Danville Enlightener

VOL. VIII, No. 16

May 13, 2007

The Bankruptcy of Atheism

Atheists in our society are becoming militant. They are not content with just denying the existence of God, they believe it is their “ministry” to attack, denigrate or in some way ridicule those of us who believe in God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Recently several books have been published by atheists belittling Christianity and even other religions, and those books are getting positive exposure on TV talk shows; their titles sound so confident:

• The Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam by Michel Onfray.

• God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens.

• Letter to a Christian Nation: A Challenge to Faith by Sam Harris.

• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Disgustingly these books will soon be required reading for some English Lit courses. Young people, even some raised by Christian parents, will pore over these books and become convinced that Christianity is for losers and that anyone with an ounce of education will never embrace anything as superstitious as faith in God. Soon these young people will be emboldened to renounce their belief in God.

What is not considered, however, is the absolute bankruptcy of these and all atheists. Like all atheists before them, they still can’t answer the fundamental questions of origins. And they don’t even try. Have you ever heard them try to answer:

  1. 1.What is the origin of the universe?

  2. Why is there something rather than nothing?

  3. How do you get matter and energy from nothingness?

  4. How do you get a rock out of nothing?

Or how about these questions:

  1. 1.What is the origin of life?

  2. How do you get life from non-life?

  3. How do you go from a rock to a tree?

  4. What is the origin of mind?

  5. How does a living thing become a self-conscious being?

  6. How do you go from a tree, to an animal, to a human?

Certainly they stay away from moral questions such as:

  1. 1.What is the origin of good and evil?

  2. How does an amoral being become morally aware?

Atheists respond to all these types of questions with essentially the same technique. “We know God doesn’t exist. Therefore, since we’re here, though, it had to have happened this way.” Wait a minute—this is science? These intellectuals of the world are telling us to renounce what they consider to be illogical (belief in God) and accept a truly unscientific and unreasonable hypothesis. Please!!

They want us to believe (accept by faith) that like the universe itself, life, mind, and morality all just popped into existence out of nothingness. They do not accept just the “Big Bang” theory; in truth they accept several bangs. And in the case of these authors cited above they are getting a lot of buck for the bangs.

 

The four big bangs they are asking us to accept without one scintilla of evidence are:

  1. 1.The Cosmological Bang (the universe just popped into existence out of nothingness).

  2. The Biological Bang (life just popped into existence out of a dead thing).

  3. The Psychological Bang (mind just popped into existence out of a brain).

  4. The Moral Bang (morality just popped into existence out of amorality).

These supposed experts, intellectuals and scientists constantly attack believers with how unscientific belief in God is; how religious people aren’t very smart but they never get around to proving their four big bangs.

Instead, they love to raise the problem of evil in the world: “How could an omnipotent, loving God allow evil?” They conveniently ignore that without God there can be no evil. 

They also are “experts” on the subject of hypocrisy of professed Christians. They seem to relish in mentioning “all the wars in the name of religion” and “all the fallen preachers.” and especially, how “the “Founding Fathers” owned slaves while professing to believe in God.  Again  they  never  see the need to tell us that without the 

existence of God slavery would not be decadent.

Talk to an atheist about “freewill” and they get a glazed “deer in the headlight” look in their eyes. If atheism is true, if all that exists is mere matter and energy, then I don’t have a brain, I am my brain. But if the brain is in its entirety physical, then it is just as incapable of acting freely as a computer or any other machine. Which is why the idea of Artificial Intelligence makes for such fun science fiction – the more people believe that a computer can become a person, the less likely they will have need to believe they were created in God’s image. Thus, more AI, less theism – that’s the game plan. Same with the search for ET; find life elsewhere so we can dismiss God and the Bible.

Instead of honestly dealing with the questions of origins atheists throw out lots of words that people can’t understand. Blind us with science. Claim that only science deals with knowledge. Drop in some postmodern gobbledygook. Speak down to the rest of us while congratulating themselves of their perceived intelligence. Never once realizing they only raise questions, not answer them.

For several decades now atheists have been intellectual parasites living off the host of believers in God. Atheists are able to construct so very little of their own that is true, good, or beautiful, they live on the borrowed capital of those of us who love and believe in God. They sell books and win converts from time to time, sure, especially among those gullible enough to buy the “just popped” thesis.

All the yammering and all the caterwauling done by these pseudo-intellectuals will never change one jot or one tittle of God’s word that states “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” (Gen 1:1).

-jrb

 

"As I See It"

Primitive Christianity; admittedly this phrase is meaningless to many who claim to believe the Bible. I recently told someone I believed in primitive Christianity and frankly I was completely misunderstood.

Primitive Christianity is what we practice here at the Danville church of Christ. It describes our collective mentality toward the Bible. It answers the questions surrounding why we do what we do and why we refrain from doing things many others are doing.

Take for example the church. The New Testament purports to be the final and complete revelation from God (Jude 3).  We know the New Testament tells us that Christ built the church (Matt 16:18). Furthermore, it reminds us that Christ through His written word has given us all that we need to know about all things pertaining to life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3; Rom 1:16). Thus if we wish to know anything (and everything) about the church we must consult His word – the New Testament.

So, what we have tried to do is uncomplicated. We search out the New Testament and we find everything revealed about the early (primitive) church. And each time we find a verse discussing the establishment, work, worship, etc. of the church we do what is revealed. If we cannot find a practice then we abstain from it. Simple as that!

Consider the subject of whether to use an instrument of music in the worship of the church. I take out the New Testament and I find each verse describing worshiping God with music and guess what? All I find the primitive church engaging in was singing. Nothing is said about the use of instruments of music. So, wishing to be like they were and doing what they did, I only sing praises to God.

I cannot search out the New Testament and discover verses that discuss the second coming of Christ and force those verses to apply to the worship of the church. That would be insincere. For example, if I find a verse that says upon the return of Christ a trumpet will sound, I can’t then place that trumpet in the worship of the church. I need to keep all the verses applying to the second coming of Jesus together and all the verses applying to the worship of the church together. When I do, then I’ll get a clear, truthful biblical perspective of both.

AS I SEE IT, primitive Christianity is the only true Christianity. Anything else worships and honors man, not the Lord. Everything else seeks to implement what man wants trampling upon the wishes of the Master.