It seems the main reason people become atheists is some version of the problem of evil, including the results of two world war

Links to elsewhere on this Web site: /apologetics.html /book.html /doctrinal.html /essays.html /links.html /sermonettes.html /webmaster.html For the home page, click here: /index.html

Does Islam cause terrorism? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Moral Equivalency Applied Islamic History 0409.htm

Is the Bible God’s Word? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Is the Bible the Word of God.htm

Why does God Allow Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm

Is Christian teaching from ancient paganism? /Bookhtml/Paganism influence issue article Journal 013003.htm

Which is right?: Judaism or Christianity? /Apologeticshtml/Is Christianity a Fraud vs Conder Round 1.htm

/Apologeticshtml/Is Christianity a Fraud vs Conder Round 2.htm

Should God’s existence be proven? /Apologeticshtml/Should the Bible and God Be Proven Fideism vs WCG.htm

Does the Bible teach blind faith? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Gospel of John Theory of Knowledge.htm

Is the theory of evolution true? /Apologeticshtml/Darwins God Review.htm

What Causes Atheism and Agnosticism?

Eric V. snow

Why do people become atheists and agnostics? Well, let's examine some of the reasons why and the problems with those reasons.

It seems the main reason that people become atheists is some version of the problem of evil. For example, in Europe, the devastating effects of of two world wars helped to destroy the faith of many. For an explanation of that issue from a Christian viewpoint, click here:

https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm

Another reason people are atheists or skeptics are the sins of Christians, past and present. Curiously, the sins of atheists, such as the Communists who killed a hundred million people is less than a century, don't seem to convert many atheists to theism. However, as it is explained here, the sins and hypocrisies of Christians don't refute the existence of God or prove that the bible is false:

https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Does%20Hypocrisy%20Refute%20Christianity%20Karamazov%201106.htm

Another factor in causing atheism is the belief that the theory of evolution has refuted the argument from design for God's existence. The problems with the theory of evolution from a logical and philosophical viewpoint are explained here in essays at these links:

https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Evolution%20Based%20on%20Philosophy%20not%20Science.htm

https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Spontaneous%20Generation%20Is%20Impossible.htm

https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Darwins%20God%20Review.htm

Some people have become atheists or agnostics because they can't buy into the theological doctrines that the vast majority of people in history, who have been ignorant of the name of Christ or who never repented, are doomed to eternal torment in hell. I think Robert Ingersoll and Mark Twain both became unbelievers for this reason, at least in part. However, as is explained here, most people will have their first opportunity to be saved after they die and those who don't, they will be destroyed, not eternally tortured.

https://lionofjudah1.org/doctrinalhtml/Do%20You%20Have%20An%20Immortal%20Soul%201007.htm

https://lionofjudah1.org/doctrinalhtml/Here%20and%20Hereafter.htm

Some think that science and reason have to contradict faith and supernatural revelation. So they choose reason and science over faith and Christ. However, I agree with Thomas Aquinas on this matter, who labored mightily to reconcile the two. For evidence that Christian and biblical ideas helped to create modern science, click on the two links below, the first one being the much shorter essay:

https://www.icr.org/article/christianity-cause-modern-science

https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Is%20Christianity%20a%20Cause%20of%20Science.htm

Many atheists and agnostics believe that there are no logical or objective reasons to believe in the bible, which they regard as a collection of Hebrew myths. However, based on objective methods of evaluating primary sources, such as the bibliographical test, the external evidence test, and the internal evidence test, there are great reasons to believe that the bible has a supernatural origin. Ancient historical sources, archeological evidence, and fulfilled prophecy, when combined together, give powerful reasons for making faith in the bible to be a reasonable decision to make. For some of this kind of evidence, click on this link below:

https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Is%20the%20Bible%20the%20Word%20of%20God.htm

Some agnostics and atheists reason that because the universe is so enormous, since it may contain 200 billion galaxies, why should we believe that God cares for mankind, who lives on one puny dust speck in the vast cosmos. However, instead of refuting the bible, such reasoning merely confirms it. After all, King David himself asked (Psalm 8:3-4): “When I consider Thy heavens,the work of Thy Fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou has ordained; What is man, that Thou dost take thought of him? And the son of man, that thou does care for him?” Isaiah 40:15 proclaims, “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales.” So this idea that (say) the displacement of the geocentric model of the solar system by the heliocentric model was some kind of major blow against the bible's worldview is simply nonsense.

Ayn Rand, the philosopher-novelist who wrote "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," was a hardcore atheist. Her reasoning against God was that the existence of God made man seem puny, unimportant, and insignificant. It also was deemed to be irrational to believe in the supernatural by her. She also rejected the Christian morality of self-sacrifice and altruism. She believe that capitalism and Christianity were incompatible, so she chose capitalism. For a brief critique of her philosophy from a Christian viewpoint, click here:

https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Atlas%20Shrugged%20Brief%20Response%200411.htm

