Gospel Grit
This podcast exists to create content based on the Bible for the Church.
Gospel Grit
Charting the Course from Nihilism to Redemption
Embark with me, Taylor Windham, on a soul-searching journey across the Gospel Grit, where we scrutinize the essence of atheism and its stark contrast with faith-based worldviews. Stepping out from the shadows of my own godless past, I unravel the tapestry of beliefs that compete for our hearts, examining the implications of a life devoid of deity against the backdrop of monotheism, polytheism, and pantheism. Listen closely as we traverse my transformation from staunch atheism to a profound Christian awakening, revealing the hidden costs of a life stripped of divinely ordained purpose.
In the heart of our discussion, we confront the seismic impact of atheism on one's moral compass and quest for eternal hope. Through the lens of Christianity, I illuminate the perilous waters of moral relativity that beckon without the anchor of a divine moral lawgiver, and the potential void where absolute truth and post-mortem hope should reside. This conversation is an invitation to those wrestling with the allure of nihilism to discover the indomitable strength and redemptive power waiting within the embrace of faith and the timeless solace found in Christ's outstretched arms.
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As always, thank you for watching Gospel Grit, where we seek to apply the Word of God, to the people of God, to the glory of God.
All right, welcome to Gospel Grid. My name is Taylor Windham. As always, this episode sort of an off-the-cuff episode not explained that. So Apologetics is one of my I don't want to call it expertise, but one of the things that I spend a lot of time in my master's studying and have studied on my own, and so we talk about this episode and we talk about every episode on this channel being dedicated and directed towards the idea that we're going to apply the Word of God to the people of God for the glory of God. Right, you hear me say that every video.
Speaker 1:But the question that I wanted to tackle tonight is atheism. What are some practical and existential outworkings of having an atheistic worldview? What does that do? What are some of the things that that may cost you? What are the things that you could potentially benefit from having an atheistic worldview and why is that? So let's just kind of jump in Again.
Speaker 1:I don't this actually was for another episode. Now that I'm looking at it, I don't have anything. So a couple of things kind of just off the dome here. So atheism and the worldview is not anything new. Right, we see over and over in versus, like proverbs, that the fool says in his heart that there is no God Right. No God Right.
Speaker 1:So let's address a couple of the major thinking about God throughout human history. So we have monotheism, of course, which is the big three, and a few others the idea that there is only one God and you must worship him Right. Christians would say this is a triune God of the Bible, of course Father, son and Spirit. Jewish people would say that is what we identify as God, the Father, but they would not refer to him in that way and he's definitely more distant than the way we would relate to him, the God of the Old Testament. This is not to say that they're not angels. Definitely, islam is monotheistic, fiercely monotheistic, to the point that they believe we're heretics and liars when we claim we're monotheists. And Allah is, in their belief in the Quran, is the only God. There are no other gods and he's the supreme ruler in deity.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we have polytheism, with things like paganism and ancestor worship and all the different gods. Greek mythology, roman mythology are the most famous examples of polytheism, and poly, of course, just means many. Theism is God, or the belief in God, so many gods. There is a substructure of this called henotheism, and henotheism grants that there are many different gods, potentially, but that you only worship one of them. So you're loyal to one God for one reason or another, and that is not. It doesn't mean that they don't exist. It just means that to you they don't matter. So then there's pantheism and the idea that God is one and one is God and all is God and God is one. This is Buddhism and really Hinduism and Taoism and things like that.
Speaker 1:But this is not primarily an episode about religion. It's an episode about the denial of the fact that there is a God whatsoever. Right, so we talk about atheism. When we put the prefix a in front of a word, it means not, or a negation of that word. So theism right. Here we go with that word again.
Speaker 1:A theism means not God ism or not God belief, or belief in no God. The softer version, of course, many of you know this is agnosticism and it comes from the Greek word gnosis with a G in front, and it means you are agnostic, you do not have knowledge, you claim ignorance, and there are many different shades and forms of those. Talk about what it means to be an atheist. So there are a few implications of this view. So if you were to assert to me in a full disclosure I was an atheist at one point. Many of you guys who know me on a personal level know that that's true. Maybe you were with me as a part of my life during that time and thank you for hopefully being in good influence and pointing me to Christ and being with me.
