Expert: Marilyn - 4/9/2010

Question
Dear Marilyn. Warmest greetings to you. On the above mentioned subject, we are aware that the atheists require proof that there is a God. They do not believe in accepting things by faith as one's faith can be very wrong. They will also advance the argument that us the christians, while accepting God by faith, will accept the verse of scripture which says, 'prove all things'. Why shouldn't God be proven? Is He not a part of the 'all'? These are some of the hard questions they will ask. I have never got into a discussion with an atheist, but as a christian I have a concern for them as I do other sinners. With the above mentioned points, advanced by atheists, how should I respond to them? Thanks as I await your response.

Answer
Hello David;

Ultimately, whatever a human being chooses to believe, he chooses to believe it by faith. This is true even for the atheist. The atheist cannot prove there is no God to you. And you cannot prove to him there is a God. The atheist will say he wants proof, but without sincere desire to discover it, he won't. Essentially, an argument with someone who has already made up his mind and is convinced that he's correct most often ends up in a shouting match and a stalemate.

But you have the Holy Spirit on your side. The Holy Spirit is able to be with a person all the time. He knows the perfect moment to bring a word or image out of memory, even a word spoken or an image seen years ago, and couple that with something said or seen recently to bring revelation. We need to pray for ourselves and we need to pray for the persons we are witnessing to because believing prayer releases power from God.

The Lord will answer fervent prayer on behalf of an unbeliever. If you ask, He will hound them until all their excuses are gone and they must face the fact that they believe what they believe because that's what they choose to believe and for no other reason OR they admit defeat and become believers.

Peter said we should be prepared to defend the faith at all times, I Peter 3:15. We should be prepared if for no other reason than debating an atheist causes us to understand and grow deeper in faith. Paul said, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the Word of Truth," II Timothy 2:15. Toward that end, add to prayer, study, and prepare yourself for battle.

Peter reminds us to cast our cares on the Lord, I Peter 5:7. And remember king David's lesson, the battle is the Lord's, I Samuel 17:47. Knowing this, you can avoid the trap of getting emotional and defensive and adopt an attitude of loving detachment. Cast your cares--it's not up to you whether the person you are debating with comes to understand the truth--the battle is the Lord's--you just have to say what the Lord puts into your mind to say and nothing more--love the person you are debating--but it's not up to you whether or not the person receives--the battle is the Lord's....

Proofs of God's existence are easy. The greatest most obvious, but most ignored is the existence of Israel. Everyone knows the Jews are God's Chosen People. No other people group in the history of the world has been conquered by a people of a different culture and religion and maintained their racial and religious identity, not for long, and never for centuries as the Jews have. No other people group in the history of the world has ever been dispersed--and that more than once--from their homeland into an entirely different culture and yet maintained their cultural, racial and religious identity--as the Jews have. No other people group in the history of the world has not only been dispersed, but come back to their homeland after centuries, except the Jews. The Jews by themselves prove God exists.

Jesus was a sure enough, real Person who walked on planet earth. Plenty of ancient historians wrote about Him. Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived around 70 A.D. wrote that Jesus was a Rabbi with a large following who was crucified. And His disciples claimed that He rose from the dead. At various points in history people have tried to claim that the disciples stole Jesus' body from the tomb and then announce that He rose from the dead. Aside from the implausibility of that claim and announcement, let's just look at the facts. The eleven apostles who knew Jesus personally all died for preaching Jesus raised from the dead, except John who died an old man in exile on the Isle of Patmos. Will a man die for something he knows is a lie? NO, he won't! The Apostles prove Jesus rose from the dead by their willingness to preach Him raised and die for preaching it.

The entirety of the Christian faith stands on this one event: Jesus' resurrection. Without it, there is no such thing as Christianity. But Jesus did rise from the dead, the Apostles proved it. Here's a link with more: http://jewsforjesus.org/answers/jesus/risen

If Jesus rose from the dead, then He is truly God. Jesus made many statements indicating that He is God, "I and the Father are One," John 10:30; "Before Abraham was born, I AM," John 8:58 alluding back to Exodus 3:14 where God tells Moses His Name is "I AM;" "No one comes to the Father except through Me...I am in the Father and the Father is in Me," John 14.

Atheists challenge believers, the Bible and God along several avenues. One of these is in the realm of astrophysics, physics and evolution--the creation of the earth and the universe.

