Prometheus Books (Buffalo, New York), the publisher of Humanist Manifesto I and II and numerous other humanist books, has published a little book by B.C. Johnson entitled Atheist Debater's Handbook designed to "offer a concise set of rejoinders for use by atheists in their formal (and informal) debates with theists" (p. 10). Since the American Humanist Association is so influential, and has in fact successfully established humanism as the only religion legally taught in public schools, it behooves Christians to answer the flawed arguments this book presents.
 

Amazingly, Johnson's book (like other atheist books) does not even attempt to offer proof that there is no God! Instead, in his first chapter, Johnson sets forth a foundational argument that underlies all the following chapters of his book. Once this one argument is disproven, the rest of Johnson's book falls like a house of cards built upon shifting sand. Here is Johnson's argument:

It is incumbent upon the theist to provide reasons for his belief that God is the true explanation of the universe and morality. The atheist, for his part, does not necessarily offer an explanation; he simply does not accept the theist's explanation. Therefore, the atheist need only demonstrate that the theist has failed to justify his position.

Another point to note is that the atheist believes in the existence of the universe and does not believe in anything which is more fundamental. The theist believes in the existence of the universe and---in addition---he believes in the existence of God. The theist, therefore, believes in one more thing than the atheist. If all beliefs should be justified, then surely the more one believes, the more justification one must produce. Clearly, the theist must justify this extra belief to the atheist. (p. 12) [Italics original, boldface added]

It is not true that theists believe in one thing more than atheists. While theists worship the creator God who is separate from His creation, atheists worship an idol (self-made god) called evolution. Atheists replace God with an imaginary dead natural force, which say they, is continuously forming simple things into complex ones. Evolution is how atheists explain the universe and morality. Atheists believe in the universe and---in addition---they believe in the existence of evolution. Therefore, if atheists cannot prove the existence of evolution, they have lost their case, for the only alternative to evolution is special creation, and special creation means that God is. Since it is not true that theists believe one thing more than atheists, it is also not true that atheists are not obligated to demonstrate their position.
 

Building on his false foundational premise, the remaining chapters of Johnson's Atheist Debater's Handbook make no attempt to prove God does not exist. Instead, they use distorted facts, twisted logic, and cleaver double-talk to attempt to disprove what Johnson perceives to be the major arguments for the existence of God. The simple fact is atheism is based on faith not fact; atheists offer no proof against the existence of God because they have no proof to offer! Henry M. Morris, in his book The Long War Against God: the History and Impact of the Creation/Evolution Conflict (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1989), page 114, clearly illustrates this:

That humanism is merely a more genteel term for atheism is confirmed by the current president of the American Humanist Association, Dr. Isaac Asimov, who is also probably the most prolific writer in the whole world of science, having authored approximately three hundred books, covering every scientific field. He says: "[I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." [[An Interview with Isaac Asimov on Science and the Bible,] Free Inquiry 2 (Spring 1982), page 9] .

One very significant admission appears in this statement of atheistic faith by Asimov. Not only does he acknowledge that humanism is essentially the same as atheism, but also that atheism is nothing but an emotional belief. In spite of the fact that he is one of the most knowledgeable scientists in the world, having written books on just about every branch of science in existence, he recognizes that he has no [evidence to prove God doesn't exist.] If Asimov has no evidence against God, we can be sure nobody does! He believes in humanism/atheism simply because that is what he wants to believe! The same is true for every other devotee of this man-centered religion.
 

Johnson ends chapter one of his book with the following illustration of how to apply his premise:

Atheism can be more positively defended in the following way. We can properly claim to know that many things are not so if reasons have not been offered to support the claim that they are so. For example, I am able to claim that I know my friend Frank is not home precisely because there is no reason to believe that he is home. There is no noise coming from his house, the lights are out at a time when he is usually awake, his bed is empty, and so forth. Everything seems to count for my belief and nothing against it. I could discover that I was mistaken, but the possibility of error exists for virtually any knowledge claim one might make.

The parallel between the belief that Frank is at home and the belief that God exists is an exact one. If Frank is at home, there will be evidence indicating this state of affairs. On the other hand, if there is no evidence that he is home, one can claim to know that he is not at home. Similarly, if God exists, there will be evidence of this; signs will emerge which point to such a conclusion. However, if there is no evidence that He exists, then one can claim to know that God does not exist....If I am correct, then the claim that there is no God can be justified on the grounds that there is no reason to believe that he exists. (pages 14-16)

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. (Psalms 19.1-3)

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Col 1.16-17)

Why does the atheist reject God as the explanation of the universe and morality? People become atheists for one reason only: they love to sin vile sins which they know God says makes them worthy of receiving the death penalty. Most atheists are homosexuals or have indulged in other gross immoralities. Atheism is their attempt to free themselves from the awesome guilt and fear resulting from such sins. If there is no God, they reason, then there is also no sin or judgment. The fact that when atheists want their speech to have great force they interlace their profanity with such Bible words as "God," "Jesus Christ," "Hell," and "Damn" shows that deep down inside they know God is. Oh, but how they hate Him! How they wish He would go away and quit bothering their consciences! How they want to drive His promise of eternal judgment from their minds!

