Perhaps the organizers doomed themselves to this fate by selecting “hope” as the main theme for their conference.
Atheists believe that the universe – and life – is all random chance. We humans are merely ancestors of fish, cells fizzing randomly and evolving over billions of years and miraculously forming this coherent, beautiful, happy accident we call life. According to the atheist worldview, there is no freewill, there is no soul, there is no afterlife, there is no purpose to anything.
So, holding a conference on “hope” seems to fly in the face of what their actual view on existence teaches. What is there to hope for if our life has no actual meaning and we all cease to exist the moment we die? What is there to hope for if there is no justice in this life or the next? What is there to hope for when believing we have no control over our actions, and the cells mutating in our bodies are dictating what we say and do?
According to Michael Jensen, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, his “sources” claimed the event was cancelled due to lack of interest. Since no other reason was given for the sudden cancellation, that seems like a safe conclusion to make.
Some big names were due to attend the event, including famed atheist Richard Dawkins, who was once spectacularly confronted on the existence of God by Ben Stein – here’s a clip where he tried to explain how “liberating” it is not to believe in God, but more importantly, when pressed on the origins of life, he came to quite a fascinating conclusion:
He left the door open to the possibility of “intelligent design” but was against “certain types” of designers, such as God. Instead, it had to be some alien life that had evolved through “some sort of darwinian means” and planted life here on earth. Of course, this is just another example of atheists kicking the can down a little further down the road, and refusing to even discuss the possibility of God being the explanation for that which they cannot explain.
While there’s irony in the cancellation of the global atheist conference, we should continue to pray for those who have closed their minds to even the possibility of God existing. He is able to turn even the hardest heart of stone, and we would be wise to view the lost souls so desperate for hope they’re looking find it at an conference on atheism with empathy rather than disdain – in hopes that they not remain lost but are saved.