Atheism Ranting: The Pity and Poverty of Modern Anti-Theism

By John Mark Reynolds
Scriptorium Daily

Atheists have a problem. Secularism hasn’t produced much historically and is fairly unappealing. When it has been placed in charge of a culture, it either killed millions in brutal states nobody would imitate or committed demographic suicide in dead end socialist Western Europe. Since the 1960’s secularists have manged to shoot through centuries of accumulated cultural confidence and capital in just under five decades.

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Culturally Hitchens is simply and utterly wrong. If the cultural contributions of Christianity were removed how impoverished Britain would be! From the development of the university, to the Cathedral of Saint Paul, to the development of modern science, to hospitals, to the poetry of Donne and Milton the British Isles are awash in the gifts of the Christian religion. Science would not exist without it and a generation with technical, but little human education should not be trusted with it. Only religion can keep the two together.

Morally Hitchens and the new secularists cheat at every turn. They believe in doing “right,” but never ground it in anything. Pleasure, easy pleasure, threatens to overwhelm them. Hitchens, to his credit, wants to fight the War on Terror, but his secular friends cannot be convinced to do so. It is not pleasant to die for a culture when you believe that this life is all there is. Why not just live for self? Why die for King and country or raise children when one can simply eat, drink, and be merry?

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Roberts can doubt any particular miracle and remain a supernaturalist but Hitchens must doubt them all. Roberts is open to the validity of any religious experience, while Hitchens must explain them all away. Roberts can see design in nature or believe the Creator acted in undetectable ways, Hitchens must not see the Creator anywhere.

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His ideas are bad, but he is not the foe. His unhappiness and anger are just a symptom of what happens when even capable and good men try to be gods. We should pray that he is able to find the truth and see reality as it is. (more)