Is God dead? Atheism finds a market in U.S

A fresh wave of atheistic books has hit the market this autumn, some climbing onto best-seller lists in what proponents see as a backlash against the way religion is entwined in politics.

"Religion is fragmenting the human community," said Sam Harris, author of "Letter to a Christian Nation," No. 11 on the New York Times nonfiction list on October 15.

There is a "huge visibility and political empowerment of religion. President George W. Bush uses his first veto to deny funding for stem cell research and scientists everywhere are horrified," he said in an interview.

Religious polarization is part of many world conflicts, he said, including those involving Israel and Iran, "but it's never discussed. I consider it the story of our time, what religion is doing to us. But there are very few people calling a spade a spade."

His "Letter," a blunt 96-page pocket-sized book condensing arguments against belief in quick-fire volleys, appeared on the Times list just ahead of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, a scientist at Oxford University and long-time atheist.

In addition, Harris' "The End of Faith," a 2004 work which prompted his "Letter" as a response to critics, is holding the No. 13 Times spot among nonfiction paperbacks.

Publishers Weekly said the business has seen "a striking number of impassioned critiques of religion -- any religion, but Christianity in particular," a probably inevitable development given "the super-soaking of American politics and culture with religion in recent years."

Paul Kurtz, founder of the Council for Secular Humanism and publisher of Free Inquiry magazine, said, "The American public is really disturbed about the role of religion in U.S. government policy, particularly with the Bush administration and the breakdown of church-state separation, and secondly with the conflict in the Mideast."

They are turning to free thought and secular humanism and publishers have recognized a taste for that, he added.

"I've published 45 books, many critical of religion," Kurtz said. "I think in America we have this notion of tolerance ... it was considered bad taste to criticize religion. But I think now there are profound questions about age-old hatreds."

The Rev. James Halstead, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Chicago's DePaul University, says the phenomenon is really "a ripple caused by the book publishing industry."

"These books cause no new thought or moral commitment. The arguments are centuries old," he told Reuters. Some believers, he added, "are no better. Their conception of God, the Divine-Human-World relationship are much too simplistic and materialistic."

Too often, he said, the concept "God" is misused "to legitimate the self and to beat up other people ... to rehash that same old theistic and atheistic arguments is a waste of time, energy and paper."

Dr. Timothy Larsen, professor of theology at Wheaton College in Illinois, says any growth in interest in atheism is a reflection of the strength of religion -- the former being a parasite that feeds off the latter.

That happened late in the 19th century America when an era of intense religious conviction gave rise to voices like famed agnostic Robert Ingersoll, he said.

For Christianity, he said, "It's very important for people of faith to realize how unsettling and threatening their posture and rhetoric and practice can feel to others. So it's an opportunity for the church to look at itself and say 'we have done things ... that make other people uncomfortable.' It is an opportunity for dialogue."

Larsen, author of the soon-to-be-published "Crisis of Doubt," added that in some sense atheism is "a disappointment with God and with the church. Some of these are people we wounded that we should be handling pastorally rather than with aggressive knockdown debate."

These are also probably some of the same people Harris says he's hearing from after his two books.

"Many, many readers feel utterly isolated in their communities," he said. "They are surrounded by cult members, from their point of view, and are unable to disclose their feelings."

"I get a lot of e-mail just expressing incredible relief that they are not alone ... relieved that I'm writing something that couldn't be said," Harris added.

All it would take is for God to show up for thirty seconds. Just show himself to mankind for 30 seconds. Mankind would be transformed. But he doesn't. Or he won't.

God showed Himself to Israel for forty years. Where they transformed? Or did they go back to worshipping idols while He was still standing over them on Mt. Sinai?

God showed Himself again fifteen centuries later in Incarnate form for over thirty years. He proved to be the most divisive Man in history, and while many were transformed for the better by knowing Him, others went the opposite direction.

When God appears in power, only those who have already truly loved Him, who have or wish to repent of their sins, and who have thereby taken shelter in His grace are joyous at His Coming. Those inclined to follow the evil inclinations of the natural heart hate Him, flee from Him, and, if they can, try to kill Him.

