Welcome to the Barak Lurie Show — where we discuss the dangers of atheism, but one of the most important things we need to do is to establish why atheism doesn’t really work.
It doesn’t explain so many of the things that we take for granted. Let’s talk about the binary nature of atheism. What do i mean by that? I mean that either atheism is true, in the sense that everything can be explained by evolution, or it’s not true and some creator created everything that we see around us. Ok? That’s a fair binary statement.
Atheism means that everything that we see around us is thanks to a random order of things. Things just happened on their own and were it for any other situation by logic or probabilities, we wouldn’t have what we have today — or maybe it would look very differently. Who knows? But if that is the case, and it is the case under the atheistic worldview, then we have a problem for the atheist.
How do we explain a whole bunch of things that cannot be explained by evolution? Things that we take for granted. For example, the notion of beauty. How do we appreciate beauty without a notion of God? There is no such thing as beauty to the typical animal out there. A polar bear doesn’t appreciate beauty. We might like it. We might think it’s amazing — the sunsets and such, but they never share a notion of beauty. Why would they? It’s not necessary for their survival. Yet we understand that beauty is a thing.
Same thing with music. Animals don’t have music. Certainly not in the sense that we do. Yes, I understand birds chirp and such like that, but they do not have the notion of concocting a symphony together, for example. And yet, for each human, it is so ingrained in our DNA to love music. In fact, when we sometimes get to know each other, we might say, “Hey what kind of music do you like?” We don’t ask, “Do you like music?” We just ask what kind of music you might like. Everyone loves music and we don’t know why. From an evolutionary point of view, it’s not necessary for our survival.
Same thing with humor. Everyone tells a joke every once in a while — we love a good joke. But you never see animals laughing. Yes, they play sometimes, but that’s not the same thing as humor in the way that we understand it. Nobody survives merely because they have a sense of humor, right? Sometimes we think it’s necessary, yes… but for your actual survival as a human being, for that matter any animal whatsoever, they don’t need humor. Humor is not essential. It cannot be explained by evolution.
For that matter, there are other issues. For example, free will and freedom. Our notion of free will and freedom is unique to the human animal. For a lot of animals, they don’t have the same notion of freedom that we do. Yes, they might want to roam around, but it’s not the same thing as freedom as you and I understand it. The ability to express ourselves.
Finally the notion of a story. We humans are unique in that notion. Everyone loves a story. Nobody has ever said, “You know you might like stories, but I’m not the story kind of guy.” Nobody. We all need stories. We all love stories. But that is a uniquely human characteristic and evolution cannot explain it. It will not be necessary for our survival and yet the atheist will argue that there is no God and everything can be explained by evolution. And yet they brush over these key elements that are part of our everyday lives — humor, telling stories, free will, beauty and music. They love all those things and yet they can’t explain it.
This is yet another example of all the indicia that we have that God is real and God is not only real but He is necessary for our functioning as human beings in a civilizational way.