While you and I gladly testify to this every day we draw breath, dearest sister in Christ, Sam Harris could never even begin to see the truth of it. Spirit as a dimension of man does not exist for him at all: In his book, he has simply written it out of existence. To him, religious people are fools, for believing in such superstitious claptrap.
Truly the miracle God performs in faithful souls is the "turning around" and drawing of them into His loving Truth and Life. Some religious people have direct experiences of the "movement of the Holy Spirit" in their lives, a felt sense of the Presence of God "with us."
But the bottom line is, as William James observed, the true test of a genuinely religious person is found, not in the root of their belief, but in the fruit that it brings forth in personal, family, and community life.
As Christians, we are called to live in God's truth and to manifest faith, hope, and love in the world. And we recognize only that justice which is rooted in God's Will and Purpose as suitable to the liberty and dignity of human beings.
What has Sam Harris and his other atheist buddies done for us lately that could possibly compare with that? They seek to destroy faith in God (knowing full well they can't destroy God himself); but what can they give us that could possibly replace it, in the sense of securing the goals and purposes of free human life in a just society? To be "anti-God" ultimately is to be anti-man, anti-liberty, anti-life, and anti-truth as well.
Harris and his buds are fools in the classical and Judeo-Christian senses of that word: The fool is "the man who says in his heart, 'there is no God.'"
God is not mocked. And so I pray the people will not be fooled by the fools.
Thank you so much for your beautiful essay-post, dear A-G!
That is so true, sister. As some have already commented, even if one were to return from the dead, they still would not believe.
So with this thread, we have responded to the challenge presented by Harris. We have spoken of appendages renewed for lepers by Jesus, of eyes that have regrown at the touch of a Christian mystic, of severed limbs miraculously restored.
The challenge has been answered.
And I've no doubt that it simply won't matter to Harris. I won't detail his probable answer to each, but I'm sure I can imagine it.
The Apostle Peter says that we should be prepared to respond to any man who asks us to give a reason for the hope that we have. It is good to use reason when we give answers. Yet in many ways "the hope I have" is not based on apologetics for the Christian faith. The old hymn far better gets to the hope that I have: "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness."
Atheists have no hope.
Every single one of them is dead and gone within the next 80 years or less. They are dust in the wind. They have withered and faded. They are gone never to be remembered. Their existence is over. Their lives are wiped out. Nothing remains.
No hope. No hope. No hope.
I've just returned from our annual Saturday Christmas VBS. The theme this year is "Room for Jesus."
During the singing class, the children sang Christmas songs sacred and secular. Their faces did glow. Their voices did reach on high. "Away in a manger no crib for a bed....be near me Lord Jesus I ask you to stay close by me forever and love me I pray. Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care and fit us for heaven to live with Thee there."
"Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy for all the people. This day in the city of David is born for you a Savior; He is Christ the Lord."
Room for Jesus.
Hope.
The Jews believed He was dead, that's why they demanded a seal and the guards, and placed Temple Guards at the tomb with the Romans whom they did not trust. There are recorded witnessings of His resurrection apart from the Romans, the Jews, and the women who went to the tomb on 'Easter' morning. The most impressive has to be James, the brother of Jesus. This man did not believe in Jesus while He was alive, even going so far as to plot to lay hands on Jesus and rescue Him from His 'madness' of His Rabbinical ministry, along with the rest of His family who did not even show up to help entomb Him! BUT, following the resurrection appearance James was converted!
The horrific deaths each of the disciples turned Apostles suffered without recanting their witness of the risen Savior attest to the truth they believed they witnessed and spoke of and a few wrote of. There is no explanation that can dismiss the power of their witnessing of what they saw, no swoon paradigm, no hallucenation explanation, no made up lie that can dismiss the massive witness to the things these people died to keep in remembrance. THEY SUFFERED THESE THINGS FOR US, when you get right down to the nitty gritty of it!
Then of course there is Saul of Tarsus, a man assigned to the task of squelching with malace the growing body of believers in Jesus. And he relished the task due to his Jewish zeal for the truth of the Torah. Yet this man, after seeing Jesus on the road to Damascus is converted and spends the rest of his life suffering a long list of beatings and tortures only to die a martyr for his witnessing of the truth. And the list of martyrs who died during the period from 35 AD to 250 AD for their belief in and trust for Salvation in Jesus Christ is to be ignored also by these wicked minds. As Jesus relayed in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, even WHEN one comes back from the grave, there are wicked minds who will dismiss the truth in order to not only believe a lie but promote the lie for others to stumble over it and suffer the same fate awaiting the wicked doubters and dissemblers.
It is true wickness to reject the ministering of God's Holy Spirit and seek to persuade others to reject Him also, and in rejecting His work there is no other provision left whereby Deliverance from the coming Judgment can be obtained. Men like Christopher Hitchens respond to this message with more wicked assertion, that promoting God is immoral, that warning of the coming wrath upon sin is immoral scare tactics. Men like Hitchens and Harris refuse to believe what God has conveyed of Himself, that He is completely sinless and righteous and that no sin can come into His presence because His righteousness will brun it up instantly. And rejecting God's explaining Whom He is, they construct an alternate scenario which is death just waiting to reach them ... their life and the lives of those they convince to reject God are begun and ended for better or worse in the flesh. Their argument is the hieght of self-righteousness, and is as filth in the sight of God, yet they love it so much they will kill the soul of others to promote their fallen state.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. - I Cor 1:20-25