I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist Read Online Free PDF Page A

volitional reasons to reject Christianity, namely, Christian morality, which seems to restrict our choices in life. Since most of us don’t want to answer to anyone, yielding our freedom to an unseen God is not something we naturally want to do.
    Yet despite these intellectual, emotional, and volitional obstacles, we submit that it’s not faith in Christianity that’s difficult but faith in atheism or any other religion. That is, once one looks at the evidence, we think it takes more faith to be a non-Christian than it does to be a Christian. This may seem like a counterintuitive claim, but it’s simply rooted in the fact that every religious worldview requires faith—even the worldview that says there is no God.
    Why? Because as limited human beings, we do not possess the type of knowledge that will provide us with absolute proof of God’s existence or nonexistence. Outside of the knowledge of our own existence (I know I exist because I have to exist in order to ponder the question), we deal in the realm of probability. Whatever we’ve concluded about the existence of God, it’s always possible that the opposite conclusion is true.
    In fact, it is possible that our conclusions in this book are wrong. We don’t think they are because we have good evidence to support them. Indeed, we think our conclusions are true beyond a reasonable doubt. (This type of certainty, say, 95-plus percent certain, is the best that fallible and finite human beings can attain for most questions, and it is more than sufficient for even the biggest decisions in life.) Nevertheless, some faith is required to overcome the possibility that we are wrong.
    THE FAITH OF AN ATHEIST
    While some faith is required for our conclusions, it’s often forgotten that faith is also required to believe any worldview, including atheism and pantheism. We were reminded of this recently when we met an atheist named Barry at one of our seminars. Barry was incredulous that a mutual friend, Steve, had become a Christian.
    He said, “I can’t figure Steve out. He claims to be intellectual, but he can’t answer all the objections I pose to him about Christianity. He says he doesn’t have all the answers because he’s new and still learning.”
    I (Frank) said, “Barry, it’s virtually impossible to know everything about a particular topic, and it’s certainly impossible when that topic is an infinite God. So there has to come a point where you realize you have enough information to come to a conclusion, even if unanswered questions remain.”
    Barry agreed but still didn’t realize that he was doing exactly what he was chiding Steve for doing. Barry had decided his view—atheism—was correct even though he did not have exhaustive information to support it. Did he know for sure there is no God? Had he investigated every argument and evidence for the existence of God? Did he possess exhaustive information on the question of God? Could he answer every objection to atheism? Of course not. Indeed, it would be impossible to do so. Since Barry, like Steve, is dealing in the realm of probability rather than absolute certainty, he has to have a certain amount of faith to believe that God does not exist.
    Although he claimed to be an agnostic, Carl Sagan made the ultimate statement of faith in atheistic materialism when he claimed that “the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” 1 How did he know that for sure? He didn’t. How could he? He was a limited human being with limited knowledge. Sagan was operating in the realm of probability just like Christians are when they say God exists. The question is, who has more evidence for their conclusion? Which conclusion is more reasonable? As we’ll see when we look at the evidence, the atheist has to muster a lot more faith than the Christian.
    You may be thinking, “The atheist has to muster a lot more faith than the Christian! What possibly could Geisler and Turek mean by that?” We mean that the less