Monday, January 26, 2009

Why I love atheists

I've met a few atheists and have read the writings of several more. I have to confess that I love atheists. Why?

First of all, they love to think. Certainly not all of them do - they can march in mental lockstep with their own tribe like anyone else - but many of them love the cerebral pursuits, the intellectual life. They respect the power of reason and want to use it to free people from mythology and superstition.


Second, they don't like hand-me-down answers (at least many of them don't). They hear traditional societal arguments for this or that proposition, but prefer to try thinking for themselves. (I know I'm really generalizing, but stereotypes have a ring of truth.)

And another thing - atheists hate religious hypocrisy. Many of them seem to have been injured by religious bigots, so they leave traditional dogma and look for another answer. Admitting that God exists seems tantamount to agreeing that the hypocrites are right.

Atheists also seem sensitive to the evil in this world. They know that something isn't right with the universe, that the scheme of things has short-circuited. They tend to blame evil solely on human foolishness, which, as they see it, is supported and encouraged by religion.


While I certainly don't pretend to speak for their collective cause, I see a lot to like in many atheists.

That's because they want to pursue a robust mental life. And that pursuit has paid unexpected dividends for many of them.

Like C.S. Lewis, a well-known novelist and literature professor at both Oxford and Cambridge, who professed atheism by the age of 15. He later became a Christian after long conversations with colleagues J.R.R. Tolkein and Hugo Dyson, and after much reading and study. Lewis once said, "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading."

Or like Dr. Anthony G. N. Flew, eminent philosopher and former professor of the philosophy of religion at several universities, including Oxford and Aberdeen. Flew has been a figurehead in atheism for decades, but now professes to believe in God. He has not accepted Christianity, but believes that God created this universe.


Dr. Flew bases his conversion to theism on scientific evidence (especially new discoveries in DNA research). He has commented, “It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.” He says he "had to go where the evidence leads".

Or like Lee Strobel, an atheist who worked as both a lawyer and investigative journalist for 14 years at the Chicago Tribune; he later converted to Christianity after a two-year study of the evidence for Christ's claims to be the Messiah. (Check out his website for an exclusive interview with Dr. Anthony Flew.)

So, I find some things I really like about atheists - especially the kind who aren't afraid to leave the tribe and search, on their own, for real answers... the kind with real intellectual courage.

But I love atheists for another reason. Because Jesus does.

"While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." -Romans 5:8 NIV


Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Is atheism a form of denial?

How could atheism be a form of denial?

Well, look at the definition of denial. According to an encyclopedia of mental disorders, refusal to acknowledge the existence or severity of an unpleasant reality is called "denial".

If one associates belief in God with unpleasant realities - such as facing eternal judgment, having one's lifestyle evaluated by a Higher Power, having to yield one's life to an absolute standard of behavior, admitting that man will never perfect his world, or even yielding to the supposed requirement to join an organized religious group - then denial seems quite possible.

I'm sure atheists would deny they're in such denial. Usually they claim that they know God doesn't exist. And they make that claim based on several ideas.

Some bitterly attack organized religion and blame it for all the world's ills, therefore reasoning that religion itself is godless (not exhibiting god-like behavior). For some reason, this recognition of human foolishness is supposed to prove that a Supreme Being doesn't exist.

Some claim God doesn't exist because, they say, it isn't logical to believe in an "invisible" trans-natural reality. They posit the scientific method as the best (and only) way to know anything about reality. Since God can't be subjected to the scientific method, He can't be proven to exist. If He can't be proven by this method to exist, then He must not exist.

Some take note of the evil in this world, then point to religious claims that God is all-powerful and cares about human life - and they find a contradiction. If God supposedly cares, and is powerful, then why, they ask, does He allow evil to exist?

Each of these ideas (and all the other atheistic challenges to belief in God that I've seen) have one thing in common - they attempt to use the rational mind to understand and challenge the phenomenon of faith in God.

But that's like trying to take one's blood pressure with a thermometer. Or like trying to measure wind speed with a crescent wrench. The tool doesn't fit the job.

It's not that faith in God isn't rational (I don't remember reading "leap of faith" in the Bible). But faith's rationale stands on a higher grade of evidence than what's used to prove scientific fact. Faith rests on revelation not information. And the rational mind can't always grasp revelation. It can't reason its way to enlightenment.

Like an animal rummaging for food in the woods while ignoring a lost $100 bill, the rational mind "does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV).

