Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. This is the show where we try to unravel difficulties in sharing the gospel. On today's show, we're doing the third instalment on the subject of atheism.
SPEAKER_02The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_05Hello, Andy and Glenn here. This is the third show on atheism. We've taken a general look at atheism and last time what atheists get right. And now we want to look at what atheists get wrong or what they miss.
SPEAKER_00That's right. So last week we had Six Things They Get Right. And some thoughts about that, and how here are six things they either miss or get wrong.
SPEAKER_05Okay, well let's jump straight in. Last time we looked at the fact that Christians are atheists too, regarding lots of other gods and religions and that. But it also goes the other way that atheists are actually believers too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, completely. So I mean uh Richard Dawkins' uh great quote is that, you know, we're all atheists with regards to the vast number of deities that humanity has ever conceived of, uh, to which we say, yep, absolutely, everyone is a sceptic. To some degree, everyone's a sceptic. Um but then Richard Dawkins says, Ah, but I just go one god further, and I completely disbelieve in all the gods, and so I am the pure sceptic. And I think at that stage we have to say, no, absolutely not. Um atheists are also believers. So Richard Dawkins is a believer in materialism, which is sort of the belief that the the cosmos is all there is, was, or ever shall be. And I kind of put that in kind of religious sounding terms because I think it is a religious sounding kind of claim. It doesn't sound like Christianity, uh, but there have been plenty of religions in the history of the world that have explained the origins of the universe in less than personal terms. Um and I think materialism is uh another belief, w of which I am a sceptic. So I'm actually a sceptic with regards with regards to something that Richard Dawkins, I think, has swallowed hook, line, and sinker. Okay. So on that I think he's gullible, and I'm a sceptic. On the Jesus thing, he thinks I'm gullible, and he's the sceptic. But it's not the case that he is the thoroughgoing sceptic and I'm the the the naive believer, the faith head, as he would put it. Um we're all skeptics about many things, we're all believers about many things, atheists included.
SPEAKER_05Okay, well, uh uh number two then. Atheists believe they can have a non-miraculous account of reality.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And you know, and and in so many ways, it's a wonderful thing to try and understand cause and effect in our universe, and so much of the scientific project is to try and understand cause and effect in the universe. But to try and think that everything is the result of physical, prior physical causes, if you try to smooth everything out, smooth out everything, you know, miraculous from your account of reality, what you'll end up doing is you you end up with a massive wrinkle. And the massive wrinkle happens right at the beginning of all things because scientists uh these days they can't escape from the fact that they they believe there to be a beginning of all things, and yet if the universe had a beginning, then suddenly you've got a whole lot of physical something coming out of a whole lot of unmaterial nothing. And how on earth how on earth are you gonna provide a physical cause for that? And literally you cannot provide you cannot come up with a physical cause for how nothing became something. Because whatever that physical cause is, guess what? It's a something. So what's the what's the physical cause of that? And if you're absolutely committed to explaining everything with regards to physical causes, then you're gonna run out, you're gonna run up against an incredible miracle. And all of a sudden what the what the what the atheist, what the materialist has to come up with is a miracle beyond any miracle that any religion in the world has ever come up with, which is that everything sprung out of nothing. Um, you know, I mean Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, um, but this belief is the virgin birth of the cosmos, which is unbelievable. Uh the virgin birth of the cosmos without a virgin, without anything. Just bang, there it is. Something out of nothing. Now, at that point, many uh physicists want to say, ah, but actually our nothing is a kind of a brewing mass of of s you know dark something. And then you then you say, well, hang on, come on, that's that's not nothing then, is it? That's a whole lot of brewing black echoing dark something. How has this universe come about? And and and at some point, either you say everything's come out of nothing, which is the most incredible miracle in the world, or you start talking about multiverses, and this is what physicists and cosmologists uh love to do. They love to say, ah, well, because there are an almost infinite number of of multiple universes out there, then it's not remarkable at all that we should live in a universe that looks like this and looks like it's tailored for life and all of that. And of course you ask them, what's your evidence? What what what you know, come on, Mr. Scientist, what's well, Mrs. Scientist, what's your evidence for this this multiverse? And uh you know what? It's an article of faith. The only other the only other explanation for everything is God.
