"Tis the season to attack Christmas..."

Oh goody. It's that time of year again! The articles are already pouring in about how humanist atheists are once again trying to "get rid" of Christmas. Normally, I just roll my eyes at this and go on my merry way. However, admittedly, this latest article I came across in the Lincoln Journal Star I found somewhat irritating.

The article headline from the Nov. 12th Journal Star paper was entitled "God Humbug: Humanist Holiday Ads Say 'Just Be Good.'" Apparently, the American Humanist Association out of D.C. has spent $40,000 on an ad campaign that states: "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," and will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. In and of itself, the ad is not something that would irritate me. They want to spend $40,000 on that, it's their money and they're free to express their opinion. (Though I am a bit perplexed as to the purpose of trying to "convert" people to atheism. The logic escapes me. I mean, most other religions, Christianity in particular, do it - at its core - because they honestly believe that there is danger in NOT believing. But what does the atheist gain other than getting people to believe along with him/her so they're not alone in their belief that there is nothing beyond this life?)

What captured my attention, however, was their "reason" for doing this. It was as follows:

"Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."

I guess my question would be... why do they feel "alone"? If everyone else in my neighborhood was celebrating Mahashivaratri (the Hindu night that is sacred to Shiva) and I wasn't because it wasn't something I believed in, so what? Maybe I'm just being thick here, that's always a possibility with me, but I fail to understand why there is this need by humanists/atheists to undermine and do away with religious festivals simply because they don't wish to participate in them. I mean, when I'm in Palm Springs and the Gay Pride Parade is going on, I don't usually go and participate because I'm not gay and I don't really feel the need to participate in that parade. I certainly don't feel "left out" by any means, however, and I'm not going to say they can't have it because I'm not gay.

If the humanists want to celebrate something of their own during that time, fine - make up their own holiday like celebrating the missing link of evolution no one can find, or celebrate the death of the dinosaurs that was the impetus for giving rise to humans as the dominate species on earth. I personally won't celebrate it, but if they want to, by all means, go for it. And I won't feel "alone" or "left out" even if it were to become a national holiday. I'd just do a happy dance that I got another day off from work.

But why tear down a holiday that others find so meaningful and wondrous? What is the purpose? What fear drives this sort of desire to undermine people's faith lives?

Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group, continued by stating:

"...we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."

While I'll grant you, there are many "irrational" Christians out there, the arrogance implied in his statement is that only atheists and humanists are somehow "rational and critical" thinkers, and it's their "planting" of the seed that will somehow cause us all to be rational and critical thinkers. I suppose there are many that would take issue with my rationality sometimes, but I don't think someone who's religious ceases to be rational. After all, many of our greatest leaps in scientific discovery were made by "religious" people. Sir Isaac Newton, while best known for his "discovery" of the concept of gravity, wrote far more books on theological issues than he ever did on mathematics. Does that make him "irrational" and not a "critical thinker"? While yes, the church had its period of stupidity when it tried to squash certain scientific thoughts and discoveries, religion in and of itself is not in opposition to rational and critical thought.

Sure, there are some things that do seem like foolishness to the world, like God displaying his power through something like the cross doesn't make a whole lot of sense to most human understandings. I think Mark Allan Powell stated it best, though, that when we rely on reason and knowledge alone, it's like trying to sit on a two-legged stool.

Secular or pagan philosophy often claims that there are two primary sources for knowing the truth: reason and experience. We believe some things are true because they are logical and rational. We believe other things are true because experience and observation reveal them to be true. But Christian philosophers sometimes claim that this is only a two-legged stool. If you take everything that is possible to know through reason and experience, you still do not have a sturdy or reliable grasp of the truth. There is a third leg: divine revelation. We know certain things to be true because God has revealed them.¹

The difference between an atheist's reason and a Christian's reason is that for the "rational" Christian, reason and experience are the God-given avenues through which we can come to know the truth. The fact that the humanist chooses to remove God from the equation and rely on human evolutionary processes is fine, and he or she is certainly free to do so, but simply because he/she attributes the source of his rationale to humans and humans alone does not make the religious individual who attributes his/her rationale to something that is more divine in origins any less "rational" or any less a critical thinker.

And I just LOVE the argument that gets thrown out that religion is a "crutch." I had an atheist argue the following with me one time: "[religion] is a crutch to avoid thinking about the harsh realities of life..." I had to actually laugh at the "irrational" voice behind this statement. First of all, crutches are quite useful when you have a broken leg. It helps with the healing process. Second, to not use the crutch is kind of stupid, as it will continue to put pressure on your broken bone and slow the healing process, if not leave you completely hobbled because you don't allow the bone to heal properly. The "logical" thing would be... to use the crutch. I embrace my spiritual "crutch" that I have in Christ, and I will gladly proclaim that.

