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Giving Atheism a Whirl
In 1903 there appeared an essay entitled "A Free Man's Worship" by the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell. Since then, it has often been cited as a shockingly honest and revealing statement of atheistic belief. Here's some of what Russell said:"That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving, that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins … Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built." (Why I am Not a Christian, ed. Paul Edwards, Simon and Schuster, 107)
Later, in the same essay, Russell wrote that man's struggle is against "the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears."
It never seems to occur to the geniuses who write such things that what they affirm about life in general applies to them in particular. If the universe cares nothing for what Russell has to say, why should I or anyone else care? If my life is but a "brief and powerless" existence headed toward a "sure doom [that] falls pitiless and dark," I've got better things to do with my time than read the drivel that comes from a Bertrand Russell, or a Carl Sagan, or a Richard Dawkins.
After assuring us that there is no significance to anything we say or do, atheists nevertheless act like there is some significance to what they say and do.
In Aristophanes' ancient farce, Clouds, Zeus, chief of the Olympian gods, is supplanted by a natural force known as whirl (dinos; as in whirlwind)—a fierce activity around a central emptiness. What an apt description of atheism! Of the many things that can be said about this stupid philosophy, let it always be said that it is empty at its core. Regardless of the good things atheists give themselves to—getting an education, having a career, writing books, raising a family, supporting a cause, running for office, etc.—at the end of the day, their activities are nothing more than "the accidental collocations of atoms" that have no lasting significance at all. This is the brutal truth if there is no God. And every attempt to mask this inner barrenness amounts to nothing more than an anesthetic to deaden the pain of an empty life.
As a young man, G. K. Chesterton tried to intellectually convince himself to be an unbeliever. Here's what he said about his attempt: "As I laid down the last of Col. Ingersoll's atheistic lectures, the dreadful thought broke across my mind, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'" If meaninglessness, hopelessness, and unyielding despair is the best Russell, Sagan, Dawkins, and their crowd have to offer (and it is), give me something else! As E. Stanley Jones noted, the individual who urges us to have an unyielding despair … has already yielded to despair.
Father, save us from our insane attempts to run away from You. Always bring us back to You, where there is meaning, sanity, truth, value, and direction.
