The answer to both questions is a resounding yes. For to believe that an exceedingly vast, systematically ordered universe, exquisitely finely tuned for complex life with its profound intricate complexity and extensive diversity, can be all a result of purely natural processes requires much faith (which, biblically defined, it that of degrees of actionable confidence based upon degrees of evidential warrant
More so than that the universe logically testifies to design, requiring a First Cause (at the least), that of a being of supreme power and intelligence being behind the existence of energy and of matter, and organization thereof.
Meaning that the atheist/antitheist position that there is no Creator/God, is one lacking proof and requires great faith. For atheists can only presume that an exceedingly vast, systematically ordered, intricate universe, exquisitely finely tuned for earthly life with its extensive diversity and astounding complexity - which is well attested to (see below) - came to be by known and potentially known, purely natural demonstrable powers, without any supreme supernatural agency behind it.
And while man- using His God-given intelligence - has discovered causes and means of many things (like lighting) that were once attributed by some to purely supernatural causes, these are discoveries of how God created natural things to work, using laws He ordained, yet which are beside actions for organization of matter, and the programming of it which require supernatural powers and intelligence.
Moreover, rather than a trajectory of scientific discovery leading to a purely natural explanation of the universe, instead, the more that is discovered then the more perplexing competing proposals become, and likewise the premise that the universal can or will be explained to the exclusion of a creator becomes more manifest as a position of faith.
See at end for responses to further argumentation for regarding atheism being a position of faith. Meanwhile, here are just some
- Sources attesting to "an exceedingly vast, systematically ordered universe, exquisitely finely tuned for complex life with its profound intricate complexity and extensive diversity:"
1. It's almost impossible to understand how unfathomably massive our universe truly is
2. https://www.discovery.org/m/2020/06/Fine-Tuning-Parameters-Jay-Richards.pdf
3 https://youtu.be/ocMcYyhoZh4
4. Fine-Tuning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
5. Science quotes on God
A list of 60 aspects as regards the above is https://wng.org/roundups/a-fine-tuned-universe-1617224984
6. 'God: new evidence' - the fine tuning of the universe - part 1
7. When science and philosophy collide in a 'fine-tuned' universe
8. The Universe Really Is Fine-Tuned, And Our Existence Is The Proof
9. Design from Fine-Tuning | Reasonable Faith
10. We Live in a Very Fortunate Universe
11. List of Fine-Tuning Parameters
12. List of Factors of Fine-Tuning of Intelligent Life in the Universe
13. Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?
14. [God DNA] Proves Presence of God” says Scientists
15. 82 Mind-Blowing Facts about DNA | FactRetriever.com
16. 'God: new evidence' - the fine tuning of the universe - part 1
17. Evidence for the Fine Tuning of the Universe
18. It Takes 26 Fundamental Constants To Give Us Our Universe, But They Still Don't Give Everything
19. The Universe as We Understand It May Be Impossible
20 https://www.c4id.org.uk/Groups/277306/Find_Resources.aspx
21. Genesis Impact
22. THINKAPOLOGETICS.COM
23. James Tour: The Mystery of Life youtu.be/zU7Lww-sBPg
24. Is There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible?
25. Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources
26. Is Jesus Alive?
27. Jenny Hawkins's answer to Do modern historians agree that Jesus existed?
28. Copycat theories refuted: Tektonics.org Bible apologetics and education
29. Amazing Stories, Christian Testimonies, Healing Miracles and Inspirational Stories and actual accounts of God's intervention.
30. Science quotes on God:
"according
to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life
depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics,
notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some
constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its
very early stages." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/ A listing of such follows.
“I
find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has
to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the
explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead
of nothing.” - Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy)
Willford, J.N. March 12, 1991. Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomers
Quest. New York Times, p. B9.
“Amazing
fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible.
Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very
difficult not to use the word ‘miraculous’ without taking a stand as to
the ontological status of the word.” - George Ellis (British
astrophysicist) Ellis, G.F.R. 1993. The Anthropic Principle: Laws and
Environments. The Anthropic Principle, F. Bertola and U.Curi, ed. New
York, Cambridge University Press, p. 30
“We
are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group
of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most
exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my
view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man
to live in.” - John O’Keefe (astronomer at NASA) Heeren, F. 1995. Show
Me God. Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 200.
