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Psalm 14:1 - The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

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Says, not believes. A fool will tell himself many things that he does not believe in order to not have to contend with reality. 'To say, speak, think' is the gloss given for the Hebrew word translated as 'say' by the Kohlenberger/Mounce Hebrew dictionary. In the Septuagint, the Greek word used is 'εἶπον' (āpon) and the gloss given for that in the BDAG is "to express a thought, opinion, or idea, say, tell." I encourage the reader to dwell on this distinction for a moment, because as explored in-depth within the article Atheist Godless Types (AGT) it is the key to understanding what it is that separates the atheist from the simatheist, agnostic, and apatheist (the latter, collectively, 'Godless Types' or GTs). The distinction between atheists who are consistent with the world view entailed by their words and actions, and the atheistic godless hangers-on is so stark, that it is an offense to language to use the word 'atheist' to describe any but the former. By definition, AGTs are fools, and therefore, no matter how intelligent they might or might not be, there is no limit to what they will allow intellectually or morally. Bear this in mind as we travel the sewer drain of the godless tenets into the gallows.

Let us start off by distinguishing between faith and religion. We will examine that just as it is true that all men proceed by faith and not by sight, it is just as true that man is, due to his fallen nature, prone to being a religionist. Let me explain.

Making the decision to live as an atheist (i.e., as though God does not exist) is a decision of faith, not religion. The bottom line is that AGTs choose this faith because that's what they want to do, not because there is a compelling logic to it which pulls them inexorably along. Thomas Nagel, an AGT of the simatheist variety (who by the way should be commended for speaking the truth of the matter) spoke to this when he wrote:

In order to be accounted as being 'in the fold' or 'of the body,' a religion requires its adherents to engage in rituals, ceremonies, excommunicative procedures, etc., and no one can argue that there are any strictures whatsoever in the faith of the godless. It requires but a single thought: “I do not affirm the proposition that God exists.” After that, it's Katy bar the door on adopting any behavior or practice whatsoever: everything is permitted. However, because every man is created in the image of God and has been made to worship, the AGT cannot long remain without an object of devotion, but because the core tenet of godlessness is a negation, there's nothing to worship. Hence, the AGT must seek elsewhere and therefore moves to religion to adopt a 'suitable' idol to worship. Whether it be manifested as scientism, materialism, humanism, Neo-Darwinism, the list is ever-expanding, at the center of all of these religions is the worship of the self. Each one has its own edicts and parameters which can differ wildly from one another, but what is abundantly apparent to all but those who are both blind and deaf, is that not a single one of the aforementioned religions make any moral requirement whatsoever upon its devotees: not one. The self is therefore safe. As an example of the religiosity of these AGT religions, Nagel was in essence excommunicated by the materialists for having dared to enunciate that Darwinism is wholly inadequate to explain life.

Christianity is also a faith, not a religion. In fact, it is the only world view that is a faith other than atheism. The thief on the cross made but a single admission: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He recognized the existence of God; he recognized the authority of Christ; he recognized his need of a savior. Per the words of Christ, that man was saved from eternal torment: “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” There were no overt acts, no rituals, no works required by the thief, and so it is with Christianity. Of course, it is true that the Holy Bible contains commands to believers, but obedience to those commands is not what saves: a Christian doesn't obey them in a religious way, or the way in which the godless obey the law in order to avoid punishment out of fear, he obeys them because he sees the words of the Bible as being from God to him as to how to live a life that honors God, and of course, out of overflowing gratitude for God's salvific mercy, the Christian wants to obey them, understanding that in obeying them, he is not becoming more 'worthy' of being in God's presence. There is no work that man can perform to be worthy of the all-powerful and perfect Creator. Man cannot build a bridge to cross the infinite void between himself and God. Only an infinite being can do so. Only Christ.

As just covered, the core of all godlessness is a faith, a blind one in point of fact, motivated (paradoxically) by a negation. Therefore, it has no commandments. However, the calculus of godlessness does result in a list of demands it makes of its acolytes. It's a brief list; in fact, there's just a single demand: thou shalt commit suicide. For an AGT to do anything else is to make manifest that there is a telling, glaring, and damning inconsistency in how they have chosen to live. Hence, despite what they do or say as a pretense of an affirmation of the tenets of godlessness, it is obvious that they don't believe them.

