Talk to a typical Materialist-Atheist today (here’s a picture of one below) …

… and the dialogue will go like this …

SANE MAN:  If there is nothing but matter, then what do you make of beauty, of love?

MATERIALIST-ATHEIST:  Beauty is subjective.

SM:  Then why discuss art?  Why critique anything if there’s no objective truth or standard of beauty by which to measure and assess the thing we discuss?  Why discuss anything?  If everything is simply our own opinion, then why talk to anybody?  Isn’t the whole purpose of discussion an attempt to uncover what is objective in the midst of our subjective notions?

MA:  (burps)

SM:  … and what about love?  How do you explain love, the greatest spiritual gift, if everything is material?

MA:  Love comes from evolution.  It’s our biology.  It’s our gonads.

SM:  There’s a word for what you’re describing, but it ain’t love. 

MA:  Then love is a benign illusion that helps us deal with the meaninglessness of life; a sense of purpose itself is a product of evolution and motivates the individual and the species.  We need our illusions in order to survive, though I don’t personally need illusions, since I’m superior to you.  “Love” like “God” is just a giant spaghetti monster that we believe in; those inferior humans among us apparently need to believe in things other than matter or else they’d never get out of bed in the morning (which, most days, I myself have trouble doing).

SM:  So “love” is an illusion that aids our biological survival.

MA:  Exactly.

SM:  And Darwinists believe that the fittest survive, and that survival is the great good.

MA:  That’s right.  Whatever gets you through the night, or through your life – whatever helps you propagate your species and not kill yourself (though I personally think suicide is noble).

SM:  But if there’s nothing but matter, as you insist, then why is survival important?

MA:  … huh?

SM:  What possible advantage does a frog have over a rock?  They’re both random bits of matter.

MA:  A frog lives and attempts to survive and –

SM:  But why?  Why would “survival” be any less of an illusion than “love” or “beauty”?  If the only point of love or beauty is to get us off our butts so that we and our species continue to “survive”, then “survival” is the ultimate good.  But why?  Why, if that’s all there is, is “survival” important?  Once I die, by your theory, I’m still matter, after all.  I’ll always be matter or energy.  That’s all there is to be.  What possible benefit is it to survive, to live?

MA:  (looks despondent)  I often wonder that myself.

SM:  That’s because your churches are filled with ugly stained glass, gay guitar music and insipid homilies.  You really don’t know anything about love or beauty.  They do not exist to serve life, but to a certain extent, life exists to serve them.  Have another beer.

MA:  (suddenly emphatic)  You religionists deserve to die!

SM:  For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  Some more chips?

***

To be fair, I’ve had conversations with atheists who are much smarter and more serious than this – including one just the other night. 

And I was an atheist myself for many years, so I still hold a warm place in my heart for my confused brethren-in-the-no-faith.  The best of them are searching for truth; the worst of them are priests of the Culture of Death.