Atheists Aren't Joking

When atheists that I've talked to say they're good people, they're absolutely serious.

And that's no joke. I think this is the main reason that people are leery of electing atheists to high-office. It's one thing to know that all humans lack insight into their personal motives. It's one thing to know that all humans are corrupt to one degree or another. But to advertise the fact, as atheists do, that you're blind to that reality, and to see that blindness as some sort of bonus point is something else altogether.

When the atheists with whom I've spoken say, “I'm a good person,” or “I don't need god to be a good person,” most of them mean they intend to do good things to and for other people and/or the planet. They mean well. They desire to do the right thing. Therefore when they do the wrong thing, or fail to do the right thing it really doesn't count. For an atheist, the only time that doing wrong is, well, wrong, is when it's done by someone else, especially if it's a Christian. Then behaviours count for everything and the other person's intentions count for nothing.

Other atheists that I've encountered, when they say, “I'm a good person,” mean that after they've hurt someone they said they were sorry. They've taken responsibility for the wrong that they've done. They've accepted the blame. And that is a good thing. There's far too little of that kind of maturity in the world. However, the downside is, these atheists think the hurtful behaviour is cancelled out by the apology. The hurt is forgotten, the apology is remembered.

Another subset of “good” atheists I've encountered deem themselves good because they have a code of morality that they can verbalize, delineate, describe, enumerate. It doesn't matter that, to a person, these people fail to live up to their own standard of morality. They believe lying to be wrong, unless it's necessary. They think marital faithfulness is right, unless they fall out of love with their spouse. They think they should be kind unless someone has hurt them first. Nevertheless, for these people, just having a moral code justifies labelling oneself as good.

Other atheists grade themselves on the curve and compare themselves to those who do worse things. “He diddles with little kids. I wouldn't even think of doing such a thing, therefore I'm obviously a good person.” I've said before that I worked in two Super Max prisons for ten years and in all that time, I never met one man who thought he was a bad person. Those people all judged themselves in this same manner. They could always point to someone who was worse, therefore they were by comparison, good. If you can get yourself into the habit of always comparing down to those who are worse than you, instead of comparing up to those who are better than you, you've pretty much got a lock on a self-view that is impervious to reality.

Of course there are the old stand-by solutions:
. Anything that feels this right can't be wrong,
. Once enough people say wrong is right, wrong becomes right,
Either way, "I'm good!"

Finally, there are situations where good intentions aren't present, when apologies haven't been said, when a formal code isn't present and when comparisons aren't appropriate. In those cases, and they aren't as rare as one might hope, there is always the case of, “S/he deserved it. S/he . . . (insert excuse here) to me. Anyone would have done the same thing I did.” Again, as far as the atheist's insight into personal goodness goes, the result is the same. They come out with an A+.

Hmm, where have I heard A+ before? Oh ya. It belongs to the New New atheists who judge themselves as better people than the Old New atheists who judge themselves better than the Old atheists, all of whom judge themselves as being better human beings than everyone else.

This may sound unfair, but if truth be known, atheists judge themselves so highly that they stand as Judge and Jury of their Creator. As one atheist high-priest has famously said, [The Christian God is] “Arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

As the saying goes, “All unbelief entails a high opinion of self and a low opinion of God.”

21 Vehicles

Our living-room window looks out onto the full length of a cul de sac. If I get up early enough, before most of the other people go to work, I can count 21 cars, SUV's and half-trucks parked in the driveways.

Do you know why these vehicles are parked in the driveways? Sure you do. It's because the two and three car garages are filled with “Stuff.” Because of all the Stuff that these people own but seldom use, there isn't any room for the vehicles. And never mind the garages that are stuffed with Stuff. The city has thousands and thousands or storage units that people rent so they can store the Stuff that their garages can't hold. And this doesn't even count the boats and trailers and RV's that are stored at other storage sites.

We are overflowing with wealth. We are rich beyond the dreams of most people in the world. We're rotting in our riches. And instead of sharing that wealth, we're hoarding it. Instead of sharing that wealth we're telling people in the rest of the world, usually people who don't have white skin, that they shouldn't be having children because, we say, we can't afford for them to have children. 

The smell of spiritual death oozes from our every pour.

