A Possible Answer to Why Atheists are Speaking Out

Pastor Chris offers an answer as to why atheists are asserting themselves and their books are topping the best-seller lists.

"Although Christians may profess to be doing a good deed by sharing their religion with others, in reality it's very often the case that they are simply not treating non-believers with the respect and consideration they deserve. . . . Atheists are treated not as human beings worthy of equal consideration, but as targets — almost as if they are being hunted. It shouldn't be a surprise when atheists find this annoying and complain."

Chris goes on to explain--and I agree--that boundaries should be respected. It is up to God to overcome those boundaries and to scale a wall in the name of Christ that has an obvious "Keep Out" sign posted is detrimental to that individual ever committing his or her life to Christ. This is a good lesson to remember to treat all people not as evangelistic targets but as real people with lives, feelings, jobs, concerns, and anxieties.

Update: The article that Chris references is not original, but rather is from an atheist board. Sorry about the attribute!

God is Not Great

At least that is the title of a bad book slamming the Good Book. Christopher Hitchens, new kid on the atheistic block, attempts to cause more believers to abandon their faith for an empty, meaningless substitute. The book however is nothing more than bloviation and caustic bromides, without any real point nor purpose. Commonweal reviews:

But as Mark Twain once mused, give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep until noon. With God Is Not Great, a caustic polemic on the evils of religion, Hitchens has earned the dubious honor of confirming Twain’s aphorism. Anyone expecting a masterful demolition of all things sacred will be disappointed. Bullying and shallow, God Is Not Great is a haute middlebrow tirade, a stale venting of outrage and ridicule. Beneath his Oxbridge talent at draping glibness in the raiment of erudition, Hitchens proves to be an amateur in philosophy, an illiterate in theology, and a dishonest student of history. Too belligerent to be nimble and too parochial to be generous, the once-captivating Hitchens demonstrates why he has forfeited any claim on our attention.

Dawkins sparked an interest and was a worthy read (though I didn't convert). God is not Great? Even the title is lame. (H/T Carlos)

Atheism Gaining Ground

As regular readers know, I slogged my way through Richard Dawkins' magnum atheistic opus, The God Delusion. The extensive acceptance of atheism is a cause for concern and should give us a few moments pause. It also gives us a barometer to judge just how well the church is doing. OneNewsNow reports:

The time for polite debate is over. Militant, atheist writers are making an all-out assault on religious faith and reaching the top of the best-seller list, a sign of widespread resentment over the influence of religion in the world among nonbelievers.

Many of these atheistic evangelists are drawing crowds debating theologians and other clergy. I find it fascinating that people are open to embrace a life devoid of God and that books like The God Delusion top best-seller lists. Could it be indicative of the fact that the church has little to say, or just won't? Or the fact that too much time is spent on church and not enough on Jesus?

Dawkins' Dangerous Idea

Regular readers of The Rambling Prophet will know that I have been sloughing through The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. For some reason Dawkins has chosen God as his sworn enemy and has declared an all-out war on faith; and not just Christianity but faiths of all stripes. Whether you are Buddhist, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim, or you rub sticks together chanting while you sit cross-legged on a rock, you are on Dawkins' radar.

His book serves as a piece of atheistic evangelism, encouraging atheists and all would-be atheists to come out of the closet and be unashamed of their true colors. Dawkins' problem however is that he is a great scientist; but a poor philosopher. This is proven true in a recent refutation of the book by Alvin Plantinga, brilliant philosopher from the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Plantinga does an amazing job of showing how Professor Dawkins misses the real points of his own arguments.

Dr. Dawkins' primary problem, his delusion if you will, is his a priori commitment to naturalism. As Dr. Plantinga observes:

The real problem here, obviously, is Dawkins' naturalism, his belief that there is no such person as God or anyone like God. That is because naturalism implies that evolution is unguided. So a broader conclusion is that one can't rationally accept both naturalism and evolution; naturalism, therefore, is in conflict with a premier doctrine of contemporary science. People like Dawkins hold that there is a conflict between science and religion because they think there is a conflict between evolution and theism; the truth of the matter, however, is that the conflict is between science and naturalism, not between science and belief in God.

Often throughout the course of the book, Dr. Dawkins resorts to ridicule and vitriol without seriously addressing some of the major claims of Christianity (even though he asserts his primary beef is not with the Christian God). This is the sign of a poor argument, that one cannot seriously rebut, only mock and ridicule. At times I have found his smart-aleck, "I'm brilliant and I know it" tone quite annoying. As Dr. Plantinga concludes:

The God Delusion is full of bluster and bombast, but it really doesn't give even the slightest reason for thinking belief in God mistaken, let alone a "delusion."

The naturalism that Dawkins embraces, furthermore, in addition to its intrinsic unloveliness and its dispiriting conclusions about human beings and their place in the universe, is in deep self-referential trouble. There is no reason to believe it; and there is excellent reason to reject it.

Perhaps this is why Dr. Dawkins can claim only one convert to his religion. On page 117, his apparent affection for Douglas Adams, deceased author, is admirable and he refers to him as "possibly his only convert." Prayerfully, it will be his last.

Albert Einstein, A/theist

The faith of Albert Einstein is a conundrum indeed, and in the course of reading, two contradictory views have come to my attention, both of which offer opinions as to his faith. Often in the course of an argument, assertions will be made about a certain historical figure's faith or lack thereof to build a case for faith. Einstein's faith is one that has been grappled with through several writers' works and there is no dearth of opinion on what stripe Einstein was. Was he a theist or an atheist? Susan Wise Bauer, in The Well-Trained Mind, and Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, hold conflicting opinions about Einstein's faith, yet both use his faith, or lack thereof, to support their views.

To be fair, Mrs. Bauer does not claim Einstein was a Christian, but a theist, that he believed in one God, with more of a penchant toward deism than a personal, relational God. Einstein believed, Mrs. Bauer implies, essentially in a cosmic clockmaker, who wound the clock, and then left it to run down on its own with no outside intervention. She says in a chapter ironically about religious fallacies,

Don't ignore the faith of many of the West's greatest scientists. The theism of scientists and mathematicians, from Pascal to Einstein, deeply affected their professional and intellectual pursuits (p.416).

Mr. Dawkins however, asserts that the claims for Einstein's "faith" are based on faulty extrapolations from primary sources and that proponents of faith "cherry-pick" quotations to support the hypothesis that Einstein was a man of faith (whatever that "faith" was). Mr. Dawkins says this on Einstein's faith:

There is every reason to think that famous Einsteinisms like 'God is subtle but he is not malicious' or 'He does not play dice' or 'Did God have a choice in creating the Universe?' are pantheistic, not deistic, and certainly not theistic (p.18).

Pantheism, Dawkins aptly demonstrates, is merely (in his words) sexed-up atheism. He goes on to argue that Einstein, like Stephen Hawking, used the word 'God' in a purely poetic or metaphorical sense and that all scientists are sometimes guilty of slipping into the language of religious metaphor, though he wishes that scientists would refrain from using the word 'God' at all. Because of Einstein's use of religious language only as descriptive, Dawkins' conclusion is that Einstein was an atheist.

Nevertheless, one thing is certain, and that is that Albert Einstein was of course a brilliant man, contributing much to the scientific field. Whether or not his religion or lack of it had anything to do with his intellectual pursuits is not clearly known. Einstein was like any other man, a recipient of God's common grace, the grace bestowed upon all to be and to do all that God has appointed him or her to be, even apart from saving grace. Dawkins would vehemently disagree with that statement and would contend that Einstein was a product of his own design and machinations, but alas, I am not an atheist.