A few years ago Stephen Hawking made the remark that he had concluded that there must be a Creator, he could see no other way for the universe to have come into existence. His peers gave him a difficult time, so he backed down. But it is true, that for the honest seeker, the universe reveals God.

"For since the creation of the world God's 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," Romans 1:20.

Dig deep enough, scratch hard enough and one finds God staring back at him. But for some, God could reach out and pull the nose and the person would make up some kind of lame explanation for the event--any explanation, but God.

Martin Rees, well respected English cosmologist, wrote "Just Six Numbers," a book about how "shockingly unlikely" our universe is. He's an atheist and it would seem he's determined to stay that way. His idea is that our universe is only one of millions, perhaps billions, who knows maybe trillions of universes. If our universe is only one of millions, then we're not all that special. Universes where life can exist just pop in all the time--even if they're "shockingly unlikely" according to our perception. Nobody can prove his theory because we cannot see past the edge of our universe, but that little "fact" doesn't slow him down. You see how faith is an element even for a person who thinks of himself as a man dominated by reason.

A few years ago the Jewish actor and lawyer, Ben Stein, made a movie called "Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed" about the power of the evolutionists movement to silence detractors and about the logical holes in evolution. Among others, he interviewed Gerald Schroeder, Jewish physicist and author of "The Science of God" and other similar books. Gerald Schroeder's book is an excellent primer on what the Bible says, what science says and how the two do not actually conflict. (However, I don't agree with him about how long humans in the image of God have been around--I think we've been around longer.)

Schroeder points out that a principle of physics states that if something is unlikely to happen, it won't. Thinking along those lines, he explains that if the universe came into existence by chance, which is what evolutionists say, then a series of unlikely things had to occur. He lists a few, formation of carbon, the precise control of energy which God released when He said, "Let there be light," and other examples. He argues that the number of things that had to happen precisely and in a specific order just to have a universe that is friendly to life are too numerous to be the work of chance. The universe is a miracle--an act of God.

The atheist's response to a miracle is to say, "well obviously it happened." The believer defines a miracle as a supernatural intervention by God. The atheist defines a miracle as something that can't happen, therefore if it happened, it's not a miracle. To us this kind of logic is no logic at all, but remember loving detachment--the battle isn't ours, just the defense to the best of our abilities when we're called upon to do it.

Georges Le'Maitre, a Belgian Roman Catholic priest and physicist, developed the "Cosmic Egg" or "primeval atom" theory which Sir Fred Hoyle, a British physicist, dubbed "the big bang" theory. This theory stated simply that the explosion of light which occurred when God uttered the words "Light be," ("Let there be light") should leave behind cosmic background radiation. Two Bell Labs physicists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, discovered this predicted background cosmic radiation while looking for something else with a radio telescope. They kept trying to eliminate an annoying background interference and couldn't. They alerted a colleague who suggested that they might have discovered Le'Maitre's proof. At first they weren't convinced because initially they were proponents of a different theory--that the universe had no beginning. This actually is a very old idea--one the Greeks held thousands of years before--but one that science had not disproved up to that point.

It's interesting how the Bible has asserted "In the beginning..." for many, many thousands of years, long before the Greeks, but it seems nobody really believed in it--not until these two fellows proved Le'Maitre's theory by their discovery.

Hoyle was annoyed. A confirmed atheist, he didn't want there to be a beginning, to his mind a beginning proved God existed, and he didn't want any part of that. He dubbed Le'Maitre's theory the "big bang" theory and later insisted that he hadn't called it that in order to belittle it, but that is the name which has stuck. Hoyle is the father of the "Steady State" theory which is based on math "proving" no beginning and hence no creator. Penzias and Wilson's discovery shot his theory down.

I don't understand why so many Christians object to the "big bang" theory. It takes God's Words, "Light be," and explains them in scientific terms--an explosion of light energy from a tiny point that expanded to form the universe. Christians who dismiss science do not do a good service for the cause. Believers who dismiss science forget that science as we know it would not exist without Jesus.

This thesis is discussed in D. James Kennedy's book, "What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?" He points out that science is based on these very Christian ideas: 1) God is a Rational God, 2) He operates according to laws: not only is He the Lawgiver, He also obeys Law, 3) He created the universe to operate according to laws which human beings can come to understand.

One of God's first commands to Adam was to have dominion over the earth. True dominion only begins with farming and hunting. It culminates with coming to understand how the earth and the universe work. True dominion cannot be achieved without understanding.