Just ask any atheist and s/he will tell you that we're good people. And yet:

. Today, 25,000 children will starve to death.
. Today, millions of children are working in sexual slavery.
. Today AIDS will claim the lives of thousands of children.
. Today the gap between the rich and the poor is growing faster than at any other time in history.
. Today our children are contracting STD’s at a rate that isn’t even matched by adults.
. Today, people are choosing to die in numbers unequalled at any other time in history.
. Today, despair, loneliness, and hopelessness are rampant in all age groups.

. Every year, out of the estimated 30 million slaves in the world, 2.8 million child-slaves are permanently disabled and 30,000 die from injuries incurred during their slave labour.

Ya, we good people who are too busy taking care of our Stuff to care for our neighbours or do anything about the suffering that they face day in and day out. 

The Big Bang is not direct proof of God’s existence, but if God exists and did create the universe, we might expect something like that. And something like the ensuing reaction of world-famous atheists in science as well. They have put a great deal of effort into developing alternative models that would point away from God. The problem is that for sixty years and more, the evidence has favored the Big Bang.

What Makes Atheists So Interesting?

You know who I'm talking about. Those for whom the term atheist supposedly carries so little meaning (because atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief) that:

. They blog endlessly about this God they don't believe in or even think about.

. They attend rallies about rejecting this God they don't believe in.

. They litigate time and again, on an almost bi weekly basis, to keep out of sight any vestige or sign of this God they don't believe in or even think about.

And they do this, they say, in spite of the fact that they are so tolerant that they don't care what other people believe. Mm hmm. 

But that is not all that makes atheists interesting.

. Atheists have noticed that we live in a mathematically precise, life supporting, moral universe, all against impossible odds.

. Atheists have noticed that our universe exists in a manner that makes it possible to understand how it works.

. Atheists have noticed that humans are the only animals who are able to comprehend the universe in which we live.

. Atheists have noticed that the laws of physics, logic and mathematics; laws that were in place at Plancke time, are such that humans are able to theorize how a material universe came into existence from literally nothing material.

. Atheists use this information and rightly conclude that - - - - No, they don't do that because that would be following the evidence. Instead of allowing that there is probably a Creator that exists outside of nature, atheists disregard the above and say that there is no evidence for the existence of a Creator. In fact:

Atheists claim that a lack of material evidence for the existence of a Non Material Creator IS material evidence for a lack of our Non Material Creator's existence. A material universe that came into existence from literally nothing doesn't seem to be enough evidence for atheists because they are atheists firsts and scientifically minded second.

And to prove there is no evidence for Creator God, Intelligent atheists are attempting to Design life in a laboratory setting so they can prove there was no need for an Intelligent Designer to bring life from non life; to prove that inanimate, and inorganic gases evolved into life.

Interesting

Sad, but interesting.

The Lord brought Wisdom forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old;
I, wisdom was formed long ages ago,
at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,
when there were no springs overflowing with water;
before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
before he made the world or its fields
or any of the dust of the earth.
I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind."

Proverbs 8 :22-31

The Integrity of Atheists

Bart Ehrman. Ever hear of him? Most atheists who blog sure have. Ehrman is a guy, much like John Loftus. Well, they left the Church for different reasons (those that visit John's blog should ask John what happened) but both men are those kind of atheists that swear up and down that they used to be dyed in the wool Christians.

They absolutely knew that Jesus existed as God incarnate right up until they didn't.

They were saved right up until they weren't.

They served the Lord right up until they denied Him.

And then? Well then these men turned on Christianity like pit bulls in a dog fight turn on each other. Take Bart for example. He went from claiming that the Bible is God's Word to saying that there are literally hundreds of thousands of textual errors and is utterly unreliable. Internet atheists eat that kind of stuff up like it's their favourite meal. Come to think of it. That kind of thing is their favourite meal.

It makes me wonder, if Ehrman wasn't telling the truth about being in a healed and forgiven relationship with Jesus the Christ, is he telling the truth now? Or did something happen to make him turn with such vengeance on the one he used to call his Lord and Saviour?

Here's why I ask.

Ehrman says that there are hundreds of thousands or errors in the Bible when reality paints a much different picture. Most everyone knows that if a copy writer wrote an “a” instead of an “e” and that error was copied 50,000 times, it's counted as 50,000 errors. Technically these people are correct, but only technically. The greater contrast between reality and what Ehrman says in his book is really quite astonishing. You see, the New Testament has around 20,000 lines of text. Of those 20,000 lines of text only forty lines are in question. Roughly one page.

