You probably think atheism is a belief that God does not exist. This, in fact, is the primary definition of atheism we find in the dictionary. It is based on the simple fact that a (Greek: not), attached to theos (Greek: God) forms a compound word meaning “not God.” The new atheists, however, beg to differ. They insist that their stance regarding deities is that they “really just believe in one less God than you do.” Another way of putting it is that atheism is not really a belief at all; it’s just a “lack of belief in any god.” This video is supposed to explain this point of view for those of us who just don’t seem to get it.
From The Video
“Belief and Faith are not the same thing … Faith can be thought of as confidence in that claim in the absence of evidence … The more faith they have, the further away from evidence they travel.”
On the video’s first point (“belief and faith are not the same things”), I would have to agree. I have often illustrated the differences between some of these concepts like this:
Belief = mental assent: I may have reasons for my holding some belief. But belief is nothing more than intellectual acceptance of a proposition. Example: I believe that airplanes can fly.
Faith = active trust based on evidence: I don’t just believe airplanes can fly. I take my belief beyond mental assent. I demonstrate my confidence in that belief by taking an active step to show it. Example: I get on an airplane.
Knowledge = justified, true belief: This is the philosophical definition of knowledge. I have a belief that is justified by its correspondence to reality. It matches the actual world. I have measured my belief against the real world and found that it is actually legitimate. Example: I get off the airplane in Chicago.
Does The Atheist Definition of Faith Make Sense?
So, where I claim that faith is “active trust based on evidence,” the video says that exact opposite. It says that faith and evidence are inversely related — that “religious” faith is actually confidence in the absence of evidence. Faith, they say, is blind. Further, the video claims that:
“if you ask a non-religious person if anything could make them believe in a god, the answer would almost certainly be, yes. Conversely, if you ask a religious person if anything would cause them to disbelieve, the answer is always, no.”
Is this accurate?
Think about it. This would mean that if God showed up in my living room tonight, I would no longer have any faith in His existence. Do you see how ludicrous that is?
What’s going on here?
Spoiler Alert: Words Mean Things
The first thing to note is that when atheists try to advance this argument they are using different definitions of words. And they are demanding that we do the same. For instance, in the video (at about the 1:14 mark), the narrator says that faith is “confidence in the absence of evidence.” But notice the words on the right side of the frame. While the narrator is talking about evidence, the text contrasts faith and “scientific data.”
Big difference.
The atheist is demanding that the only way we can consider “evidence” is if it comes to us in the form of scientific observation. Understand that most honest atheists are materialists. They believe that the physical, material world constitutes all reality. That being the case, they demand that our study of the physical world (science) is the only way to gather evidence. So, when an atheist demands evidence, he assumes that physical evidence is the only thing that counts.
The problem is that God is not physical! And no thinking theist has ever claimed otherwise. For that reason, studying the physical world will never prove — nor disprove — the existence of God.
Notice what happens when you understand this subtle point …
When Atheists Want Evidence
First, the atheist claims that if you asked him if anything could make him believe in a god, his answer would be, “Yes.” Saying this makes the atheist sound very open-minded, rational, and unafraid of free inquiry. Hidden in his answer, however, is the assumption that the only material evidence counts. He wants physical evidence … for an entity (God) that is not physical.
In other words, the atheist has defined “evidence” in a way that won’t allow anything short of the physical second coming of Christ into your living room. At the same time, this same atheist will not accept the historical evidence we do have for the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. He rejects it without consideration because it infers some kind of supernatural reality. But he has already ruled out that possibility. He assumes (without evidence), that there is no such thing as the supernatural. That kind of explanation is not allowed.
Very convenient wouldn’t you say?
Atheists Have Beliefs Too
Second, the video ends with the pronouncement that:
“atheism is not a belief and requires no faith since it’s based in evidence”
From the prior discussion, it should be obvious that the faith/evidence claim is a convoluted mess. It equivocates on the definitions of faith and evidence. These atheists claim to have “no beliefs” about the existence of God. But they do have beliefs. All we need to do to prove it is ask them to respond to the following proposition: “Is the statement, ‘God exists,’ true or false?”
There are only three answers:
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- “I don’t know” makes someone an agnostic.
- “True” makes them a theist.
- “False” makes them an atheist.
All three are beliefs. Everyone holds a belief about the matter.
Christianity Is Falsifiable
Third, the video claims that when they ask religious people like me if there is anything that would make us disbelieve in God, we answer, “No.”
This is simply false. Here is a list of things that would make me quit believing in God in general or Christianity in particular:
- A reason to exempt the beginning of the universe itself from the cause-effect relationship we accept in every other case — Atheist materialists try to do this all the time. They assert either that the universe popped into existence without a cause, or that we are one of an infinite number of other universes that cannot, by definition, ever be detected. But they must give me a reason to believe that this one effect (the entire universe) does not require a cause. Why is it exempt?
- A materialist explanation for consciousness — Show me how the physical brain can account for the non-physical “self” we all experience and recognize in each other.
- A materialist grounding for ethics — Show me how matter, energy, space, and time can create a moral obligation to do anything.
- A materialist explanation for the origin and content of information in DNA — Show me how the physical stuff of the universe came up with a digital computer code the defines and regulates life itself.
- Evidence that refutes the resurrection of Christ — Offer me an explanation for all the historical facts we know surrounding the resurrection of Christ. This isn’t my criteria. It’s a tenet of Christianity itself. The Apostle Paul admitted to it in 1 Corinthians 15. If the resurrection didn’t happen, we are all fools to believe in Christ. If you could show me that was the case, I would reject Christianity tomorrow.
No Blind Faith
Fourth, my conviction that Christianity is true is based on evidence. I place my active trust in Christian theism because it offers a coherent explanation for the Cosmological, Teleological, Axiological, Philosophical, Historical, Archeological, and Experiential evidence I see.
It’s not blind. And it’s not a leap in the dark.
My position is that beliefs are beliefs. We all hold them. Religious ideas don’t sit in some separate category. Atheists are not allowed to define religious beliefs away. They may reject those ideas. That’s fine. But the fact that they reject them does not invalidate them. Atheists hold beliefs that I reject. But that doesn’t mean their beliefs are invalid. It just means we disagree.
Who’s More Open-Minded?
My religious belief is not “overwhelming” in the sense that I cannot be shaken from it. There are aspects of my belief system that I question and doubt all the time. Any thinking human being who claims they don’t have religious doubts is a liar. But that doesn’t mean I hold my beliefs improperly. I believe some things in the same way atheists believe things about the makeup of the core of the Earth or the existence of a quark. They’ve never seen those things. But they accept them because they think the evidence for them is more compelling than the alternative. They believe based on the expertise and authority of those they respect.
The bottom line is that I don’t hold my beliefs in a vacuum. And I don’t hold them with unquestioning certainty. I believe them based on an inference to the best explanation for the world I see around me.
Similarly, atheists operate on active trust in the evidence they see. But the irony in all this is that the view I hold is actually more open-minded than the atheist who rejects supernaturalism by mere presupposition. I welcome any kind of evidence and weigh it accordingly. I don’t discount certain types of evidence or put limits on what is allowed into the discussion.
Yes, there are religious believers who hold to a blind kind of faith. But not all of us. The fact that those kinds of believers exist is not a reason to reject the evidence-based convictions of those of us who believe for good reasons.