Atheists Better Pray to God They're Right

Paul (not the lead singer of the Beatles, but the apostle Paul) states that God has made Himself known, via creation, to all men. According to the apostle, God’s revealed Himself not just to Christians and to Jews, but to every one everywhere (see Romans 1:18-21).

This means that from Jo-Jo the Brazilian monkey boy, to the Cameroon pygmies, to the whiny lesbian agnostic smoking clove cigarettes at Starbucks, to the beer swillin’ dillweeds (What’s up, dudes? I’ll see after I pen this column! Keep ‘em cold.), to the brooding British atheists, all people know God exists—even if they can’t really put a finger on some of the finer points of His person.

Yes, through what has been made, God has plastered on the souls of earth’s citizenry the general revelation that He’s present. In addition, they also know when they’re being a jack ass and when they’re being cool (more on that next week).

I know the above 411 hurts the atheists to hear, seeing that they’ve staked so much of their imago on God’s non-existence. But c’mon, you know there’s Someone “out there,” so cut the crap, shave your goatee and find some other way to pick up chicks—okay, James Dean?

Look, if Paul’s right and people know that they know Him (even if it’s in some dull sense of the word), why do some trip over themselves and tie their brains in knots in order to curb this knowledge? Why do people go nuts looking for loopholes and supposed contradictions in the scripture, hypocrisies within the church and some shared semblance to an ape in order to convince themselves that God’s not here, there or anywhere and never has been nor ever will be?

They are evolutionary luminaries uncommonly endowed with more smarts than us poor cattle and are here to help us club foot our way up the Darwinian ladder and away from such primal fairy tales? Or is it simply because . . .

The existence of God, His standards and a day of personal accountability really, really, jacks with their efforts at autonomy and their chances of getting laid tonight?

Atheists, according to Santo Pablo, have suppressed the truth because God really cramps their style. It’s hard to persistently indulge the appetites of the flesh if there is a holy God to whom you must give account. The truth is that all men, who have not bowed their knee to God and His way, hate Him and are intrinsically geared against God. (I know that’s tight, but it’s right)

Jesus put it forcefully up fallen humanity’s tailpipe when He exposed why men reject the knowledge of God when He said, “Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. For everyone who does evils hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (Jn. 3.19-20).

This is easy math, folks: A man who has no remorse and thus no desire to repent from his sins is probably not going to be a big advocate for the existence, person and work of God.

You know that all the various no-God arguments—which, to be sure, are fun to debate and write about and blah, blah, blah—actually stem from the root of the atheist’s refusal to curtsy to what he already internally knows is true. It is this denial and refusal to embrace the general knowledge of God given through creation that officially pisseth off the Lord thy God and puts the atheist in a precarious position. My advice to my atheist buddies is this: you’d better pray to God that you’re right and that He doesn’t exist—because if you’re wrong, eternity is going to be rough.

Doug Giles is the creator and host of The Clash radio shows, winners of seven Silver Microphone Awards and two Communicator Awards in the last three years, and a contributing columnist on Townhall.com.

I’m sorry I took so long to get back to you. Sundays are usually pretty full around here.

>>>>>>>>>>>>If you have proof, then;
A) Please provide it<<<<<<<<<

No problem; empirical history good enough for you? How about the historical reality of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Chist. Since the Christian Bible can be termed a “biased source” from a historical standpoint, let’s take a look outside the Bible for empirical evidence:
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_extrabib.html

Please note that the earlier sources can be described as biased in the opposite direction from supporting Christ and his claims, if not downright hostile.

The link I provided left out a VERY hostile coroboration, from the writers of the Talmud:
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_extrabib.html

>>>>>>>B) ...since you are gifted with empirical evidence and faith is unnecessary<<<<<<<<<
Well, I would not term faith “unnecessary”. But what is necessary is intellectuaul integrity. If you accept the proposition that Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Roman Senate on March 15, 44 BCE, you base your acceptance of that event as historical reality on a grand total of 4 ancient descriptions:

documented by Nicolaus of Damascus
According to Eutropius
Suetonius reports his last words
Plutarch reports that Caesar said nothing

The interesting part of these accounts is that we have discrepancies between two of the Roman Historians...Could it be that the popularly accepted accounts are some sort of weird myth or fairy tale? I mean those discrepancies really make me wonder...

