explain how you arrive at that conclusion, and explain how it is then possible for everything to exist. If not, explain how everything has always existed.
Well, how did you do? I scored a zero myself, and I made up the questions. All of the above questions have answers, but we just don’t know what they are. Even if you could give an answer to them, that would only be a drop in the bucket compared to all that is knowable. What percentage of all total knowledge do you actually possess? Fifty percent? Twenty five percent? Ten percent? One percent?
If you say that you possess one percent of all that is knowable, you are arrogant beyond belief. But, since I’m a generous guy, I’ll give you the one percent and tell everyone that you are the most intelligent person whoever lived. Now, one final question, is it possible that God exists in the ninety nine percent of the knowledge that you do not possess?
Atheists believe that there is no God, they do not know it, and therefore, they use faith in their reasoning, whether or not they admit it. Furthermore, their faith is blind and based on nothing but extremely limited knowledge. Some people only believe what they can observe with their five senses, or what can be understood with their limited reasoning.
You may think that you don’t use faith in your everyday life, but you most certainly do, and starting from your childhood. When your first grade teacher told you that an apple is red, you simply believed it. When you got older, and finally got a date to go out with you for dinner, did you take the food to a lab and test it yourself to make sure it wasn’t poisoned? Of course not, you simply accepted these things by faith. You did not verify them. You relied on the veracity of others and put your trust in them. Even an atheist accepts things that other people tell him. It is impossible to personally check out everything that we encounter in life. We can also rely somewhat on rationalism (logic and reason) and empiricism, (observation through our five senses) but faith is our main system of perception. Many people believe in God because there were a number of credible eyewitnesses who wrote about Jesus Christ, his ministry, his miracles and his death and resurrection. Peter, one of the writers of the Bible, writes:
“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he
received from God the Father honour and Glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.”(2 Peter 1:16-18)
We can perceive God through all three systems of perceptions; Empiricism, because Christ became a man and lived among us working miracles; rationalism, because we can see his handiwork in nature and creation; and faith because he was written about by the eyewitnesses and because the gospel, properly understood, makes sense.
No Jesus?
One of the arguments that atheists espouse is that there are no secular writings about Jesus outside of the Bible, and so they blindly claim that Jesus never existed. Wow, what a claim! The writers of the Bible did not all get together in the backroom of a bar one day, and write a fictitious story.
The Bible is a compilation of sixty six separate books, prophecies and letters to the churches, written by some forty different authors spread around the world, over two thousand years. There was no possibility of collusion, but yet it was discovered long after most of the writers had died that these writings fit together seamlessly. Every book, with the exception of the book of Esther speaks of Christ. Even so, Esther is an historical book which teaches of God’s providential care for his people; the Jews.
Ancient Writings
One thing we have to keep in mind is that the Bible was carefully preserved by the followers of Christ, and copied over the centuries in a very methodical and painstaking manner, and most secular writings of that same time period were not. As a result, many of them have been lost. However, there are a number of ancient secular writings that do still exist. Here are a couple of examples:
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribes of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” Josephus (37-101 AD) [Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 3, paragraph 3]
Even the skeptics of that day did not doubt the existence of Jesus, or his crucifixion.
“The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account…. You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property.” Lucian: (120-180 A.D.) [“The Death of Peregrine. 11-13]
Seneca lived from B.C. 3 until 65 A.D. and wrote about how Nero tortured Christians for their faith.
“The other kind of evil comes, so to speak, in the form of a huge parade. Surrounding it is a retinue of swords and fire and chains and a mob of beasts to be let loose upon the disemboweled entrails of men. Picture to yourself under his head the prison, the cross, the rack, the hook, and the stake which they drive straight through a man until it protrudes from his throat. Think of human limbs torn apart by chariots driven in opposite directions, of the terrible shirt smeared and interwoven with inflammable materials, and of all the other contrivances devised by cruelty, in addition to those which I have mentioned!” [Epistulae Morales, Epistle 14, “Reasons for Withdrawing from the World.”]
