Some questions for Atheists

Question 1: How old were you when you decided that you weren’t going to believe in what you don’t understand? If you had attempted to explain heavier than air flying, or radio communication to someone in the 12th century you would undoubtably be met with disbelief, and your attempts at an explanation would probably just dig a hole deeper for yourself. Your explanations would be based on assumptions that they don’t share. Similarly, the overwhelming argument I get when talking to Atheists is along the lines of ‘If God exists why do bad things happen’, or ‘if God exists why weren’t the prayers of this believer answered’, and so on. These are not unreasonable questions but having asked the question the Atheists seem to think that their work is done. They don’t go on to try and provide an answer. In fact, they have decided that there is no rational answer so that there is no point in looking. In other words, the question is not asked as a rational question to be answered but simply in order to prop up their own beliefs.

How do you know if you don’t agree with something that its not really because you don’t understand it? How many times have we heard what seems to be a ridiculous argument only to find that when it’s explained it makes perfect sense? These Atheist questions have been answered many times (I’ve answered them myself but also have the Sufi and Christian mystics)

Question 2: Why do you claim that ‘what I see is what there is?’ I’m sure if I served up a meal which looked fantastic but smelt to high heaven you would not eat it. So sometimes this is said as ‘I believe what I can perceive with my own senses’. This, too, is nonsense. We see a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. If we took the small part we can see as being one-inch on a scale from high-frequency gamma waves to ultra low frequency radio waves, the scale would stretch from the Earth to the sun. Why do you think what you can experience in the human condition is all that there is? Especially as, if we are to believe that we came about through random mutations, this range of what we experience too is random. This is leaving aside the concept of other dimensions that I will deal with later.

How do you explain what is outside of science? I’ve examined this more here. Science can answer the why but not the how. Some Atheists claim that science (or the scientific method) can explain everything, others that Atheism is simply a non-belief. Even a basic understanding of quantum physics shows that the universe is not deterministic and therefore can’t be explained by science. I examine that more here.

If you claim that Atheism is non-belief than how is it that you can do anything? You believe that when you open the door you will go through to another room, or you turn the tap and water will come out. You have to have beliefs. If you claim that your beliefs are based on experience then why do you ridicule those who have had religious experiences? These, too, are experiences.

Question 3: Why do you reject God because you reject people who claim to believe in God? Many times people look at the hypocrisy of so-called religious people and say that that is what made them Atheists. Suppose I said that I rejected science because my science teacher had a lucky number? Or because my family were firm believers in science and Atheism but were very narrow minded in their beliefs? God exists. It’s a fact and your intellectual justifications for your Atheism are like a colourblind person trying to argue that colour doesn’t exist and people who see it are deluded.

Question 4: Why do you claim that there are some many religions and so many gods that ‘why should I believe one rather than another?’ Firstly, there are gods and there is God. God is infinite. The God of the Christians, Jews and Muslims is the same (and the same as every other religion that refers to a monotheistic God). It’s a rather juvenile arguing tactic to claim that idols and God are the same. In fact, even a cursory reading of the Quran should dispel that belief to anyone who is intelligent enough to understand.

If you are going to claim that there are too many gods to believe in so religion is worthless, then why get involved in politics? After all there are many political parties and beliefs. Why should I believe in one rather than another?

Question 5: Why do you persist in the argument that if God exists then who created Him? God (the real monotheistic Creator) is infinite. In the Quran it states:

There can be only one infinity. Even the whole of the universe is a creation, He is not the universe. He is beyond the universe. It follows that in order to understand God (not that the finite can ever understand the infinite), we have to understand that there are factors beyond the space-time continuum that we know. Science assumes that there is an objective reality that is made of three dimensional space plus a time dimension that only goes one way. This is nonsense. There are many more dimensions, and time is not ‘one-way’ – it is simply a product of the human condition that until we raise our spiritual awareness we can only appreciate time that has passed.

By Philip Braham on September 1, 2018.