Have you heard about the Global Atheist Convention slated for Melbourne, Australia next month? The convention is being spearheaded by the famous atheist Richard Dawkins, a man who pretends to be so smart that he’s forced to be sacrilegious. Yet, the Bible claims that a great “brainiac” like Dawkins is not an atheist because of his great intellect, but an idiot because of his iniquity.

According to the Apostle Paul, it’s sin, not scholarship nor science, that causes men to “suppress the truth” about God (Romans 1:18). Rather than taking a genius, the Bible says it takes an outright fool to say, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). Faced with the evidence of creation and an intricately designed universe, it takes an inexcusable imbecile to deny Intelligent Design and the existence of a Creator (Romans 1:19-22).

The atheism of men like Dawkins is easily explained by their animosity towards the Almighty. Like Sigmund Freud, they have concluded that the foreboding thought of inevitable accountability to God must be eliminated from the earth in order for man to reach his full potential, a potential only attainable through self-service, not self-denial in the service of God and others. That such is the case with Richard Dawkins was indisputably proven in Ben Stein’s documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.”

At the end of Stein’s documentary, Stein interviews Dawkins who claims to be ninety-nine percent certain that there is no God. When pressed by Stein on the one percent possibility he leaves open for God’s existence, an irritated Dawkins recoils by insisting that even if Intelligent Design is ever proven it will not prove the existence of God, but of a highly evolved extraterrestrial who came to earth and seeded life on our planet.

Dawkins’ willingness to believe in the possibility of little green men from Mars, coupled with his unwillingness to ever believe in the God-man from heaven, is proof positive of all that Paul wrote in the first chapter of Romans. It’s not the genius of Dawkins’ brilliant mind that causes him to reject Jesus Christ; instead, it’s the darkness of a heart at enmity with God. This alone explains why a so-called brilliant scientist would publicly vow that no matter what scientific evidence ever proves he’ll never profess a belief in God.

According to event organizers, the 2500 tickets available for the Sunday session of the Global Atheist Convention are already sold out. Due to skepticism over how large of a crowd to expect, event organizers have planned the Friday and Saturday sessions in smaller venues. Although I’m tempted to quip, “O ye of little faith,” the fact that atheists have no faith at all prevents me from doing so.

One of the things convention organizers are publicly promoting is the distinctive diversity among atheists. According to them, atheists don’t necessarily have anything in common, except their refusal to believe in “imaginary friends.” Unlike religious folks, atheists are proud of the fact that they share no common ethics or ambitions. However, this lack of commonality among atheists is more a symptom of their condition than a virtue stemming from their lack of convictions. 

Void of a belief in God, atheists forfeit the only foundation for ethics. Without God—the arbiter of right and wrong and the one to whom all wrongdoers must give an account—each atheist is free to makeup his own ethics. They live as they please without fear of accountability. None have the right to question the values of others, since everyone is equally free to invent his own inviolable set of values. 

When it comes to ambitions, atheists are free to pursue whatever ends they desire, as well as to justify any means by their ends. They are even free to have no ambitions at all. No one is more suited than the atheist to the Christless creed: “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Any ambition imaginable or no ambition at all is equally acceptable within atheism’s rank and file. 

Without convictions, ethics or ambitions—with the lone exception of ridding our planet of all religion—I can’t help but wonder what atheists have to celebrate at their upcoming convention in Melbourne. Will it be the nothingness to which they’re all devoted: no God, no faith, no purpose, no right and wrong, no meaning, no life after death or hereafter? I can’t imagine anyone being that excited over such prospects. I certainly can’t imagine holding a convention in celebration of them. Can you?

Maybe, the explanation for the upcoming atheist’s convention is found in the fact that hopelessness, like misery, loves company. Thus, atheists are somewhat consoled by being together with other accidental byproducts of a mechanistic universe who are eking out a meaningless existence that will inevitably end in eternal oblivion. 

There is the possibility that atheists are actually being allured to Melbourne by the convention’s scheduled speakers. Along with Richard Dawkins, Australia’s own Peter Singer, who advocates that a healthy pig has more of a right to life than a disabled child, is scheduled to speak to the “convictionless” conventioneers on the subject of ethics. That should be interesting! It will kinda be like hearing a speech by Tiger Woods on the subject of marital fidelity. 

Also scheduled to speak at the convention is lesbian comedian Sue-Ann Post. Sue-Ann will speak on the topic, “Twenty years of Kicking God in the Shins.” I don’t know about you, but I find Sue-Ann’s topic most intriguing. In particular, I’m curious as to why Sue-Ann has invested so many years kicking the nonexistent shins of someone she believes to be a figment of my imagination. 

Why are atheists so obsessed with God? If He doesn’t exist, as atheists insist, then why do they spend their lives kicking at someone who isn’t there? It all reminds me of the well-known rhyme of Hughes Mearns.

“Yesterday upon the stair

I met a man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

Oh, how I wish he’d go away.”

If God isn’t there, why are atheists so determined and devoted to making Him go away? Perhaps, this is what the upcoming Global Atheist Convention is really all about. It’s a chance for atheists to come together and collectively wish away the God who isn’t there. Unfortunately for them, He’ll still be there tomorrow, no matter how much they wish He’d go away.