There are but a few surviving secular writings of Jesus by writers, who lived at the time of Jesus, still in existence because, as I said, they were not preserved. We know they did exist because quotations from them, and references to them, were made by later writers. Why would writers of the Biblical books be any less credible than secular writers anyway? The prophets, apostles and disciples were common people of the day for the most part, received no money, and were secular people to begin with. They were not even religious. Jesus picked common people to be his apostles because their heads were not filled with preconceived religious beliefs, and they had no religious agenda of their own. I would suppose that if Jesus were picking apostles in today’s world, he would most likely pick a factory worker, a farmer, a truck driver, mechanic or a fisherman. He would not pick a loud mouth, holy hopping television evangelist, or some high powered preacher of the jet set, or anyone in a church hierarchy. Frankly, these kinds of preachers are pompous, and because of their position they think they know it all.
Jesus always works through humble people, because they are teachable. The New Testament writers simply followed this fascinating man around, and wrote about what they saw and heard as Jesus gained a following, resulting from his miracles. Even though they were not religious, they saw something in Jesus that convinced them that he was the Son of God. None of them ever denied their faith, even under threat of execution. In fact, all of the apostles were executed in one way or another, at different times, with the exception of John who was sentenced to the prison island of Patmos where he wrote his prophecy of Revelation.
The fact that all sixty six books of the Bible not only exist, but have been translated into most every language and circulated around the entire world, should tell us something about the supernatural preservation of this book. In addition, it was the world’s first book, and by far the largest selling book of all time. Sales of the Bible are in the billions, and exceed one hundred million every year. To make the claim that God doesn’t exist because we can’t verify his existence, and that Jesus didn’t exist because there are no secular writings about him, is not factual, and is simply an attempt to justify unbelief, and deceive the unwitting.
There is nothing wrong with questioning things that you encounter in your life, but there must be some basis upon which you base your beliefs. In the case of atheism it can be reduced to a statement which says “there is no God because I cannot observe him.” There can be no physical experimental proof of a spiritual being because science knows nothing about the spiritual realm. However, the observed proof of God is Jesus Christ and his work. God became a man. He came into the physical realm, from the spiritual realm, and performed miracles in man’s presence, but atheists reject the miracles in spite of the many eyewitnesses that wrote about them.
So, now they are supposedly looking for physical proof of a spiritual being. It is the assumption of atheists that if God interacts with the physical universe that they should be able to scientifically detect him. Since they cannot, they consider this lack of evidence proof of the nonexistence of God. They assume that science knows all about physical and spiritual laws, and that God would have allowed himself to be vulnerable to detection.
God reveals himself to us in the Bible, if people would only believe, and study it. I can’t understand how a group of people can be so hostile towards God, and fight against Him so hard, when they claim to know that he doesn’t exist. Who are they trying to convince themselves, believers, or people who have not made a final decision concerning Jesus Christ; and why? What is their motivation? I can understand why Christians would want other people to believe in Christ, because going to heaven is a benefit for people. What does an atheist have to
gain by convincing some unwitting person that God does not exist? Absolutely nothing, but yet they fight so hard against God, form atheists groups, write extensively, call Christians stupid, consider themselves a superior intellect to everyone else and so on. This fact alone should tell you something. One would think that they are being controlled by Satan. If they aren’t, they certainly have the same goals as Satan which is to convince people that God is not real, and to muddy the waters about Christ.
I have noticed that in many of the atheists writings they use the phrase “do not believe” quite a lot. The word “believe” should not exist in their writings. “Believe” is the same thing as trust, or faith in something. The fact that it does, tells me that they are not sure of their position. They should be saying things like
“there is no God and here is how we can scientifically prove it.” Like I have said many times we have a free will to believe, or to not believe, and that free will was given to us by whoever created us, but science can prove nothing about God.
It has been said that evolutionists become atheists, but I believe that opposite is also true. Atheists will become evolutionists. What else could they be? If one does not believe that there is a God, then he must believe in evolution, regardless of how bizarre it seems to be. There are evolutionists who believe in God, (sort of) but there cannot be an atheist who believes in anything other than evolution.
After all of the smoke clears, it comes down to this; We have only two choices; either we were created by a higher intelligence who has power and creative ability, or we came from a non-existent rock, all by ourselves with no intelligence, power, design or purpose, and the nonexistent rock came from nothing all by itself.
Faith is God’s way
If God came rumbling down to earth with a trillion angels blowing their horns, and shook the earth when he spoke you would believe in him no doubt. If indeed there is a God he would have no trouble proving that he is real. However, God does not work that way. In case you haven’t noticed, we are in a battle between good and evil here on earth, but some people can’t tell which is which. Satan and his demons have been expelled from Heaven and condemned to the Lake of Fire.
