Atheism Becoming the New Religion, Evangelicals Warned

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Evangelicals heard the call on Monday to be guardians of the truth in the face of widespread indifference to religion and the “denial” of Scripture within parts of the church.

Carver Yu, president of the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, said that “confusing ideologies” were creating emptiness and alienation among people, while indifference to religion was “tightening its grip.”

He said the recent advertising campaign by Richard Dawkins and other atheists on London buses was a perfect example of the “enthusiastic zeal” with which atheists were campaigning against Christianity and religion.

“Atheism is about to become the new religion,” he said. “Christians must preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ fearlessly because he is the way, the truth and the life. Only he can lead us away from the present state of godlessness.”

Yu was addressing more than 4,000 evangelical leaders from around the world at Cape Town 2010, the Third Lausanne Congress on world evangelization taking place this week in the South African city.

Also taking to the podium was Michael Herbst, researcher in evangelism and church development. He warned that the decline of faith among parents was leading to a whole generation of children in Germany growing up with an “atheist mindset” and the belief that “faith doesn’t matter.”

He noted that the idea of a “singular truth” and monotheism had become unpopular and were widely regarded as dangerous, arrogant and potentially violent.

“Everything is relative now except for this one new and ultimate truth – that there is no singular truth,” he said. “All those professing a singular truth should be silent in a tolerant world.”

Os Guinness, co-founder of The Trinity Forum, echoed his sentiments. He said that the biblical view of truth had become “obscene to modern minds” and was being taken by many to be exclusive, intolerant and divisive.

“But on a deeper look the biblical view is profound, timely and urgent for the day, even for those who reject it,” he said.

Guinness was especially critical of liberal Protestants who he said had been “careless” with the truth. He contended that they were just as “dangerous” as those outside of the church and contributing to a weakening of the faith.

Guinness said Christians had a responsibility to confront false ideas and beliefs and uphold the truth of the Gospel.

“Our stand for truth must start in the church itself. We must resist the powerful seductions of those who downplay truth for methodology, or truth in the name of activism, or truth for entertainment, or truth for seeker sensitivity, and above all those who put a modern and revisionist view to the truth in the place of a biblical view.”

He continued: “Shame on those Western Christians who casually neglect or scornfully deny what the scriptures defend and what many brothers and sisters would rather die [for] than deny – that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.”

Christians were urged to not stay silent about their faith or be content with personal truth only. Herbst encouraged Christians to share their faith “from below” by serving and living out truth in their own lives.

“It is not the prevalence of Christendom that empowers the Gospel but the power of the Holy Spirit that brings the truth into the heart of those who listen,” he said.

Truth is the first of six main themes to be discussed at the Congress over the next seven days. Other issues on the agenda include evangelism in a multi-faith context and the integrity of the church.

More than 4,000 Christians are in Cape Town for the Congress, with hundreds of thousands more expected to take part online and at smaller congresses being held at 650 “Global Link” sites around the world.

Courtesy of http://www.christianpost.com/article/20101018/atheism-becoming-the-new-religion-evangelicals-warned/

Atheist Summer Camps For Children and Teenagers?

News out of Great Britain indicates that Richard Dawkins, perhaps the world’s most famous living atheist, is setting up a summer camp intended to help children and teenagers adopt atheism. As The Times [London] reports: “Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life.”

The camp, based upon an American precursor, is to be financially subsidized by Dawkins. According to media reports, all 24 places at the camp have been taken.

AsLois Rogers of The Times reports:

Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational scepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology along with more conventional pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war. There will also be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.

The organizers of the camp are doing everything possible to emulate more traditional summer camps, generally organized by Christian groups or venerable organizations such as the Boy Scouts. Campers are to learn about evolution even as they go canoeing and swimming. Like their counterparts at Christian camps, these campers will sing songs around the campfire. As might be expected, the songs will be quite different.  “Instead of singing Kumbiya and other campfire favourites, they will sit around the embers belting out ‘Imagine there’s no heaven . . . and no religion too.’”

