I recently watched a video on youtube where Kirk Cameron interviews Charlie Kirk. If you get the time to watch the video, I encourage you to do so. In this video these two discuss how most Christians today live two lives. One in private and another when they are in public. Due to religious freedom, there is not any reason to have these two opposing personalities. But the most interesting and important thing in the video is where they talk about if there is such a thing as a good atheist.
I like that way that Charlie Kirk framed this point. He said that there are good atheist, but they are only good because they are practicing the Judaeo-Christian ethics system. He also says, "Freedom is not sustainable without religion." Without religion there is not any basis for the way that anyone should conduct themselves in society. This is because our morals come from our beliefs. Without our beliefs, there is absolutely no morals to live by.
One of my closest friends has struggled with his beliefs. He had realized that without religion, there was not any reason to believe that killing another human being was wrong. Obviously he believed that killing was wrong, but up until that point, he had found it impossible for any god to exist. The laws that we live under are representative of the morals that we as a society holds. If society loses religion entirely, like our world is headed toward right now, we will begin to lean toward anarchy because without religion there are no morals left. We have to be willing to be the same person publicly that we are privately. We cannot be scared to show and speak about our faith in public to the people we are around. This is the only way that America can preserve its freedom, because this is the only thing that will change the course that the country is headed toward. As Christians, we are called to make disciples. Without the Lord, we will see laws abolished left and right because the laws have lost their meaning.
When we talk about a good atheist, we are talking about someone who practices Judaeo-Christian values. This allows them to retain some morals, but with time, these morals will deteriorate and there will be fewer and fewer good atheists. This is because the morals do not have any foundation. These atheists are performing the works, but refuse to acknowledge the existence of a god, much less believe that God exists and accept the forgiveness that he has given us through his son Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2:8-19, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast." Often times, Christians use the words "grace" and "mercy" interchangeably, but they are different. Mercy is not getting what we do deserve, while grace is getting what we don't deserve. So no matter what no one deserves to make it to heaven and be saved, but because of the grace of God, we have the hope of making it to heaven. Romans 3:23 tells us that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Through Christ's death on the cross and resurrection from the tomb, God has offered forgiveness for our sins. This is not to say that we can still go around sinning all the time. Accepting this forgiveness brings with it a desire to abstain from sinful behavior. But abstaining from this sinful behavior (aka the works) while not accepting God's forgiveness is futile because it will all be in vain.