Goodbye Atheism

By Neil McKenzie a University Physics Lecturer

When I was in my mid-teens I began to think that perhaps there was more to life than being a good athlete, getting married, then a good job, a car, finally fame and fortune! After all, one day I would grow old and then all my physical fitness would be gone. Also, I would die some day and lose everything that I had spent my life getting, so what was the point of it all? I was an atheist at that time, very keen on physics, and regarded all Christians as rather soft in the head! So I thought there must be another answer, but what? Perhaps evolution was the key. Maybe we are all part of a great long chain of human history, making our own contribution to the progress of the species. Perhaps each individual life is a stepping stone in the evolutionary progress of mankind towards ever-greater perfection. This seemed sensible at the time.

However, as I began to learn more about history and current affairs, it became difficult to believe that mankind was getting better. For example, the horrible cruelty of the ‘games’ of the ancient Romans where living human beings were torn to pieces by lions as entertainment, was no worse than the cruel torture of prisoners-of-war by Germans and Japanese in the Second World War. Was there less cruelty now than there was thousands of years ago? Was there less greed, less war, less hunger, less suffering, less poverty? Were the so-called ‘civilised nations’ sharing their abundant wealth and excess food with the poor countries? On the contrary, the reality was that the crime figures in Britain were getting worse and there was little real progress towards stopping war, human rights violations, famine, poverty etc. The political leaders seemed to want personal power rather than the good of the people. The political label attached to them seemed largely irrelevant, as communist leaders were much the same as capitalist leaders - the people at the top had vast personal privileges, power and wealth. In every country it was the same. The rulers did not really care about the ordinary people but fed them half-truths and promises. Therefore, it seemed to me that there was no evidence to support the prediction of evolution that mankind was improving morally. What do you think?

Another problem was that I had no answer to basic questions: Where did we all come from? How did life get started? How did the universe begin? Evolution was long on speculation but short on hard evidence: none for the production of life from non-living material; none for missing links (but a lot of interesting artist’s impressions based on bone fragments); none for the gradual emergence of new species (but a lot for sudden appearances as might be expected from Genesis). If I asked for hard evidence I got accused of being religious! As I learned more science, so I understood that all matter was atoms and that atoms were just tiny regions of intense energy. Also atoms were almost entirely vacuum. This was true of everything from stars and planets to mountains, animals and their cells. There was no soul, no supernatural part to human beings. We were just bodies. This meant, logically, that I myself was just an energy field and nearly 100% empty space. My personality was just an energy field pattern. Friendship and love were illusions. I also learned that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so energy has always been in existence. But how did energy begin?

I had once mocked Christians with the question, ‘Who made God?’, but now I had a similar question about energy. Science had no answer to the question, ‘How did it all get started?’ Also, how did energy manage to order itself into laws? How did the laws of physics come about from chaos? Could evolution really be true if it had only random chance mutations as its process? How could patterns order themselves? How did non-living energy make itself alive? I realised that believing in evolution needs a lot of faith, maybe as much faith as Christians need to believe that God created it all and designed patterns and laws! The difference was that Christians admitted they needed faith whereas atheists pretended that everything had a scientific answer and could be explained logically without any need for God. What do you think?

That was 35 years ago. Now I lecture physics at university and have a better idea of the immensity and beauty of the physical universe, visible and invisible, and the equations which describe it. Can a physicist believe in God, the Trinity, and the resurrection of Jesus - the supreme Son of God, supernatural phenomena? Yes! But, I apply the same tests to religion as I use in physics. What is the evidence, its quality and reliability?

Why not ask the same questions for yourself? Start with an objective analysis of the evidence for the resurrection. If you wish I’ll send you a brief summary to get you started.

God bless

Neil McKenzie

You can contact Neil on the following address: MckenNeil@aol.com