Atheists tend to get quite excited over news like this because, and here's the strange thing about atheists. Atheist read the Bible more literally than any other group of people on the planet. Why, to listen to an atheist you would think that literary styles like allegory or metaphor, poetry or history don't even exist. Anyhow, the thing is, these sentences that are in question, that Ehrman says he's discovered are already highlighted in the Bible. These lines that are in some ancients copies and not in others are not something that's been hidden from anyone.

Back to the point. Almost all of the variations are insignificant to the meaning of the text. Say it this way, say it that way, the meaning stays the same. What's more, the variations that are left do not affect doctrine in the least. No Christian doctrine is built upon those texts.

So why would Ehrman and Loftus and others of their ilk make such a big deal out of this stuff? Because the presupposition of atheism desperately needs such distractions. Atheism must have such hooey to keep atheists from paying attention to the evidence, to help them deny the existence of Creator God. They need this to distract them from the fact that they stand before a Holy God guilty as charged. 

Are atheists people of integrity? How do you describe people who claim to be good (without God of course) but don't even live up to their own moral standard?

“I think that if [the cyclic theory of cosmology] had been a suggested by a religion, if it had been religion that first maintained the notion that all the matter in the entire universe had once been contained in an area smaller than the point of a pin, scientists probably would have laughed at the idea.”
Marilyn vos Savant, reputed to have the highest IQ ever recorded.

What's even more amazing is that the Big Bang Creation Event is something that brought the entire universe into being – when the laws of physics had nothing material to act upon. A material event taking place without the laws of physics is a working definition of a miracle.

Atheists and “Which God Is It?”

Atheists love to ask how Christians decide that “it's your God instead of some other religions's God?”

Well, when one gives just a few moments of thought about what would be required to bring a material, mathematically precise, life sustaining, moral universe into being out of literally nothing material, it doesn't take long to rule out Thor and Krishna and what have you. It doesn't take long to realize that you can have only one Greatest Conceivable Being.

However there are a lot of people in the world that, like atheists, reject Creator God in favour of an impersonal moral authority called Karma. And, true to form, in the West, the arrogant West, we take Karma, twist it and bent it and shape into a form that forces Karma into something by which we're always getting better and better. That's because, like atheists believe, “We're really good people.”

Karma on the other hand is found in a reality whereby simply not picking up a banana peel is enough to make one regress in form / being. Karma, in “reality” creates “An endless wheel of rebirth and suffering.”

So why can Christians can reject Karma?

If a Creator God is rejected, then observation could make a person think that along with mathematical laws, laws of logic and laws of objective morality, one could posit impersonal moral laws that seem to reside in us. This is what atheists and reincarnationists propose, though for different reasons. If you think about it however, you would see that these moral laws must be quite complex indeed. So complex that these laws are able to regulate the connection between the soul of every single person's moral life now, today, and the same soul's total and complete circumstances in the next life. This would include the power to dictate what kind of body the soul will have, where it will live and how much pleasure or difficulty it will experience.

This, or perhaps these impersonal moral laws would have to be able to take into account every single act, every single intention (see Bhagavad Gita and the banana peel) and every single choice that has been made for every soul that's ever existed and make certain that person gets nothing less than exact and perfect justice in the next life for actions performed or not performed in this life.

So what's the problem with this? Why would a Christian reject this type of absurd belief system in favour of that which was taught by Jesus? Well, the degree of complexity required by these moral laws is beyond imagination for something immaterial, inanimate and impersonal. Especially when Karma's goal is to achieve perfect justice. But we know that brute facts do not possess the ability to bring about justice. Brute facts just are. “Two plus two equals four,” doesn't DO anything.

On the other hand a structure that promotes justice seems intuitively probable. A moral order that we all believe exists calls for an Intelligent Agent along the lines of something that Christianity describes. This Intelligent Moral Agent, from which objective moral values, duties and obligations emerge is far beyond anything a human agency could produce. It requires an appeal to Divine Intelligence. That is why both atheism and reincarnation type beliefs point directly to a personal God.

“God loved the world so much that he gave His utterly unique Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. 

God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.

There is no judgement against anyone who believes in Him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgement is based on this fact: God’s light (Jesus) came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light. 

Anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgement.”
John 3:16 – 21,36

Something Strange is Going On

I've pointed out before how atheists are fulfilling Biblical prophecy. We are told in God's Word that as history winds down, not only will there be a huge migration of people from Christianity. We're told that this migration will happen in concert with a huge rise in atheism and a simultaneous rise in homosexuality. I think it's kind of cool to watch this taking place before our very eyes. But something else is happening that is very strange.

Flannery O'Connor wrote in her novel “Wise Blood,” about a character of whom she said, “there was a deep, black, wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.”

We all want this. Witness how excited atheists are over the misconception of what Pope Francis said regarding their goodness. Every religion but Christianity depends on self-salvation through good deeds. Only Jesus brought to us the concept of Grace; something that no human on earth would or even could invent.

The self-salvation paradigm goes like this. You don't need Jesus as Saviour if you keep all the moral laws. In fact, if you keep all the moral laws, God owes you. If you're good enough, then God is obligated to give you what you ask for. He owes you health. He owes you wealth. And most of all, God owes you a pass to heaven. Grace might be essential for some people, but not for you. If you're good enough, or so this theory goes, you can save yourself. Oh sure, Jesus might be your friend. He might even be your mentor and inspiration for living, but one thing Jesus is not, under this plan. He is not your Saviour.

I haven't seen anyone attempt to act this out within Protestant Christianity, although it's ubiquitous in the functional atheist community. What I have seen of late however is men and women who claim to be Christians, who are angry at God. They're angry at God because based on their degree of “goodness,” and based upon their degree of effort to obey Jesus, they believe that He owes them. He doesn't owe them salvation. They don't go that far, but he does owe them the worldly picture of a good life. This trend is new. I rarely saw this absurd thinking back in the day. Now I see it almost on a weekly basis in those with whom I work.

Now, it's no doubt that these people are experiencing hardship. They wouldn't come to a counsellor if life was easy. Loss of a business. Marriage breakdown. A child in trouble with the law. The death of a loved one. These people are experiencing the norms of life on earth. The strange thing is however, they are mad at God because of difficulties being present in their lives.

That kind of thing is par for the course for atheists, but for Christians?

Seriously?

Something is seriously wrong in what these people have been taught regarding our relationship with Creator God.

Somehow these people have forgotten that God hates the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Somehow these people have missed the purpose of sorrow and loss and suffering and pain.

Something very strange is going on in the Christian Church in North America.

Alphabet Sex

We've got G's and L's and B's and T's and P's and A's and C's. Every sexually disoriented person and group on the planet is scrambling to not just be recognized but celebrated. Who can even guess how many letters will be added to these “special” groups over the next twenty years?

Not only are we profoundly spiritual and relational beings, we are profoundly sexual beings as well. So powerful is this drive that a few people will even deny the existence of Creator God rather than say “No” to their sexual desires. And they do this under the guise of, “Anything that feels this right can't be wrong.”

Brilliant!

As with spiritual and emotional health, sexual health is integral to the health of society, families and individuals. That's why, when emotional needs become sexualised, the person, the family and the community suffers. It seems there is no end to which we will go, no fantasy too degrading that humans won't attempt to satiate them.

Ask the young woman who's had an abortion how the relationship with the father of the baby was affected. Ask what it did to her parent's relationship. When our sexual self is not used responsibly, emotional and spiritual pain is inevitable.

Ask any of the 100's of clients I've worked with whose porn addiction destroyed their marriage. Ask how the damage of this perversion refused to be confined to his wife. Instead it infected his relationship with all women.

Ask the women who use sex to get the feeling of being loved. Ask the men who pretend to love in order to get sex. Ask these people who use and abuse each other about having to put on yet another layer of emotional protection when these relationships end.

Personal preference and victimless “sin” are often used as an excuse for sex without boundaries. These debased individuals don't realise that sexual sin is far, far from being victimless. How we use our bodies impacts society far beyond the confines of our bedroom.

Sexual intimacy is not about the individual.

Sexual intimacy is about everyone!

Used as directed sexual love is an amazingly beautiful thing.

Used as our natural self demands, sex is profoundly harmful. Sadly, when our corrupted self-love is the driving force in our lives, we really don't care what happens to anyone else. 

What's the Deal With The Pope?

On google blogs, under "atheist," only eight of the first forty posts were NOT dealing with the Pope saying something about atheists.

