April Fools The fool says in his heart, There is no God (Psalm 14:1; Psalm 53:1) Some theists use this verse to declare that atheists are unintelligent. However, it’s pretty obvious to me that the atheists running in my circles don’t lack intelligence. In fact, many of them are brilliant. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for “fool” in the Psalms above is nabal, which better describes a “moral fool” than an “intellectual fool.” Therefore, according to the Psalmist, it’s not the intellectually-challenged that say in their hearts, “There is no God,” it’s the morally-challenged. In What’s So Great About Christianity (2007), Dinesh DSouza puts it this way: My conclusion is that contrary to popular belief, atheism is not primarily an intellectual revolt, it is a moral revolt. Atheists dont find God invisible so much as objectionable. They arent adjusting their desires to the truth, but rather the truth to fit their desires... “This is the perennial appeal of atheism: it gets rid of the stern fellow with the long beard and liberates us for the pleasures of sin and depravity. The atheist seeks to get rid of moral judgment by getting rid of the judge. In a 2005 interview with The Guardian, the late Christopher Hitchens gave us his angle: “There may be many things to be said against atheism – I’m not an atheist anyway, I’m an anti-theist. It would be horrible if it were true that we were designed and then created and then continuously supervised throughout all our lives waking and sleeping and then continue to be supervised after our deaths – if that were true, it would be horrible. I’m very glad there’s absolutely no evidence for it all. It would be like living in a celestial North Korea. You can’t defect from North Korea but at least you can die. With monotheism they won’t let you die and get away from them. It’s the wish to be a slave. Who wants that to be true? It’s demanding the servile condition.” Ernest Hemingway said, “All thinking men are atheists.” I used to love this quote when I was a “thinking atheist. However, when I examine the lives of atheists such as Hemingway (and my prior self, for that matter), I’m compelled to question the true heart of these memorable statements... For since the creation of the world Gods invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools… (Romans 1:20-22) Keep Thinking, Randall Niles
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 16:06:32 +0000
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