Speaker 1:But when we talk about atheism itself, there are a few price tags, so to say. There's a hook on the line and there are a few things that it costs you and I think especially young people need to hear this. I'm a youth pastor and I teach at a public school and I've been a college minister and I still deal with college students, and one of the things that becomes so concerning is that atheism has been on the rise in the West, in our enlightened age. Atheism has been on the rise for a while now and atheism has a huge price tag for a number of reasons. Again, no note just off the top of my head.
Speaker 1:One of the things that atheism does is by denying the existence of a God, we deny the ontological reason for existence. Or to put that in more you know, layman average everyday terms would be I suck the meaning out of existence the moment that I deny the reason for existence. That reason for existence is God, full stop, point blank, period. The God of the Bible, specifically, but a God, any God, will do better than the view of atheism. It's bankrupt for so many reasons and I really want to get this out there and get this through to somebody, because you guys may be flirting. There may be somebody you know that's flirting with atheism and abandoning, quote, unquote their Christian faith or theism of some sort, or just generally the belief in the big man in the sky, all that nonsense we hear.
Speaker 1:But atheism has been on the rise since the Enlightenment and it's chic and it's sexy to be an atheist in today's society, and one of the things that it does is, while it may be true that I'm able to engender my own sense of meaning, I'm just simply grasping it straws. So the problem of meaning goes right out the door with atheism, except for what I create or what I conjure up, what I ultimately lie to myself about. The truth is, if there's no objective meaning, then subjective meaning must take its place. Or to put it a different way, if God does not exist and tell me what the meaning of my existence is and he can't impose that meaning upon reality, both in my reality and the world around me, then obviously I have to create meaning for myself. One of the few things that man can absolutely not live without is without meaning, and ultimately he can't live without hope either. So I think it's very important that we kind of stop and be honest with ourselves.
Speaker 1:When we talk about atheism and people, we know who are atheists. The truth is they are grasping at straws, they are beating against the air. They do not have an opponent. And it's also fair to say that most atheists, if not every one of them, is actually a theist. They know God exists, according to Romans 1. There is no such thing as an atheist. Technically, an atheist is just someone who knows God exists. And instead of admitting that they know God exists, they just blaspheme, slander and deny his existence, because it seems kind of crazy to be angry out loud at a God that you don't like. And so if you say he doesn't exist but then you seem so angry at him, there's a little bit of a disconnect there, and I think we've all met somebody like that. I think we've all met people. If you think hard, maybe you know somebody like that Maybe you are somebody like that that they deny God's existence. They're an atheist, but they're an atheist in name only. They know good and well that God exists, just like we all do. From natural revelation and the moral law written on our hearts, we know God exists. It's just that we don't like him and we hate that he exists, because if he exists, then he gets to tell us how we should exist, and that is untenable.
Speaker 1:So that point number two, again off the dome. Point number two would be not only does the lack of existence in God, specifically the God of the Bible, does that take away our meaning, our existential meaning, which, I would argue, you can't live without, and so we create our own in some feeble attempt to try to replace what that offered us, but secondly, it's morality, and I referenced this a second ago. But the atheistic worldview has a price tag when it comes to morality. That is absolutely disingenuous and I want to be clear about this. There is no such thing as a good person. The Bible makes that very clear. There's no such thing as being a moral person. Yes, from a human perspective, you can be a moral person and you can be upright and devout in the way that you behave, so to say, in your life.
Speaker 1:But the problem with the atheistic worldview, which is what this video is about, is that there's not actually, ultimately, any reason to behave morally. I have argued this with Christians, who just don't seem to get this point, and I've argued this with atheists to their face, hopefully in a loving way. But, ladies and gentlemen, it is critically important that we understand that in atheism, when it comes to meaning and when it comes to morality, we are borrowing from a worldview that is absolutely superior to ours. If you are an atheist, you may behave morally. In fact, you ought to behave quote-unquote morally from a human perspective. It's not salvific, it's not something God accepts, it's not redeeming, you're not storing up good karma for yourself. None of that matters. All that's ridiculous and it's hogwash, and you know it, I know it, they know it. But what I'm concerned with is that there's no actual reason, there's no anchor point in reality, because they don't believe in the anchor point of why they ought to behave any kind of way.
Speaker 1:To say that in a simpler manner, atheists can behave moral and oftentimes they are very moral people but they don't have a reason to behave moral If there is no moral law within and there is no moral law without, and there's not a law higher than our law, then there's no reason at all that you should behave in a moral manner. You shouldn't intrinsically follow ten commandments, for example, that you don't believe in and you think are stupid, and you think they're oppressive. Yet we see the world over, man is moral and he's inescapably so. Man can't help but be moral. Now, we do a good job at trying to mask our immorality and we ultimately are sinners, even if they deny the existence of sin. But ultimately you can't stop being moral just because you deny the reference point for morality.
