In today’s modern Western world atheism is popular. On the surface, it solves several problems:

• Scientific understanding of reality
  • Age of the earth and the geologic record
  • Natural selection and evolution
• Social and moral ‘problems’
  • Religious wars
  • Antiquated views on gender roles, marriage, etc
  • The problem of evil (“good God, bad world”)
• And many more

But taking on an atheistic worldview introduces a plethora of new, more fundamental problems:

• Accounting for free will
• Accounting for information, logic, the presence of matter and uniform physical laws and a finely tuned universe
• Abiogenesis – accounting for life. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is a useful maxim here. The Miller-Urey experiment (or any other materialist explanations for abiogenesis) don’t come anywhere near the “extraordinary” criterion in my estimation.
• Consciousness – accounting for the mind and personality
• Morality – accounting for human consciousness of good and evil
• Providing any insight into meaning, purpose and destiny.

The present popularity of atheism reflects our current obsession with advances in the physical sciences, technology, wealth accumulation, and freedom to do as I please.

Once these obsessions wear off, and I don’t think it will take many more decades, I predict a fundamental shift away from atheism.