By Lee Moses
Atheists have become much more publicly militant and belligerent in recent years. They
have taken to the Internet as their bullying playground. They have found the Internet a favorable
medium to spew out godless vitriol and have had some success converting people to their cause
by so doing. They do not typically gain their Internet converts through logical reasoning. While
holding a public debate, one renowned Internet atheist admitted to the audience, “My job is to
confuse the [expletive] out of you.” This seems to be a focus of their online approach as well—
simply to confuse people, rather than by proving their view is correct.
The primary way online atheists confuse people is by throwing out lies and half-truths. Of
course, a half-truth is a whole lie, but some-times they give added credence to those lies by
throwing in an element of truth. A commonly perpetuated Internet lie is that “radical (i.e., actual,
Bible-believing) Christians are just as dangerous as radical Muslims.” And as proof, they will cite
Timothy McVeigh and Anders Behring Breivik as examples of Christian terrorists. McVeigh was
guilty of killing 168 people when he bombed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995; Breivik
killed eight people in a bombing in Oslo, Norway, and then murdered 69 more in a mass shooting
at a nearby youth camp. However, neither of them was a Christian, even in the denominational
sense, much less the Biblical sense. Consider this quote: “It is essential that science take an
undisputed precedence over biblical teachings.” Does this sound like something a Christian would
say? Yet, it is a direct quote from Anders Breivik. What about this quote? “Science is my god”—
direct from the lips of Timothy McVeigh. Their views were not remotely Christian, and certainly
the Bible did not influence their actions; contrary to Muslim terrorists, who act in direct obedience
to the teachings of their supposed “holy book.”
Internet atheists also like to throw out the Crusades as evidence of the supposed atrocity of
Christianity. Unlike McVeigh and Breivik, the Crusades were indeed perpetrated by those at least
professing an allegiance to Christianity. However, this fails to prove anything flawed in the
character of true Christianity. The New Testament, the Christian’s constitution, nowhere
authorizes waging physical warfare against a group of people simply because they are not
Christians (the causes of the Crusades were more complex than this, but that is a story for another
day). Conversely, the New Testament states explicitly, “The weapons of our warfare are not
carnal” (2 Cor. 10:4). Jesus rebuked Peter when he attempted to defend Christ’s Cause with a
literal sword (Mat. 26:51-53). The fact that certain people professing Christianity have acted
immorally proves nothing—one must establish that the teachings of Christianity (the New
Testament) compel people to act immorally. And this no atheist can do, but that will not stop
atheists from attempting to cloud the air with such accusations.
Remember, an atheist has no reason to see himself as having a moral obligation to tell the
truth. The more a lie is repeated, the more it seems to be the truth in people’s minds. Hitler’s
Minister of Propaganda is credited with saying, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it,
people will eventually come to believe it,” and Internet atheists seem to adhere closely to this
maxim.
And as might be expected with bullies, Internet atheists also attempt to win arguments and
proselytes through name-calling. One of their favorite epithets is “flat-earth creationists,” as if to
believe in creation were equivalent to believing in a flat earth. They cast any number of insults in
such a way as to insinuate that believing in the Bible renders one less intelligent or incapable of
thinking for oneself. However, it does no such thing. One who blinds his mind to the abundant
evidence for God is the one who dulls and darkens his intellect (Rom. 1:19-22). “The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Pro. 1:7); all knowledge to be obtained rests on this most
fundamental awareness.
The Christian, who ventures online, needs to understand that online inhabitants are typically
not interested in a fair exchange of ideas. That goes at least double for atheist trolls who lurk online
to seduce the innocent. Seeking to engage and reason with atheistic proselytizers online is typically a waste of time. This does not mean that one should never consider: “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will,” (2 Tim. 2:25-26). However, if atheists encountered online continue to “oppose themselves and
blaspheme,” you need to be ready to move along to better soil and a better environment for a
Christian soul to dwell (cf. Acts 18:6).
— The Beacon, 10/13/2025