Eight out of forty!

All the other bloggers seemed to be salivating over whatever it was that Pope Frank said. And what he seemed to say (the Roman Catholic Church preaching works righteousness and all) is that if atheists are good, they can go to heaven. 

Heaven! Something atheists say they don't believe in but seem thrilled to be granted entrance.

What's up with that? 

Are atheists as obsessed with being "saved" as they are with Creator God? 

Seems so. 

Wow! Four days later and still the belief that Pope Frank said atheists just need to be good people in order to go to heaven is by far and away the main topic on atheist blogs. What does this mean? 

Atheist Origin of the Universe Mythologies

. Oscillating universe - 

. Baby universes -
. Multi verses -
. The Cyclic Ekpyrotic Scenario -
. The Chaotic Inflationary universe -
. Brane-cosmology -
. Inflationary multi-verse -
. Bubble universes floating in a sea of false vacuum -
. The many worlds hypothesis -
. The black hole hypothesis -
. Quantum gravity models -
. Vacuum fluctuation models -

. Imaginary time model

This last one is from Stephen Hawking who got tremendously excited because his imaginary time and imaginary numbers helped explain away a universe with a beginning. He got so excited that he actually had to be reminded by colleagues that he was dealing in fantasy. Such is the life of a desperate atheist scientist.

“Over the years, atheists have tried on several different models of the universe that dodge the need for a beginning while still requiring a big bang. But recent research has shot them all full of holes. It now seems certain that the universe did have a beginning.”

“New Scientist”

God’s Wrath for Christians? NOT!

 THE BAD NEWS IS

Romans 1:18
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

Romans 2:5

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 

Romans 2:8

But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.

Sadly, atheists and functional atheists (those who simply live as though God doesn't exist) see these warnings as threats and, well, "I'd rather stand in hell than bow in heaven." So be it.

THE GOOD NEWS IS

Romans 5:9
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!

1 Thessalonians 5:9
For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We, as Christians do not need to fear that God is angry with us. When we fall away or disobey, He is saddened and longs for us to return to a life of peace which can only come through a healed and forgiven relationship with Jesus. His anger is a non-issue for us because He sees us through the ‘lens’ of Jesus. We can relax. We can lean back into His arms and experience the warmth of His enormous love for us. Every single morning we can start the day by putting on the breastplate of God’s approval (righteousness). We can obey Jesus, not out of fear of punishment if we don't obey, but because it is a pleasure to serve the One who loves us unconditionally. We can show our love for the One who promises to never leave us, to never give up on us. 

Perhaps the best argument in favor of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists.

Cosmologist Christopher Isham

You Want To Wreck Your Congregation?

We’ve been in five different congregations in our lives and one common denominator sticks out for the effective destruction of unity and peace. 

That is, pride in doctrinal correctness. 

Atheists point this out as an area of crticism and they're absolutely correct. It doesn’t matter if the issue is spiritual gifts, giving to missions, or even showing love in the community. As soon as a critical mass of individuals is reached who are proud of what the congregation is doing right, a crisis and conflict is just a matter of time. Nothing corrupts a good congregation faster than a feeling of being “right.”

We’ve got it right from a doctrinal perspective.

We’ve got it right in our outreach ministries.

We’ve got it right on our understanding of morality.

Forgetting that God’s grace and mercy is the only reason the congregation exists at all leads people to rest on their “rightness.” And like the account of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, being aware of one’s rightness always, being proud of one's rightness, always, always causes that person to look down on those whom Jesus came to save. 

Shifting Like Shadows

One of my favourite verses is from something that Jesus’ brother James wrote. It goes, 

“All good things and every perfect gift is from above, coming down to us from the Creator of heavenly lights in whom there is no changing or shifting like shadows.”

I don’t know how many chances you give someone before you write them off. How many times they can break their word? How many times they can try to manipulate you or con you? Does ten thousand seem like a reasonable number of chances to give a person? How about a lifetime of chances? Does that seem to generous? 

 It isn’t too generous for your heavenly Father. For He is slow to anger and abounding in Love.

When you are adopted into God’s family, when you become a sister or brother to Jesus there is no cutoff. His forgiving grace is promised and God does not break His Word. Before the beginning of the universe, God had already planned for the forgiveness of your sins. 

He planned to pay the penalty for your sins. 