A Rational Law Giving and Obeying God + the command for man to have dominion = science. Science is the quest to understand the laws of the universe, the creatures that live within it and the processes that shape it--initially a Christian pursuit hardly dared by pagans.

Pagan gods do not operate by rational, lawful principles. They are capricious and fickle. They are, essentially, humans with super powers and eternal life--rotten, basically and living forever rotten. Persons who worship such gods cannot find logic or reason in the universe created by such beings because there won't be any. Lighting strikes for no other reason than the gods are in a bad mood, crops are decimated for no other reason than the gods are in a bad mood. Nobody can come to understand the gods' moods, so why bother. You can see how science was initially a very Christian pursuit. As Kennedy points out, all the founders of science as we know it were Christians.

The book "Galileo's Daughter," by Dava Sobel paints a portrait of one of Christianity's first great scientists. This book shows Galileo's deeply held faith, how he clung to his faith with his daughter's help and persisted in the face of deep pain and sometimes bad health. Galileo operated under the principles enumerated above. To advance their cause, atheists attempt to overlook his Christianity, even portray him as an atheist or at least uncommitted, but he was deeply Christian. They focus on the church's mistake and in the process all but ignore the man and his accomplishments. If they were to focus on Galileo and his accomplishments, they would have to acknowledge the influence Christ had on him and their cause wouldn't be helped.

Ravi Zacharias delves into the differences between Christianity and other religions in his book, "Jesus Among Other Gods." He explains this idea of how the Christian worldview allows the greatest intellectual and scientific achievements of any religion on the planet. Also, Dinesh D'Souza has a book titled, "What's So Great About Christianity" which you might find helpful. The author's web sites: http://www.dineshdsouza.com/ & http://www.rzim.org/

The person with understanding of scientific knowledge will have a better chance making his point with an atheist than a person who is not well versed. These days, all fields of science are populated by atheists who approach their studies from their atheistic point of view. They do not recognize that the very scientific method which they love and almost worship is a Christian creation. The scientific method, if used properly, will extract truth; atheistic scientists can come to truthful conclusions. However, it is also true that their worldview can lead them into error.

It requires discernment to see truth and to not be swayed by seemingly sensible and truthful theories which actually are neither. My criteria for discovering truth in science: 1) The Bible is true; 2) God cannot lie; 3) Evidence discovered in the earth, in space, is true. 4) Since God cannot lie, He would not present false evidence to us anywhere in the earth or in the cosmos. 5) If the Bible and science disagree, one of two things is happening: either the science is faulty or has been incorrectly interpreted, or the Bible has been incorrectly interpreted and/or my understanding of what it says is faulty. One must recognize when the Bible speaks poetically as opposed to factually. It might say "sunrise." Everyone knows the sun doesn't "rise," but we all describe it that way. Atheists like to criticize the Bible for non-factual statements--like the "four corners of the earth" etc., which are poetic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying something that is poetic is a lie. Sometimes the greatest truths are discovered in poetry--especially when addressing the human condition--I'm just saying there is a difference between a scientific statement and poetry.

Michael Behe, a biochemist, wrote a book titled "Darwin's Black Box." Behe is an intelligent design proponent whose primary thesis is the concept of "irreducible complexity." The single celled animal is an example of this with its flagella used for movement. The flagella under a microscope has a number of parts, it looks astonishingly mechanical, like a geared propeller of sorts. And just like a geared propeller, if the flagella did not have even one of its parts, it could not function at all.

The theory of evolution insists that natural selection "chooses" traits in creatures resulting in survival of the fittest. Any given trait "evolves," that is gradually is formed over time. If this theory is true, the single cell's flagella would have to have been evolved over time, each individual part tested by natural selection. Evolutionary theory states that if any given part helped the creature survive, then it will remain a feature of the species. However, Behe points out that this theory cannot explain the flagella because the flagella is useless if it is missing even one of its parts--the thing had to come into existence entire. These ideas are presented in documentary form on DVD: "Unlocking the Mysteries of Life" and "Darwin's Dilemma."

Francis Collins, a geneticist, was the director of the US National Institute of Health in charge of the human genome project. His book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief." Collins believes that God used evolution to create life. The Bible allows for a limited form of evolution in the verse which says, "Let the land produce living creatures," but this verse also limits the scope of this evolution by adding, "after their own kinds," Genesis 1:24.