Important: as the introduction makes clear, in none of what follows am I in any way advocating that anyone should commit suicide. As a Christian, to so advocate would be evil. All I am doing is shining the tiniest bit of light of the Truth upon the corruption, misery, and death that inheres the world views of the godless. The innate capacity to take moral stands is certainly one of the many important advantages of Christianity over the godless, chaotic world view espoused by them, for an AGT can never take a moral stand on anything. I am simply laying out the reasonable consequences of the godless world view. My proposition is simple: AGTs who are consistent with their world view, who believe what their refusal to affirm the truth of the proposition “God exists” entails, including, but not limited to their statements about the nature of the universe, human beings, thoughts, words, etc., will be actively seeking a way to end their life as soon as possible. Absent that, their pretenses to the tenets of godlessness (next paragraph) are a fraud, and they should be referred to as 'godless types' or 'GTs' for short. All GT variants are the same from a practical perspective as explored in-depth here.

What follows I refer to as the 'tenets of godlessness.' I can almost hear the wails of protest from the GTs: "We have no tenets! That's for you 'religious' types!" Tout au contraire: the refusal to affirm that "God exists" is a veridical proposition does have logical implications to the cosmos and all that is in it. The tenets of godlessness simply lay out the implications of that lack of affirmation. They are as follows:

• God does not exist.
  • From an operative perspective, this is no different than one who says that there is no evidence (or 'insufficient' evidence) for God's existence, or one who simply lives as though God does not exist, whereby they choose to live with an ad hoc morality, i.e., immorality. A life further devoid of meaning, hope, and motive. As is covered in Atheist Godless Types, they are all degrees of a feather.
• The universe exists without meaning or purpose and whatever has happened, is happening, or will happen is without meaning or purpose and is the result of unguided processes.
  • This is actually sufficient for everything else which follows in my setting down of the godless tenets. The reason I continue is due to the AGT penchant for attempting, at every level of dialog, to smuggle in words dripping with meaning or purpose. The only way they can do this and remain consistent would be to explain how that which is meaningless and purposeless can give rise to that which is meaningful and purposeful in a non-trivial and non-temporal way.
  • My guess is that the way in which they would do so would go something like this:

    Sometime in an unknowable past, some random processes (all natural of course!) occurred which gave rise to the basic building blocks of meaning and purpose. Over billions and billions of years, these basic building blocks underwent a transformation due to trillions of unknowable and indemonstrable series of more random changes. These random processes were all superintended by a selection process (all natural of course) which favors meaning and purpose. Those building blocks gradually assumed the form of meaning and purpose that we now know them as today.

  • Rather than indulge the AGT tendency to create out of whole cloth anything and everything in order to not have to contend with the reality of their statements, we will hold their feet to the fire no matter how they squirm to get away, and march on…
• Human beings are a product of a meaningless, purposeless, unguided process called 'evolution' which itself was produced by the meaningless, purposeless, unguided universe²While this statement and all of the statements that flow from it and proceed this one stand on their own, see Atheist Glasses to have it unpacked more fully..
• Consequently, our brains are a product of the same meaningless, purposeless, unguided process of evolution.
• What we consider to be 'our' 'thoughts' are merely a consequence of the meaningless, purposeless, unguided product of evolution referred to as the 'brain.' There is no 'our,' or 'yours:' these are merely emanations of the burbling cauldron of electrochemical reactions taking place within what is referred to as the 'cranial vault,' the place where the brain resides, and which are equally meaningless, purposeless, and the result of the unguided processes of the universe.
• 'True' and 'false' do not exist. These are merely words produced by the meaningless, purposeless, and unguided processes of the brain.
• 'Good' and 'evil' do not exist, for they are merely more words produced by the meaningless, purposeless, and unguided processes of the brain.
• 'Meaning' and 'purpose' do not exist, for they are merely yet more words produced by the meaningless, purposeless, and unguided processes of the brain.

No progress can be made by a godless type who is consistent:

• 'Words' are merely products of meaningless, purposeless, unguided electrochemical processes of the brain.
  • The previous sentence caused me to enter an infinite regress. Full stop.

Let's take a step back, and try to work with 'thoughts:'

• 'Thoughts' are merely products of meaningless, purposeless, unguided electrochemical processes of the brain.
• In order to express or dwell on thoughts, I must use words.
  • The previous sentence caused me to enter an infinite regress. Full stop.