Camp Quest, established in the United States in 1996, has now expanded to six locations. While its numbers are small in terms of attendance, especially as compared to more traditional camps, the camps for atheists receive a good deal of media attention.

In this light, it appears that this announcement hardly adds to the reputation of Richard Dawkins. In the parlance of American popular culture, he appears to have “jumped the shark.” As this phrase indicates, some figures in the public eye become something like parodies of themselves. In this case, the recently retired Oxford University professor has thrown his public reputation behind an effort that appears to be profoundly unserious when it comes to reaching the masses. If Richard Dawkins is really so concerned to support atheism, it hardly seems that a summer camp limited to 24 children and teenagers represents a bold advance for his cause.

In recent months, Dawkins has spent his personal credibility on a project to put atheistic messages on London buses and, now, on this very small experiment in a secularist camp for children. The bus advertisement campaign became something of a joke, with the signs declaring only the claimed probability that there is no God. Londoners seemed more bemused than persuaded. Now, Professor Dawkins lends both his name and his financial support to an atheistic summer camp that will teach evolution to children by day and teach them to sing the songs of John Lennon by night. The Boy Scouts should not fear the competition.

At a deeper level, the existence of this camp in Great Britain and its sister camps in the United States indicates something of the intellectual insecurity of contemporary atheism and agnosticism. The effort to create a religion-free zone for summer camp makes for an interesting news story in the media, but it is not likely to draw the masses.

What comes after atheistic bus signs and a secularist summer camp? Time, as they say, will tell.

Courtesy of http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/06/30/richard-dawkins-jumps-the-shark/

Elite Media vs. Tim Tebow, Christian

 

What do women, Tim Tebow, and evangelical Christians have in common?

They are all largely despised by the sports journalism division of our media elite. The continuing controversy over the first round selection in the National Football League draft of quarterback Tim Tebow by the Denver Broncos is a reminder that sports journalists are simply smaller and often nastier versions of their elite brothers on the serious side of the business.

Get accused twice of rape (Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh), repeatedly abuse your wife (Michael Pittman, Tampa Bay), regularly strangle and drown hapless dogs (Michael Vick, Atlanta)? Ah, well, boys will be boys, it is society’s fault — and besides, women and dogs don’t wear Super Bowl rings. But pray, work with the poor, and refuse to engage in casual sex — there’s something seriously wrong with you. Or, as one Sports Illustrated writer put it, you are a certified “wackdo.”

And so the controversy has swirled around “wackdo” Timothy Richard “Tim” Tebow, the evangelical Christian whose Denver Bronco jersey has become the top NFL merchandise seller before he set foot on Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium. Fans love this clean-cut, home-schooled son of Christian missionaries as much as the sports journalism establishment despises him.

His crime: an intense faith considered “pretty evil” by journalists who look to their progressive brethren for their worldview. Welcome to the world of the sports journalism elite. Just call these mainstream sports journalists Mini-Me, the tiny clone of Dr. Evil in the late nineties Austin Powers movies. Mini-Me was everything Dr. Evil was, but less. In the same way, sports journalists are everything mainstream journalists are… but less. 

The mainstream sports elite looks up from what famed sports writer Jimmy Cannon called the “toy department” of life and see their big brothers on the news side emphatically anti-Christian, misogynistic, and radical left in orientation. And so they say, “Me too!”

“Me too” to the disdain for the young quarterback unexpectedly taken in the first round of the NFL draft and who led his University of Florida team to two national championships. In selecting him, Denver defied media and NFL insider conventional wisdom, which translated his “goofy” worldview to disparagement of his football skills. Never mind that he came out of college with both a Heisman Trophy, the premiere award of college football, and a James E. Sullivan award for the nation’s top athlete in any sport — Tim Tebow doesn’t have what it takes to succeed in professional football.

