Posted on 02/07/2011 4:00:33 AM PST by Kaslin
An atheist reader has asked that I devote a column to explaining what he sees as my contempt for atheists. In past columns, I have exhibited a careless tendency to lump atheists together into a single homogeneous category. In my experience, there are two distinct categories of atheists – the unbelieving atheist and the evangelistic atheist. Only the latter category is deserving of contempt.
There are a number of reasons why a person might identify himself as an unbelieving atheist. I believe very firmly that one can be reasonably mistaken in one’s unbelief. While I think atheists are uniformly wrong, I do not consider them to be uniformly unreasonable.
It may well be the case that the unbeliever was raised by atheist parents in a home without religious instruction. I know of atheists who were raised in homes without a copy of the Bible. Each had to rely upon second hand accounts of what the Bible says on a variety of issues. Most of them never got around to reading it firsthand.
Those who lack religious influence in the home and religious instruction at an early age are at a disadvantage in 21st century America. Long before President Obama declared that we are no longer a Christian nation, our courts and schools began to lay the foundation for post-Christian America.
There is no mistaking the fact that our public school system has become secularized to the point of relinquishing any claims of neutrality. Most schools have reached the point of being overtly anti-religious. Kids who have no firm foundation in Judeo-Christian ethics are likely to become highly resistant to conversion at a later age. You can thank our public schools for that. We all pay for public education in more ways than one.
The unbelieving atheist often sets a high standard of proof when confronted with Christian apologetics. That is what his culture teaches. He is also taught that religion and logic are incompatible. I recently heard someone say, “One can’t put the words logic and religion in the same sentence.” Of course, that statement contains a serious flaw: It uses the words logic and religion in the same sentence.
Regardless of what others say, we are commanded as Christians to provide a ready defense for our beliefs. And that calls for the use of logic and reason and evidence. We are obligated to polish our arguments. It is a part of our obligation to hold out a candle and light up the world.
But holding out a candle cannot help others to see the sun. If things have become dark enough for them our candle might even obscure their view of the stars. At some point they must be willing to look beyond isolated arguments. They must open their eyes and contemplate their surroundings. And they must look beyond concepts like “luck” and “random variation” to find a more complex and refined view of the universe.
I love my unbelieving atheist friends and I enjoy the conversations we have on many weighty issues. Even when they seem stubborn, they seldom seem unreasonable. The fact that many of them are politically conservative gives me great hope.
But the evangelistic atheist is a different breed altogether. One atheist evangelist sits in his office with piles of anti-religious books as he prepares his next lecture for his Sociology of Religion class. He curses more than he uses words like “a” and “the.” And he posts the headlines of the latest church scandal on his office door. He takes more pride in the failure of others than in his own personal achievements.
Another evangelistic atheist writes books distorting the history of Christianity and the life and words of Jesus – all the while calling it scholarship. He develops courses on “Atheism and Unbelief.” He even posts “Godless!” (Compete with the exclamation point!) in the “religious views” portion of his Facebook profile. Yet he claims emotional detachment on issues of faith and religion.
In short, the evangelistic atheist is characterized less by the absence of belief than by a zeal for destroying the beliefs of others. He is seldom politically conservative and almost always “very liberal.” Just take a few minutes to examine his Facebook profile.
The politically conservative unbelieving atheist must wake up and connect the dots between religion and politics and between social and fiscal conservatism. He must realize that the evangelistic atheist is on a political rather than religious crusade. His evangelism targets religion because he seeks to destroy the family. And he seeks to destroy the family because he seeks to replace it with the welfare state.
Our individual liberties are in jeopardy. But they may only be taken away by men if it is presumed that they are granted by men. We need fair-minded unbelieving atheists to reconsider the underpinnings of their beliefs. A godless conservatism is only one election away from extinction.
I am not an atheist but I will say that I have never PERSONALLY known a professing atheist to call for the death of believers but I have PERSONALLY known professing Christians to call for the death of nonbelievers, sometimes in quite an enraged manner. I don’t even want to talk about Muslims. As far as I am concerned anyone who believes God is calling him to kill those who don’t share his beliefs is following a false god.
Science is based on things ‘seen’.
Faith is based on things ‘unseen’.
Thank you for posting the article.
Some good food for thought.
Those people aren’t Christian, and that is not a church. They just call it one.
Well, the guys I’m referring to haven’t openly called for such, but one expressed...perverted pleasure at reading about a church burning, and many have expressed an eagerness to see religious people get punished for their views, see private religious schools get closed down/federalized, and none have given me cause to believe they would speak out if the rights of religious people were openly violated.
