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Thank God Atheists Do Not Live By Their Worldview

Thank God Atheists Do Not Live By Their Worldview

Last updated on: September 13, 2026 at 2:42 pm by Adrian Warnock

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Thank God Atheists Do Not Live By Their Worldview 2026-09-13T14:42:56+01:00 Adrian Warnock

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Terrible things would happen if they did

It is just as well for all of us that the morals and lifestyle of the vast majority atheists do not live consistently with what they say they believe. We literally need to thank God for his role in restraining the madness that would ensue if they did. This article is based on a conversation with Christ Wright, author of The Atheist Conversation Manual and Thomas Hamilton, founder of Christian Book Finder.

Watch the full video on Substack or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

The Atheist Conversion Manual

17 Cases that Destroy Secular Religion, Prove God, and Show You the Way to Eternal Life

https://link.amazon/B0bUuRSq5

Buy on Amazon

Atheists really do not like it when Christians say they too are following a religion. Chris defines a religion in his book as “a worldview put into practice.” But there’s this really weird attitude in society at the moment that tries to say, “Oh, we don’t have a religion. We don’t want spirituality. We don’t do God”

Atheists will often push back on the idea that they have their own religion by saying, “Look, there are at least a thousand gods, probably more than that over the history of humankind. You don’t believe in 999 of them, do you? So I’m just not believing in one more than you.”

But it’s not really noticing the point. There is something in the Western culture of comfort, or trying to pretend that we’re comfortable anyway even though we’re often not that means we really do not like to talk about suffering. I think you have to be quite blind to suffering of any kind to not ask those deep questions of meaning that people have been asking since they gathered round a campfire in their caves thousands of years ago.

A statue of a man holding a spear on top of a building

Photo by Charly Nguyen on Unsplash

Thee are of course many Christians who haven’t really thought these issues that are addressed through philosophy and religion but it’s a much bigger problem for atheists. But it really is just as well because if they were consistent with their views it would lead to nihilism, the idea that nothing really matters, and a total absence of morality. You end up with the dangerous idea that we can all just follow our hearts with no real care about moral norms or any damage that might be caused to others. Chaos would ensue if atheist lived like that, fortunately they do not because they import ideas of morality from Christianity.

If there is no God then we should all be able to do whatever we want, and there’s no reason for there to be rights at all. If atheists really believed and acted as they theoretically should, then the world would be a much worse place. If human beings have no value it should simply be about the survival of the fittest. Medicine, fertility treatments, and providing food for the poor would all be abolished as pointless because they are simply trying to counter the effects of natural selection and risk making the human race weaker.

Atheists will sometimes say, “are you trying to tell me I shouldn’t have any morals? I’m a good person. I don’t go and murder people. I don’t go and steal.”

We can reply, “well, yes, but actually thats the whole point, you’re not acting consistently with what you say you believe. Either you don’t really believe it, or you’ve been influenced by remnants of Christianity that are actually protecting you.”

If we are being consistent with a godless philosophy, if someone can’t conceive, surely there’s something wrong with their DNA. We should just leave them to it. Let natural selection play its part. If someone’s sick, why would we bother to try and treat them, especially if it’s going to cost loads of money? Let them die. They’re the weak. Survival of the fittest. But nobody acts like that, fortunately, or not many anyway.

The reality is that while many Christians are being contaminated by this sort of aggressive secular ideology, especially in my country, actually the foundations of so-called secular society come out of Christianity. Tom Holland explains this quite well. The ability to separate the state from religion, the ability to have freedom of thought, to argue what you want, think what you want, and discuss ideas rather than be killed because you believe the wrong thing, all arose out of Christianity. They are not found in nations that do not have this background.

https://link.amazon/B043R5MjD…

So many times what atheists don’t realize they’re doing is sawing off the branch they’re sitting on. I think some of them are starting to realize that. That’s why people like Richard Dawkins now seem quite happy to describe themselves as cultural Christians. Chris explained that Dawkins “kind of in a hard place right now. He doesn’t want God to exist, but at the same time the Christian God, and the principles of Christianity formed through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ and the subsequent full-scale revolution that transformed the face of the earth for the better, are still imperative because no other society and no other religion has ever formed such beauty before.”