The antagonism of the media originates in the same place as the love of the fans — priorities. The Tampa Bay newspaper described Tebow’s view of the world as “faith, family, academics, football,” in that order. But what about the NFL staples upon which sports journalists fawn: sex, drugs, violence, and bling? 

Fans have largely ignored media experts, cheering Tebow because he is an exceptional athlete with exceptional character. The latter, however, is what bothers most journalism insiders, who responded to the selection with “scorn and mockery,” as the Wall Street Journal put it.

The intangibles that Broncos Coach Josh McDowell is betting will turn Tebow into a franchise leader are exactly the qualities at which mainstream journalists scoff. Don’t talk to us about character, CBS sneered, because if it really mattered, then all the NFL needs to do is gather up a bunch of “altar boys” or “‘A’ students.”

But character an NFL player does not make, and the sports media elite sees trouble in Tebow’s in-your-face spirituality and religion and family… especially his family, evangelicals all, smiling and wholesome and using words like “wonderful” and “blessed” and “thankful.”

With rare exception (Denver Post columnist Woody Paige predicted stardom, maintaining that murder and mayhem are not the only qualifications for NFL success), the journalists have delighted in disparaging the Tebows as too “Christiany,” a journalistic synonym for “fascist.” You know, the kind of people whose vocal love for Jesus conjures up thoughts of a “Nazi rally,” as the largest Boston sports radio station described a family gathering.

Tebow and his family are disliked because they are emphatically traditional, loving, and Christian. One Slate writer admitted to “queasiness on the part of media elites (me included) over the idea that the family really believes what it says it believes.”

Shameful, really: Respect women, love your neighbor, and put God first. This contrasts with the reigning attitude among sportswriters and broadcasters, which a retired female sports journalist described as “historically liberal and, in fact, misogynistic,” “delight[ing] in portraying females” as “sluts and groupies.”

Witness Tony Kornheiser, popular ESPN commentator and long-time Washington Post columnist, who often starts his cable show, “PTI,” with a leering remark about having sex. In his early sixties with a scraggly beard and balding head, Kornheiser has the on-air presence of the creepy uncle you shoo away from the kids on family picnics…and he has just finished a suspension for making sexist remarks on air about a female colleague.

He is a star of the ESPN network, which downplayed the charges against Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who is alleged to have raped two girls, one in a ladies room stall in a nightclub. And while NBC sports gave the rape charges the boys-will-be-boys treatment, CBS spotlighted a player who said he would “never condone” what “Ben did with the young ladies”…but you want him leading your team.

After all, what’s a rape or two — just means you’re a leader, a player is the prevailing sentiment among those who cover the NFL. Besides, do you know how many of those press corps iPods are blasting rapper Eminem’s latest, saying that he’d like to “get as rowdy as Roethlisberger in a bathroom stall”?

And into this marches Tim Tebow. He films a commercial with his mother for Focus on the Family (“dedicated to helping families thrive“), and media angrily accuse him of pushing traditional lifestyles. You know, marriages where women are equal partners and men do not beat their wives or leave children sprinkled around the landscape like so many daisies in a field.

Positively un-NFL, so much so that one front-office executive announced to Yahoo Sports that “I don’t want any part of him” and his nutty views. Yahoo Sports columnist Les Carpenter, reacting to this, noted that Tebow, “known for his goodness[,] has actually drawn a more visceral reaction [from the NFL and sports journalism establishment] than those players who are at their core, truly bad.”

But Tebow continues being Tebow. He responds with good-natured humor to a jeering press that accuses him of being a virgin with a simple statement: “Yes, I am.” And he goes on to explain the importance of commitment and marriage and ends with noting the discomfort in the room: “I think y’all are stunned right now.”

…To which Pro Sports Daily responded “Don’t be shocked if some of these guys want to take him out and kill the legend that is Tim Tebow.” NCAA Football Fanhouse expressed dismay that “the most popular player in SEC history is saving himself for marriage.” “Unbelievable” when he can have any girl he wants.

