Is there a creator of this universe? Or did this mind-bogglingly vast 93-billion-light-year wide universe emerge out of nothingness by itself without any external intervention?

Throughout human history, there have been people, referred to as atheists, who simply did not believe in the existence of a creator or god.

However, during the last two centuries, atheism has undergone a transformation from a mere absence of belief in the existence of god to a belief in the non-existence of god. This new extreme form of atheism has turned into a virtual dogma. Atheists of today can be divided into two broad categories.

Atheists as Part of Communist System

Following Karl Marx, since governments of the former Soviet Union, Eastern European countries and China held atheism as an official dogma and routinely used force to enforce it, this form of atheism is irrelevant to any discussion as to whether there is a creator of the universe or not.

Atheists of Modern Times

Atheists of modern times claim to be thinkers, or followers of those thinkers, who believe in the non-existence of a creator of the universe. Of these atheists, let us discuss the four most famous ones, i.e. Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

Since this book is meant to be short, only a brief description of those atheists’ approach and arguments, and the response is provided below.

Atheists - Non-Serious Attitude

It is unfortunate that when seeking to find answers to the most vital question facing human beings, instead of demonstrating a serious and mature temperament, these famous atheists seemed to draw a curious joy from their notoriety, their wisecracks and from stoking up new controversies.

This makes one wonder if the driving force behind those people’s intellectual pursuit in this field was not merely a need for attention or vanity or just fun.

Friedrich Nietzsche

German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, shocked the world by proclaiming that 'god is dead' but then he went on to warn again and again that since religion provided the moral foundation for our society, abandoning it could result in the total collapse of societal values.

Bertrand Russell

The greatest philosopher of the last century, a great humanist and the most articulate thinker of his time, Russell decided to engage in religious debates through correspondence with senior Christian clergy for pure fun, using his great intellect and wit just to make the clergy appear mediocre.

But beyond exposing faith as lacking direct physical evidence and how religion had led to intolerance and wars through history, Russell has not made any serious contribution to answering the question as to whether we have a creator or not.

How can history, or Russell’s view of it, contribute anything in determining if there is a creator of the universe or not?

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens was the most famous atheist of our times. He died in 2011. Hitchens disqualifies himself from making any contribution to a discussion about the existence of a creator since he confessed that he would be horrified if evidence were to emerge proving the existence of a creator.

Hitchens called himself 'an antitheist' and said that a normal atheist may be looking for truth, but as an 'antitheist', Hitchens was ‘relieved that there's no evidence' for there being a creator.

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is a zoologist and the most famous living atheist and evolutionist. In 1859, Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution through his book 'On the Origin of Species', according to which, every offspring is slightly different from its parents, a difference that makes it more or less suitable to its environment.

According to Darwin, over thousands of generations, through a process called natural selection, new species emerge that are more suited to their environment, while others get eliminated. But Darwin believed in god and he never claimed to know how the first life form emerged from dead matter.

In contrast, Dawkins takes the theory of evolution to a new extreme level, claiming that the theory explains even the emergence of the first life form from nothing, despite the fact that no scientist has ever been able to create a single cell in a laboratory.

In a 2016 study published by the British newspaper ‘The Independent’, 80 per cent of British scientists said that Dawkins misrepresents science and scientists in public.

And sadly, Dawkins, too, has failed to demonstrate that he is a balanced, mature and sincere seeker of truth. He too loves debates, creates drama and loves to abuse and stoke up controversies.

For instance, the god of the Old Testament gave Moses Ten Commandments that included: honor your father and mother, do not kill, do not steal, do not be a false witness against your neighbor, etc. But the following is how Dawkins describes the same god.

'The god of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.’

By this time, perhaps, Dawkins ran out of his chest of abuses.