It is written:
“Only fools think there is no God. People like that are evil and do terrible things. They never do what is right.” (Psalm 14:1 ERV)
Atheists often argue against the morality of the Bible, claiming that their own worldview is somehow superior. However, the facts of atheism show a far different story!
In fact, reading many modern atheist books on the subject of anthropology, morality, and sociology, it becomes apparent that the “morality” of atheism is similar to a philosophy of some people in the Bible:
Judges 17:6-In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Judges 21:25-In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Read the Book of Judges to see what a culture will look like when God’s Word is rejected, and when every man does what is right in his own eyes (which is the same basic philosophy of atheism). Heaven forbid that such a worldview becomes commonplace in the world of man again!
Yet there are many examples in our day of how people have rejected the existence and Word of God because of their desire to indulge their own fleshy appetites. Their accounts teach us many lessons!
For example, one famous atheist, Aldous Huxley, was quite candid about why he (and so many of his peers) adopted atheistic evolution and rejected Christianity:
“I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently [I] assumed it had none and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…. The philosopher…is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do…. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.” (Aldous Huxley, “Confessions of a Professed Atheist,” Report: Perspective on the News (Vol. 3, June 1966): 19)
The famous mass-murderer, Charles Manson, is another powerful example of what happens when a person rejects the existence of God and the moral order of God’s Word as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures:
“One of the most horrific crimes of the twentieth century was the Charles Manson murders that involved the senseless killing of seven people, including director Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, on August 9, 1969. Two days later, several members of the Manson family, specifically Charles “Tex” Watson, murdered supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in their upscale home. The case made headlines around the world and was the subject of at least five books….Manson believed in what he called Helter Skelter, an expression he exploited from a Beatles song of the same name. The Helter Skelter involved the belief in a soon to occur apocalyptic race war between blacks and whites. Manson expected the killings that The Family committed would help to precipitate that war. 50 He attempted to achieve this goal by attempting to blame his family’s killings on the Black Panthers by such acts as writing words like “Pig,” a common term used by radical blacks to describe the white police, in blood in the homes of his victims. Manson naïvely felt that this act would encourage the race war that he felt was sure to come soon….Manson’s motivation was “it is a matter of evolution” and “the black people are coming to the top.”…The Family also openly rejected Christianity and, instead, “believed in reincarnation and in the possibility of monitoring past lives. So the child was the sum culmination of the life-chain of evolution.” 62 Promiscuous sex, which was connected to his racism, also was central to Manson’s worldview. Manson used sex to help eradicate what he [Manson] viewed as Christian hang-ups: If a person indicated reluctance to engage in a certain [sex] act, Manson would force that person to commit it. Male-female, female-female, male-male, intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, sodomy—there could be no inhibitions of any kind. One thirteen-year-old girl’s initiation into the Family consisted of her being sodomized by Manson while the others watched. Manson also “went down on” a young boy to show the others he had rid himself of all inhibitions….The Helter Skelter theory, as explained by Manson’s leading disciple, Charles Watson, was based on the belief that Manson “had always taught” that “blacks were less evolved than whites, and therefore were only fit to be their slaves…. [N]ow that all the centuries of operation and exploitation for blackie were over, his karma had turned, and it was time for him to rise and win.” 65 The blacks were going to “launch a fratricidal that would make the War Between the States look tame by comparison.” 66 The blacks would win, but, when in full control of the nation, they would realize that they were less evolved than the whites and, consequently, would then hand over the power to the Whites. Manson thought he would help this inevitable Helter Skelter war along by murdering some rich whites, and leave signs at the murder scene that would point to the Black Panthers as the culprits. This far-fetched scenario was less far-fetched in the time that Manson lived when widespread violence and riots were occurring during the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This case is one of many examples where Darwinism has influenced racism and led to criminal behaviour.” (Jerry Bergman, How Darwinism Corrodes Morality: Darwinism, Immorality, Abortion And The Sexual Revolution, 3641-3728 (Kindle Edition); Kitchener, Ontario, Canada; Joshua Press, Inc.).
Someone says, “Mark, I know atheists who are good people!”
Of course there are many moral people in the world, even some atheists who reject God. Why is this the case? Because the basic image of God within mankind still remains (Genesis 1:26-27; James 3:8-9). There is within our hearts a basic moral understanding of right and wrong (Romans 2:12-15). It should also be remembered, however, that this moral consciousness can be hardened to a point where a person is “beyond feeling” (Proverbs 28:14; Ephesians 4:17-19).
Further, none of this takes away the natural consequences of embracing atheism and Darwinistic evolution.
As another example, consider Sam Harris and his vehement attacks against God for allowing rape to occur (documented in a prior article). Yet Harris (and other atheists) acknowledge that rape is part of the Darwinian evolutionary model!
“Working under the assumption of naturalistic evolution, and knowing the ethical implications of such, Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer co-authored a book titled A Natural History of Rape, published by the MIT Press in 2000….Comparing humans with animal species, the authors view rape as a natural way for males to circumvent the selection process. In fact, they claim: “Human rape arises from men’s evolved machinery for obtaining a high number of mates in an environment where females choose mates” (p. 190, emp. added). They further state that “[e]volutionary theory applies to rape, as it does to other areas of human affairs, on both logical and evidentiary grounds. There is no legitimate scientific reason not to apply evolutionary or ultimate hypotheses to rape” (p. 55)….Sam Harris added: “There is, after all, nothing more natural than rape. But no one would argue that rape is good, or compatible with a civil society, because it may have had evolutionary advantages for our ancestors” (2006, pp. 90-91). Joann Rodgers quipped: “Rape or at least rape-like acts clearly exist in many species, giving additional weight to both rape’s ‘natural’ roots and its ‘value’ in our biological and psychological legacy” (2001, p. 412). She further commented: “Even rape, fetishes, bondage, and other so-called aberrant sexual behaviors are almost certainly biologically predisposed, if not adaptive, and may therefore be what biologists call ‘conserved’ traits, attributes or properties useful or essential to life across all cultures and genomes” (p. 11, emp. added). The fallacy with this line of thinking is that it flies in the face of everything humans know about moral decisions. Furthermore, it transforms a vicious, morally reprehensible activity into something that may allegedly be caused by mutations or other phenomena that exempt the rapist from taking responsibility for his actions. Such “scientific” explanations for an immoral action like rape are absolutely appalling. When boiled down to its essence, as Thornhill, Palmer, Harris, and Rodgers, have so well illustrated, proponents of naturalistic evolution can never claim that any activity is wrong in an ultimate sense. This being the case, any action that a person chooses to do would be considered just as morally right as any other action, since all human behavior would be the by-product of evolution. As Darwin himself said, “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones” (1958, p. 94, emp. added). If a man follows his impulse to rape a woman, atheists cannot say, and more and more will not say, it is wrong.”. (Kyle Butt, A Christian’s Guide To Refuting Modern Atheism: An Extended Study Of The Butt/Barker Debate, 1845-1878 (Kindle Edition); Montgomery, Alabama; Apologetics Press, Inc.)
Let us rid ourselves of the rhetoric that atheism provides a superior morality to Christianity, and that the world would be a better place if (true) religion didn’t exist.
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