What is wrong with this guy? The Washington Post brought in professional atheist Richard Dawkins to reassure its readers that the NFL has nothing to fear. Too many hits from the blind side did not produce this “dummy.”

Rather, that he was “home schooled by missionary parents is to blame.” So don’t worry: “Different sperm” from his father might have produced a child less “spectacularly stupid” with a greater chance to “have survived the home schooling and broken free.”

Don’t worry — you’re safe, for this Christian “nonsense” is an aberration, Dawkins assured readers.

So drop your pants, boys — are you ready for some football?

Stuart Schwartz is on the faculty at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Courtesy of http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/elite_media_vs_tim_tebow_chris.html

 

 

Evolution and Atheists Big Dilemma:The Question of Beginnings

Explanations exist for the answer to “How did I get here”:

1. Evolution — first there was nothing, and then it exploded. Then goo formed, then amino acids, then life, then through mutations became what we see today.
2. God — an eternal being created the cosmos.
3. Aliens placed us here 10 minutes ago with all memories intact (we’ve heard that before, seriously).
4. We’re in the Matrix.

Evolution makes many assumptions about what may or may not have happened billions of years ago (“first there was nothing, and then it exploded”), simply because they’re required for evolution to occur. But that’s not science. The scientific method1 involves repeatable, experimental data. If you don’t have that, it’s not science — by definition. So where is the experimental evidence for the following? If you don’t have repeatable, verifiable experimental data for it it’s not science, and you can’t answer the question (via science) of how did I get here?

1. Matter comes from nothing.
2. Non-living material can spontaneously become alive.
3. Species can change from one to another.
4. Explosions produce order.

Evolution doesn’t work — even Dawkins admits a god exists2. If you believe “from the goo to the zoo to you” you need repeatable, scientific experiments for it. If you don’t have that, you accept evolution on faith, not science.

The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved literally out of nothing—is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice. — Richard Dawkins “The Ancestor’s Tale” page 613

Dawkins states how the universe came into existence is evolution. And his theory about evolution is “first there was nothing, and then it exploded” followed by the goo … to the zoo … to you! All without experimental data to support it. Where are the experiments showing matter comes from nothing? For non-life becoming life? Of course, that’s not the only problem Dawkins and his disciples need to answer:

Nevertheless, it may be that the origin of life is not the only major gap in the evolutionary story that is bridged by sheer luck, anthropically justified. — Richard Dawkins “The God Delusion” page 140

Where’s the science? By Dawkins’ own admission, he’s postulated a lucky theory-of-the-gaps, where he has a start and end point, and in the middle only exists “poof—some magic happened” — completely without any scientific experimental evidence or observation in the lab. Where are the experiments proving life comes from non-life, or matter comes from nothing? Dawkins takes evolution on faith, not science.

Some say evolution doesn’t involve these questions concerning the beginning of the cosmos and matter itself (even though Dawkins disagrees), but we still need to answer the question: how did I get here? If you want to ignore the foundation and start on the 13th floor, fine. Where are the experiments showing massive quantities of mutations create new species? This gets to be an argument over what a species is, but for the bit we’ll gloss over that issue to focus on another problem — lack of information.

Courtesy of http://www.dyeager.org/book/atheism-agnosticism/question-beginnings

Faith, Charity, and the Atheist

By Miguel Guanipa

Thanks to the congenital human faculty of empathy, there is no shortage of charitable agencies ready to assist people in dire straits. One venue which I find particularly interesting is a collection of — for lack of a better definition — “like-minded” organizations, banded together under the moniker Non-Believers Giving Aid, in a joint effort to address the enormous amount of suffering caused by the sudden outbreak of tragic events currently taking place around the globe.

This curious gathering — or as they fancy themselves, “free thought groups”– is the brainchild of famous atheist Richard Dawkins, founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), who pioneered this alliance, along with other non-religious affiliations, with the purpose of funding relief efforts to help victims of natural catastrophes — or as insurance agencies like to call them, Acts of God.

