Monday, July 16, 2007
Atheism
At one time I had intentions to make this blog pretty much daily, but I have another blog going, a web site that I'm growing, and now an on-line forum to manage, so my time is a bit split.
On top of that, I was getting a bit disgusted with current events. Reid, Pelosi, and almost the entire Democratic party are still apparently convinced that in Iraq, we (the US) are the real enemy and should get out as fast as we can and leave the Iraqis to clean up, whether they can hold off their neighbors while their government is still so wobbly or not. Reid refused to answer what he thought would happen to the Iraqis once our troops left, beyond claiming that we weren't wanted. A leader of one of the insurgent groups that was fighting us a couple of years ago has decided that, unwelcome foreign infidels though we may be, al-Qaeda is worse. His forces have been willing to cooperate in helping clean al-Qaeda out before we go. Fair enough, I'd say. I don't suppose that the "we are evil" crowd in our government...or is that just the Bush Administration and everyone who supports it is evil? is paying any attention to the Iranian arms smugglers our soldiers have been uncovering.
One of the reason's there's not much progress on the political front in Iraq is that al-Quaeda or some other unrelated group that calls itself al-Qaeda, swears allegiance to Osama bin Ladin, and acts like al-Qaeda, has been doing its utmost (can't call it best) to stir unrest, create as much havoc, and kill as many Americans and their collaborators as possible. In the meantime, the leader of Iraq's principal opposition party, who runs his own private army, has been running back and forth between Iraq and Iran. Anyone who is sure his motives are purely patriotic might also believe me if I claimed I had some beachfront property in Arizona for sale.
This is the same Iran which is so busy building nuclear power plants to make nuclear weapons to confront the great Satan (That's the US, in case anyone has forgotten, and the Iranians are a lot closer to building nuclear weapons than the late unlamented Saddam Hussein ever was) that they have neglected to build oil refineries and in spite of sitting on top of vast oil fields, have to import gasoline and had to put down riots over a shortage. It would almost be comical if it weren't so deadly.
But this is all beside the point of what I intended to talk about. There is a Wall Street Journal editorial that mentions the big money some authors of atheist books have been raking in, as well as the weakness of their arguments. I'm afraid that it won't be too many more years before those who are persuaded by their argument that anyone who believes in God is a bloodthirsty terrorist start taking up arms to "Defend their rights", instead of just hiring the ACLU to do it. I'm also seeing signs of a somewhat of a curious alliance of liberal Democrats with Muslim groups. Is it perhaps, that Christianity is seen as so perniciously oppressive that Islam (or any other alternative to Christianity) has to be deliberately favored, just as accused criminals, minorities, feminists, and more recently, homosexuals have been?
I'm also a bit saddened by comments on the debate on Beliefnet.com between Orson Scott Card and Dr. Albert Mohler. From the beginning, this debate has generated more heat than light. Although I contributed a couple of posts, which quickly sank into the great swamp, I decided that anything else I could say had already been said, didn't need to be said, or wouldn't be heard.
Such evangelicals as Mohler endeavor to create a wide and mostly artificial gulf between their own doctrine and that of the Mormons, rather than acknowledging that their similarities are greater than their differences. But they're facing the wrong enemy. Widespread atheism and hostility to all Biblical tradition is the enemy of both evangelical and Latter-Day Saint, and Latter day Saints, with a claim to modern revelation that reaffirms the truth of the Bible have a better shield against atheist arguments.
This puts these evangelicals in something of the position of fighting their best allies across a deep gulf that they themselves have dug while they ignore the enemy at their unprotected back. Besides irritation that many of those those who claim expertise on Mormon belief have evidently never read the Book of Mormon at all, I'm mostly sorry for them. Fortunately, there are at least some evangelicals who recognize that if one says he believes in Christ and acts as if he believed it, he must be some sort of Christian. We can get along with those a lot more easily than we can with those who call us liars and hypocrites.
On top of that, I was getting a bit disgusted with current events. Reid, Pelosi, and almost the entire Democratic party are still apparently convinced that in Iraq, we (the US) are the real enemy and should get out as fast as we can and leave the Iraqis to clean up, whether they can hold off their neighbors while their government is still so wobbly or not. Reid refused to answer what he thought would happen to the Iraqis once our troops left, beyond claiming that we weren't wanted. A leader of one of the insurgent groups that was fighting us a couple of years ago has decided that, unwelcome foreign infidels though we may be, al-Qaeda is worse. His forces have been willing to cooperate in helping clean al-Qaeda out before we go. Fair enough, I'd say. I don't suppose that the "we are evil" crowd in our government...or is that just the Bush Administration and everyone who supports it is evil? is paying any attention to the Iranian arms smugglers our soldiers have been uncovering.
One of the reason's there's not much progress on the political front in Iraq is that al-Quaeda or some other unrelated group that calls itself al-Qaeda, swears allegiance to Osama bin Ladin, and acts like al-Qaeda, has been doing its utmost (can't call it best) to stir unrest, create as much havoc, and kill as many Americans and their collaborators as possible. In the meantime, the leader of Iraq's principal opposition party, who runs his own private army, has been running back and forth between Iraq and Iran. Anyone who is sure his motives are purely patriotic might also believe me if I claimed I had some beachfront property in Arizona for sale.
This is the same Iran which is so busy building nuclear power plants to make nuclear weapons to confront the great Satan (That's the US, in case anyone has forgotten, and the Iranians are a lot closer to building nuclear weapons than the late unlamented Saddam Hussein ever was) that they have neglected to build oil refineries and in spite of sitting on top of vast oil fields, have to import gasoline and had to put down riots over a shortage. It would almost be comical if it weren't so deadly.
But this is all beside the point of what I intended to talk about. There is a Wall Street Journal editorial that mentions the big money some authors of atheist books have been raking in, as well as the weakness of their arguments. I'm afraid that it won't be too many more years before those who are persuaded by their argument that anyone who believes in God is a bloodthirsty terrorist start taking up arms to "Defend their rights", instead of just hiring the ACLU to do it. I'm also seeing signs of a somewhat of a curious alliance of liberal Democrats with Muslim groups. Is it perhaps, that Christianity is seen as so perniciously oppressive that Islam (or any other alternative to Christianity) has to be deliberately favored, just as accused criminals, minorities, feminists, and more recently, homosexuals have been?
I'm also a bit saddened by comments on the debate on Beliefnet.com between Orson Scott Card and Dr. Albert Mohler. From the beginning, this debate has generated more heat than light. Although I contributed a couple of posts, which quickly sank into the great swamp, I decided that anything else I could say had already been said, didn't need to be said, or wouldn't be heard.
Such evangelicals as Mohler endeavor to create a wide and mostly artificial gulf between their own doctrine and that of the Mormons, rather than acknowledging that their similarities are greater than their differences. But they're facing the wrong enemy. Widespread atheism and hostility to all Biblical tradition is the enemy of both evangelical and Latter-Day Saint, and Latter day Saints, with a claim to modern revelation that reaffirms the truth of the Bible have a better shield against atheist arguments.
This puts these evangelicals in something of the position of fighting their best allies across a deep gulf that they themselves have dug while they ignore the enemy at their unprotected back. Besides irritation that many of those those who claim expertise on Mormon belief have evidently never read the Book of Mormon at all, I'm mostly sorry for them. Fortunately, there are at least some evangelicals who recognize that if one says he believes in Christ and acts as if he believed it, he must be some sort of Christian. We can get along with those a lot more easily than we can with those who call us liars and hypocrites.