Further exploration can be found here, including the context of the excerpts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar

Now, what I mean by intellectual integrity is that one event is taught as history in classrooms. The other event is held up as a fairy tale—something that should be left behind with embarrassment and only dicussed with head shaking incredulity as a relic from humanity’s ignorant infancy.

>>>>>>>>I assume you have no faith<<<<<<<<
I got past faith about 10 years ago, FRiend. I KNOW where I’m going. And I know what God has done for me in the “here and now real world”. Of course that is completely subjective knowledge on my part.

Now, my original response to your response came from a variety of sources — mainly, personal experiences. There are certain people I have talked with on this forum over the years that have identified themselves as atheists. And they parallel those that I have met in real life. The ones that I know are hard core atheists and secure in that faith, I never see posting on religious threads.

The true, secure atheist ignores religion as a waste of time. Or can joke around with some one about their spiritual practices/beliefs. The atheists that go out of their way defend their atheism, or even better, negatively psychanalyze some one that makes a profession of faith are the ones that are looking to bolster their beleif in nothing. Or to somehow rationalize that they are better than those mired in superstitution and reinforce the persuasion that they should remain enlightened. The atheists that I talk to that will give me the time of day in terms of religion are either weak in their faith, or...

Want to know what it is like to feel some hope. Especially in the quiet hours of the middle of the night, when sleep is elusive and the mind refuses to stop dwelling on death. That terrible end of all things that takes place when the last breath exits the body.

I know I did.

Now, digest this, then go ahead and reply with a little (or big) moving of the goalposts — you know you want to! Or, pick up a copy of this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=blended&field-keywords=case%20for%20christ%20strobel&results-process=default&dispatch=search/ref=pd_sl_aw_tops-1_blended_25830000_1&results-process=default

Just be warned — an atheist even discussing religion is already on a slippery slope.

I have a friend who is an atheist, and this article describes him to a tee. My friend sincerely wants and hopes there is not a God, because if there is no God, there is no heaven and hell, and no salvation or damnation.

He feels this way because he does not want to face consequences. It is part of his personality, in that he often ends up in financial difficulties, or other jams, because he just can't accept making decisions today based on potential consequences in the future.

I really believe he saw atheism as a ticket out of all the stuff he learned growing up as a Catholic. Kind of like winning the lottery. All of his problems are solved.

Like the article says, he better hope he is right. To actively want, desire, wish God does not exist just so you can sleep at night is quite different from those who choose not to believe because they can't prove God exists.

Which brings me to my second point. I have never bought the whole bit about having to "prove" God exists, when it is called "faith", not "proof".

Regardless, if the burden is proof, it seems these atheists must be able to prove that life can spring forth from inanimate non-living material (i.e., the primordial sludge, or my term, "dirt"). These atheists want to believe in something, but if they can't believe in God because there is no proof, then they cannot believe life came into existence from dirt, without proof.

So what does the atheist believe? They do not believe in mystical creation by a superior entity, as there is no proof. But they cannot believe dirt brought forth life. It cannot be recreated in a lab.

Oh, but they point to an experiment where zapping a methane gas mixture with electricity created amino acids. Amino acids! The building blocks of proteins. So, where are the proteins. Keep, zapping, still no proteins, much less an amoeba or two.

In fact, despite ten-thousand years of human effort, creating life has been impossible, and sustaining life has been difficult.

Surprisingly, however many atheists do believe statistically, life could accidentally happen. This is sort of an idea that something that is for all we know, impossible, if you relax that impossibility just a smidgen, you can then use statistics to show it can happen somewhere with a large enough sample size. And the universe is infinite. Think of a sigma notation with then end being infinity. No matter how small the probability, going to infinity means you will get something, not matter how rare.

However, since there is no proof, this still requires something the atheists refuse to admit:

FAITH

My favorite popular depiction of this was the end of the movie "Contact". Jodie Foster's atheist character is being grilled by Congress on what she encountered while passing through the wormhole. Ultimately, she had no proof, but deeply believed it be true. She tried to convince Congress to believe her based on her belief, her faith that she did encounter an alien intelligence.

I for one have never seen a conflict between science and religion, especially when it comes to cosmology. Certainly Georges Lemaitre didn't.

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