20. How do people reach atheism?

Becoming an atheist is more an outcome of being against theism than a self-discovery of the non-existence of God. Atheism was earlier backed on scientific validation, however, it has now lost its foundations and has become anachronistic in nature. For those who still claim scientific backing for atheism should learn about what some of the authorities in science have said about the topic.

Once Einstein was asked if he was an atheist. He said:

You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. (Sept. 28, 1949 letter to Guy Raner Jr.)

This means scientists are not in a position to say that there is no God, they can just take a sceptical stand on the existence of God. This is because the accepted base for belief in something in the intellectual world is scientific, but since there is no scientific discovery about the non-existence of God, this is still subject to interpretation.

Towards the end of the 19th century, there was a strong wave of what was popularly called ‘scientific atheism’. The argument often offered to negate the existence of God was His being invisible. But new scientific investigations carried out at the beginning of the 20th century started turning the tide against the credibility of this position, it becoming accepted that there are many aspects of nature that are invisible yet they exist. One of the books written on this new world discovered by science is Science and the Unseen World by Sir Arthur Eddington.

At the beginning of the 20th century Sir James Jeans declared that the universe which had been discovered by modern science was not compatible with the mechanical interpretation that had gained ground since past several decades. The age of quantum mechanics has established that nothing is fully observable. Contrary to previous belief, it was not the atom that was the last fundamental particle that constituted matter, rather there were unobservable subatomic particles that served as the building blocks of atoms. In a book published in 1988, entitled A Brief History of Time, Stephen W. Hawking (one of the foremost physicists of present times) explains the Big Bang Theory, according to which the universe is constantly expanding. After working out the relevant mathematical equations, Hawking has reached the conclusion that the expansion of the universe is taking place according to a well-calculated scheme. The initial rate of expansion must have been fixed with great accuracy so that it would always be less than the critical rate, i.e. the rate at which the universe would begin to collapse again. This view cannot be explained unless it is accepted that the rate of expansion of the universe has been determined with the utmost precision. Stephen Hawking writes:

It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us. (p. 127)

One of the most amazing qualities of the universe is that there is no interpretation or explanation of it, other than that which allows for God’s existence, despite the fact that the best brains in every age have attempted to unravel its mysteries. It has been claimed that the universe has always been in existence in its present form. It has also been claimed that it came into being on its own and that it goes on on its own. Cause and effect have been said to have created everything, and attempts have also been made to prove the law of evolution to be the creator of the universe; which however can be only a process of nature, but never its creator. The more a man learns about the universe, the more absurd do these theories appear to him; the stranger does it seem that something, or some being other than God Almighty should be the Lord and Master of the Universe. The universe, by its very existence, testifies to the fact that God is its Creator. I find other claims to be without concrete foundation. Whatever arguments or opposing opinions have been expressed to propagate this theory have proved erroneous by the knowledge acquired to date through human research.

One of my early works on this subject include the book God Arises: Evidence of God in Nature and Science. It establishes the existence of God according to modern scientific findings. It has been translated into several languages.