SPEAKER_05So uh the non-miraculous account of reality is impossible. Can't happen. Uh so the third thing then, um materialism is self-supporting. You know, the idea, uh atheists would say, the idea is that uh we don't need anything else outside materialism.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and that so often happens that sort of scientists say, Why don't you believe in God? They say, Well, we don't need one. And by that they mean we don't need a god of the gaps who kind of you know jury rigs things every now and again and pokes his pokes his oar in every now and again. Of course I don't believe in that God either. But um what the materialist would say is my brain is now perfectly adapted to survival, but how can I say that my brain is perfectly adapted towards truth? Towards assessing truth, towards thinking through truth claims and coming up with correct logic. If everything is about its survival value, then why on earth do we have minds that we think we can trust when it comes to reasoning through complex philosophical arguments or you know, massive mathematical equations? If our brains have been engines that have just been sort of preserving the selfish gene, then actually atheism undermines itself. It undermines all truth claims, because it says that actually the products of my own brain are not guided towards truth value, they are just seeking to survive better. So all truth gate claims become undermined by materialism, including materialism itself. So in that sense, I'd say I'd say atheism undermines itself.
SPEAKER_05Okay, then the fourth thing is uh that there is goodness in the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and last week we we saw how uh atheists quite rightly point out the problem of evil in the world, um, but then we can turn around and say, well, what about the problem of goodness? Because if this world really is the product of struggle and chaos and and warring forces and selfish genes, then why why is it that that we recognize um the goodness of goodness? And that becomes very difficult to explain if you believe, as Richard Dawkins has said, he's he says, um we are robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. And so in in in The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins gives a quite unconvincing uh analogy with reed warblers who um sometimes mistakenly feed cuckoo chicks because the cuckoo chicks look like the reed warbler chicks. Um and he calls this an evolutionary misfiring. The the reed warbler is not doing it out of the you know generosity of its own heart, it's just being mistaken. And then Richard Dawkins says, Well, that's like morality, isn't it? Um we've evolved a morality and sometimes we look like we're doing generous things, um, but actually it's just our selfish genes propagating, and that it's just an evolutionary misfire. And at and at that point I think Richard Dawkins and other atheists raise very good points, which is that so much of what we do that we claim to be good is just self-interested. And if Richard Dawkins wants to rail against that, then he's got all the prophets and Jesus behind him. They, you know, are railing against the the filthy rags of human righteousness that's really only about pride. But do we really want to say that every instance of generosity is mistaken? That it's a misfire, that it is not, in a sense, a progress but it is a a misfiring, and the real progress is towards ever more efficient selfishness. So that's the problem of goodness in the world, really.
SPEAKER_05So goodness in the world, and then the fifth thing is uh that there is good in us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and here's where I think Christians and other religious people often get misheard in this debate with atheism. They often hear us as saying that atheists can't be moral, that atheists can never act with with goodness or altruism or that or that kind of thing. And I would be the last person to ever say that. The question is not can they act morally, but can they adjudicate morality? You know, if if I've got this instinct towards selfishness and preserving my own gene and then I have this altruistic instinct that comes along and says, No, Glenn, you're better than that. Why should I listen to the altruistic instinct and not the selfish instinct? Is the is there a third instinct that comes in, or is there a third law? Is there a third what's what's the third thing? And and at that stage you might want to say, Well, the the conventions of your culture might come in and and say that. And at that point you you want to say, Well, the conventions of your culture, is that just selfishness writ large? Or is there something deeper than that? What what is it that that enables me to say no to the selfish urges and to rise above evolution? And and Richard Dawkins always talks about us rising above uh evolution. Well, rising above it on what basis? And and if it's if it is just, you know, so that I can appear better than my selfish genes, then again we're just back into the selfishness thing. But but I th I think our experience of morality is is that uh there can be genuine goodness and we can we can rise above the selfish aspect in our character, but in doing so it's not because we're better than ultimate reality. What the Christian wants to say is that we're much worse than ultimate reality than Jesus Christ. Um but that actually in tapping into something of his reality we can rise above our natures um because self-giving love is what defines the universe, um, not self-centeredness. And that's just that's such a wonderful thing that the Christian can say. You know, you you look to uh the book of Revelation and you see Jesus Christ is described as the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. You know, so so this this truth of self-giving love has gone back, you know, to the beginning of time, and it also says that the lamb slain is at the centre of the throne. It's at the heart of he's at the heart of of who God is and what reality is all all about. So actually our intuition that moving towards self-givingness is progress that makes sense on the Christian account. It doesn't make sense so much on the on the on the evolutionary account, uh the pure evolutionary account, because progress means ever increasing selfishness. Um So I think I think there's big issues of of goodness, both goodness in the world and goodness in ourselves, that atheism can't really account for.