Is Richard Dawkins about to become a Christian?

Chris explains further,

“One of the reasons I said in the book that atheists don’t want religion to be defined as worldview put into practice. It’s because they want absolute autonomy over themselves. They think they have it, but what they don’t realize is that absolute autonomy is completely an illusion. The only autonomy you really have is over your own choices. You’re dependent on so many other things throughout your life. When you’re born you’re dependent on parents for everything. As you grow up you get more independence because you get your choices and can choose how to behave and act.

But even then you’re dependent on air to breathe. You’re dependent on water to drink. You’re dependent on food to eat to stay alive. There’s a massive list we could go through of things you can’t get around. You’re dependent. Pure independence is an illusion. You’re going to end up having a master of something whether you like it or not.”

I am aware that these words are slightly taken out of context but lets pray that they will apply to many atheists today:

“Because of your raging against me

and your arrogance, which I have heard for myself,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth.

I will make you return

by the same road on which you came” (2 Kings 19:28, NLT).

May God continue to restrain evil in this world and may he also draw many more back to himself by his grace.

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About Adrian Warnock

Adrian Warnock

Medical doctor · Published author · Patheos writer since 2003

I have always lived within sixty miles of London, UK where I studied, worked and worshipped for thirty years. I began writing for this Patheos blog in April 2003, making it one of the longest-running individual columns on the Christian Internet. My writing here, on Substack, and in my books is influenced by my medical training, eight years of working as a psychiatrist in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), eighteen years working in medical research in the pharmaceutical industry, twenty-five years of serving as a pastoral leader in a growing multicultural church, and a difficult decade of lived experience with chronic illness, including blood cancer, and the unexpected losses, including early retirement, that resulted.

Together, these all shape a biopsychosocial-spiritual approach which I first wrote about on Patheos in 2013. This model offers us hope, compassion, and healing in all life’s challenges. This holistic approach is based on the idea that all truth is God’s truth.

At times, since my illness, my faith has been faint. I wondered if this was the end of my story. I was not strong enough to live for Jesus the way I wanted to. I could not change myself. And then hope reminded me: The resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Just not all at once. Healing takes time. Compassion and patience sustain us over a lifetime of change. I aim to approach suffering with hope and compassion, and address tough questions including:

What does Jesus’ resurrection mean for you?

Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything (Crossway, 2010; 2nd edition, Amazon, 2025)
Why is change so difficult? What causes the resistance?

The Traitor Within: Understanding and Healing Our Deceitful Hearts (Amazon, 2026)
Why is change so slow? How does grace lead us over a lifetime?

Amazing Grace: How Faith Grows in the Human Heart (Amazon, 2026)
How do you become a Christian? Can you know if you really are one?

Hope Reborn: How to Become a Christian and Live for Jesus Co-authored with Tope Koleoso (Christian Focus, 2014)

Qualifications

I qualified with an MB BS from the University of London (equivalent to an MD in the United States), hold postgraduate qualifications in psychiatry (MRCPsych) and pharmaceutical medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed), and took theological training courses run by Newfrontiers.

Connect With me

Substack: adrianwarnock.substack.com (the best way to ask questions)
Twitter/X: @adrianwarnock
Facebook: Adrian Warnock
Email: [email protected] (I may not be able to respond to every message)

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Thank God Atheists Do Not Live By Their Worldview

Terrible things would happen if they did

Watch the full video on Substack or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

The Atheist Conversion Manual

17 Cases that Destroy Secular Religion, Prove God, and Show You the Way to Eternal Life

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Who does Paul say is the man of lawlessness who will exalt himself in God's temple?