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Rom 1.19-32)
 

God says that a person who chooses not to believe in God is a fool: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (Psalms 14.1). Webster's Dictionary defines a fool as "a person with little or no judgment, common sense, wisdom, etc.; a silly person; a simpleton." A simpleton is "a person of weak intellect; someone who is easily fooled."

Atheists are fools because they have rejected the only basis of knowing anything. They are not atheists because they are fools; rather, they are fools because they are atheists. When God calls atheists fools, He does not mean that they have low I.Q.'s or that they cannot learn facts. Why some of them hold doctorates from leading universities, and their heads are filled with megabytes of data. But their close-minded refusal to even consider the possibility of God's existence, much less anything God has revealed to them in His Word, makes them incapable of logically and scientificly analyzing data so as to arrive at valid conclusions. They are "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth...so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith" (2 Tim 3.7-8).

Since "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1.7), and since atheists don't even believe in God, much less fear Him, they have no beginning for knowledge. This fact is clearly seen in one of the atheist's basic principles---the contradictory idea that "the only absolute is that there are no absolutes." This idea (which is necessary if one is to reject the absolute God) is found over and over again in atheist writings. For example, "Humanism," says atheist/Humanist Sir Julian Huxley, "will have nothing to do with Absolutes, including absolute truth, absolute morality, absolute perfection and absolute authority" (The Humanist Frame, p. 14). Since the atheist believes nothing to be absolutely true, he has no firm foundation upon which to base knowledge. To know something is to be sure of it. The atheist believes one can be absolutely sure of nothing; therefore the atheist can know nothing for sure. Logically, there cannot be an absolute that there are no absolutes. However, even atheism's absurd principle that there are no absolutes proves atheism wrong. For if there are no absolute truths, then it must not be absolutely true that there is no God. Therefore God must be.

In chapter two of the Atheist Debater's Handbook (page 23) Johnson says, "Ignorance [of the natural causes of puzzling phenomena] is not a good reason to believe that God exists." But Johnson fails to apply this same logic to himself: ignorance is not a good reason to believe God does not exist. Instead Johnson declares, "The atheist may claim to know that God does not exist because no good reason has been given to support the belief that He does" even though neither has no good reason been given to support the belief that God does not exist! With this declaration Johnson has actually inadvertently admitted that the atheist presupposes that there is no God before examining the facts of nature. He wants to interpret nature as disproving God, so he refuses to give the evidence its logical conclusion. Johnson's declaration also proves that atheists are dishonest, for they claim to "know" something for which they have no evidence whatsoever. An agnostic can at least be honored for admitting lack of knowledge, but atheists dishonestly claim to know something they do not.

Atheists are fools because they can't differentiate between faith and science. Specifically, they confuse the theory of evolution with science, when it is in reality a faith doctrine of the Satan designed religion called humanism, and is without one shred of scientific proof. Science deals only with what can be observed. No one has ever observed a Big Bang organize matter. No one has ever observed dead matter spontaneously turn into living beings. No one has ever observed non-human life birth a human baby. No one has ever observed simple things forming into complex things without the help of a living designer of high intellect. In fact just the opposite is observed: everything without exception is devolving downward the complex degenerating to the simple. Things wear out, and eventually break down or die. Never do things get newer and more highly organized with age, or as the result of exploding. This law of the universal disintegration of organized matter is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics and has been thoroughly tested in every field of science. It is an irreversible one-way process, and never even once has an exception been found to it! Since the upward evolution claimed by atheists has never been observed and is just the opposite of what is observed, it must be recognized as an unscientific, blind faith of people who refuse to open their eyes to the plain facts of nature.

Atheists are fools because they willingly are ignorant of the evidences of Divine judgment upon past God-rejecters. Only a fool would scoff and laugh at God who gives to all creatures life and breath and takes it at His will. Only a fool mocks his Maker. Only a fool spits in the face of the almighty God, who drowned every unbeliever on the face of the earth in the days of Noah, then cast their souls into eternal Hell. Only a fool would notice fossils inland high upon mountains, massive layers of sedimentary rock everywhere, and huge glaciers slowly melting away, without acknowledging them as possible evidence of a universal flood!

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men....But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (2 Pet 3.3-10)

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly....the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. (2 Pet 2.4-9)
 

It is not only possible to know God is, it is also possible to know God. In a prayer to God the Father, Jesus Christ said: [And this is life eternal, that they [believers] might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.] (John 17:3) True Christianity is not just pie in the sky by and by when you die. True faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ results in immediate knowledge that the Bible is true, that God is, and in knowing God. Yes, faith must precede knowledge, [for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him] (Hebrews 11:6). But the promise of salvation, forgiveness, reconciliation, and everlasting life is fulfilled instantaneously at the moment we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. At that moment a miraculous change called the new birth takes place in our inner man, and the Spirit of God [beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God] (Rom 8.16). At that moment we no longer just believe God is, we know He is.

I challenge every atheist: "O taste and see that the LORD is good" (Ps 34.8). Otherwise, don't claim to know what you do not.

To learn how to taste of God, read "Ye Must Be Born Again."
 

(C) Copyright 1994 by Louis A. Turk. All rights reserved. You may  reprint this article, provided you do not edit it in any way without the author's consent, and provided this paragraph is printed at the end of the article.  Other publication requires advance permission of the author.