So, how does one come to that place of spiritual discernment? How would an atheist, or even an agnostic, who's toying with the idea of seeking that higher discernment... how would he or she go about it?

Follow the advice of the wisest man who ever lived. He said, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." -Jesus


Friday, January 9, 2009

Is prayer a waste of time?

Silas Shotwell once told about Charles Francis Adams, a 19th century diplomat, who spent a day with his son and recorded it in his diary by saying, "Went fishing with my son today - a day wasted."

But his son, Brook Adams, wrote in his own diary, "Went fishing with my father - the most wonderful day of my life!"

How often do we pray and walk away thinking nothing much happened? How often do believers minimize prayer by considering it a mostly weak, wasted exercise?

And yet some of the world's most powerful events came through prayer:


  • Abraham saved his family from being destroyed with Sodom - Genesis 18-19.
  • Isaac rescued the chosen family line by praying for his barren wife - Genesis 25:21.
  • Jacob escaped Esau's murderous wrath by prayer - Genesis 32:9-12 & 33:4.
  • Israel prayed and Jehovah rescued them from Egypt - Exodus 2:23-25.
  • Moses interceded and saved Israel from annihilation - Exodus 32:7-14.
  • Hannah secured Israel's future by praying for, and bearing, a son named Samuel - 1 Samuel 1:9-20.
  • Elijah stopped the rain for over three years and brought revival to idolatrous Israel by prayer - 1 Kings 17 & 18 (James 5:17-18).
  • King Jehoshaphat called a prayer assembly and Jehovah saved Judah from being invaded by three nations - 2 Chronicles 20:1-30.
  • Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead by prayer - John 11:41-44.
  • Jesus prayed and the Holy Spirit came upon the church - John 14:16-17.
  • Jesus protected His infant church by prayer - John 17.
  • Jesus found strength to endure the cross by prayer - Luke 22:39-46.
  • Jesus prayed His own resurrection into reality - Hebrews 5:7.
  • The church's power on earth began in a prayer session - Acts 1:14 & 2:1-41.
  • Prayer fills the supernatural realm, moving God's eternal plan forward - Romans 8:26 & 8:34; Revelation 6:9-10; 8:3-5.
"More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice rise like a fountain, night and day." -Alfred Lord Tennyson

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Penn Says: A Gift of a Bible

Catch this moving video of atheist entertainer Penn Jillette as he thinks about a man who gave him a Bible after one of his performances.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Atheist admits God changes people

With growing attacks on Christianity by secularists during Christmastime, and with a vast wasteland of mostly anti-God media daily encouraging them, it's been an interesting holiday season. Who ever thought Christmas would become controversial?

But right in the middle of this growing skepticism against spiritual things, something amazing happened, which seems to have gone mostly unnoticed.

An atheistic columnist for the London Times courageously admitted in December that Christianity remains the best hope for the African people. Why? Because, he says, it truly changes them.

Matthew Parris, who spent his childhood in Nyasaland (now Malawi), recently returned 45 years later to observe one of The Times Christmas Appeal's charities called Pump Aid, which provides water pumps to needy villages.

Parris, who also traveled Africa extensively during his college years, always respected the Christian missionaries for their practical help (he even made sure to camp near their missions for safety reasons on his travels), but he now admits that they provide much more. In his article, As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God, he characterizes the African mindset as still in bondage to "tribal groupthink" and admits that it will have to be replaced with something else if Africa is to stand tall in the new century.

And the very thing he proposes to replace it with is... Christianity. Why? Because it provides the individual a personal link to a personal God.

As Parris puts it, Christianity's "teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being" has the power to break through the tribalism and pessimism of a people who feel they have no control over natural events.

He ends this article by saying, "Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete."

This remarkable admission grew out of Matthew Parris' observation of a true life replica of a Biblical principle. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthian believers that a strong dose of spirituality (being personally linked with the Father) would end their quarreling, strife and division (see 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 & compare it to 2:12-16).

When believers (and churches) major in spiritual growth rather than controversies, we become interconnected in healthy relationships within the Body. The Spirit can work, not being grieved (Ephesians 4:30) nor quenched (1 Thess. 5:19) by our foolishness in chasing selfish issues and agendas.

And when the Spirit works, life in the church flourishes in healthy ways. Love becomes the glue holding us together in a heaven-like existence where each individual believer has dignity and worth.

If even atheists recognize true life when they see it...