SPEAKER_05Okay, well then the sixth and last thing that we've got is that atheism is a complete answer. Atheism describes the world we live in, but that's not true.
SPEAKER_00I don't think it I I I just don't think it it describes the world we live in at all, really. When you when you when you really push it to to see what what materialists are really saying, is it really true that you take some slime, you add in some struggle and some selfishness, and you get you, me, and Beethoven's ninth? Is that really the world that we live in? Do we really live in a world where ultimate reality really is time and chance acting on matter? Where it's struggle and selfishness, you know, colliding and and and we are the cosmic debris. Is that really the world that we live in? Surely, you know, before our head hits the pillow tonight, the best thing about today will be relationships. Will be love, we'll be face to face, we'll be back and forth. And and also the worst things about life, because you know, they are so precious to us. We'll be people and and relationships going wrong, and you know, we we live in a world of truth and beauty and goodness and love and community and story and redemption. Um and yet the atheist wants to tell us, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's just the foam on the top. Underneath Underneath it is all struggle, selfishness, nothing, chaos. Um and that is what ultimate reality is. And I just think, you know, here we are. You and I are having a conversation, using words, talking about deep issues in life. We we laugh, we cry, we you know, we're involved in the this whole gamut of life, and and everyone, even the atheist, agrees to this, that these are the greatest things in life. But it's almost they almost want to say it's like we're sort of ice skating on the surface. And and we're having a party, ice skating on the surface, and then underneath that thin ice, it's just a void. And I j I just don't think that describes the world the world that we live in. And if that begins to be the story that we tell ourselves about what reality really is like, I think we'll start to have these these very split personalities between what we think is most important and what we think is most real. And so I uh Lawrence Krauss is uh an atheist and and a uh a cosmologist who wrote a uh a best-selling book on um getting a universe out of nothing. And of course, you know, his nothing isn't nothing at all, it's a whole lot of black something. But anyway, at the end of him describing his view of the world, he makes some kind of existential uh applications, which I think are just unlivable, really. So let's just let's just listen to his account of the world and what's really important, and uh and then we'll think about whether that really describes the world that we live in, and if so, uh what we want to do about that.
SPEAKER_04All of the galaxies we now see are moving away from us faster and faster and faster, and eventually they'll be moving away from us faster than the speed of light. It's a long future of the leader. And it'll disappear. So in the far future, the rest of the universe will disappear, and we'll be a little bit faster in the universe, which is only possible as originally. I think it's kind of a pocket. So that is nothing is fairly four, just as fast as we can be. And the simple answer is the question is nothing. Just be just waiting.
SPEAKER_03From nothing to nothing. That may not fit well for some people, but the first reminds us.
SPEAKER_04The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not, which is the one thing that really people will understand. It's fascinating. It may not be the way we like it to be. But it's so fascinating that we should rejoice in the past, let's consciousness. You can have this conversation with consciousness of health. And we can have this conversation and enjoy learning about the universe of fact, we're truly confident. The meaning in the heart is the meaning we create, and we should enjoy it.
SPEAKER_03Anything else?
SPEAKER_04So the two lessons I want to give people is that we are you are more insignificant than you ever thought. And the future is miserable, and those two things should make you happy and sad.
SPEAKER_05Well, what do you make of that, Glenn? Two things. You're more insignificant and uh more insignificant than you ever realized.
