Does atheism even really exist?

[another_lost_guy]

You may have read this thread title and thought "of course atheism exists, my coworker is an atheist" or something like that.

No, your coworker just calls himself an atheist, but in reality he just worships lower gods than Christ (such as video games, anime, porn, money, etc

Here is the scripture I see as backing this up:

“Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” - Philippians 3:19

In my opinion, as someone who is neither a priest or a theologian, this shows that all atheists worship their own god(s), which dismantles many pretentious atheist arguments such as "I just worship one less god than you do" and "religion is inherited", etc;

Scripture does not really define what atheism is aside from it being foolish so I wanted to make this thread to ask if we as Christians should even believe in such a thing as atheism

 

[d taylor]

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​

Well you know many who call themselves an atheist, at one point in their life were either a member of some type of church.
And actually if some of them ever believed in Jesus for Eternal Life, God's free gift. Then, even though they may no longer say they are a believer, they still remain a pernamnet born again child of God.

 

[jonojim1337]

Atheists become the biggest believers on their death bed, a wise man once said.

 

[PloverWing]

I don't see Philippians 3 as addressing atheism in particular. Paul talks in 3:18 about "enemies of the cross of Christ", which is not the same thing as thinking that the available evidence is insufficient to prove the existence of God.

I believe atheists when they say that they are genuinely not persuaded that God (or a pantheon of gods) exists.

 

[RileyG]

I don't see Philippians 3 as addressing atheism in particular. Paul talks in 3:18 about "enemies of the cross of Christ", which is not the same thing as thinking that the available evidence is insufficient to prove the existence of God.

I believe atheists when they say that they are genuinely not persuaded that God (or a pantheon of gods) exists.

Agreed. Faith is ultimately a gift from God, and it’s not something that can be forced upon someone, in my opinion.

 

[another_lost_guy]

I don't see Philippians 3 as addressing atheism in particular. Paul talks in 3:18 about "enemies of the cross of Christ", which is not the same thing as thinking that the available evidence is insufficient to prove the existence of God.

I believe atheists when they say that they are genuinely not persuaded that God (or a pantheon of gods) exists.

I also believe atheists when they say they are genuinely not persuaded that the true Christian God exists. The problem is that atheists do not realize that they worship other gods. Their gods are their stomach, neil tyson, reddit.com, etc;. It's true that many atheists doubt Christianity, but it's not true that atheists don't worship their own gods. If it is possible to worship one's own stomach and even inanimate objects here on earth (Genesis 31:19) then there are many other false gods out there that atheists absolutely worship

 

[another_lost_guy]

Agreed. Faith is ultimately a gift from God, and it’s not something that can be forced upon someone, in my opinion.

I also agree with this.

 

[another_lost_guy]

I don't see Philippians 3 as addressing atheism in particular. Paul talks in 3:18 about "enemies of the cross of Christ", which is not the same thing as thinking that the available evidence is insufficient to prove the existence of God.

I believe atheists when they say that they are genuinely not persuaded that God (or a pantheon of gods) exists.

My argument is this:

It is possible to worship one's own stomach (Phillipians 3)
It is possible to have gods made of inanimate things on earth (Genesis 31:19)

Therefore the Christian definition of 'god' and 'worship' is looser than most of us (including atheists) realize, meaning an atheist can worship a false god without believing in an all-powerful deity, making the term 'atheist' itself contradictory. An example of this happening is an atheist prioritizing financial success over giving to the poor. In doing so would be worshipping a false god.

 

[jacks]

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between "false god" and "idol". I tend to think that people make "idols" of many things. That is they place that thing above God in importance. An obvious one is money. Not that they think money is something that is truly a god (false god), rather that it is something they value above all else. (idol).

Hopefully what I said makes some sense...

 

[PloverWing]

I also believe atheists when they say they are genuinely not persuaded that the true Christian God exists. The problem is that atheists do not realize that they worship other gods. Their gods are their stomach, neil tyson, reddit.com, etc;. It's true that many atheists doubt Christianity, but it's not true that atheists don't worship their own gods. If it is possible to worship one's own stomach and even inanimate objects here on earth (Genesis 31:19) then there are many other false gods out there that atheists absolutely worship

My argument is this:

It is possible to worship one's own stomach (Phillipians 3)
It is possible to have gods made of inanimate things on earth (Genesis 31:19)

Therefore the Christian definition of 'god' and 'worship' is looser than most of us (including atheists) realize, meaning an atheist can worship a false god without believing in an all-powerful deity, making the term 'atheist' itself contradictory. An example of this happening is an atheist prioritizing financial success over giving to the poor. In doing so would be worshipping a false god.

