The Problem with Atheism
Looking for God? Get Reasonable!
The materialistic focus of atheists does not allow them more than a superficial understanding of things. Dependence on the mind alone weakens their souls, and they close their eyes to what is more profound. It is not inability to think, but a matter of warped thinking. While evidences of God’s existence are not such as can be dismissed, the mind cannot continue beyond a certain point. An indication of straight thinking is that one proceeds to the limit of his intellect and then stops at that point, neither rejecting what preceded of reasonable deductions nor moving further into the realm of the unknown without academic reasoning. In simpler words, the reality of God’s existence cannot be understood through reason.
Atheists try to limit God to a temporal entity and fail to sort out the problems that accompany such a concept. For example, they bring in the issue of time and space. A temporal being, they say, is part of and belongs to time and space. Nicholas Everitt echoes their thoughts when he writes:
“There is a straightforward reason for saying that the universe as a whole could not have a cause. Recall the phrase ‘the universe’ is here being used to include space and time as well as matter. This means that there could not have been an event preceding the universe and bringing it about, for the simple reason that there was not time before the start of the universe in which that event could have occurred. The first moment of time was the first moment of the universe. If it were possible that there had been any event before the supposed start of the universe, that would simply show that the universe had in fact begun earlier than we had assumed. (The Non-existence of God, p. 70)
They conclude that God could not have triggered the creation except within a framework of time, but this becomes paradoxical when time is seen as an aspect of His creation.
The materialistic mindset of atheists is further apparent from the following words of the same author, which follows a discussion on “the argument [for God] from contingency.” This is the line of reasoning which ‘ says that since every occurrence must have a cause, then God has to be the final cause (or necessary being) if a vicious circle is to be avoided. He writes:
“We need to ask for more detail about how this necessary being explains the existence of the material universe. What we need is something like an account of the mechanism by which the necessary being can produce a universe, or something like a natural law which links states of the necessary being with the production of a universe.
Further along, he quotes Richard Dawkins:
“In consistency, you must either use the probability theory in judging whether God exists, or must stop using it when you adjudicate between other scientific theories. If you take the first option, you will be committed to theism; if you take the second option, you will be doomed to scientific skepticism.
That atheists are not able to understand the concept of God in non-materialistic terms is evident in the following question from the same source: ”If everything, including the universe itself, is caused by something or the other, what caused the creator?” (As the Prophet of Islam had observed, “People will surely question everything until they say, ‘God created everything but who created God?” (Narrated by Muslim and al-Bukhari)
In short, despite the fact that atheists fail to explain where the universe came from, they refuse to accept God as the ultimate cause. They prefer to remain within the vicious circle.
Author : Syed Iqbal Zaheer
