The Undiscovered Country

Is Atheism Dead?

I first heard of this book about a month ago from an exclusive excerpt on The Daily Wire. It was about how an archeologist turned to the Bible in search of Sodom and Gomorrah and found it. After it had disappeared for many thousands of years.

I’ve always been a fan of science. While not a scientist by any stretch, I’m still fascinated by the natural world, it’s beauty and intricacies. I want to show people what I see. Because we’re often so busy with the busyness of life, we forget to stop and look at God’s creation, even something as simple as hoar frost collected on a tiny leaf.

While the two above paragraphs seem completely unrelated, hang with me a bit. It’ll all make sense shortly.

Because I found the excerpt of the book so intriguing, I purchased it for my Nook the next day. But I didn’t stop there. I also purchased one for a friend who loves biblical history, and one for my son who was equally intrigued (he prefers paper books over electronic). Yep, I bought three copies in a span of about five days.

The author, Eric Metaxas, tackles not only archeological findings that invariably prove the accuracy of scripture, he outlines in great detail (but simply enough for a layperson like myself can understand) how recent scientific discoveries also invariably point toward a creator. And if not for Christians, we wouldn’t have the science and its benefits that we enjoy—and often take for granted—today.

Thereby killing the atheistic idea that our universe and everything in it was a thoughtless, yet happy accident.

I’ve always believed nature points to God, not away from him (See Romans 1:20), so I was excited to read the chapters on the Big Bang, the fine-tuning of our solar system, and the impossibility for water to do what it does. All of which makes life possible, and if even one of those things was off by a number too small to fathom, life would not exist. At all, not even in a different form.

I found myself many times mentally (if not literally) giggling madly. So much so I had to stop reading more than once just to give my brain a moment to absorb it all.

One might say I’m guilty of “confirmation bias” (reading something that confirms what I already believe while ignoring any evidence to the contrary). Perhaps, but Eric also provides enough evidence that’s difficult to argue with.

Fair warning, though. While Eric writes for the layperson, it’s a heady book. Four hundred pages, three parts, and thirty chapters of detailed scientific discoveries. He also pulls no punches toward those scientists and philosophers (past and present) who refuse(d) to acknowledge even the possibility that our universe was indeed carefully and willfully created by something beyond our comprehension.

Or as I like to occasionally, lovingly—and a bit tongue-in-cheek—call said something: The Flying Spaghetti Monster (https://almarquardt.com/2017/09/17/sky-wizards-and-flying-spaghetti-monsters/).