“As
we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of
physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it
almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we
were coming.” - Professor Freeman J. of the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton
“The
statistical probability that organic structures and the most precisely
harmonized reactions that typify living organisms would be generated by
accident, is zero.” - Ilya Prigogine (Chemist-Physicist) Recipient of two Nobel Prizes in chemistry in, "Physics Today" 25, pp. 23-28
“...how
surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of
the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe
it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several
physical quantities had slightly different values.” - Professor Steven
Weinberg (Nobel Laureate in High Energy Physics [a field of science that
deals with the very early universe], writing in the journal “Scientific
American”.)
16O
has exactly the right nuclear energy level either to prevent all the
carbon from turning into oxygen or to facilitate sufficient production
of 16O for life. Fred Hoyle, who discovered these coincidences in 1953,
concluded that “a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as
with chemistry and biology.” - Hoyle, Fred. “The Universe: Past and
Present Reflections,” in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
20. (1982), p.16 (for more of these coincidences click here)
“If
you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance
assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one… Faced
with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the
evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this
success is actually written into the fabric of the universe.” -
Christian de Duve. “A Guided Tour of the Living Cell” (Nobel laureate
and organic chemist)
“The
really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a
knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge,
and would be total chaos if any of the natural ‘constants’ were off even
slightly. - - Dr. Paul Davies, esteemed author and Professor of
Theoretical Physics at Adelaide University.
“...The
capacity of DNA to store information vastly exceeds that of any other
known system: it is so efficient that all the information needed to
specify an organism as complex as man weighs less than a few thousand
millionths of a gram. The information necessary to specify the design of
all the species of organisms which have ever existed on the
planet…could be held in a teaspoon and there would still be room left
for all the information in every book ever written…” - Dr. Michael
Denton (Australian microbiologist)
“Amazing
fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible.
Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very
difficult not to use the word ‘miraculous’ without taking a stand as to
the ontological status of the word.” - George Ellis (British
astrophysicist) Ellis, G.F.R. 1993. The Anthropic Principle: Laws and
Environments. The Anthropic Principle, F. Bertola and U.Curi, ed. New
York, Cambridge University Press, p. 30
“As
we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of
physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it
almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we
were coming.” - Professor Freeman J. of the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton
Owen
Gingerich, Astronomer: "Frankly, I am psychologically incapable of
believing that the universe is meaningless. I believe the universe has a
purpose, and our greatest intellectual challenge as human beings is to
glimpse what this purpose might be." [1]
"Only gradually did I come to appreciate how magnificently tuned the universe is for the emergence of intelligent life." [1]
George
Greenstein, Astronomer: "As we survey all the evidence, the thought
insistently arises that some supernatural agency--or rather,
Agency--must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without
intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of
a Supreme Being?" [3]
Stuart
Kauffman, Complexity Theorist: "Yet who seeing the snowflake, who
seeing simple limpid molecules cast adrift in water forming themselves
into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles, who seeing the potential for the
crystallization of life in swarms of reacting molecules, who seeing the
stunning order for free in networks linking tens upon tens of thousands
of variables, can fail to entertain a central thought: if ever we are to
attain a final theory in biology, we will surely... have to see that we
are the natural expressions of a deeper order." [3]
As regards “order,” from another non-Christian:
“The
order of the universe is not an assumption; it’s an observed fact. We
detect the light from distant quasars only because the laws of
electromagnetism are the same 10 billion light years away as here. The
spectra of those quasars are recognizable only because the same chemical
elements are present there as here, and because the same laws of
quantum mechanics apply. The motion of galaxies around one another
follows familiar Newtonian gravity. Gravitational lenses and binary
pulsar spin-downs reveal general relativity in the depths of space. We
could have lived in a universe with different laws in every province,
but we do not. This fact cannot but elicit feelings of reverence and
awe.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
*As Albert Einstein observed,
" We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we
understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the
mysterious force that sways the constellations."
Stephen
Hawking, a renowned cosmologist, believed that the universe has an
underlying order. He wrote, "The universe is governed by a set of laws,
which are mathematical in nature, and these laws can be discovered and
understood by humans." (Source: "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen
Hawking)
Brian
Greene: "The universe is a grand, harmonious system, governed by a set
of rules we call the laws of physics... The harmony of the universe is a
reflection of the underlying order that pervades all of existence."