It just makes me sad that there are people out there that are apparently so unhappy that the only cause they can find in life is to try and drag everyone down to their level of misery. If they're feeling alone and left out at Christmas--then perhaps they need to think about why that is. I don't feel left out of things I have no desire to participate in. If, however, they have some desire to participate - and really, no one is stopping them but themselves - I think that is the question that needs to be addressed rather than attempting to remove the celebration they feel left out of. The reason one should be upset about being left out of something is if one wanted to participate in the first place, but simply wasn't invited or allowed to attend. I don't think too many Christians out there would tell an atheist they weren't welcome in celebrating Christmas with them. The problem is, these atheists simply don't like Christmas because they disagree with what it stands for, not because they feel "left out" or alone.

The same right that the atheists are engaging in is the right that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, etc, engage in as well. It's called freedom of religion - the freedom to practice one's religion without fear of persecution. Our celebrating Christmas in now way infringes upon an atheists right NOT to celebrate Christmas. The U.S. Constitution does not state within the clause of the first amendment that we have freedom "from" religion, but rather, freedom "of" religion. In fact, the wording is that the U.S. Congress can make no law respecting an establishment of religion or that prohibits the free exercise of religion. Christmas is one of the ways that Christians exercise their religion and we have a constitutional right to do so.

Don't like Christmas? Don't participate. It's that simple.


1. Diane Jacobson, Mark Allan Powell, Stanley N. Olson, Opening the Book of Faith: Lutheran Insights for Bible Study, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008) 24

Angry Atheists

Last night I went with a group from my congregation to see Ben Stein's film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The film is a "documentary" about the treatment of scientists who have given some credence to the idea of Intelligent Design (which, for those who have negative connotations about this, it is not the belief in a literal 6-day creation nor is it even "Christian" persay, but simply states that "something" designed life rather than random chance "somehow" creating life from non-life. It doesn't even discount the idea that all life evolved from a single cell--it just differs on where that initial cell came from). While yes, we must acknowledge the documentary has an agenda - I found it a very intriguing film. One of the most intriguing parts for me was the anger that is involved on the part of "Evolutionary Atheists" who have determined that since they believe evolution to be true, God does not exist.



If this is the conclusion they have come to through studying evolutionary theory, fine. They're free to come to that conclusion. What shocked me was how they called anyone who believed in ID "stupid," or just a bunch of "idiots." What kills me about this is the atheist's beef usually with religion is how "intolerant" it can be. Yet, as a "religious" person, I don't usually find myself calling people a bunch of idiots or stupid because they believe something different than I do. I may disagree with their point of view, but I certainly don't see them as stupid or ignorant. Yet, from the perspectives of the atheists portrayed in this documentary (who, I will stipulate, may not be representative of ALL atheists), anyone who believes in a deity is just stupid, idiotic, and ignorant.

So my question is: why the anger? What has these atheists so angry at over 90% of the world's population?

I read atheist Dr. Richard Dawkins' blog in response to the movie (in which he was one of the featured evolutionary theory atheists), and I was amazed at the amount of anger being spewed by this man. (That's not to say that there aren't angry religious people--there are--but I'm just trying to get a grasp on THIS particular anger... and you can read his article "Lying for Jesus") Some of the things I noted were as follows:

1) the title: "Lying for Jesus" - Ben Stein is a Jew. Last I checked, Jews didn't believe in Jesus and hence would have no reason to lie FOR him.

2) A large portion of the attack on the movie was directed at the movie-making abilities of the producer and that they found Ben Stein not to be a funny person. It could be a terrible film, but if the content is correct, so what? That's a subjective observation and quite frankly, very petty. It could easily be argued that many Americans don't understand British humor, so a Brit not finding American humor funny - go figure.

3) When he finally does get to the point where he's engaging the actual argument, he accuses Stein/Myers of using the "Hitler" card - very true. And he also points out that Hitler grabbed hold of some of Luther's uric acid poison-induced rants against the Jews. Also very true (although Luther would have never ranted against the feeble-minded and disabled, which were also targets of Hitler's gas chambers, that are a distinctly Darwinian "survival of the fittest/natural selection" argument that is contradictory to the Christian scriptures). HOWEVER, what Dawkins fails to own up to is that in the hands of any irresponsible person, ANY belief, whether it be scientific or "religious" can be skewed to justify evil actions. Darwinism in and of itself is not "dangerous" - but in the hands of people who choose to interpret dangerous conclusions because of Darwinism is the same as any religious fanatic choosing to interpret scripture that leads to some dangerous conclusions as well. Whether Darwinists/Atheists want to admit to this or not, science has become their "belief system" that has become just as much a god to them as a theistic-oriented religious doctrine.