In the interim they are residing here on earth with us, awaiting judgment. We are in the process of resolving the resulting conflict between the angels and demons, and between God and Satan. God and Satan are the generals and we are pawns in the middle of the enemy’s territory. The atheist should realize that he is the enemy of Satan because he is being deceived and seduced, and will ultimately be condemned because of Satan’s deceit. God is testing our faith in him for the benefit of the observing angels, and this is our purpose for being.
The big picture
Satan claims that God is not fair in condemning him to the Lake of Fire. God says that he is fair. The angels in Heaven and the condemned angels are observing the human race because we are the test between the two. Satan has been given control over this world. He runs the worlds systems. He and his army do what they can to deceive man. Satan can influence people, and he controls the world in general except when God intervenes to prevent evil from becoming rampant,
or to fulfill his prophecy.
Satan can even possess unbelievers, and give them great powers far beyond that of any ordinary man. You don’t believe that? Could you kill six million Jews and Christians as Adolph Hitler did? How far would you get if you tried? It virtually took the world’s armies to defeat one man. As we all know, there have been many other examples of this type of person in the past as well.
Demon possession and influence
An unbeliever can be demon possessed or demonically influenced, and in rare cases, possessed by Satan himself. The ritual of exorcism will not remove a demon from a possessed person, because that person is an unbeliever. Only faith in Jesus Christ will cause a demon to flee, because demons cannot exist in the presence of Christ. Anything that man can do is useless. Demons are not afraid of “Holy water” or any preacher, a symbol of a cross, or anything physical. A man opens himself up to being possessed by rejecting Christ. A believer opens himself up to demon influence by ignoring God’s word. Unfortunately many of these people end up committing suicide rather than accepting Christ, and it all stems from ignorance of God’s word. Since Satan can only be in one place at a time, actual possession by Satan himself is rare. Although a Christian cannot be possessed by Satan or demons, because of his relationship with Christ, he can be influenced and deceived by them if he is a carnal state in his life, and not controlled by God the Holy Spirit. However, demon or satanic influence or possession is not limited to leaders of countries, and does not usually appear to us as evil.
Oftentimes a very pleasant type of person may be possessed or influenced, in order to attract people into Satan’s trap. You may have had a seemingly very nice college professor who taught you about evolution, which eventually led you into atheism. The pastor of your church, even though he appears a nice man, might have said so many false things that you began to see through him, and reasoned that if this is what God is like, then he is false. A person can be demon possessed or influenced and not even realize it. The answer is always for a person to be in Christ. Christ is our refuge.
“… O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.” (Psalms 57:1)
The only way to know truth, which to my way of thinking should be everyone’s goal, is to know the truth about God. Truth only comes from the Bible, and the way to know truth is not simply to walk into the church nearest you, but to seek truth.
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John8: 32, 36)
God has given us a book exposing the workings of Satan, and tells us how to combat him in our lives. The big question is; what will we do in Satan’s world? Will we use or faith or will we not? Every time we do we vindicate God’s judgment of Satan for all spiritual beings to see. Since God cannot be proven to exist or not to exist scientifically, we must use faith, whether we believe in him or not. Faith in man or faith in God are our only choices.
God is a spiritual being and is outside the realm of science because science can only deal with the physical or, what is observable to us. God created the physical scientific laws and is not bound to them as we are. So, to say that we don’t believe in God because we can’t see him is nonsense. God will forgive us of any sin which we may commit with one exception, the going against (blasphemy) of the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes it obvious to us that
Jesus Christ is the way of salvation at some point in our life. If anyone rejects Christ, there is no other means of salvation. With God, there is no middle ground. Even if a person has ridiculed Jesus during his lifetime he can be forgiven, but not if he rejects the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. Wherefore, I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (who makes the gospel of Christ obvious to us) shall not be forgiven unto men and whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world or the world to come.”
(Matthew 12:30-32)
If you are an atheist, I respect your right to believe whatever you desire. However, I would suggest that you consider some deeper thinking on the subject before you make a final decision against God. This position offers nothing to gain, and everything to lose, but with the person of Christ you have everything to gain, and nothing to lose. Faith one way or the other is the only option, because the matter is not provable with science. What you believe does not determine what the truth is, but what you believe determines your eternal future.
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.” (1 Corinthians 3:19-20)
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the
Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners (unbelievers) in the congregation of the righteous.” (Psalms 1:16)
“…and Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And many other signs truly did
Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”(John 20:28-31) ~