Thursday, February 28, 2008

To believe or not to believe, that is the question.




Today, I received a news alert that headlined, "To believe or not to believe, that is the question."

The article was posted on Sacramento State's School newspaper website. It is about how some students plan to create an atheist club on campus. Their purpose, " To debate and challenge theistic assumptions". Below are a few responses I posted to their site from the article. Quotes from the article are  in blue.

"'(One goal) is to debate and challenge theistic assumptions,' Owen said." 
No matter what religion, or lack there of, they all have assumptions. Call it circular reasoning, but atheists must also admit, they too reason in circular fashion. At least speaking as a Christian, my benchmark, my guide is the Bible. It's the only rational worldview that comports with nature and mankind. Assume the contrary.

"Often atheists don't make their feelings known for fear of abuse or attack" said graduate English student Robin Martin."
Well, obviously Mr. Martin has no "fear of abuse or attack" by getting free publicity for club in the school newspaper about making his "feelings known". What type of abuse or attack is he describing here? Getting his feelings hurt or physical pain? Well, unfortunately for Christians, they live in a world of fear, abuse and attacks on their faith. In this post modern society, Christians are often directed to the "back of the bus"...if that—Most of the time, Christians are not even allowed on the bus. Especially in the public square.

'It's essential to inspire people to think and question the historical and present inconsistencies, violence, and exclusivity of theism and to educate through public speaking, printed materials, and creative events..' said Rebekah Hall, a prospective graduate English student. "

Apparently, Ms Hall makes the assertion of "historical and present inconsistencies" but fails to mention any. And implying that religion is responsible for violence is empirically false. It's obvious Ms Hall has been asleep at the wheel of her history studies there at Sac State.

Yes. There have been many atrocities in the name of religion. To be specific, Christianity. A blight on Christianity? Certainty. Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what the ideology of non-religion criminals have committed. Go to your library there at Sac State and look up, ""Crimes: Mass Killings." There, you'll find names like Mao Tse Tung, Lenin and Stalin and Khrushchev. These men certainly weren't practicing theologians.

My point is not that Christians or religious people aren't vulnerable to committing terrible crimes. Certainly they are. But it is not religion that produces these things; it is the denial of Biblical religion that generally leads to these kinds of things. The statistics that are the result of irreligious genocide stagger the imagination.

"Lopez, a senior English major, said she wants "to talk to people about being an atheist and to get them to see that an atheist isn't something bad or something that has a negative connotation."
So what? As an atheist, why should Ms Lopez care about what people think? Again, if she was consistent with her worldview of atheism, she should allow people to think, act, do whatever they want. "Survival of the fittest" right? We're just molecules-in-motion. Is there a greater purpose for you Ms Lopez for proselytizing the students of Sac State?

Once again, we have atheists borrowing from the theists, specifically Christianity to spread their gospel of "good news".

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