Is Atheism Implausible?

Every well-written piece of literature has a beginning, middle, and end. Our lives, similarly, have a beginning, a middle, and perhaps an end. But what next? Once we reach the back of the hardcover, are we then put back into the deep, dark shelves of a library, never to be read twice? Do our hard work and efforts to do good and set aside evil come crashing down with us to become fertilizer for our soil? Is there truly an end to our lives?

Humans are constantly built to find meaning and purpose in what they do in life, so I have to argue in this essay that atheism is implausible because it suggests that our stories on earth have no meaning or purpose since there is nothing after death.

This leads me to my first point, that atheism ultimately tells us that there is no meaning to life. The whole idea of atheism stems from there being no God. So we have to ask ourselves, if there is no God, then what do we live for, or what is the purpose of life? Some may say money, family, or their job. But the problem with living for the materialistic things of our world is that they don’t last. After we die, money dies with us, and this includes family and your job. Whatever we do on this earth, no matter how much we try to make meaning it doesn’t matter because in the end we are just met with death. More philosophical ideas, like love, may also be laid out. But from an atheistic point of view, love is just a chemical reaction in our brains that releases pleasure to our nerve endings. Again, we must consider is the ultimate meaning of life is to have pleasure, or to make as much money as we can. My point is that the meaning of life is limited to the evanescent for an atheist, which makes it not the meaning of life, and we are back to sitting on the damp shelf of the library. If there is nothing after death, then the meaning of life becomes death, a dark and dreadful ending.

My next point is that atheism makes morality relative and subjective.

 If somehow the earth had just been the byproduct of certain chemicals exploding into this sphere of life, and we humans had been the creation of multiple generations of evolution, we weren’t created with purpose. In fact, in a sense, we weren’t made. Since every creation has to have a creator. If we weren’t created with a purpose, a meaning to live life loving others, then it doesn’t matter if we love. We could hate one day, and decide to commit crimes another. If society started to believe that kidnapping kids was right, then there wouldn’t be any higher moral authority that is above us humans to come and stop us. You see, atheism lays out ideas that make our decisions ultimately meaningless. If there is nothing after the end, then the hate and crime we commit right now is technically okay. There is no ultimate consequence that brings judgment to those who hate and justice for those who don’t. Our human lives are constantly corrupted by unfairness, which makes atheism just a sad ending to many stories. If morality is subjective, then we can’t point fingers at Adolf Hitler, and if there is no judgment after our lives, then what happens to the victims of the Holocaust? If Hitler rested in his tomb like everyone else, how is justice brought to those who were slaughtered at the hands of one man? But if morality were objective, and there were a moral law above humans that decides what is right and wrong. If there is a constant, almighty creator who created us to love and gave us moral rules that indicate that murder is always wrong, then it suddenly develops a purpose for our lives. A true purpose to love others and do good in this world. 

My last point is that creation always has a creator. Our world has a unique and intricate design that leads me to believe that there is a creator behind it. The idea that something came out of nothing is impossible to back up with evidence. Even the things of our world, paintings, buildings, and babies. These things all come from life. Our universe is so fine-tuned that the chances of our world just appearing out of chance are estimated at 1 in 10^10^123. This calculation is so small that it can be considered as close to none! The laws of nature, the way the human body is designed to function, are too complicated for it not to have a creator. The indescribable precision with which our world was created is more than enough evidence that our world has a creator. 

This leads me to my conclusion: atheism is implausible because of the undeniable evidence that there is an ultimate meaning to life, objective morality cannot exist if there is no higher moral authority, and the fine-tuning of our universe is more than enough evidence to prove that there is a creator of our world. Every story has an end, but I refuse to let my story end with death. The evidence is clear that atheism is a lifestyle that is the polar opposite of what we were created for. Its lifestyle may have a beginning, middle, and end, but it doesn’t have life after death. 

Claire Song

Bibliography

Meaning of life as an Atheist

Atheism Suffering

Is There Life After Death?

Objective morality?

4 Reasons Why Atheism is Intrinsically Unintelligent

Sire Roger Penrose: What are the Fundamentals in the Cosmos?