What about 'feelings,' can we work with those?

• 'Feelings' are merely products of meaningless, purposeless, unguided electrochemical processes of the brain.
• In order to express or dwell on feelings, I must have thoughts about them.
  • The previous sentence caused me to enter an infinite regress. Full stop.

What about 'perceptions,' where will they take us?

• 'Perceptions' are merely thoughts in disguise.
  • The previous sentence caused me to enter an infinite regress. Full stop.

What about sensory experiences?

• Our bodies react to perceptions via electrochemical reactions and those electrochemical reactions are then processed by the electrochemical reactions in the brain.
• Let us think about what we just perceived.
  • The previous sentence caused me to enter an infinite regress. Full stop.

Throughout history, there have been only an infinitesimal number of atheists, i.e., those who actually believe that God does not exist and as a result of that, logically (and sadly) they committed suicide. Godless types choose to live their lives in complete contradiction to all that their view of the world entails, pretending to be moral and to live meaningful lives, choosing to embrace the manifold fictions and contradictions of that which they espouse, and make themselves into little gods and worship that. That the GTs are incapable of living out their visions of death and futility is obvious working only from first principles. However, it is revealing that there are a few, very few, who are willing to enunciate that they are incapable of actually living in the real world with their beliefs:

The problem that arises of course, is that they are not content with their darkness, their inherent annihilatory contradiction, their displacement within the world. They are consumed with self and cannot but help to foist upon all and sundry their fetid ways, poisoning wherever they go. Of course, in the freest and wealthiest civilization ever witnessed in the annals of all recorded history, where Christian moral training and the education system produced by it have all but disappeared during the course of the past five decades, the GTs found willing acolytes aplenty amongst a morally and intellectually besotted people with plenty of free time on their hands.

In an irony that glares in an eye-socket scorching manner, it was none other than Thomas Henry Huxley who aptly described the type of person who subscribes to the AGT world view:

Hence, the only way in which a GT can make progress in anything, is to proceed in a manner that is in stark contradiction to that which they affirm with their lives or words. This gives rise to what I call, The Atheist's Journey:

1. Proclaim one's belief that God does not exist or live free of moral restraint as though He doesn't exist.
   • Any difference is mere semantic legerdemain.
2. Recognize that consistency with the adopted world view leads to immediate suicide.
   • Most godless types simply jump over this step and the next two in order to get to step #5. Why bother with premises, logic, and implication when the end goal is simply to live without moral restraint?
   • It is at this step where the godless decide to refer to themselves as agnostics, or they adopt simatheist or apatheist behaviors: essentially, they'll do just about anything to avoid having to contend with the crushing realities of the godless world view, to put a bit of 'distance' as it were between themselves and the true atheist. In so doing, the only thing they have accomplished is to put a bit of semantic truth blocker on.
3. Alter the proclamation that God does not exist to merely a pretense hidden in one's heart.
4. Put on a pretense that the pretense of step #3 is not a pretense.
5. Spend one's life trying to convince others that step #1 is true or right.

To emphatically underscore how chaotic the godless world view is when taken at face value, and as examples are always salutary in any argument, we will explore the contradictions and chaos which inhere every statement made by godless types. What follows is what emanated from the meaningless, purposeless, unguided electrochemical processes in the brains of a number of AGTs who have an amazing facility for gliding from one contradiction to the next, with the chief objective being to keep their devotees enamored with them. According to what the AGT actually propounds, all thoughts and the words that comprise the thoughts are “the product of the meaningless, purposeless, unguided electrochemical process of the brain.” Additionally, per the godless dictates, there is no 'I,' 'you,' 'mine,' or 'yours:' those are all merely packs of neurons. We will commence with some statements made by godless types pretending to be atheists about the core tenets of godlessness:

It must first be remarked: sounds like a fun group! Next, we will render statements by some of these same godless types about 'meaning' and 'purpose' both in their original form and then juxtaposed with what their world view proclaims to be their core beliefs about God and the universe per the previous. The original is their illusion (what the godless type wants to believe), the juxtaposed, their delusion (the reality of their world view). The godless types build these illusions upon and over their delusions in order to hide from themselves the inimical realities of the world view they only pretend to endorse. Notice that for the ardent GT, nowhere does reality make a rude intrusion upon their views and statements. In order to leave something after we perform the substitution, the only words that will be substituted are nouns and personal pronouns, the former with some part or another from “product of the meaningless, purposeless, unguided electrochemical process of the brain,” the latter with some part or variant of “pack of neurons.” But bear in mind, all words would be replaced by these if we were striving to be complete and adhere precisely to the tenets of godlessness as regards words and thoughts. These quotes are by GTs giving it their best shot to convince the world that godlessness is something other than an utterly pernicious, tawdry, and squalid falsehood perpetuated by malevolent actors.