(From "The Elegant Universe", 1999)
Emmy
Noether: "The universe is a system of symmetries, governed by laws that
reflect the underlying order of nature... Mathematics is the tool that
reveals these symmetries and laws." (From "Noether's Theorem", 1918)
“We
are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group
of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most
exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my
view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man
to live in.” - John O’Keefe (astronomer at NASA) Heeren, F. 1995. Show
Me God. Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 200.
Francisco
Varela: "The universe is a system of order, with a self-organizing and
autopoietic nature that underlies the emergence of life and
consciousness." (From "The Embodied Mind", 1991)
“I
find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has
to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the
explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead
of nothing.” - Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy)
Willford, J.N. March 12, 1991. Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomers
Quest. New York Times, p. B9.
Charles
Darwin: "The universe is a system of order, with a natural selection
that guides the evolution of life towards greater complexity and
diversity." (From "On the Origin of Species", 1859)
Commentary:
Moreover,
addressing the moral argument of antithiests, God, due to His very
nature of knowing what every effect will be of every one of man’s
choices - not only for this life but for eternity - has in that light a
reason for His choices, including enabling man to make choices between
alternatives - right or wrong - (unlike perfect robots) and thus effect
consequences, for good as well as for bad, which to varying degrees
affect others.
And
unlike man, as omnipotent, God alone can make all things to ultimately
work out for Good, with justice as well as mercy and grace;
And
which Being cannot be judged regarding His choices by finite and
exceedingly ignorant man as specks in this darkened corner of the
universe, existing on earth in but a moment of time. Despite the
ignorant blasphemous railings of antithiests (and even some such
protestations of myself) who essentially must presume omniscience in
charging an all-knowing God of immorality, while themselves have no sure
supreme standard for morality, much less knowing what every effect will
be of every one of man’s choices and the ability to make it all work
out for what is objectively Good in the light of all that can be know.
Many
of which atheists even deny a creator as a proposal and regardless of
whatever evidence could be offered, as well as for the historicity of
the Biblical Christ.
For
non-seeking atheists, like their rebel master, their denial of God and
rejection of a supreme judge even as a possibility can be surmised as being indicative of an unconscious desire to be as God as regards being the supreme
judge, rather than being
subject to anything akin to that,
Thus,
they effectively presume omniscience in sitting in moral judgment upon
an omniscient and omnipotent creator (at least of the Bible). Who cannot
be judged since the choices of an omniscient and omnipotent creator are
made in the light of His unique knowledge of what all the effects will
be of every choice, not only in this brief time, but for eternity.
And
who can - as He promises to do - make all to work out for what is Good,
with justice towards the idolaters, and mercy and grace toward those
who want what God represents, and thus seek and find The Light, The Way
The Truth and The Life, by the grace of God. (Romans 2:7, 8; Romans 8:28)
He
that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their
deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither
cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that
doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,
that they are wrought in God. (John 3:18-21es of )
On case I missed any links:
- The Universe as We Understand It May Be Impossible
- https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/design-from-fine-tuning/
- We
Live in a Very Fortunate Universe
- List
of Fine-Tuning Parameters
- List
of Factors of Fine-Tuning of Intelligent Life in the
Universe
- Can
DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?
- [God
DNA] Proves Presence of God” says Scientists
- 82
Mind-Blowing Facts about DNA | FactRetriever.com
- 'God:
new evidence' - the fine tuning of the universe -
part 1
- Evidence
for the Fine Tuning of the Universe
- It
Takes 26 Fundamental Constants To Give Us Our
Universe, But They Still Don't Give Everything
- The
Universe as We Understand It May Be Impossible
- Is
There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible?
- Ancient
Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources
- Is
Jesus Alive?
Finally,
in response to the adamant denials I have seen by atheists who assert
that their position is not one of faith, let me add the conclusions of
an an Ai model addressing this issue:
I
contend that atheism is a position of faith, as meaning it cannot
prove that there is no God, but as with those who do believe in a
Creator, atheism claims to have sufficient evidence for its belief that
the universe, and in particular, earth and its life came to be by
purely natural means, if not yet all discovered.
In
this context, an objection is, "Atheism isn’t a religious faith any
more than not playing basketball is a sport." How is this a False
analogy?
The
objection "Atheism isn't a religious faith any more than not playing
basketball is a sport" is a false analogy for several reasons:
The
objection "Atheism isn't a religious faith any more than not playing
basketball is a sport" is a false analogy for several reasons:
- Mischaracterization
of atheism: Atheism is not merely the absence of belief, but often
involves active rejection of theistic claims based on evidence and
reasoning. Unlike "not playing basketball," which is passive, many
atheists engage in critical thinking and analysis of religious claims.