Given the preponderance of secular associations Dawkins has enlisted in this venerable campaign against suffering, it would seem that he is none too eager to accept any membership requests from groups that openly profess allegiance to any religion. Indeed, Dawkins makes a point of reassuring prospective donors that their contributions “will only be passed on to aid organizations that do not have religious affiliations.” One could surmise that this progressive coalition is not averse to openly engaging in a very direct form of religious discrimination. But Mr. Dawkins has reasons for this caveat, which are outlined in the group’s mission statement.  

Although at first glance it looks like a noble effort on their part, the initiative is billed as an attempt to counter the more sanctimonious and judgmental approach of religion-based charities, whose emissaries, according to Richard Dawkins, are often more inclined to “gloat over natural disasters” — an unfortunate reference to televangelist Pat Robertson’s impetuous claim that the earthquake in Haiti was a form of  divine chastening against a nation that had entered into a pact with the Devil.

Yet despite Mr. Dawkins’ selective outrage at religious-based charities, nobody is really arguing that religious and secular institutions should compete for the benign privilege of lending assistance to the needy, as the immediate concerns of people in distress often trump fact-checking the doctrinal beliefs of their benefactors. Unfortunately, what is purported to be Dawkins’ main objective of alleviating people’s suffering ends up being sidetracked by this backhanded rebuke against his more pious competitors in the field.

Now, since Dawkins has chosen to make God-centered charities the object of his vilification, an equally impartial examination of what he offers as the alternative is in order. And frankly, if the substance of his charitable endeavor were of no importance, then why would he and his posse of God-less relief agencies go to such lengths to assure potential patrons that theirs is just as generous and substantive — if not more worthy — a mission as that of their rivals?

In terms of substance, Dawkin’s amoral altruism is rooted in an eminently self-serving ethos. It showcases a magnanimity grounded on feelings rather than a transcendent absolute. The shallow brand of compassion that it produces seeks to satiate a sense of self-fulfillment through service to others. That is, since it assumes that there is no moral law-giver to whom we are accountable and from whom we derive moral concepts like good and evil, which ultimately steer us toward self-renunciation for the sake of the less fortunate, we are left with helping others simply because it makes us feel good about ourselves. This kind of charity is defined as that which springs from a desire to meet a vague sense of obligations to help others, and it is fueled by the expectation of reciprocity and a self-congratulatory reminder that we are, after all, rather decent human beings.

Real charity instead is anchored on the injunction furnished by the millennia-tested Judeo-Christian tradition, which affirms that every benevolent act towards a fellow human being in need is a direct offering towards our creator — a reminder that charity begins with a surrender of the self and a concern for the other. Moreover, this tradition does not cast all suffering as intrinsically evil, but it recognizes that in many instances, evil does result in much of the suffering we experience in the world. But also, in a deeper sense, suffering can ultimately have a redemptive purpose. 

In contrast, Atheists tends to view suffering as an evil to be avoided, for some even at the cost of removing those whose suffering is deemed less consequential and yet are the most vulnerable, such as the terminally ill and the unborn. Ironically, this is a supreme evil perpetrated in the name of what is really a hollow form of compassion.

So what’s really at play here is a brazen attempt on Mr. Dawkins’ part to impute legitimacy to a time-worn assertion that Atheists have been peddling for decades, which is that morality can exist without God. In other words, since the moral concepts of good and evil are social constructs that tend to organically emerge within any given cultural setting, we can arbitrarily fashion a moral paradigm where actions can be judged as good or evil, and we can bypass any invocations of a higher being we have to eventually answer to. We thereby answer only to ourselves. 

Following in the tradition of their neo-Darwinist cohorts, to whom they are greatly indebted, Atheists maintain that the survival of the species somehow hinges upon a yet-undiscovered benevolent gene that mysteriously compels the fittest — against their native instincts of self-preservation, no less — to help the weaker victims of undirected natural forces, or the very forces which Dawkins describes as being “supremely indifferent to human affairs and sadly indifferent to human suffering.” Incidentally, these are the same forces that arbitrarily chose to bring both victim and rescuer into being. This rather uninspired tautology also allows for random mutations that intermittently favor or hinder our own preservation, giving, on occasion, only the illusion that a personal deity is supervising these complex natural phenomena.

