The Battle of Two Creation Stories: The Christian Story and Atheistic Naturalism.

I've been reading a book called the 'The Godless Delusion' by Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensly. I wanted to share with you some of the insights and arguments presented in the book.


The Christian Story

As you probably know, the Christian story starts with 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' etc etc.

This world view teaches that an infinite personal God exists and created all things. We are not merely bodies but embodied souls, spirits made in God's very image and likeness, to be his sons and daughters, intended to share eternally in all that he possesses. As God's children, we have meaning and purpose that extend far beyond the few years we may have in this world. While here, we must live in our Father's love and in accordance with the moral laws he has written on our very hearts and revealed to us through his Son, Jesus Christ.

For the past seventeen centuries this has been the story which has helped Western society answer the most basic questions about where we came from, why we are here, how are we to view ourselves and how we are to live our lives.


Naturalism's Story

Recently in the West, another story has come to challenge the place of the Christian theistic story. It goes something like this. 'In the beginning was the natural universe matter and energy and nothing more.'

According to this story, we and all living things have been created by the earth. We are the result of an entirely natural evolutionary process operating within an entirely natural universe. God does not exist, and we were not created in his image and likeness. There are no spirits or souls.

The atheist asserts that nothing exists outside the natural universe but how is it that he/she knows this?