My Testimony: When I was an Atheist

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When I was an Atheist

    Shortly after my Dad died in 2007, I chose to become an atheist. Before, I had been questioning whether God existed. My thinking was if he did exist, he wasn’t loving because of all the evil in the world, and if he did exist, he was limited in power and was detached from us and was not all good. The final thing that led my decision to become atheist was when I went to college and learned about human evolution. I remember thinking that, “Adam and Eve couldn’t have happened.” Then I spent many months following atheists on the internet. Listening to their arguments and agreeing with them. The thing is, is that I thought I was following the truth. The assertions of atheists: there’s no evidence for God, therefore there is no God, and you only have one life, so make it count, and you make meaning out of your own life, and that morality comes from people seemed to me to be the truth. In fact, I wanted it to be true. I wanted it to be true because I felt free. I could live my life the way I wanted. Therefore, I wasn’t accountable to God. Only to myself and to my family and to society. I remember, I felt free.

    But then, I began to have this argument in my head about morality and I couldn’t find an answer I was comfortable with. The argument was if morality comes from people, then morality is relative to the person. If morality is relative to the person, then everyone’s morality is valid, which meant Hitler’s morality was valid. Then I would think that society determined morality, not the person, which meant that the morality of Nazi Germany was valid. Then I would think that the Germans made poor choices, but I would try to imagine what if Nazi Germany had won. Then no one would know the difference because all people would have been taught since birth to serve Nazi Germany. Also, none of us would exist. Then I would think if morality was relative to the person or to society, then it just leads to chaos. If what atheists assert is true that morality comes from people or society, then there is no such thing as justice. Hitler killed himself, escaping human justice and if there is no God, then he escaped any justice. Even though I couldn’t make sense of it, I still wanted atheism to be true. I had faith in atheism, so I tried to not think about morality.

    Atheism is a belief. I didn’t see it as a belief. I saw it as reality. Instead of putting my faith in God, I put my faith in what other people would say about evolution and astronomy and biology and philosophy and physics to explain reality that I could use to create meaning for my life. Atheism is more than a disbelief in God. It is in itself a belief that uses academic disciplines, the works of other people, to explain a purpose and meaning to life. Essentially, atheism makes us into god. Where we have the answers, and that we will eventually discover all the answers in time. Atheism is a faith in humanity above all. It is a faith that is centered on the will, not the will of God, but on the will of the atheist. Atheism is just one branch of the tree to be desired to make one wise, so that our eyes shall be opened and, so that we shall be as gods to know good and evil. (Genesis 3:5-6)

    Why am I not still an atheist? It began for me back in March (2024). I watched a video with Stephen C. Meyer and Joe Rogan titled, “This is What Really Sold Me on God.” Before this video, I had never heard an argument against evolution and never heard the Hume argument that we can’t trust our perception of the world, unless there is a creator God who provides our perception and the world we perceive. This was the answer to my morality problem. Therefore, morality cannot be relative to the person or subjective. Morality is objective in that it comes from God and has been given to us. This also solved my problem of justice. In the end, no one escapes justice. And once I started to learn about the arguments against evolution, I realized that evolution itself isn’t tenable and requires faith.

    In the weeks that followed after watching that video, I kept thinking to myself, “I think I’m coming back to God.” Then a few months later in May, I watched a second video with an atheist debating a Christian, and at the end of the video, I realized what I had done. Actually, it’s not that I realized it, but I knew it. I knew what I had done. There was no doubt. I wept and I felt ashamed and I told God, “I’m sorry.” My life has not been the same since.

    Sometimes it’s just a word or two that will change things. Sometimes, in just a moment the right thing will be said, or will be seen, or will be experienced and you change your life. I know that I could choose to go back to my old way of life, but I don’t want to. I want to follow Jesus because his dying on the cross was no small thing. It is the most significant, important event in history with no comparison. An innocent man dying on the cross for the sins of the world, past, present, and future. That God himself took on the very nature of a servant and became man and became obedient to death on the cross is no small thing, so that we can have eternal life with him.