Jeff Koeppen's Reviews > Is Atheism Dead?

I always find comfort in reading my favorite atheist and science authors but come from a Catholic and Catholic School background and I like to occasionally check in and see what popular literature has popped up on the religious best seller lists. With its provocative title and it’s free price tag in Audible I couldn’t resist trying out Eric Metaxas’s Is Atheism Dead?. Being an atheist and a member of a number of atheist organizations I already know the answer to this question but it never hurts, and is sometimes entertaining, to hear an opposing viewpoint and what a true believer has to say about my ilk. This book is seventeen hours long. I listened to much of it at a higher playback speed on a road trip so I couldn’t take notes but it had me talking to myself and shaking my had constantly. But it wasn’t all bad, even though it was pretty insulting to us heathens.

To begin, one has to understand that the author is a Christian and creationist, so not only are atheists misguided (he actually uses stronger words to describe us) but so are all the other many religions in the world. Christianity is the only true way and the Bible is the only true account of what happened. So when he is describing in detail complex scientific principals and cosmic truths, like how our solar system is in the exact only place in the galaxy which could support life, he believes that the god from the Old and New Testaments put it there. Right off the bat I had a problem with this. So the infallible superintelligence that created the entire unimaginably huge and complex universe (and possibly multiverses) is the same guy who inspired that holy book and showed up in the Middle East 2,000 years ago to die to free humans from original sin, and then become the hide and seek champion until today?

Basically, this book is broken down in to three parts with an appendix that ties everything together and seemingly proves the point that everything was created by the supernatural Christian god. Part One is the authors attempt to prove creationism. He attempts to explain how the everything right down to the cell was intricately fine-tuned for the god’s people to be in existence, and there is no way any of this could’ve come about naturally. I’m just some guy with an interest in science and could see through some of his arguments. This section reminded me of that meme in which a water puddle in a pot hole states “look at how perfect I fit in this pothole, it was created just for me”. The author is looking at this exactly backward. We evolved the way we are because of our living conditions. Life is a product of its environment, and if you want to claim it was designed than you must realize that it was designed by nature and not by the guiding hand of a supernatural being. He brings up the tired old irreducible complexity argument relating to cells. Cosmologically speaking, he claims that the size of the sun and size of the moon are perfect for life, and Saturn and Jupiter have saved the Earth from killer asteroids – and this is all proof that the solar system was designed. Did you know that the god designed eclipses, too? Read the book to find out why. And because we have no other signals from other civilizations in the cosmos this is proof that we are the god’s only creation. What about the billions and billions and billions of other galaxies out there? We have no idea what is out there. The magnitude of the universe is almost unimaginable. Furthermore, he argues that scientific discoveries like the big bang and relatively have proven the truths of the Bible and disproven atheism. He uses quotes from a number of cherry-picked Christian scientists to support his claims that religion is more compatible with science than atheism. I can see why this part of the book would appeal to people who want to believe that the Bible is a science book and didn’t pay attention in biology or astronomy class, or had a Catholic education and were not taught proper science. It’s as if the author didn’t read a word of scientists such as Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan (he quotes Sagan from the 1960s, c’mon), contemporary physicists like Laurence Krauss, Sean Carroll, or Brian Greene; or contemporary cosmologists like Janna Levin or Roger Penrose. Any one of these people could shoot Part One full of holes.

In the same vein, I don’t believe the author read any of the works of preeminent authors in biological sciences (well, he read Richard Dawkins’s atheist-themed books, but not his biology-themed books). He refers over and over to the famous 1952 experiment to create life from organic molecules but neglects to talk about current research. Other claims: panspermia is a “crackpot theory” (recent space missions found water and organic molecules on other bodies moving about the solar system) and the water molecule is miracle created for us as it is necessary for life (there is water all over the solar system, and it’s basic chemistry). In summary, the chapters in Part One intend to show that there is no way life came about naturally. If there is something science can’t explain then it must have a supernatural cause (the ol' “god of the gaps”). EVERYTING after the big bang was carefully orchestrated by the invisible hand of a superintelligence right up until this very second. And guess who this superintelligence is?

Part Two is biblical archeology. I found this part to be very interesting and I learned a lot actually. I have always found archeology interesting and it’s intriguing that many of the biblical settings have been found. He does make some definitive claims linking biblical events which may or may not happened to some of the discoveries which cannot be proven and may never be. He claims that Jesus’ childhood home and a number of other Jesus-related locations have been identified. The information regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls and other relics and writings was interesting, some of this I remembered from parochial school. This all being said, the author goes off the deep end and claims that the discovery of ancient locations the Bible was set in proves that Jesus existed, rose from the dead, and ascended in to heaven. “There is too much evidence (of the resurrection) for us to ignore it”, he states. Checkmate, atheists! What evidence? Some rocks? A foundation? That’s quite a leap of faith. That’s like saying the existence of King’s Cross Station in London proves the existence of Harry Potter.

Part Three was hard to get through. It was basically an all-out bash fest of the concept of atheism, past and present. This was followed by more science-proves-religion arguments. Basically, you either follow the Bible or are one of “them’, along with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, (insert horrible historical figure here), etc. He claims atheists have no inherent morality and since we reject the afterlife really nothing to live for and no motivation to be inherently good. Wow. Predictably, he points out how horrible past godless countries have been and the shortcomings of current godless countries such as China. But according to the recent book Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society by Zuckerman, Kasselstrand, and Cragun there are seven democratic countries in the world today with over 50% non-believers: Czech Republic (62%), South Korea (59%), the Netherlands (56%), Estonia (54%), Norway (53%), and the UK (52%). None of these countries are mentioned though when he is making his point about countries with a lack of moral compass without a god. Most atheists I know are guided by the golden rule and commit no crimes, and try to life our one life to the fullest. It’s sad that the author and others think less of atheists because they are not “god fearing”.

As this part of the book goes on he rages and uses ad-hominem attacks against his hated “four horsemen” of new atheism – Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris – and particularly rips on Hitchens for his anti-theist writings. You can hear the contempt in his voice as he hurls insults towards these guys. It felt personal. Richard Dawkins is one of the the world’s preeminent evolutionary biologists and the author trashes him over and over. He went on to rip Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan for their Cosmos series, which he said mislead millions of people as creationism wasn’t even addressed. On the contrary, the author states that the similarity of the color of the start in our galaxy proves the uniformity of matter and their common source of creation. And did you know that Christianity gave birth to science? A Google search of the history of science is all you need to be set straight on the origins of scientific thinking. It’s ironic how the author continues to bring up the shortcomings of science and how there are so many things that can’t be observed and which science can’t yet explain (but very well may in the future) and therefore magic did it. He also claims that atheists are hypocrites for enjoying art and music even though we don’t understand the mechanisms for their appeal. I don’t know either but I sure am not going to credit some invisible being. This is just another example of shoehorning the supernatural in to something that happens in our brain.

I could go on and on. This book is full of outdated scientific information and logical fallacies including special pleading and ad-hominem attacks. But based on its ratings it has successfully won over most of its intended audience. It’s just sad that he has to bash atheism and those who “reject god”. What?! That’s like saying people reject leprechauns, bigfoot, or the tooth fairy. Is it so hard to fathom that there is a growing number of humans who refuse to believe in the supernatural? I’m happy to report that atheism is nowhere near dead.