Speaker 1:God is the reference point for morality. He does exist and because he exists, you, made in his image, are moral by definition. That is ontologically what you are. You have no choice but to be moral. You have no choice but to understand yourself in light of him, even if you deny that existence. Because he is moral, you are moral. So thank God that atheists are inconsistent in their worldview. But that's sort of what this video is about. It makes you be inconsistent.
Speaker 1:So without God, one of the price tags, I would argue. These are major price tags, some that will ultimately cost you your life and then for sure your eternity, is that there is no such thing as objective meaning Without God. There is no such thing as objective meaning. We just create it, which is just a fabrication. We know it's a lie, you know it's a lie. We just lie to each other so we can act like we get to create our own sense of meaning. Man has never been good at that, nor will he ever be good at that.
Speaker 1:Number two is morality. You cannot create your own sense of morality, and you are bound by the moral law within to behave a certain way, but you don't have to. That's the point is. If God doesn't exist, you ought to behave any way you want. Now, I'm not advocating for sinning, and I'm not advocating for evil certainly not. What I am pointing out, though, is that if you're going to act moral, you at least need to believe in objective morality. As an atheist, that option is not open to you, not open to you at all.
Speaker 1:Okay, and the third point would be the idea of Hope, and I referenced this earlier, and certainly there are more but the idea of hope, the idea that there is a Transcendent hope, and I'm specifically referring to beyond the grave. Your actions not only are meaningless and your morality is just arbitrary as an atheist, but Ultimately the question of not only where do I come from and where am I going, but the question of why should I do anything morality wise? But what is the point of serving other people, what is the point of loving other people, what is the point of Doing unto others as you would have them do to you, if, when I close my eyes for the last time, that's it, we turn out the lights and we go home and it's all over? What is the point of life at all? Not just meaning, but is there any hope? Am I building anything that will stand the test, the test of time? And the answer is obviously not. No, you're not building Anything that will stand the test of time.
Speaker 1:As an atheist, your worldview is so bankrupt that, even if you are correct Pascal's wager right even if you are correct as an atheist, it doesn't matter. Let me say that again, even if you are correct as an atheist, that all of your worldview points are correct, although they're certainly not, but if they were, who cares? Who cares? No one cares at all. If you are correct and there is no absolute objective meaning. There is no absolute objective truth. There's no absolute objective morality and there's no absolute jet objective hope, certainly beyond the grave. It doesn't even matter that you're correct. In fact, you're just the first ones on the line to take the red pill to what we call nihilism. Okay, and I don't want to go into that concept. We could maybe do one about Frederick Nietzsche later on, but we'll wrap this.
Speaker 1:I'll wrap this up by saying when we talk about Atheism, it's not. You need to learn, christian, that when you deal with atheists, it's not. It's not that they don't think God exists. That's a cover, it's a front. They're lying. They know he exists. They hate him. They refuse to worship him as God. Romans 1 makes this clear. Go read it after this video. They refuse to worship him as God, and the issue is not so much that they don't want to have a God, it's that they don't want to have a God that tells them what to do. So they don't have a God that rules over them and Lord's over them. So those are three points, meaning Morality and hope. There are many more, but to keep this video short enough and probably done enough rambling, I'm gonna go ahead and cut it off.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed this sort of rapid fire off the cuff video. Probably talked a lot faster because I'm just thinking a lot faster instead of reason thoughts, but I hope you enjoy this. I hope you send it to somebody that is an atheist or somebody that's considering the Christian faith and our World view as superior to theirs. This channel, ultimately, is about world view, so it is about the word of God and applying that to the people of God and it is about the glory of God. But ultimately it's to help us think and believe and act biblically, and part of that is understanding that the alternatives are Absolutely bankrupt.
Speaker 1:Okay, don't take the black pill. Take the Christ pill in this moment. If you're struggling with this, reach out to me. Or you're struggling with the reach out to your pastor or somebody you trust. It can be a very alluring Lord world view because it feels like you're throwing off the shackles. But I promise you, whatever you think you're throwing off, you're not able to and, secondly, the shackles that you then put on are way, way worse. So God bless you guys. Thank you for joining us on this episode, this off the cuff episode of gospel grit. I will see you on the next one.