Three Testimonies From Atheists

The following are three testimonies concerning atheists. If you are an atheist, please read of the despair of your previous brethren. Know for certainty, that your life will be empty and without true meaning. Only God brings true contentment.

Nineteenth-century atheist Robert Ingersoll was famous for his public attacks on religion. He was also politically active, being appointed attorney general of Illinois. Ingersoll became a serious contender for the Democratic nomination for governor, but his determination to trumpet his anti-religious views scuttled his political hopes. Once asked by a reporter how much his extensive library had cost him, Ingersoll looked at the rows of shelves and replied, "These books cost me the governorship of Illinois, and maybe the presidency of the United States as well." Clearly, Robert Ingersoll's insistence on taking the wrong spiritual path also cost him dearly in other areas of life.

Writers H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw were brilliant men, yet they rejected the message of Scripture. They placed their trust in their own systems of belief, which were based on human reason. Yet they could not find lasting inner peace, and they slowly lost confidence in what they believed. Wells' final literary work, for example, has been aptly called "a scream of despair." And shortly before Shaw died in 1950, he wrote, "The science to which I pinned my faith is bankrupt. Its counsels, which should have established the millennium, have led directly to the suicide of Europe. I believed them once. In their name I helped to destroy the faith of millions. And now they look at me and witness the great tragedy of an atheist who has lost his faith."

One day Voltaire said to a friend, "It took twelve ignorant fishermen to establish Christianity; I will show the world how one Frenchman can destroy it." Setting to his task, he openly ridiculed Sir Isaac Newton. One day Newton made a prophecy based on Dan. 12:4 and Nahum 2:4 when he said, "Man will some day be able to travel at the tremendous speed of 40 miles an hour." Voltaire replied with, "See what a fool Christianity makes of an otherwise brilliant man, such as Sir Isaac Newton! Doesn't he know that if man traveled 40 miles an hour, he would suffocate and his heart would stop?" Twenty-five years after Voltaire died, his home was purchased by the Geneva Bible Society and became a Bible storage building, and his printing press was used to print an entire edition of the Bible. -- Sunday School Times