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 3:19-21, KJV)

There is a day, which I believe is coming very soon, when God will appear to the world in power again, in the Person of the resurrected Son, Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ. And whether you will rejoice in or curse that day depends on your relationship with God before then.

In the meantime, God has not simply left the world on its own, requiring us to check our brains at the door in order to believe in Him and trust Him. He has left us a witness in history by Scriptures which can be checked out and verified in a scholarly fashion. He has left us prophecies describing the events we see today from thousands of years ago, which can also be verified. He has left us a witness in the transformed lives of the disciples, in their certain knowledge that they had witnessed the Resurrection of the Messiah, a knowledge which they were not willing to deny even to their graves.

Nor is God's action only something that happened "once upon a time." Watch the movie The End of the Spear and see how He transformed the hearts of even those who killed His missionaries. Hear and read the testimonies of those who have been radically changed from within by putting their faith in Jesus. I myself have witnessed miracles, including a young Rwandan woman cured of aids, and I have personally seen the spiritual powers of darkness flee at the Name of Yeshua, or Jesus.

God gave us rules, like the Ten Commandments. Why should it surprise us that when we flout those rules, when men choose to steal and lie and murder and commit adultery and covet and disrespect their elders and even God Himself that suffering results. God gave us free will, and when we abuse that free will, bad stuff happens--not just to ourselves, but to others who get caught in the natural consequences of our actions as well.

What about things like disease? How is that the consequence of our actions? Forgive me for answering a question with a question, but how can the human race, which by its day-to-day actions proves that it doesn't want God to interfere with our lives, then demand that He not let the natural imbalances which lead to infection, cancer, heart diease, etc. go their natural course?

It's hard to live in a fallen world, djf. Believe me, I know. I'm no ivory-tower intellectual who comes up with platitudes while hiding from the real suffering of the world. I had very few friends growing up, and was picked on and made fun of pretty consistantly, and it has taken me years to undo the damage to my interpersonal relationships that resulted. I have friends who barely escaped from Rwanda with their lives, losing most of their family and friends in the process. My grandfather lingered on with Alzheimers for many years before he passed away. I had an uncle who was once a Presbyterian minister but who lost his faith because he was ill-treated by his parish, and who ultimately died because he stopped taking care of himself. We buried his wife, my aunt, who I loved dearly, just a few months ago because she too gave up on living after he died--and though she tried in the last few months of her life to turn that around, it was too late and the damage was done. I have one brother who is gay and another who my parents had to kick out of the house because of his behavior--and I know how much that tears up my parents, who are Godly people and who did right by all three of us. I know people, some of which are good friends, who have been so abused as children that their psyches are permanently fragmented. I minister to men in prison every other week, and I hear their stories.

I know about the suffering in the world. And I've found that the Bible is straightforward about that suffering. It doesn't candycoat it, or try to downplay it, or try to explain it away as an illusion. It has always been honest about it.

And that is because God is not removed from your suffering. He knows what suffering is, from a personal perspective. He gave up His glory to Incarnate into the world. He lost a father, Joseph, who Scripture calls a righteous man. He worked as a carpenter for most of His life, and was never able to receive a formal education and ordination as a rabbi despite His calling. He was rejected by His own brothers and sisters, and even His mother seems not to have understood Him. He was persecuted without cause, simply because He made the self-satisfied nervous, edgy, and envious. He knows what it was to be tired, frustrated, and angry, and to be abandoned. And in the end, He, the most innocent of us all, was tortured to death.

Where is God in the midst of our suffering? Not up in Heaven, serenely unaware as some portray Him, but on a splintery wooden cross, blood pouring out from innumerable wounds, unable to breathe, with an angry mob mocking Him from the ground below.

He wants to heal your pain, djf. You're sinking into a pit, and He's reaching out a hand to pull you out. Will you, like Job who also suffered for a long time with nothing but silence from heaven, trust Him enough to take it and give up your anger?

If you want to talk, or rant, or whatever in a more private venue, please feel free to Freepmail me, or email me at the address on my FR profile. I'll be praying for you, that you find the peace you're looking for.

God bless, and shalom.

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