He planned to preserve your sanctification. 

He planned to keep you safe to the end. 

He planned to keep training you even though you are prone to wander. 

Even though you may lose your way a thousand times, God will not. Even though your devotion to God may shift time and again, God’s devotion to you will never change.

“He who gave Himself up for you, while you were still His enemy, how will He not give you everything you need for the completion of your salvation?”

What kind of a person would pass up an offer like that?

"These men and women (those opposed to Big Bang) have built their entire worldview on atheism. When I was a student at MIT in the late 1960s, I audited a course in cosmology from the physics Nobelist Steven Weinberg. He told his class that of the theories of cosmology, he preferred the Steady State Theory because “it least resembled the account in Genesis.”

Cosmologist Frank Tipler

Whatever Is Becomes Okay When You Belong To God

“This, my friend, is a secret of secrets. It will help you to reap where you have not sown, and it will be a continual source of grace in your souls. For everything that inwardly stirs in you, or outwardly happens to you, becomes a real good to you if it finds or excites in you this humble state of mind. For nothing is in vain, or without profit to the humble soul. It stands always in a state of divine growth; everything that falls upon it is like a dew of heaven to it.”

Andrew Murry “Humility”

When our only goal is to “Love our Creator with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbour as ourselves,” then nothing that happens to us can do anything but strengthen the ability for love and peace and humility to develop. Having a love of our Creator as our goal releases or makes possible for God to bring about His only goal for us - to bring about a character like Jesus in us. Not just hardship, but especially hardship, suffering, loss, tragedy, pain etc. becomes the means by which we are grown into Christlikeness. “He was a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief and suffering.” “Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered.”

Have the greatest commandment as your main goal in life and you no longer have to avoid tears. You no longer have to run from difficult relationships. You no longer have to miss the learning that comes only from situations that you used to spend your time squirming out of.

When you know that you are loved by God and your goal is to love Him in return, (“We love Him because He first loved us,”) you’ll soon find that Whatever is - Is ok.

You know how atheists rarely venture outside of the Old Testament lest they run into teachings of Jesus that convict them of a deep need for forgiveness? And you know how atheists accuse Christians of cherry-picking verses to make our case? Do you think atheists ever do the same thing? For example, have you ever seen atheists ripping this verse?

Hosea 14: 9 - Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.

For obvious reasons (money) the television is crammed with movies starring Angelina Jolie. 

While I've never cared for movies starring Ms. Jolie, had I watched any I suspect I would have looked at her breasts from time to time. 

Today I turned to a movie (I can't recall the name) starring Angelina and I found that I couldn't take my eyes off those two, um, things. For better or for worse, this caused me to realize something. 

It's not just her face that makes her look like a space alien. 

Does Talking Evidence To Atheists = Time Wasted?

I think it is a waste of time because evidence isn't the atheist's main problem. Their main problem is the presupposition of atheism that they bring to the evidence.

When I find atheists trying to refute science (eg. Laws of causation, life only comes from life, etc.) in order to support their world-view, I know I'm not going to get anywhere talking evidence. When I find atheists changing the definition of words (nothing is actually something, atheism is just a non belief therefore I don't need proof), so as not to conflict with their world-view, I know I'm not going to get anywhere talking evidence.

Atheists bring to the evidence table a world-view presupposition that makes it impossible for them to interpret the evidence properly.

It's a bit like this:

Atheist: Show me the Pacific Ocean.

Christian: I can't

Atheist: Why not?

Christian: Because we're in Montreal. In order for me to show you the Pacific Ocean you'd have to move from your present position.

Atheist: I won't do that. First you show me the Pacific Ocean and then I'll move from my present position.

God says, “Repent and believe and then I will show Myself to you.”

He has not, does not and will not ever move from that condition. You come to Him on His terms. He's given us the universe as enough evidence of His existence. So much evidence of His existence exists that He says, “No one is without excuse for not knowing that a Creator exists.” Even simpletons can interpret the evidence before them; and they can certainly do it better than modern day atheists who begin with the presupposition, “God does not exist, therefore . . . .”

When an atheist brings h/her presupposition (no God – material universe only) to the evidence, it doesn't fit. The evidence says:
. Matter cannot create itself

. Matter cannot preexist itself

. Matter cannot be eternal nor infinite

The evidence does not support a material only universe.