The previous exploration of the disjunction between GT wishes and GT pretended beliefs is pretty tedious. One is inclined to say: "Those sentences conveying what is entailed by the actual world view of the godless types are chaotic from start to finish. They are complete gibberish!" And they'd be right. The godless view of life, the world, and the universe is tedious, it is devoid of meaning, and it leads to moral and intellectual chaos (just take a look at what's happening in the US and Europe). Blame the godless types, not me! We must bear in mind that if the GT is consistent, then all that he has are delusions and illusions to accompany him as he navigates life. Sure, the pitiful godless type will contemptibly glom on to the civilization created by Christians to squeeze from it what he can, and he might accomplish this or that, but every accomplishment will have the icy fingers of the metaphysical implications of his illusions and delusions wrapped around its throat. It is therefore all the more important that sober-minded people not engage with the godless types in meaningless and purposeless discussions concerning the GT's illusions and delusions. What is apocryphally attributed to Mark Twain in a variety of forms comes to mind here: Never debate with a fool. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

That being said, the given quotes and their inherent meaninglessness are not entirely devoid of relevance, for they at least serve to illustrate how unhinged from reality the godless type's statements about and actions concerning God and the universe are as compared to the actual godless type's wants and wishes. As we asserted at the outset, and was further demonstrated here, the one ineluctable outcome of godlessness is suicide. If someone indicates that they are a godless type, yet they are not actively seeking the means to end their life, you can be assured that they don't really believe that which undergirds their view of the world. They certainly cannot be referred to as an 'atheist.' In general, they should be called a 'godless type', or in particular, one of the subtypes that fall under that rubric.

Finally, I have a bit of anecdotal evidence to present as regards the typical AGT journey. It applies even to those godless types who due to peer pressure had been nominally Christian, but then saw the darkness as it were, and threw off their sheep's clothing. It comes last because while anecdotal evidence should not be dismissed out of hand, it often is the weakest form of evidence. Yet, it is still evidence, and so I present it as a capstone to all of the previous because at least the first part has been confirmed in my interactions with multiple godless types over the years, while the second part deals with the question of suicide from the Christian perspective.

I once worked with a typical simatheist. He has a college degree, but had had no training in logic, no knowledge of epistemology or metaphysics, could regale anyone with the plot lines and characters from the latest streaming shows and movies, yet was wholly ignorant as could be imagined of the history of Western Civilization and the United States, and was just as uncritical of non-exigent matters. Whenever any moral or political issue came up, all statements were shoot-from-the-hip, i.e., reactionary, i.e., grounded in ignorance. In all of this, he's a typical American, college graduate or not, republican or democrat or not.

His beliefs about the existence of God and God's nature had been decided when he was a teen and he had never undertaken any investigation of the matter since that time. In this he's also a typical American, whether a run-of-the-mill godless type or Christian. For the Christian, this explains why many ostensible Christians so raised, 'abandon' Christianity when the inevitable trials arise in life or the flimsiness of their moral and intellectual training is exposed upon taking a college course. As to the godless type, the information⁶We dare not call it knowledge. he has imbibed from the GT demagogues has only served to reinforce his inherent biases against Christianity and for his love of self, namely that 'religion' interferes with his ability to live immorally. I asked him how valid the opinion of a typical teenager is on just about any topic that requires probity and he warily replied: 'not very.' I further inquired why it was then the case that he was depending upon the validity of the opinion of the teenager he once was about such a fundamental question, and he had no answer, but, it did get him to think a bit. Teenagers are certainly capable of making informed decisions and holding well-grounded beliefs, but only if significant effort has been expended to make up for the glaring deficiencies within the current schooling systems. It is a rare private school and an all but nonexistent public school that does an adequate job of this.