I've heard sermons to this effect, but I don't buy it. It weakens the definitions of "god" and "worship" if we just mean "something I value" or "something of very high priority to me".

When I use the word "worship", it includes a sense of the sacred or holy or (to use Rudolf Otto's word) numinous. Financial success might be something a person values and pursues to a fault, but it's hard for me to imagine people seeing money as genuinely numinous. Reddit can be a tremendous time-thief ("Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?", indeed), but, again, numinous?

By contrast, I think the idols mentioned in the Old Testament really were perceived as embodying spirit-beings, or maybe the numinous aspects of the sun, fertility, the earth, and so on. It's tempting to apply these OT passages to modern activities like shrewd financial investing, but most modern Americans aren't genuine polytheists in the way that the ancients were. They saw gods everywhere. Post-Enlightenment, many Americans see gods nowhere.

 

[PloverWing]

As an aside:

Their gods are their stomach, neil tyson...

Do you mean Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist? He's a cool guy, but I had no idea anyone venerated him as a god.

 

[Fervent]

There seem to be 2 questions at play, the first being whether it is possible to live as if God does not exist and the second whether simply valuing things elevates them to the point of "worship" and attaining "god" status. The first of these, I believe, is a categorical no. God is such an all-encompassing reality that we cannot effectively deny His existence because something will need to fill the vacuum we create in doing so. But whether this patchwork world picture contains anything that can be called a "god" in and of itself is questionable. So in one sense, the atheist is nothing but a fool trying to live an untenable reality. But is he still an atheist? I would say yes, and so "atheism" as a concept is a sensible one to speak of.

 

[another_lost_guy]

I've heard sermons to this effect, but I don't buy it. It weakens the definitions of "god" and "worship" if we just mean "something I value" or "something of very high priority to me".

When I use the word "worship", it includes a sense of the sacred or holy or (to use Rudolf Otto's word) numinous. Financial success might be something a person values and pursues to a fault, but it's hard for me to imagine people seeing money as genuinely numinous. Reddit can be a tremendous time-thief ("Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?", indeed), but, again, numinous?

By contrast, I think the idols mentioned in the Old Testament really were perceived as embodying spirit-beings, or maybe the numinous aspects of the sun, fertility, the earth, and so on. It's tempting to apply these OT passages to modern activities like shrewd financial investing, but most modern Americans aren't genuine polytheists in the way that the ancients were. They saw gods everywhere. Post-Enlightenment, many Americans see gods nowhere.

I trust Paul's usage of the word worship. I would also refer to Matthew 6:24.

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between "false god" and "idol". I tend to think that people make "idols" of many things. That is they place that thing above God in importance. An obvious one is money. Not that they think money is something that is truly a god (false god), rather that it is something they value above all else. (idol).

Hopefully what I said makes some sense...

I think the parable of the 10 Virgins was partially about this

There seem to be 2 questions at play, the first being whether it is possible to live as if God does not exist and the second whether simply valuing things elevates them to the point of "worship" and attaining "god" status. The first of these, I believe, is a categorical no. God is such an all-encompassing reality that we cannot effectively deny His existence because something will need to fill the vacuum we create in doing so. But whether this patchwork world picture contains anything that can be called a "god" in and of itself is questionable. So in one sense, the atheist is nothing but a fool trying to live an untenable reality. But is he still an atheist? I would say yes, and so "atheism" as a concept is a sensible one to speak of.

I would say that an atheist is able to convince himself that there are no gods under an atheist framework. But under a Christian framework, I believe scripture suggests that the things we give our attention to are important, so much so that worship itself can be ultimately boiled down to paying attention to something. This is seen literally in Numbers 21:8–9 and fulfilled by the crucifixion. I believe the things we pay attention to (whether inanimate or animate) are gods, and we should strive to focus on the True God, Jesus Christ, at all times. Under these parameters I hope it should be easy to see why even an atheist could worship multiple gods.