But who can discern the moral divide between helping our fellow man and abandoning him to perish in his suffering in the context of an amoral world like the one envisioned by Atheists? How does the Atheist draw the sublime authority in the first place to judge whether or not suffering is an undesirable state of affairs — an evil, if you will? In a universe that is merely the product of random, unplanned, undirected, and hence purposeless forces of nature, how does he arrive at a fixed criterion for appraising the goodness or depravity of an act, since there is no absolute, transcendent moral standard he can appeal to?

In short, from where does the unbeliever summon the prerogative to decree a moral benchmark by which he can judge the evil or good qualities of chance-driven phenomena — of which he is also a product — that haphazardly transpire in a wholly impersonal universe, including the natural occurrences that bring so much suffering to humans?

In Dawkins’ world, these are questions that should remain outside of the purview of the religiously inclined; but the answers to them could very well spell the moral insolvency of his coterie of faithless philanthropists.

Courtesy of American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/faith_charity_and_the_atheist.html

27,000 Free Copies of Darwin’s Famous Book Given Away to Coincide with New Atheist Guru Richard Dawkin’s Meetings

MEDIA ADVISORY, March 8 /Christian Newswire/ — New Zealand born author, Ray Comfort (who lives in the United States) said, “I will be interested to see if the Professor once again reveals how afraid he is for people to read the Foreword, by telling them to rip it out–as he did in Canada recently.”

In November of 2009, Comfort gave away 170,000 copies of On the Origin of Species to students at 100 of America’s top universities. His team will also be giving away 1,000 free copies of Darwin’s famous book as people leave the Christchurch Town Hall, New Zealand, on March 11, after listening to atheist Richard Dawkins. A total of 26,000 copies of the more than 300-page special edition of, On the Origin of Species were given out in Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland and Wellington on the 9th of March–at each to coincide with Richard Dawkins speaking.

When asked if he would debate Comfort about the existence of God, Dawkins replied “There’s nothing to debate. It would be like having a debate with a flat-earther.”[1] In response, Comfort said, “Calling your opponent a ‘flat-earther,’ an ‘ignorant fool,’ and ‘an idiot’ (as he did on CNN recently) are classic signs of a man who is insecure in his beliefs. An ad hominem means to attack your opponent rather than his argument, because your argument is weak.”

Ray Comfort has debated atheistic evolution on America’s ABC TV, on the BBC, and has been a platform speaker for American Atheists, Inc. His “The Atheist Test” booklet has sold more than one million copies. The best-selling author, reasoned, “If I am such an ignorant fool, why did Professor Dawkins tell Canadian university students to rip out my Foreword to On the origin of Species? If what I had written was ignorant foolishness, why not let people read it to see how weak my arguments are?”

This battle seems to have begun when Comfort’s, You Can Lead an Atheists to Evidence But You Can’t Make Him Think bumped Richard Dawkin’s God Delusion off the Amazon number one position, in the atheist division. Hundreds of atheists then flooded Amazon and gave the publication bad reviews, in an effort to bring Comfort’s book down in the ratings. Comfort mused, “The reviews start off by saying that the book is the best thing since sliced bread, and then there are hundreds saying it’s worse than the worst piece of mold-laden bread.”

The outspoken author then challenged the Professor to a debate about the existence of God, offering him $20,000 for his trouble. Dawkins said he wanted $100,000, and called him “an ignorant fool.” Comfort put that commendation on the front cover of his next book Nothing Created Everything–the scientific impossibility of atheistic evolution, and used a morphed picture of Charles Darwin turning into Richard Dawkins, for the cover graphic.