Another factor would be modernization theory. The growth of Islam even in Western countries, especially in Europe, undermines that kind of sociological analysis. Notice that the kinds of arguments skeptics endlessly mount against (certain kinds of) Christianity, such as over predestination, the condemnation of the ignorant unsaved to eternal torture in hell, the subordination of women, a history of imperialism, state domination by a religious faith, oppression of dissident groups, a history of slavery, evolution, etc., apply even more to Islam, yet their viewpoint seemingly has no effects on the growth of Islam even in developed countries. The 1979 revolution in Iran, which was an ideological reaction in part against the shah's attempts to modernize and Westernize his country, shows that this process isn't automatic. Furthermore, the main growth of Christianity in recent decades has been in Africa and certain Asian countries, such as South Korea. So even as agnosticism and atheism are growing in influence in the West, they haven't had much success in many third world countries outside of those dominated by Communist or Marxist ideology, such as Red China and North Korea. In those countries, Christianity isn't seen as a institutional force tied to the (corrupt) ruling establishment, so it doesn't carry the historical baggage that the old state churches of Europe, whether or not they have been disestablished in the modern period. Hence, Christianity (and Islam) are growing in the Third World even as Christianity declines in the West. For more on this kind of perspective, see Alister McGrath's “The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Unbelief in the Modern World.” https://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Atheism-Disbelief-Modern-World/dp/0385500629

In a modern pluralistic and multicultural society, some become skeptics because they can't believe that only one religion is true. However, if the bible is right when it asserts that there is only one path to salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), then all the other religions are wrong. So then we're back to the point made above about objective evidence for belief in the bible. Just because people are nice in their behavior doesn't mean that their worldviews are equally good as any others.

So there are some reasons for why people have become atheists and agnostics. One also sees this from peer pressure and the intellectual influence of skeptical academics over the past 250 and more years, such as Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Darwin, Nietzsche, Shopenhauer etc., as their anti-biblical ideas were transmitted to average people over several generations through colleges and schools. We can see this through the influence of JEDP/documentary theory of the origin of the Old Testament even as that school can be easily rebutted by the work of Gleason L. Archer, “A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. https://www.amazon.com/Survey-Old-Testament-Introduction/dp/0802484344

So many of the arguments made against belief in Christ by atheists are often based on a lack of knowledge of the evidence for belief in the bible. Often there is an utter lack of knowledge of the basic arguments of Christianity apologetics. The arguments of atheists and agnostics should start where the arguments of Christian apologists end, instead of trying to hoodwink uninformed people that standard rebuttals to their arguments don't exist. It does take faith to believe in Jesus, but then again, to believe the universe popped out of nothing once in the past or that life, which is incredibly complex, occurred once by chance, is much harder to believe in by comparison. The same goes for the idea that human consciousness and reason itself was formed by irrational random material processes, which certainly would call its intrinsic reliability into question, including its conclusions that atheism is true. I'll place my faith in Jesus, who offers me eternal life, instead of in brute matter, which offers me eternal death.

Perhaps more generally it would be helpful as well to read books on Christian apologetics, such as those making the case for belief in the Bible and for faith in God's existence and goodness, including those by C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, Henry Morris, Duane Gish, J.P. Moreland, Francis Schaeffer, Phillip E. Johnson, R.C. Sproul, Norman Giesler, Gleason Archer, Stephen Meyer, etc. Stephen Meyer’s book “The Return of the God Hypothesis” would be particularly important for the college-educated skeptics to read with an open mind. There are great reasons for having faith in the bible, such as its historical accuracy, fulfilled prophecies, and archeological discoveries.

I particular recommend, for starters, C.S. Lewis’s apologetic works, such as “Miracles,” “Mere Christianity,” “The Screwtape Letters,” “The Abolition of Man,” and “The Problem of Pain.”

More generally:

Gleason Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982). F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1960); The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1988). Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Co., 1976). Jehovah's Witnesses, The Bible: God's Word or Man's? (New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1989). C.S. Lewis, Walter Hooper, ed., God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970). Paul Little, Know Why You Believe (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1988). John Warwick Montgomery, Evidence for Faith: Deciding the God Question (Dallas: Probe Books, 1991). Josh McDowell, More than a Carpenter (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1986); Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Historical Evidences for the Christian Faith (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1979), vol 1; More Evidence that Demands a Verdict (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1981); The Resurrection Factor (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1981); with Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1986); with Bill Wilson, He Walked Among Us: Evidence for the Historical Jesus (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993) [This book is especially recommended; it's likely the closest thing to a refutation of Conder written in advance]. J.P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Co., 1987). Frank Morison, Who Moved the Stone? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1958). Henry M. Morris and Henry M. Morris, III, Many Infallible Proofs: Evidences for the Christian Faith (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1996). Ronald Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow From Pagan Thought? (Richardson, Texas: Probe Books, 1992). R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Classical Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984). [Warning!--only for the determined reader!]

On the creation/evolution debate:

Henry Morris, “Scientific Creationism.” Duane T. Gish, “Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No!” Marvin L. Luebenow, “Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils.” Jehovah’s Witnesses, “Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?” Duane T. Gish, “Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics.” John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, “The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications.” Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker, “What Is Creation Science?” W.R. Bird, “The Origin of Species: The Theories of Evolution and of Abrupt Appearance.”

Click here to access essays that defend Christianity: /apologetics.html

Click here to access essays that explain Christian teachings: /doctrinal.html

Click here to access notes for sermonettes: /sermonettes.html