 

[another_lost_guy]

As an aside:



Do you mean Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist? He's a cool guy, but I had no idea anyone venerated him as a god.

I don't like him and I refuse to give him the reverence of using his middle name.

 

[another_lost_guy]

So I was looking into this idea a little bit more and it turns out a guy named Paul Tillich already had the idea like 70 years ago. Don't you just hate when that happens? It's like when you think of a good invention that will make you rich and then you google it and somebody already made it and it's not even that successful. Anyways apparently he is Lutheran which is crazy because I am Lutheran too. And he has German ancestry and lived in Illinois? I am thinking that I am an incarnation of this guy...I ALSO had a girlfriend named Hannah

 

[RileyG]

I've heard sermons to this effect, but I don't buy it. It weakens the definitions of "god" and "worship" if we just mean "something I value" or "something of very high priority to me".

When I use the word "worship", it includes a sense of the sacred or holy or (to use Rudolf Otto's word) numinous. Financial success might be something a person values and pursues to a fault, but it's hard for me to imagine people seeing money as genuinely numinous. Reddit can be a tremendous time-thief ("Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?", indeed), but, again, numinous?

By contrast, I think the idols mentioned in the Old Testament really were perceived as embodying spirit-beings, or maybe the numinous aspects of the sun, fertility, the earth, and so on. It's tempting to apply these OT passages to modern activities like shrewd financial investing, but most modern Americans aren't genuine polytheists in the way that the ancients were. They saw gods everywhere. Post-Enlightenment, many Americans see gods nowhere.

Not to go off topic, but did you study theology academically or have an academic degree?

God bless

 

[PloverWing]

Not to go off topic, but did you study theology academically or have an academic degree?

I took a number of theology courses during my undergraduate years at Wheaton College. Not quite enough to earn a religion double major (math was my primary major), but enough to give me a solid foundation.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You may have read this thread title and thought "of course atheism exists, my coworker is an atheist" or something like that.

No, your coworker just calls himself an atheist, but in reality he just worships lower gods than Christ (such as video games, anime, porn, money, etc

Here is the scripture I see as backing this up:

“Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” - Philippians 3:19

In my opinion, as someone who is neither a priest or a theologian, this shows that all atheists worship their own god(s), which dismantles many pretentious atheist arguments such as "I just worship one less god than you do" and "religion is inherited", etc;

Scripture does not really define what atheism is aside from it being foolish so I wanted to make this thread to ask if we as Christians should even believe in such a thing as atheism

On one side of the argument, I can agree with you that atheism seems to be more of a psychological twist resulting in disbelief than an all out failure to recognize the possibility of a Divine Presence. I say it's a "twist" because all too frequently these days, for the last several decades, those in the U.S. who insist they are atheist are also, coincidentally, former Christians, not simply folks who grew up and were nurtured ideologically in a thoroughly secular household.

On the other hand, atheism can be defined more or less as a philosophical position, one expressing disbelief through what it deems are numerous, tangible, sound arguments rather than via mere existential feelings and fleeting reactions. On this count, if and when a person claims the position of atheism, I 'believe' them when they say, "I ...... don't.......believe ......... in ............. ANY ...... gods." And of course, I'm saddened to hear this when my ears receive that sort of talk, which happens now almost everyone day.

 

[Hentenza]

On one side of the argument, I can agree with you that atheism seems to be more of a psychological twist resulting in disbelief than an all out failure to recognize the possibility of a Divine Presence. I say it's a "twist" because all too frequently these days, for the last several decades, those in the U.S. who insist they are atheist are also, coincidentally, former Christians, not simply folks who grew up and were nurtured ideologically in a thoroughly secular household.

On the other hand, atheism can be defined more or less as a philosophical position, one expressing disbelief through what it deems are numerous, tangible, sound arguments rather than via mere existential feelings and fleeting reactions. On this count, if and when a person claims the position of atheism, I 'believe' them when they say, "I ...... don't.......believe ......... in ............. ANY ...... gods." And of course, I'm saddened to hear this when my ears receive that sort of talk, which happens now almost everyone day.

Do you remember the symbol for atheist that CF used to have before we changed platforms?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Do you remember the symbol for atheist that CF used to have before we changed platforms?

Nope, I can't say that I remember it.