When asked about the giveaway to 170,000 university students in the U.S., he called Comfort “an idiot” on international television.[2] Comfort said, “And then he began to use my comedy routine, and was getting quite a few laughs when doing it.”[3]

But when the author heard that Professor Richard Dawkins was going to his home town of Christchurch, New Zealand, it became even more personal. “This is a city where I (almost daily), for 12 years, poured my heart out in the local ‘Speaker’s Corner.’ Over 3,000 times I climbed onto a soapbox and spoke to crowds in an effort to turn people’s thoughts to God, and if the learned professor thinks he is going to walk right in and undo that without any opposition, he has another thought coming. All I want is for people to know that the theory of evolution is bogus science. Charles Darwin lamented the lack of species-to-species transitional forms, and 150 years later, the missing link is still missing.”

Comfort maintains, “Man, with all his technology can’t create a grain of sand from nothing, let alone a leaf, a flower, or a frog. So how intellectually dishonest is it for Richard Dawkins to say that nothing created everything (something he believes). Add to that the fact that the professor has a weird belief that we may have been created by aliens,[4] that we are cousins of bananas,[5] that nothing did create everything,[6] and he does it all in the guise of science. Then he says that anyone who doesn’t believe as he does is ‘ignorant, stupid or insane.’[7] He turns 70 next year, so I hope that he comes to see the difference between the hypocritical religion he so despises, and God, before he goes to meet His Maker.”

Media: See originintoschools.com for video and book graphics.  

————————————————————

[1] “Deluge of Delusion,” Your Weekend Magazine, Christchurch Press (Feb. 2010).

[2] www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZWBHMv7t30

[3] www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDPoEgvEvBE

[4] “Expelled.”

[5] The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins, chapter 1, “Only a theory?”

[6] www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/richarddaw363339.html

[7] “It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).” — Richard Dawkins, quoted from Josh Gilder, a creationist, in his critical review, “PBS’s ‘Evolution’ series is propaganda, not science” (September, 2001).

Prophets of the New Atheism

By David Klinghoffer

Special to The Times

While the American cultural landscape includes many religions, it’s still fascinating to watch closely when we have the chance to observe a new faith being born. Consider, for example, a religious phenomenon that has been dubbed the “new atheism,” prominently represented by some bestselling books.

Can disbelief in God be considered “religious”? Sure. Just ask Zen Buddhists, who worship no deity. By religion, I mean any faith-based set of values that makes exclusive claims for its truth and explains the mysteries of the universe. Yes, atheism begins with a faith, namely that only material and physical (not spiritual) causes make the world run.

Two recent atheist gospels, by Richard Dawkins (“The God Delusion”) and Sam Harris (“Letter to a Christian Nation”), are the country’s top two bestsellers among “religion” books, according to Publishers Weekly. The books are outselling even a Christian megahit like Rick Warren’s “The Purpose-Driven Life.”

These leading lights contend that traditional religions are not only false, but dangerous and morally grotesque. The title of another hot atheist tract, by journalist Christopher Hitchens and forthcoming in May, says it all: “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”

Who are the new atheists? While only 5.2 percent of Americans identify themselves as atheists, according to 2006 Baylor University polling data, it’s a privileged demographic category, disproportionately college-educated and affluent. Atheists tend to live on the West Coast or East Coast. In its polling sample, the Baylor study found not one atheist African American. Meanwhile, those of us from Jewish backgrounds are represented well out of proportion to our national numbers, with 8.3 percent rejecting belief in God.

You can see how influential atheism has become by noting how the media and academia deal with traditional faith. A recent New York Times Magazine cover story detailed the big debate among academic psychologists: Did God-centered religion evolve in prehistoric man as a useful adaptation or as a surprising byproduct of other evolutionary processes? The possibility that it developed in response to a living God was not considered.

The new religion has a scientific appeal, with orthodox evolutionary theory recruited to provide a rationalistic “proof” for atheist teaching. For this reason, Oxford University biologist Dawkins devotes the “central argument of [his] book” to an attempted refutation of intelligent design (ID), the alternative to neo-Darwinian evolution that has been spearheaded by Seattle’s Discovery Institute (where I work).

