I posted “Quotes on atheism” a few days ago, and it has generated a good discussion in the comments section. If you are all interested in atheism in light of the Christian arguments for the existence of God, take a look at the string on comments, and feel free to jump in.
Here are some more quotes on atheism from the March/April 2008 issue of Modern Reformation magazine. All of these are from C.S. Lewis:
Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.
Now that I am a Christian I do not have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable; but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.
And his classic statement on Christ:
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg–or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.
Grace and Peace
GeoChristian 
1) Literally the defination of wishful thinking.
2) … Truth by strength of conviction is NOT a good argument. It is also a fallacy.
3) Or he could not have existed.
Or he could have been misquoted.
Or he could have been mistaken.
Or he could be overhyped and not that incredibly moral (given that rationalizations have to be found for certain actions this definately applies).
Are you beginning to see why atheists aren’t impressed with theists? All stule and no substance.
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Samuel,
1) The wishful thinking argument can go both ways, so it ends up being of little use. One can say that an atheist really really really hopes that there is no ultimate Judge of the universe, so just pretends that that Judge does not exist, to his/her own peril.
2) C.S. Lewis was not putting this forward as an argument for the truth of Christianity, but as a statement of how he felt as an atheist. For other reasons than some gut feeling, Lewis, as an atheist, had this nagging fear that maybe he was wrong.
3) Now you are the one who is doing some wishful thinking and not looking at the Jesus of history (especially when you suggest that Jesus didn’t exist — that’s on the same intellectual level as alien abductions).
Thanks for your comments, but no, I’m not seeing at all why atheists aren’t impressed with theists. Most of them spend all of their time listening to one another and don’t realize the depth of thinking that has existed throughout the ages in Christianity.
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I would highly suggest for you, and any one else interested to read the book ““The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions.” by self-professed secular Jew and mathematics/philosophies teacher David Berlinski.
This tells the story of a Jew who was forced to dig his own grave prior to being shot by a German soldier. Prior to being shot, the old Jewish man advised the German that “God is watching what you are doing.” The Jewish gentleman pointed what i think is the real problem with atheism. “If you have the time please check the book out
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1) ? Alot of atheists would love to have external life or justice. It just happens that they don’t exist.
For those who hope they aren’t punished… most atheists aren’t evil. Unless you are talking about “moral” crimes like sex , drugs and not going to church, which sounds more like the criminal code of a power mad totalitarian and not an all powerful God. Look at what actual totalitarians and facists have banned- it is strikingly similar.
2) So as an atheist he was open to the possibility he was wrong, but as a theist he wasn’t? Isn’t that how cults work? I consider it a virtue to be open to new evidence- something that Christians apparently don’t get.
3) Evidence? You do an ad hominum, but the fact is all the evidence for Jesus comes from the Bible… which was written after he and his disciples were dead. Interestingly the later the book the more fantastic, suggesting that the legend grew and wasn’t based on an actual person.
Because none of these are arguments for God’s existance. That is all atheists as a whole care about.
As for “listening to each other”… that is so stupid it hurts me. Seriously, my eyes burn. Do you think atheists all live in gated communities? That they have special spam filters? That their jobs are atheist only? For the most part they are surrounded by theists (with some countries being the exception).
As for the depth of thinking… I know enough about theology now to skip two semesters at a seminary. That doesn’t change the fact it is nonsense.
Let me give an example- the transendential argument. It states that you have to have a basis for logic, reason and morality and that the basis is God and that atheists hijack it. That they can’t disprove God except by assuming he exists.
Nice argument eh? The flaws are numerous.
– If something is self contradictory it is false.
– Morality was shown to be self supporting by the Euthyphro dilemma two and a half millenia ago.
– Logic is NOT universal- Schrödinger’s cat is a violation of “something cannot be A and not A at the same time. (my interpretaion of this could be flawed- only point that is less than certain)
– Logic was invented and codified. It is emperically based.
– Reason is based off logic and evidence.
– None of these rely on God.
This is the depth I have come to expect of Christianity- proposing profound questions and ignoring the answers in favor of saying God.
…
Sorry for the rant it just happens so often…
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Josephus and Tacitus were two respected historians who lived in the first century and were not Christians. They mention Jesus Christ as a historical figure. Describing how Roman Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the fire in Rome in 64 C.E., Tacitus wrote: “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus [Christ], from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”
Regarding the references made by first- and second-century historians to Jesus and the early Christians, the Encyclopædia Britannica, 2002 Edition, says: “These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the beginning of the 20th centuries.” In 2002, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal stated: “Most scholars, barring the stray atheist, have already accepted Jesus of Nazareth as a historical person.”
Consider the proof that Jesus was resurrected. When Jesus was arrested by his opposers, his closest companions abandoned him, and his friend Peter fearfully denied knowing him. (Matthew 26:55, 56, 69-75) After Jesus’ arrest, his followers scattered. (Matthew 26:31) Then, suddenly, his disciples sprang into action. Peter and John courageously faced the very men who contrived Jesus’ death. Jesus’ disciples became so motivated that they spread his teaching throughout the Roman Empire, preferring to face death rather than compromise their beliefs. What was one reason for this drastic change in attitude? The apostle Paul explains that Jesus was raised from the dead and “appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve.” Paul adds: “After that he appeared to upward of five hundred brothers at one time.” The majority of the eyewitnesses were still alive at the time Paul penned those words. (1 Corinthians 15:3-7) The testimony of one or two eyewitnesses may have been easy for skeptics to dismiss. (Luke 24:1-11) But the testimony of more than five hundred eyewitnesses provided compelling evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead.
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