When I bring my presupposition (a Creator of the universe exists outside of time and matter) to the evidence, it does fit. The evidence says:

. Everything material that begins to exist has come into existence because of an external cause.

. Matter is not eternal

. An infinite regress of cause does not exist

. Matter requires an eternal immaterial Creator

Observation, testing and verification support this evidence.

Atheists are simply believing what they believe on blind faith. And in this case, faith would mean, believing something in the teeth of the evidence to the contrary.

Jesus and the Old Testament

Jesus quoted the OT in a way that revealed His respect for its divine authority. He said it was “the word of God.” Jesus referred to each of its main divisions and said that each of those division foretold His appearance, His mission and His work. Jesus accepted the OT as true in its prophecy and normative ethics.

Gentle Jesus took a strip of those who did not believe the OT regarding Him and His work. Although Jesus was and is God incarnate, He never put that position above the authority of Scripture; in fact He deferred to and referred to Scripture regarding His teaching and actions as well as His messianic ministry. In fact, Jesus made sure that His ministry adhered to OT prophecy.

“This happened so that prophecy may be fulfilled.”

Whether Jesus was resisting satan or hanging on the cross, Jesus used the written word to guide His behaviour.

Now, some say that Jesus was just a product of His culture. This is ridiculous. Jesus’ culture was King of kings and Lord of lords. All through His ministry Jesus showed and lived a direct opposition to His culture. Jesus did not come from a human culture. He assumed a human consciousness, a human nature; an unfallen human nature; one that was foretold in the Old Testament. 

BERTRAND RUSSELL

 Have you noticed that we tend to copy the behaviours of those we admire most? Judging by what he says and does, I'd suggest that Richard Dawkins admires Bertrand Russell.

(Although Russell is often quoted by atheists as one of their champions, he was an agnostic, by his own admission.) "He was a regular visitor at Garsington, the country estate of Lady Ottoline Morrell with whom he had a long affair.

In 1921 he divorced and married for the second time to Dora Black, with whom he set up a progressive school.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, as his marriage to Dora broke down and as he lost faith in Beacon Hill, Russell continued to write books intended to emancipate readers from what he saw as the fetters of outmoded religious belief, restrictive marriages, repressed attitudes towards human sexuality.

In 1936 he married for the third time to Patricia Helen Spence. "

"Bertrand Russell, Biographical Notes," Mantex.com. http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/russell.htm>(6 November, 2006).

Is Hemant Metha A Friendly Atheist?

Personally I think Hemant Metha considers himself “The Friendly Atheist” because he smiles while he mocks and ridicules Christians. Or perhaps it's because he's friendly toward those who share his world-view. Who knows? It's certainly not because he's safe to be around if you aren't of like mind.

Regardless, it would seem a better fit and more accurate nomenclature if his blog was called, “The Joy of Treating Others With Derision and Disdain.” His regular readers stop at almost nothing in a supercilious free for all of playground bullying and puerile humour.

Jesus describes the atheist mind-set displayed on Hemant's blog, and then goes on to lay out how it is to be and will be in His Kingdom.

As recorded in Matthew Chapter Five, Jesus said, “Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere? Here’s what I propose: ‘Don’t hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, gift-wrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives His best - the sun to warm and the rain to nourish - to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable (Hemant), do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that (especially those who think that doing so makes them good without God). “In a word, what I’m saying is,Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

Yes, I guess Hemant is friendly – toward those who show him kindness first. As for the rest of us? You'd better duck because you can count on any disagreement with the atheist world-view as being said to stem from personal hatred or a phobia of some sort.

"Eugenics is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.

atheist Margaret Sanger. "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control." Birth Control Review

This Is What Atheists Defend

Regarding the estimated 200,000 women from the Philippines, China and the Korea who were forced to work as “comfort women” to “relieve the sexual tension” of Japanese soldiers during WWII, a member of the Japanese government stated, “women forced to become prostitutes to entertain Japanese troops during World War II were "necessary." Toru Hashimoto, who serves as the Mayor of Osaka, told reporters at his weekly press conference Monday that "anyone would understand" the role of "comfort women" when soldiers were risking their lives and you wanted to give them "a rest."