Unfortunately, Dawkins does not grapple with the latest arguments for intelligent design as formulated by their chief proponents. Harris is similarly preoccupied by ID, which evidently provoked the new atheism’s present evangelistic push.

Darwinism, of course, is hardly new. The novelty here lies in the new faith’s missionary fervor. Dawkins writes explicitly about making “converts.”

Another novelty: In the 18th and 20th centuries, respectively, the atheist French and Russian revolutions sought political power above all else, with terrifyingly violent results. Luckily, far from being politicians, the new atheists seek religious influence for its own sake.

Despite these novel features, in other ways the new atheism will be familiar to historians who have studied the trajectory of upstart faiths. A favorite strategy of such groups has long been to attack cartoon versions of older rival religions.

Dawkins, for his part, mocks the God of the Hebrew Bible as “arguably the most unpleasant character in fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Such a wild caricature will be unrecognizable to any believer (like me) in the God of Israel. But Dawkins and Harris seem unfamiliar with religious tradition as biblical monotheists know it from personal experience and deep study. Frankly, the success of the new atheist faith would be hard to imagine without today’s soaring levels of societal religious illiteracy.

Which might sound like the new religion has a promising future. I doubt it. For one thing, God gives objective definition to our ideas of right and wrong, crucial for civilization. Equally important, he provides meaning to life itself.

Certainly, you can have an ethical individual atheist, an instinctively caring, generous person who happens to disbelieve in God. But an atheist society could not survive. It would first live on the fumes of ancient moral traditions. In the end, racked by despair at life’s apparent meaninglessness, its members would return to more nourishing faiths.

That’s what we see happening now in formerly communist Russia, with its Christian and Jewish revivals. The evaporation of atheist communism is a lesson worth pondering, and a sobering one, for the new atheists.

Courtesy of nwsource.com at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003653502_klinghoffer06.html

Faith and the Law Note: The new atheists should tune into faith and the law for our weekly top five list. Here is a sample of some of the latest top five lists pertaining to atheists.

Top Five Reasons Atheist Billboards Don’t Work

1) Freethinkers?  No comment. LOL.  

2) Hard time getting IRS to grant tax-exempt status as a charity organization. —

3) Like trying to convince people that air does not exist. Arguments are so insane that they are comical. —

4) Those all night “there is no God” telethons just aren’t raising the money.  —

5) In Sacramento alone $6400 a month for a billboard to convince people not to believe in God?  Am I missing something? 

 

TOP 5 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT JOIN AN ATHEIST COLLEGE CLUB

 

1) For a college, one of the most ignorant groups on campus.

 

2) Who wants to worship Darwin or have faith in junk science.

 

3) Pepto-Bismol not help that empty feeling have inside.

 

4) Too hard to answer your own prayers.

 

5) “Eat, drink and be merry” t-shirts are a bit pricey.

 

 

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY ATHEISTS ARE JUST A MESS

 

1) ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE. OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AT THE WONDERS OF CREATION AND THE HUMAN BODY. ARE YOU TELLING ME A GENERIC, NO NAME, ETHEREAL, VAGUE, UNDEFINED CONCEPT OR PROCESS BROUGHT THIS PERFECT CREATION INTO EXISTENCE FROM NOTHING? WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING?

 

2) GOD LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANY OF YOUR COLLEGE PROFESSORS OR FELLOW NON-BELIEVERS.

 

3) SIMPLY SUBSTITUTING THE WORD “NATURE” FOR GOD DOESN’T GET RID OF YOUR CREATOR

 

4) YOUR STAR TREK SPOCK LOGIC JUST IS NOT ENOUGH TO OUTSMART GOD.

 

5) WOW! A BUS-BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN TO TRY TO GET PEOPLE NOT TO BELIEVE IN GOD. WHAT WILL YOU THINK OF NEXT?