SPEAKER_00And the future is miserable. Yeah. And and I've heard I've heard Lawrence Krauss say that many, many times. Um he gives the same talk again and again and again and again and again. Um and he says that again and again and again and again. Which goes to show, again, our first point is that atheists are believers too, and and they have beliefs that impact very severely on our spirituality, if you like, on our sense of self, on our souls. To be told that you are more insignificant than you ever realized, and that your future is miserable. It has an effect on people. And you know, and he says we've got our brief moment in the sun. And that kind of is the the world's view, isn't it, of of life. We've come from darkness, we're heading back to darkness, we've got a brief moment in the sun, let's enjoy it while we can. So at that point he's kind of saying, Well, look, okay, the light of truth and beauty and goodness and love and community and story and redemption and all those things, that is sunshine, and we love to bask in the sunshine. But there's almost in unimaginable tracts of darkness before that, unimaginable tracts of darkness after that. What is it that makes us prefer truth, beauty, goodness, love? What what makes us prefer that over the darkness and the nothingness and and and all that sort of stuff? Apart from you know, it's quite nice. It's quite nice. Is there anything deeper to truth, beauty, goodness, and love than that? Or or is it just the foam on the top and everything else is chaos underneath? Uh and and the atheist I don't I don't think the atheist wants to say that. I don't think I think the atheist wants to say you've got a brief moment in the sun, enjoy, rejoice. Um but I th I think that's psychologically almost impossible to do. And my point my point for this one isn't is not so much that um there are bad consequences to such a belief. I don't think it's true because I don't think it actually accounts for the world that we live in and what we actually hold to be important. What about, what about, what if? What if in the beginning there was not nothing? What if in the beginning there was not chaos or power? What if in the beginning there was love? What if in the beginning there was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the ultimate community of truth, beauty, and goodness who, out of the overflow of their life, make a world, and yes, it's a world that's full of all sorts of incredible physical forces and incredible darkness and selfishness. And yet shot through the whole thing is uh the self-giving love, the glory of the Lord. Um and and and doesn't that make sense of what we think to be the most important realities in life? Um Yeah, so I I I would just say that atheism doesn't describe the the the world that we live in, a world of truth, beauty, community, love um and yet the triune God, the God revealed in Christ, actually does describe uh everything that we find most important in this life.
SPEAKER_05Okay, then to to give a bit of a recap, so number one, uh atheists are believers too.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Number two, everyone believes in miracles. Even even the the materialist believes in miracles, something out of nothing or a multiverse.
SPEAKER_05Uh number three, uh atheism undermines itself.
SPEAKER_00That's right, yeah, because if if the brain that you use to believe in atheism is just the product of atheistic forces, then you've got no reason to believe the atheism that your brain's telling you to believe.
SPEAKER_05Uh and the problems of goodness in the world, number four.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Which doesn't line up with a world of selfishness and struggle. And then there's the problem of of number five, the problem of goodness in us. Who gets to say that self-giving is better than selfishness? Um then number six, uh, it just doesn't describe the world that we live in.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so there's uh look at some of the things that uh atheists miss or get wrong. Mm-hmm. We're gonna do one more episode on on atheism, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00That's right, we're gonna look at some some hot topics. Uh things about what about miracles, what about who made God, what about science, what about circular reasoning, don't believe us all into those sorts of errors. And we're gonna have a go at those hot potato issues in the next episode.
SPEAKER_05Okay, well thanks very much, Glenn, for taking us through that. If you have any comments about today's show or would like to share it, you can just simply go to revivalmedia.org slash TEP19. If you enjoy listening each week, we'd really appreciate a rating and review on iTunes. It's very easy, just simply go to revivalmedia.org slash iTunes. That takes you directly to the podcast page where you can leave us a review and rating. We'd be very happy if you did. And we're very thankful to Mikey, uh, who says, Thanks, Andy and Glenn, for loads of helpful insights and lots of great tips that really help me to think talk about Jesus with the folk I meet on the streets and with colleagues at work. So many times I thought, yeah, that's a really nice way to put that, or that illustrates the point perfectly. So thank you, keep up the good work.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Mikey.
SPEAKER_05And uh another review from Dick Kohling. Great podcast, guys, really useful subject matter and content, and a blessing each week. They're a real sense of addressing the questions and issues that I face in conversations with friends and colleagues about Jesus. Thanks, keep it up.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you, Dick.
SPEAKER_05Just before we go on, I want to tell you about a valuable resource. It's called the International Daily Prayer Bulletin. It's a small twenty-four page booklet that tells thirty-one stories of what God is doing around the world. Did you know that Christian radio programs are reaching thousands in Thailand? Or that God's love is being shown to Syrian refugees, or the training of young people to stand up for Christ in Parliament. You can read more about it in our prayer bulletin. You can get it free of charge by going to revivalmedia.org slash bulletin. Well, that's it for this week. The web address for this episode again where you can comment on this specific show along with the links for this week, simply go to revivalmedia.org slash tep nineteen.