Humans have used this type of limited evolution by evolving plants and animals to suit our purposes, domesticated cows and horses; dogs were evolved by human direction from wolves. A dog has not stopped being a wolf, the dog is evolved after his own kind. There is no reason why God couldn't use evolution as a tool, but I argue that the Bible does not present a view of classical evolution, where all change happens gradually. The Bible presents a view of dramatic change occurring swiftly with the next level of creature coming into existence entire. The fossil record supports this view. The classical teaching of evolution states that a one celled animal gradually evolved into something that climbed from the water onto the land, changing from a creature with gills to a creature with lungs etc. This would involve creatures changing from one kind to another. The Bible does not support this.

In his book, "The Science of God," Schroeder devotes a section to the Hebrew words which describe Adam's creation in Genesis 1 & 2. One could argue that a human being is after the kind of an ape. When God breathed into Adam the breath of life, the human being transformed from his ape-like self into an in-the-Image-of-God human being. The genetics of the ape and the human are remarkably similar. I have no problem with this because it is clear that our bodies are animal-like bodies, we breathe, eat, have to use the bathroom, etc. A material body is required if we are to be masters of a material universe. It is our spirits which set us apart from the animals--that intangible Breath of Life from God. But this event is a dramatic, sudden change for the human-looking creature, a dramatic change initiated and controlled by God--not a slow gradual change controlled by "chance" as evolutionists insist. I have not made up my mind whether I agree with Schroeder and Collins that we humans evolved from ape-like creatures, but I see the Bible does not block such an event.

Richard Dawkins, atheistic biologist from Britain, wrote in his book "The Blind Watchmaker:" "In the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years (evolutionists are now dating the beginning of the Cambrian at about 530 million years), are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists."

Atheistic evolutionists insist we are still animals in every way shape and form, that when we die that is the end of our consciousness. Most human hearts disagree with this and it's not pure vanity that leads us to think that way--Jesus, who really did come to planet earth, teaches us that we are precious to God, more precious than sparrows, precious enough to die to retrieve us from hell and death.  

Another great DVD documentary is "Privileged Planet" which is also the title of a book. Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards wrote this book and are behind the movie. Here's their web site: http://www.privilegedplanet.com/ Their revelation is that the earth is in a unique place in the universe, a place protected and shielded, yet simultaneously placed for good views of everything out there so we can get to know our universe--something a gracious God would do and not likely to have occurred by chance. Gonzalez is an astrophysicist and Richards is a theologian.

A popular theory going around now bases itself on Copernicus' ideas that the earth is not the center of the universe and goes on from there to say that we're not all that special. It's unfortunate that Copernicus, who was a devout Christian, would have this "expansion" of his teaching be labeled with his name. Copernicus who did the math and the theoretical foundation for the facts that Galileo proved by his observations, took man on earth from the center and placed the sun there. He published his works as he neared death so that he wouldn't have to suffer harassment from the church, which inexplicably (for me) believed in the Greek model that the earth was the center.

To modern Christians it's silly to think that the earth would be the center. God is the center. The sun, symbolized by God, should naturally be the center. But though Greek thought influences us to a certain extent, it doesn't have near the influence on us as it did back in Copernicus and Galileo's day. However, to extrapolate Copernicus' ideas to say that the earth isn't that special anywhere in the universe goes too far. This idea belittles us too much, it's the equivalent of saying we're animals. "The Privileged Planet" has therefore been derided as silly, man-centric and what have you. Atheists don't want there to be a God out there who protects and shields a planet where His beloved human beings live. They want every blessing and curse to be by chance.

"The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success" by Rodney Stark, is a good book explaining the social, economic and political achievements of Christianity through the so called "Dark Ages" which laid the foundation for the greatest prosperity for the most people in history. Common innovations, such as better plows and harnesses for horses, had huge benefits for the ordinary man. Stark explains how capitalism is an innovation of Christian progress when Christian inventions, such as a better plow, led to surplus food.  

A popular thing atheists like to do is paint God as some kind of malevolent murderer. A casual reading of the Old Testament might bring one to this conclusion (by casual I mean reading without any desire to find truth). The pagan gods of the Old Testament were very vile. They demanded human sacrifice, demanded infants be burned to death, demanded young virgins have sex with any passer by in "sacred groves" etc. In a world that, despite its evils, is heavily Christianized, many of us do not know what life was like before Jesus, though some of us on planet earth know what life is like where Christianity has little or no sway--the brutality of such places boggles the Christianized mind. But atheists don't see the contrast between a world with no Christian influence and a world with it. And they are not aware of how Christianized their own thinking is. I'm referring to the source of their own morality--they want to insist that they would be moral without God, but history proves this is not possible.

