Bible Study: Do Atheists Truly Believe There Is No God?

Last Words of A Few Well-Known Atheists

• Voltaire (1694-1778): “I have swallowed nothing but smoke. I have intoxicated myself with the incense that turned my head. I am abandoned by God and man.” He said to his physician, Dr. Fochin: “I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months of life.” When he was told this was not possible, he said, “Then I shall die and go to hell!”
• Thomas Paine (1737-1809), The leading atheistic writer in American colonies: “Stay with me, for God’s sake; I cannot bear to be left alone, O Lord, help me! O God, what have I done to suffer so much? What will become of me hereafter? I would give worlds if I had them, that The Age of Reason had never been published. 0 Lord, help me! Christ, help me! No, don’t leave; stay with me! Send even a child to stay with me; for I am on the edge of hell here alone. If ever the Devil had an agent, I have been that one.”
• Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), Emperor of France: “I die before my time, and my body will be given back to the earth. Such is the fate of him who has been called the great Napoleon. What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal kingdom of Christ!”
• Anton LaVey (1930-1997), author of the Satanic Bible and high priest of the religion dedicated to the worship of Satan, “There is a beast in man that needs to be exercised, not exorcised.” His dying words were: “Oh my, oh my, what have I done, there is something very wrong. . . there is something very wrong.”
• David Strauss (1808-1874), A leading representative of German rationalism, after spending a lifetime erasing belief in God from the minds of others: “My philosophy leaves me utterly forlorn! I feel like one caught in the merciless jaws of an automatic machine, not knowing at what time one of its great hammers may crush me!”

There Are No Atheists In Foxholes

“There are no atheists in foxholes” is an aphorism suggesting that times of extreme stress or fear can prompt belief in a higher power. In the context of actual warfare, such a sudden change in belief has been called a foxhole conversion.” Adapted from Wikipedia: There are no atheists in foxholes

The last words of well-known atheists support this aphorism.

In August 1964, I experienced great distress. Then I came to faith in the Living God, the Creator of the Universe. An overnight medical miracle that lowered my high blood pressure from 196/96 to 120/70 without medical treatment confirmed the miracle. 50 years later, almost to the day, my blood pressure is 130/60. In my late 70s, I am looking to start a new business.

To be clear, before 1974, I was neither an atheist nor an agnostic. I was simply indifferent to the idea of God, a Supreme Being.

Worldview

To understand a person’s worldview, an understanding of the word righteous. The word righteous comes from old English rihtwīs or rightwise, Obsolete spellings of righteous. [13th–16th c.] 

Proverbs 21:2 (circa 950 BC) — Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.

These prominent scientists have changed the world of knowledge through both observation of scientific phenomena and personal revelation. Among these scientist are:

• Francis Collins | geneticist who discovered genes causing genetic diseases and who was director (2009–21) of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Johannes Kepler | German astronomer who discovered three major laws of planetary motion
• Galileo | Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, and strength of materials and to the development of the scientific method.
• Lise Meitner | Austrian-born physicist who shared the Enrico Fermi Award (1966) with the chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann for their joint research that led to the discovery of uranium fission.
• Sir Francis Bacon | lawyer, statesman, philosopher, and master of the English tongue
• Isaac Newton | English physicist and mathematician who was the culminating figure of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. 
• Andrew Pinsent | Research Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford University. He is a Catholic Priest of the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton in England. Formerly a particle physicist on the DELPHI experiment at CERN, Dr Pinsent has degrees in philosophy and theology. He also has a second doctorate in philosophy.
• Stanley L. Jaki | doctorates in theology from the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome (1950) and in physics from Fordham University (1958), where he studied under the Nobel laureate Victor Hess, the co-discoverer of cosmic rays. He also did post-doctoral research in Philosophy of Science at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Princeton University and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

Why Scientists Become Christians

Over the past ten years, I’ve listened to and learned from over 100 stories of former skeptics as they described religious conversion from disbelief to belief in God. I’ve asked each former atheist, What is the best way for Christians to engage with skeptics? After all, they have an inside view of what worked and what didn’t when it came to interacting with Christians. Through my conversion research, I’ve also paid attention to the role of Christians in the lives of the skeptics that help bring them toward belief. One of the most remarkable findings is that a clear majority, 82%, were positively influenced by Christians toward becoming open to considering Christianity. Similarly, in his recent review of 32 former atheists, researcher Joel Furches also found the majority were positively influenced by Christians towards conversion. He concluded:

By far the most significant finding is the influence of a strong Christian friend in these cases. A whopping 72% of these biographies included a positive encounter with a Christian or Christians as a major turning point in the person’s opinion of Christianity.[1]

Learn more from International Bible Teaching Ministry: What I Learned from 100 Atheists Who Converted to Christianity, by Jana Harmon, July 9, 2023

Notes

[1]Joel Furches, April 7, 2023, Hub Pages, “Atheists Who Convert—a Case Study,”  https://discover.hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/Atheists-Who-Convert-A-Case-Study.

Why Atheism Is A Religion

First, a definition of a religion. Atheism is a religion because it is a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects.

Christians never petition a government or an industry to block atheists from participating in the affairs of these entities.

Atheists, on the other hand, angrily attack governments and industries. They aim to block Christians from participating in the affairs of these entities.

Atheists insist on their unfounded “truths.” Christians follow the truth of God’s handiwork in the entire universe, all of Creation. We are not angry with atheists. We grieve for them because we know what awaits unrepentant souls at the end of their terrestrial lives. Death is final for the unbeliever.

In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus

²² “It came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s presence. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³ In Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham from a distance and Lazarus in his presence. ²⁴ So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am tormented in this flame.’

²⁵ “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things. But now he is comforted and you are tormented. ²⁶ And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf, so that those who would pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’

Action Item for Christians

In Luke 6:27-28, Jesus teaches, “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.“

Duty is ours. The results are up to God.

John White
Rockwall, Texas