Follow the Science … to God? The New Atheism Is Being Disproven

A story in the news some days ago held that Noah’s ark’s resting place had been “100% confirmed.” This wasn’t actually true. What is, however, is that science is proving something else: “New Atheism’s” ship has sailed — and maybe even sunk.

Almost a generation ago now, in 2006, biologist Richard Dawkins boosted the New Atheism with his book The God Delusion. This was followed the next year by late “anti-theist” Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great. Sam Harris, Lawrence Krauss, and Daniel Dennett were part of this fad, too. Now, though, their arguments are starting to seem a little stale.

Writing about this Tuesday, philosopher Stephen Meyer points out that the New Atheists’ influence has waned. Some adherents, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, have done a complete about-face and found Christianity. Others, Meyer mentions, such as atheist YouTuber Alex O’Connor and podcaster Steven Bartlett, have had to moderate their views. Why, Dawkins himself now confesses that he feels “at home” with the Christian “ethos.” (He still rejects God’s existence, however.)

Statistics mirror this, too. Christian identification, long waning in America, has stabilized at around 62 percent since 2019-2020. There also may be a bit of a Christian renewal among some Gen Z men. And in defending their faith, they now will find that much science is on their side.

The Findings

Meyer introduces this, writing:

Consider first modern cosmology. Cosmologists have discovered that the universe, contrary to the expectations of those who long portrayed it as eternal, probably had a beginning. Multiple lines of evidence from observational astronomy support this conclusion. Developments in theoretical physics (such as the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, which states that any universe that is expanding — as ours is — cannot be infinite in the past), also back it up.

Nobel laureate Arno Penzias, who helped make a key discovery supporting the Big Bang theory, noted the obvious connection between its affirmation of a cosmic beginning and the concept of divine creation. “The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses…[and] the Bible as a whole,” he wrote in 1978.

Atheist physicists Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking claimed to explain the beginning of the universe from “nothing”, but their “nothing” turned out to be a set of mathematical laws that allegedly pre-existed (or existed independently of) the material universe. But [math] has no causal power. Mathematical equations are inherently conceptual. Thus, the attempt to circumvent the problem of the beginning with what was called “quantum cosmology” led inexorably back to the need for a pre-existing mind.

Meyer then mentions the “Goldilocks universe” reality. That is, our universe depends on extraordinarily precise constants, such as the ratio of electromagnetic to gravitational forces. Slight deviations would make galaxies, stars, or life impossible. Nobel laureate physicist Roger Penrose calculated the odds of a life-permitting universe arising by chance at about one in 10^(10^123). (This makes “one in a trillion” look like a rounding error.) So for many, the most rational conclusion is intentionality — an “unmoved mover” behind the scenes. Meyer puts it this way, quoting Cambridge astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle, a “previously a staunch atheist”:

“A common sense interpretation of the data suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics” to make life possible.

Trying to explain this away, physicists embrace the “multiverse” theory, which holds that some phenomenon disgorged many billions of universes. Under this scenario, probability dictates that one universe (ours) would just so happen to have all its ducks lined up to allow for life.

The problem with this, Meyer states, is that any universe-creating mechanism would itself require the same “fine-tuning” our universe would. This, of course, implies the existence of a fine-tuner. So the multiverse theory just kicks the can down the metaphysical road.

He Who Didn’t Have to “Learn to Code”?

Meyer next mentions the design implying a designer. Notably, he explained this in his 2009 book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. Here’s a (edited) Grok artificial-intelligence summary of the points he makes in that work:

• Living cells contain digital information in DNA that functions like software or computer code.
• DNA uses a four-character chemical alphabet (A, C, G, T) arranged in precise sequences, much like binary code (0s and 1s) in software.
• This code directs the construction of proteins and molecular machines via highly sophisticated information-processing systems (including nested coding, error-correction, and operating-system-like functions).
• The origin of this complex, specified information cannot be adequately explained by undirected chemical processes or neo-Darwinian mechanisms alone — it points to an intelligent cause (a “programmer”).

Meyer frequently cites analogies from computer scientists and biologists:

• Bill Gates: “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”
• Craig Venter and others who describe DNA in software terms.

Dawkins himself has acknowledged how striking DNA’s reality is. “The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like,” he has said.

Some materialists, however, believe they can explain this — with the X-Files thesis. “Sure, there had to be a great intellect that created life, and there was,” it goes — “that of aliens.”

“Extraterrestrials might’ve seeded our planet with life.”

While a sexy, fashionable notion, under this theory, the aliens would be material beings just like us. And the question then is: Who (or what) created the aliens?

So this still doesn’t solve the mystery of life’s ultimate origins. It’s yet another example of kicking the can down the road — to avoid a truth uncomfortable for many.

Staring Reality in the Face

This discomfort with (and sometimes fear of) the spiritual produces devout materialism. And this worldview does reject the designing-mind thesis “because no such entity can be directly observed,” writes Meyer. He then continues:

Yet scientists often infer unobservable entities — physical fields, subatomic particles, past evolutionary events, subsurface geological features, the Big Bang — based upon the explanatory power of those postulated entities or events.

Dark matter, for example, which has been in the news of late, was first inferred not because it could be seen, but because — if it existed — it would explain the otherwise unexplainable motions of galaxies within distant galaxy clusters.

Likewise, God’s existence explains many otherwise unexplainable realities, such as where the universe and life came from. It also explains something else: how there can be right and wrong.

As I’ve often illustrated (though there isn’t space here), atheism absolutely correlates with moral nihilism. That is, with the notion that morality is just a social construct — mere illusion.

This realization was highly instrumental in my journey toward faith, but everyone is different. Some do find God largely via intellectual analysis; with others it’s an affair of the heart. Yet there’s something that will definitely forestall it. I’m speaking of, mirroring Dawkins, the atheism delusion: the notion that we can be our own god.

While I’m often reluctant to cite modern entertainment, this brings to mind a line from the 1995 song “One of Us.” I think it’s quite profound:

If God had a face, what would it look like? And would you want to see — if seeing meant that you would have to believe …?

Many wouldn’t, actually. They might, during an honest moment, echo German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. “[I]f there were gods, how could I endure not to be a god!” he wrote. “Therefore there are no gods.”

And that’s human ego. It also reflects the very human desire to define for oneself what is sin — omitting, of course, one’s favored sins.

So perhaps the bigger question here isn’t one that uncovers evidence for God’s existence or a lack thereof. It may instead be this: Am I giving that evidence a fair hearing in my own mind?

Or, might it reveal a face I couldn’t bear to behold?