So something I began thinking about--if scientific theories are also a "belief system" of sorts, in that people put all their trust and faith in a scientific theory--does that not also constitute a form of religion? And why is the religion of evolution the only one that is solely taught in the classroom? This is certainly not a stance I have had in the past, as I have primarily believed that in order to keep separation of church and state, one needs to leave religion in the school parking lot. However, the more I think about it, the more I begin to agree with this particular argument--to suggest a higher power is not a proponent for any particular religion, and since it is not trying to convert people or force people to believe a particular deistic belief system, only acknowledges that 90% of the world's population would agree that there is a creator of some sort somewhere out there is not pushing religion. It is simply stating there is another perspective to the answer of the origin of life other than lightning striking some gooey mud and "shazam" life was "somehow" created. Both are theoretical in nature as neither has yet to be proven, so why is one given such higher credibility than the other? I have to say I believe I actually do agree with Ben Stein when I ask why are people afraid of mentioning that there is an alternative theory to "random chance" as the origin for life? What are they afraid of? To state that there is an opposing belief to random chance that involves some sort of "intelligence" behind the origins of life is not purporting a specific religion - it is not pushing Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc., it is simply giving the opposite perspective of the Atheist religion which claims there is no "designer," and even if there were, that designer would have had to have "evolved" somehow (very circular logic, but anyway...). ID proponents do not say you MUST believe this, they are simply saying "here's another idea..."

I think Mr. Stein has hit the nail on the head with this intellectual fascism that seems to be running rampant within the scientific community, claiming that questions of the divine can not in any way be related to scientific questions. What everyone seems to forget is that scientists and theologians are asking the same basic question! Both are trying to make sense of the world around them. Both are part of the human endeavor to UNDERSTAND!

Because I want to be clear - I'm not saying evolution isn't true. Does it have some merit? Of course. Are there problems with it? Sure. Darwin himself acknowledged that the biggest problem in his theory was the Cambrian explosion. Evolutionists came up with another unproven theory that the way to explain this problem was "punctuated equilibrium" that explains why there is a sudden explosion of life rather than the slow changes over millions of years. Punctuated equilibrium has no scientific proof to back it up other than it helps solve the problem of the evidence suggested by the Cambrian explosion. It relies solely on the premise that evolution must be true, and if evolution must be true, then punctuated equilibrium has to be, because it's the only explanation for the problems in evolution. See the circular logic here? But are people stupid if they go ahead and believe this is true? Of course not. There is some supporting evidence for it. But, let's face it - every theory has holes! And to not own up to the holes in evolutionary theory is to not be a true scientist. That isn't to say that those holes might one day be filled, but at present, it cannot be seen as a flawless theory.

My challenge to scientists is are you being scientists if you shut the door on different opinions? If you're afraid to have your long-held beliefs challenged or scrutinized, how does that make you any different than the closed-minded religious institutions which refused to allow challenges to their doctrines? I say doctrines rather than scripture, because as of yet, I have not found anything in science that can nullify what scripture has to say--since scripture is about breaking into the natural world and telling us something different than what we find in nature. For Darwin is most certainly correct in one respect... if you look to nature to try and understand God, the conclusion you will come away with is God is harsh, cold and unfeeling. Because nature is harsh, cold and unfeeling. Nature has no mercy. Nature shows no compassion. Scripture, on the other hand, tells us something quite different--that God is merciful, that God does show compassion, but you won't find God's divine "nature" in the created order since nature is not God--you will only find it through His divinely revealed Word. Can we locate some sort of "evidence" that there is a God of some sort through nature? That's what the ID's are arguing, that yes, you can. However, even that does not tell you what KIND of God we are dealing with here. We need something outside of nature to tell us that.

And if we're going to talk about Darwinism, I think we need to acknowledge Darwin's own motivations for trying to come up with a theory that removed God from the equation. He was not an unbiased scientist who was looking strictly at the "facts" (which are always interpreted facts). He lost two of his children, including his favorite daughter, and was experiencing great sorrow and suffering at this time. As a result, Darwin saw nothing in nature that could convince him that there was a merciful and loving God. Hence, his conclusion - if God is good but I can't find that good God in nature, there must be no God, and since there's no God, evolution must be the answer.

As a closing note, I wish also to address Dr. Dawkins' answer to Mr. Stein's question about what would Dr. D. say to God if he wound up being real? Dr. Dawkins' response was, "then why did you hide yourself so completely from us?" While yes, we have what we call a "hidden" God, we also have a visible God who DID make himself known in the person of Jesus Christ. Mankind's response to God making himself known was to string him up on a cross and kill him. And let's face it--for the skeptic, even if God were to come down and personally have a conversation with Mr. Dawkins, I have no doubt Mr. Dawkins, and most atheists for that matter, would find some "other" explanation for that event and would still refuse to acknowledge His divine nature. And he is free to do so. While I may feel he is misguided, I do not think he's an idiot or stupid for his stance. Like many on the other side of the argument, I have no doubt he has spent time digesting the information and investigating why he believes the way he does. What perplexes me, however is why is Dr. Dawkins so angry with people who disagree with his conclusions?