Other politicians have said, “the comfort women [issue] infringed the human rights of the women." Chief Cabinet Spokesman Yoshihide Suga did not respond directly to Hashimoto's comments but instead told reporters "the stance of the Japanese government on the comfort women issue is, as it has been stated repeatedly in the past, that they suffered unspeakably painful experiences and we keenly feel the pain when we think about them."

Which brings me to the point of this post. When atheists read in the Old Testament about the nations that God destroyed because of the immense level of evil that was present in those societies, evil that included sacrificing their children as live burnt offerings and enslaving women by the thousands to work as temple prostitutes or “comfort women,” atheists support those nations and go after God for bringing judgement on that evil.

Here are these atheists, men and women who consider themselves to be good people, tolerant people (there's an understatement for you) people who think that the rest of us should model our moral standards after theirs, and they seem to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Hashimoto.

It seems that there is no level of depravity that atheists won't support and defend - if God is against it. Sad but true.  

The Saddest Thing About Atheism

To look everywhere for help except to the only place where help can be found, and to do this with intent and forethought seems the height of insanity. Yet this is exactly what atheists do on a daily basis. In an apotropaic effort that seems more like psychopathy than anything else, atheists call for more science, more wealth, more physical health all in the belief that this will ward off the emotional and spiritual ills that plague humanity. Yet as Max Lucado correctly tells us:

“If our greatest need had been information -

God would have sent an educator.

If our greatest need had been technology -

God would have sent us a scientist.

If our greatest need had been money -

God would have sent us an economist.

Since our greatest need is forgiveness -

God sent us a Saviour.

God became like us

So that we could become like Him.

From Max Lucado - “When God Whispers Your Name"

What kind of a person would turn away from an offer like that?

If I was in AA, I'd value the concept of anonymity so much that I wouldn't even give my first name.

Atheists Nail It!

Most of the time Christopher Hitchens' drug addled and atrophied intellect showed loud and clear but once in awhile he really nailed it. For example:

“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.”  Christopher Hitchens

Isn't that ever the truth though? For example, when an atheist tells you that s/he knows this is a material universe with no hint of a Creator or any evidence for the supernatural, and when s/he asserts this because s/he says, “Material things can begin to exist without an external cause,” do exactly what Hitchens says. Dismiss it. Toss it. Disregard such anti science comments because the evidence for this assertion has never been observed, tested or verified. All we have is an atheist driven conclusion based entirely on blind faith.

When an atheist tells you that s/he knows this is a material universe with no hint of a Creator or any evidence for the supernatural, and when s/he asserts this because s/he says, “Everything material can come from literally nothing material without a material cause,” do exactly what Hitchens says. Dismiss it. Toss it. Disregard such anti science comments because evidence for this assertion has never been observed, tested or verified. All we have is an atheist driven conclusion based entirely on blind faith.

When an atheist tells you that s/he knows this is a material universe with no hint of a Creator or any evidence for the supernatural, and when s/he asserts this because s/he says, “Life evolved from inanimate, inorganic gases,” do exactly what Hitchens says. Dismiss it. Toss it. Disregard such anti science comments because evidence for this assertion has never been observed, tested or verified. All we have is an atheist driven conclusion based entirely on blind faith.

When an atheist tells you that s/he knows this is a material universe with no hint of a Creator or any evidence for the supernatural and when s/he asserts this because s/he says, “the material infinite is tenable, as does an infinite regress of cause” do exactly what Hitchens says. Dismiss it. Toss it. Disregard such anti science comments because evidence for this assertion has never been observed, tested or verified. All we have is an atheist driven conclusion based entirely on blind faith.

When an atheist tells you that s/he knows this is a material universe with no hint of a Creator or any evidence for the supernatural and when s/he asserts this because s/he says, “The material nothing doesn't really mean nothing material." And when s/he says, "All the stuff that I asserted above, even those things that contradict science are true,” when you hear atheists make these kinds of claims, and they will make these kinds of claims because their belief system depends on such absurdities, do what Hitchens says to do. Dismiss it. Toss it. Disregard such anti science comments because evidence for these assertions have never been observed, tested or verified. All we have are atheist driven conclusions based entirely on blind faith.

Finally, when you hear atheists ask illogical questions like:

“So when did this eternal Creator begin to exist?” OR

“So what created this eternal Creator?”

When you hear absurd questions like this from atheists, and you will hear them, you know that you listening to someone whose brain has run it's course just as Christopher Hitchens' brain finally threw up its hand in defeat.