Atheists are blinded to their own Christianized thinking. They want to judge the malevolent, murderous God they perceive in the Old Testament by Christian standards! Love thy neighbor as theyself, turn the other cheek...etc. etc. But the story of the Old Testament is about God trying to shape humanity without the redemptive work of the cross to pay for sin and transform the human heart. In the Old Testament a Righteous God works to impose His Righteousness from the outside on usually unwilling, depraved humanity. After Jesus' life, death and resurrection, God does not impose His Righteousness from the outside, He does not impose it at all, instead He offers another option--we receive Jesus as Lord and give our unrighteousness to Him and receive His righteousness into our hearts--transformation from inside rather than imposition from outside.

The Ten Commandments are not rules we pleasure-hungry, selfish, self-centered creatures would create for ourselves. God has to be real because human beings would not fabricate such a God Who holds to such high standards!

We want gods who are more like us, who justify whatever evil desires we crave to pursue. One need only look to the pagan gods of the world to see what sort of gods we humans would create. The God of the Bible, with His Ten Commandments, sets a standard no human being would choose for himself! This alone proves God is real. And having set that standard, if He is truly God and not some kind of cosmic sugar-daddy, He must enforce it; anything less and He is no God worthy of any respect at all.

Going back to our God, a God atheists perceive as a murderous, take note of who God commands His people to obliterate: people who worship gods who demand infant sacrifice, the rape of innocent girls, sex as a form of worship and the like--that's who God wants wiped from the face of the earth. God hates that kind of behavior.

The atheist thinks that religion should be placed in a museum along with the people who practice those religions. They know that things placed in museums become relics of the past, having little meaning beyond intellectual curiosity. They think that an environment free of religion is the preferred way to not only live, but to raise children. Yet, if one examines history, the atheistic regimes of Genghis Khan, the French Revolution, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-tung, Hitler and Stalin have been the bloodiest, most vile regimes on the planet.  Even worse than the Muslim hatred we see most in evidence today. Not the Christian regimes, not even the much maligned crusades which were mounted in defense after three hundred years of Islamic attack, not even the Spanish Inquisition compares in its brutality to these atheistic regimes.

The book "Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution," by Ruth Scurr, paints a pretty clear picture of the French Revolution. The French, unmoored from their Catholic Christianity, became blood thirsty beyond reason. Persons were guillotined for crimes such as producing "sour wine injurious to the health of citizens;" looking forward to the arrival of the Austrian and Prussian armies in Paris and of hoarding provisions for them; for saying aloud, "A fig for the nation!" and other similarly slight offenses. Granted, the Catholic church in France had become corrupt, but to chuck God along with the denomination brought terror to France and a brutal, ugly scar on their national identity.

Hitler is a prime example of atheistic evolutionary theory in practice. He believed firmly in survival of the fittest, he believed that the "Aryan" race was the superior race and he set out to exterminate anyone who was not physically and mentally fit and Aryan. The number of Gypsies, mentally disabled, elderly, Christians and birth defected people Hitler exterminated in pursuit of his perfected humanity is often ignored to focus solely on the Jews. Make no mistake, the Jews were a primary target, but by no means the only one. Hitler was going to speed up evolution by systematically weeding out the less fit. This is evolutionary theory taken to its logical conclusion.

These regimes came to power and exerted power free of Christian influences. These are the types of regimes we would have if atheists were to achieve the kind of society they imagine they desire. If one challenges atheists on this fact that every atheistic regime in the history of the world has been vile and murderous, he will have an excuse, he will dismiss your assertion and point the finger at failed Christianity. But he will know his objections are hollow.