- Differing
levels of engagement: While not playing basketball requires no effort
or thought, atheism often involves consideration of philosophical and
scientific arguments. Many atheists actively study and debate these
topics, making it more akin to playing a different sport rather than not
playing at all.
- Implications
and worldview: Atheism, unlike not playing basketball, has significant
implications for one's worldview and understanding of reality. It
influences moral, ethical, and existential perspectives, which "not
playing basketball" does not.
- Community
and identity: Many atheists form communities, engage in discussions,
and consider their atheism an important part of their identity. This
level of involvement is not comparable to simply not participating in a
sport.
- Intellectual
position: Atheism is an intellectual stance on the question of God's
existence, requiring consideration of evidence and arguments. Not
playing basketball does not involve any intellectual position on the
nature of sports or reality.
In
conclusion, while atheism may not be a "religious faith" in the
traditional sense, it is a more complex and engaged position than the
analogy suggests. The comparison to "not playing basketball"
oversimplifies the nature of atheism and fails to capture its
intellectual and philosophical dimensions.
Several
philosophers and philosophically informed writers have criticized the
“we are all born atheists” slogan, mainly on the ground that atheism is a
doxastic stance, and infants lack the cognitive equipment for any such
stance at all.
Philosophical / analytic critiques
These are not all theists; the key point is conceptual, not merely apologetic.
Spencer Alexander McDaniel (classicist with strong philosophical
training) explicitly argues that the “everyone is born an atheist” claim
confuses ignorance of a concept with disbelief in that concept.
He points out that an infant with no concept of “god” cannot be
accurately described as disbelieving in gods; it is simply pre‑belief,
not atheism in any philosophically robust sense.
He notes this
rhetoric is counter‑productive because it associates adult atheism with
the cognitive state of ignorant newborns, undermining atheism as a
rational conclusion.
Analytic atheists / secular writers on
epistemology (summarized in pieces like “We Are All Born Atheist! –
SciPhi Shortz: BAM!”) object that the slogan reflects “a lack of
epistemological understanding”:
An atheist is one who ascribes to atheism; atheism is a stance about the existence of gods, not a mere absence of concept.
Since
newborns have no beliefs “about anything yet,” calling them atheists is
category‑mistaken; they are neither theists nor atheists.
Discussions
influenced by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Atheism
and Agnosticism stress that, in standard philosophical usage, atheism is
a position regarding the proposition “God exists,” not just a
psychological blank.
From this standpoint, the “born
atheist” claim is rejected as a redefinition for rhetorical purposes
rather than a serious analysis of belief states.
Christian / theistic philosophers and apologists
While not always academic “big names,” these writers often draw on the same conceptual point and present it in popular form.
Lenny Esposito (apologist with philosophical training) in “The silliness of claiming we were all atheists at birth” argues:
Newborns “haven’t yet developed the rational capacity for abstract
belief”; therefore they are not atheists any more than they are
theists.
Defining atheism as “lack of belief” and then counting
babies as atheists is seen as a strategic inflation of atheist numbers
and a misuse of belief language.
GotQuestions and similar apologetic outlets argue in the same vein:
Atheism “entails certain spiritual and intellectual decisions that
newborns are incapable of making,” so “we cannot be ‘born’
atheists.”
How these critiques support your line
These sources converge on the distinction you have been pressing:
Ignorance / non‑conceptual state (infant, or your blind‑man‑with‑no-input illustration) ≠
Atheism as a belief/stance that “there are no gods” or “I withhold belief because I judge the evidence insufficient.”
So,
when internet atheists say “we’re all born atheists” to claim atheism
as the “natural” or “default” state, they are standing against:
Standard philosophical usage (atheism as a doxastic position).
Both secular and theistic writers who insist that infants are pre‑belief, not atheists in any meaningful sense.
If you want named philosophical backing in discussion, you can cite:
The Stanford Encyclopedia definition of atheism (as a position on the proposition “God exists”).
McDaniel’s critique of the “born atheist” trope as conflating ignorance with disbelief.
Analytic
commentary like SciPhi Shortz pointing out that calling infants
atheists misunderstands what a belief state is. - perplexity.ai