Of course, the crucial difference between an uncritical godless type and an uncritical Christian is that at least the Christian is affirming something that is worthy of belief which also happens to be conducive to a well-ordered society. Even Thomas Henry Huxley despaired of finding a replacement for the Bible's moral teachings and affirmed that the Bible had been a sine qua non of Christian civilization, irrespective of how much he hated the Bible's assertion that he was a sinner in need of salvation.

I also had a discussion with this same man about suicide, and when I told him that if he believed that God did not exist, considering that the ironclad logical consequence from such a repugnant belief is an equally repugnant conclusion that his life has no meaning, no purpose, no motivating principle, and no hope, that if he really believed in his heart what he was telling me with his mouth, he'd have committed suicide. He angrily retorted that I should commit suicide. I asked him why, and his response was that because I believed that I'd "go to heaven" when I died, suicide would mean that I'd get to go to heaven, and if I really believed that, then I would commit suicide immediately. My response was simply that suicide is a sin, and that the response of those who have placed their hope and trust in Christ and been granted the free gift of salvation, is the desire to serve and obey God to the best of one's ability, which means to do that which is good. And that means to obey the commands of Scripture, and one of those commands is to be a light unto the world, and another is to communicate to all and sundry the Good News of salvation. Suicide cannot be said to accomplish any of that.

From the perspective of the truth, it is obvious to any Christian what is really at play with the GTs: they are stuck in an impossible situation. In their hearts, they know that God exists, but they hate the idea so much, and love themselves with an equal and opposite force, that they cannot countenance the logical demand of the godless creed to commit suicide, and so they create fiction after fiction, and care not one whit whether they base their lives upon glaring contradictions. Especially in the time in which we live, the GT propagandizers and moral iconoclasts get enough accolades and money to where they are encouraged and rewarded by the unhinged masses for suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. No doubt, a dismal state of affairs, but that's the world view and way of life of the AGT.

The Threefold Problem of Godlessness

The most incredible thing about all of the above is that we Christians actually engage in debates with those whose core beliefs compel the conclusion that 'we' are merely clumps of neurons, that there's neither meaning nor purpose to life, and that not just some words, but all words are simply a product of the meaningless, purposeless, unguided electrochemical processes of the brain. There's a phrase that used to have currency which I think it's high time we brought back for not only this, but a whole host of inanities: I'm not going to dignify that with a response. My recommendation is that no debates take place with the godless types roaming about who are only increasing in number until such time as they are able to construct an argument as to how purely meaningless and purposeless physical matter and processes which inhere no meaning, can transition to inhere meaning in a metaphysically rigorous way. The problem is threefold and boils down to:

1. How do the tenets of godlessness lead ineluctably to physical matter inhering meaning?
   • For the typical godless type reading this: A physical object of the universe such as a human being that is comprised solely of physical matter, declaring that solely physical matter has 'meaning' is a circular argument. The 'man is the measure of all things' approach won't cut it. Also, see for more information.
2. Once #1 has been solved: How can one conclude that a baby has any more meaning than does a rock, or as Neil deGrasse Tyson tells us, cow dung?
3. If, as per the tenets of godlessness, the universe exists without purpose, and humans arose from blind, unguided, purposeless physical processes, how can it be that the burbling cauldron of electrochemical impulses of the brain can create words that inhere meaning or relevance?

To recap: an atheist is someone who believes the tenets of godlessness, and such a person commits suicide. A 'godless type' is one who pretends to believe the godless tenets explicitly or implicitly affirms them via his actions and words. Until such time as the godless types have solved the problem laid out above, the stock response to a debate challenge should be: "Have you solved the threefold problem of godlessness? No? Then why would I debate with someone so unhinged from reality that the premises of their life entail that human life and words have no meaning?" Godless types thrive on debate, drama, and in general just mucking things up, and we should stop stimulating them. Once we've issued the challenge, we should then move on to sharing the Gospel with them and praying that they would turn from their evil ways.

The godless type chooses to live an execrable fiction and life of contradiction. That's their choice. What should not be their choice, is to infect the minds of the weak and susceptible with it as it has no place whatsoever in an ordered society that seeks that which is good, i.e., the civilization built by Christianity, Western Civilization, or as it used to be known, Christendom.