Without the Ten Commandments, without our God who began by showing us how horribly we fail to measure up to His standards, what standard would we adopt? Certainly civilizations with brilliant accomplishments, such as the Greek, Romans and Egyptians have existed, glimpses of the Image of God in humanity can be seen in their art, in Greek philosophy, but the depravity of man is also evident in the homosexuality of the Greeks, their disdain for women, the brutality of the Romans, the Pharaoh-is-god of the Egyptians etc. The Aztecs and the Mayans built great edifices, but the practice of human sacrifices probably brought God's judgment down upon their heads in the form of the Conquistadors. What sort of society would today's atheist create absent any god at all? Without even pagan gods to give some sort of heavenly entity to look up to, what would they fabricate? They imagine their world would be moral and just, only no God around to dictate to them. But that leads us back to the Ten Commandments and the morality implicit in them. They are the foundation of the western world, more than any other influence, alongside Christ's teachings to love one another as we love ourselves. Atheists delude themselves if they think it possible to have a just and moral society without God and His Law to form the foundation and Christ to redeem and empower us.

How to get this across to the atheist? Know your facts, your history as best you can, pray for God to give you the words and do your best. Prepare for a battle of reason.

Yes, it's true, Christians often fail, but Christianity tried and not quite managed to perfection is far better than atheism in practice. It was William Wilberforce, who after becoming a Christian felt convicted to end slavery, who fought slavery in Britain his entire life in the Parliament and eventually succeeded. A one man crusade backed by many other believers who changed the world. Yet, his and other Christians very real accomplishments are ignored by atheists.

Where are the hospitals named for atheists? Atheists claim that they want to increase scientific knowledge, but their primary focus when given the chance isn't to increase over-all scientific knowledge, but to proselytize for evolutionary theory--they don't really seem to want the general public to have increased scientific knowledge. Where are the slaves freed, the girls sold into prostitution released or the children saved from sweat shops by atheistic organizations? Where are the atheists carrying the sick on their backs to houses of refuge? Where are the atheists taking care of lepers or the women suffering from fistulas? I haven't seen any. Their morality doesn't seem to include sticking one's neck out for someone else. Except for the Stalins and Hitlers who apply evolutionary theory to its logical extension, I don't see atheistic activity on a grand scale, especially in the case of altruism, anywhere.

The atheist has no problem with aborting babies. He may be a little more squeamish about killing a human being who's walking around talking, but why? What's the difference? Isn't an unborn baby just a human lacking time and growth? Well, the unborn baby can't take care of himself--he's not a "viable" human. Stephen Hawking can't take care of himself. If he didn't have that fancy computer that talks for him, he wouldn't be a viable human being either! What grounds does the atheist have to judge which human being should live or not live? If we are all just animals, why does the question even matter? The atheistic world view that humans are just animals taken to its logical extension does not produce in my mind a world where I want to live!

The atheist doesn't steal because why? It's impractical, it will get him in jail? It's not right? Who says it's not right? The atheist says it's not right. Well, what if I say it's right? What if I say I can steal from anybody? What ground does the atheist have to tell me that stealing isn't right? In practical terms, for me, stealing could prove very beneficial. What if I'm not "hurting" anybody? What if I'm just stealing a few pages of copy paper at the office? What if I'm just stealing a handful of grapes at the store? That's not hurting anybody.

How can the atheist dictate to me that I shouldn't steal? If he doesn't want God dictating to him, what gives him the right to dictate to me? I once subscribed to "Free Inquiry" magazine, an atheists' publication. One writer advocated that Christians be forced to give up their children to the state who would then raise the children free of religion. Once the children were mature, then the parents could have an opportunity to share their religion with their kids: Let the kids decide when they're old enough if they want part of religion. What gives the atheist the right to even suggest that? He thinks he's dictating a freedom, when actually he's just dictating.

Someone will dictate how to behave, what's right, what's wrong, what matters. The atheist doesn't want God to do that, he wants to do it by himself. And it would seem, he wants to do it for everyone else. In conclusion, I have to wonder if the atheist's real problem isn't God, but the fact that he wants to BE God.

Morality outside of God is based on human decision which eventually boils down to who has got the biggest gun or stick or knife and the most muscle and brains to wield it with.

We believers who live for Christ and do our best to serve Him are His feet and His hands in the earth. We are His testimony, we prove He exists by our very lives, by loving others, by living by faith, by being filled with the Lord's joy. We're not unlike the Apostles who died for preaching Him raised from the dead in that, it is by our very lives lived in pursuit of holiness that we testify God is real. William Wilberforce, by his very life lived to defeat slavery, testifies that God is real. I testify it every time I do a selfless act for which I can expect no repayment of any kind. I testify it every time I forgive someone who has wronged me. I testify it by doing what's right even when no one is looking.

Sincerely,

Marilyn