No, as an Orthodox Christian, I regard other monotheistic religions as having more or less mistaken conceptions of the One God, rather than believing in a different God. Nor do you get to tell me what Christians hold to be pagan. Indeed, I as an adherent of the original Christian Church (in fact, a lowly subdeacon serving the Great Church of Antioch, where the disciples were first called “Christians”) I’ll claim dibs on saying what attitudes are normatively Christian.
The transcendent Ground-of-All-Being is Who (by improper analogy) He is. As a Christian, I believe that adherence to the Christian revelation gives the best account of Him. I even regard Taoism as having an imperfect (though very good) account of the Ground-of-All-Being: though Lao Tzu missed that It is personal, he very clearly grasped that It is self-less. I do not consider Sikhs, Taoists, nor Buddhists pagans. (Well, at least not the sort of Buddhists that have not repaganized Buddhism contrary to the Buddha’s correct intuition that the existence or non-existence of such beings as the Hindus call “gods” is irrelevant to human spiritual development — the Tibetan variety is still pagan). They are, however, mistaken about many things.
You are, however, mistaken that the Zoroastrians are monotheists: they are dualists, having two gods, one good and one evil, neither of which is the transcendent source of all being.
I am not asking for an exception for Christianity, but pointing out the poverty of the notion of God, as a mere god, which most atheists set out to deny. I too deny such a poor notion of God.
Then I get a blank look.
Probably because they're shocked that you brought up the discoveries of a con artist.
He also claimed that he found the Ark of the Covenant, samples of Christ's blood, and the Tower of Babel.
The real question would then be, “Which God?”
"The magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."
I don't agree with him, but it's certainly the most noble attempt to try and make a compromise between empiricism and religion.
He’s not a con artist. You can see from google earth where the petrified remains are of the ark, and also the foundation of the Tower of Babel in modern day Babil, Iraq.
I have both sites marked on google earth on my computer.
Just to add, contrary to some artist’s rendering, the foundation of the Tower of Babel is a square ziggurat and not a round foundation.
The God that we’ll all answer to one day, whether we believe or not. And that is God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Iraq is not where he claimed the Tower of Babel was, so your novelty Googlemap location is wrong.
Ron Wyatt was a slick con man. I'm surprised people still bring up his silly claims.
Lol. Never seen a dirt-colored, boat shaped snow drift before. Not to mention the Turkish gov’t refuses to allow it to be completely exacavated.
The Bible says the Tower of Babel was located in the land of “Shinar”, which is in modern-day Iraq.
I would once love for an atheist to just admit that they wouldn’t believe even if God came down and shook their hand. lol.
I just find the argument silly. Some dodgy pseudoarchaeology doesn't really prove anything, nor even make for an interesting discussion.
You and I are talking about 2 different sites of the ark. I think you are referring to the person that posted pictures of the supposed interior of the ark. The Turks will not allow any excavation work to be done at the site I am referring to. So any ‘interior’ pictures are impossible.
The satellite views from google earth of what I am talking about is not covered in snow and is easily seen. It’s length is also approx. 485 feet, which is consistent with the dimensions in the Bible. The coordinates are: 39.26.26.26-44.14.05.49
Just so you know, anyone who says that the Tower of Babel should be in Turkey is mistaken. It’s foundation is right next to the Euphrates river in Babil,Iraq just S.E. of one of Saddam’s palaces.
That's the Durupinar site.
It's a rock formation, not a petrified boat. It was checked out extensively in the early 90's by Wyatt and a couple of his colleagues, and it's a case similar to the face on Mars; interesting from up high, but nothing much when examined up close. Wyatt believed it was the Ark, but he believes everything he finds is of Biblical proportions.
Everyone else with him didn't buy it. There's other boat shaped formations all over the same valley.
I’m not saying that the site is actually the ark.
It ‘appears’ to be a rock formation: “Many experts have concluded from examining the photos that the images are of rock formations that strongly resemble the boat described in Genesis.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/30/noahs-ark-hoax-claim-doesnt-deter-believers/#ixzz1DPWpGio2
The Tower, however, is another story. It’s foundation thankfully wasn’t completely destroyed by Saddam’s workmen in the 1990’s.
Yeah, it's a ziggurat. The Mesopotamians built them.
The existence of a ziggurat, or a boat shaped rock formation, or chariot wheel in the Red Sea doesn't prove anything about the supernatural.
I can think of a lot of reasons that a chariot wheel or axle would be in the Red Sea, and none of them require the miraculous. That probably explains the looks you got from people when you asked that question.
“The existence of a ziggurat, or a boat shaped rock formation, or chariot wheel in the Red Sea doesn’t prove anything about the supernatural.”
Actually, you are correct. But shouldn’t that raise questions? Especially when they are in general locations where Biblical things took place.
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