Reason Rally and Religion

Over the past week or so I have been reading a lot of articles about this reason rally atheists attended in Washington DC, and it has got me thinking about a few things.  The fact that atheist have to have a rally to celebrate believing in nothing is not only absurd but funny.  Their battle cry is religion is wrong and reason is right, but how do they know that?  How can you, with absolute certainty, say that religion is wrong?  Richard Dawkins the “leader” of this atheist movement said he wasn’t 100% sure that religion was incorrect.  If you aren’t 100% sure then you can’t say something is wrong, right?

Richard Dawkins and his claim to fame was getting atheists to come out and confess their belief in not believing.  I do agree that atheist get a bad rap when it comes to them confessing their unbelief.  People assume that if you don’t believe in anything you are immoral and bad, but that can’t be further from the truth.  I would go as far to say that some atheists behave better than some so called Christians.  But I think the perception about atheists is the product of their own doing and this reason rally only made things worse.

Rallies are usually about getting jazzed up about a specific topic and for knowledge.  I am not saying this didn’t occur at the rally, but it’s rare that rallies include a hate rally by their so called “leader”.  When Martin Luther King formed rallies for civil rights, he didn’t speak about hating and ridiculing, he spoke about love and freedom.  You can’t make things better with hate, you only make things worse and Richard Dawkins doesn’t understand that.  A man of reason isn’t reasonable, go figure.

During this past weekend’s rally Dawkins communicated that atheist should ridicule Christians and others of faith with hatred and contempt.  If that isn’t the most boneheaded thing to say when atheists are trying to clean up their perception, I don’t know what is.  True believers in faith don’t ridicule non-believers, we try to help them see our side of the story for Jesus.  If they don’t see our side then it’s up to God to change them because we cannot do it ourselves.  The fact the Dawkins wants to “hunt down” and test believers faith is a testament that he is no better than the people he is trying to protect atheist from today.  And I know some atheists will say that he is a radical and doesn’t speak for everyone, but why have him speak if you know that’s how he feels? 

I am not against someone being an atheist, but I do believe the reasons why people become atheists are not the most convincing.  Reasons ranging from: I was too burdened as a believer; my life was too terrible for a God to be in control; how can God allow these bad things to happen in the world; religion is just a piece of American culture; and my favorite, if there was a God he would have presented himself to me.  No one thinks about the fact that we have turned our back on God and we rightly deserve all that is given to us. 

Yes it’s hard to understand why family members are taken from us, but that is life, what would we look forward to if everything was perfect now?  Yes God could stop all the bad things from happening, but He’s not going to right now.  Would you help a friend who has disobeyed, lied, sinned, hated, and hurt you?  You may say, well they weren’t your friend, but we all have had those friends in life and we’re probably not their friends anymore.  We have to understand that we are not paying for just our sins against God, but everyone else’s.  Just because we are believers doesn’t keep us from the horrors in life due to non-believers. Look at most of the apostles, not many lived a long and glorious life, and most were executed or murdered.  It’s safe to say their belief was more than likely greater than ours so why should we deserve any different outcome or life? 

Being a Christian isn’t a cake walk, but it’s more difficult when you encounter people like Dawkins.  As a Christian I don’t feel burdened as if I should have to live my life a certain way.  Jesus’ death got rid of the Law so that I could live by grace.  I allow Jesus to lead and I follow and it hasn’t taken me to a place I cannot handle, and no my life hasn’t been easy and perfect.  But my disobedience led to those hardships, but I have learned more from the hardships than the rewards. 

The definition of reason is sound judgment and good sense but nowhere does it state absolute certainty.  Just because you don’t have proof of something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  If I were to ask you to prove to me that Alexander the Great existed, you could only show me writings and history books.  There isn’t a real photograph or him, only some painting of what he may have looked like.  But we would all agree that he existed?  How is that any different than Jesus?  There is no photo of Jesus, but there is historical reference in the bible.  We have to remember that Jesus, back then, was a nobody to the Romans, so why would Jesus make it into the history books?  When you die is there going to be a history book about your life to prove you lived?  Two thousand years from now you will be forgotten, but the Son of Man, who lived two thousand years ago, wasn’t written into a history book, had no picture taken, and didn’t have technology to save His historical account is revered and remembered by a third of the world.  Coincidence, that would be unreasonable to say so.

We live in an age of technology and information, and because of this we have to see things with our own eyes to believe it.  From my statement about Jesus above, reason would conclude that Jesus did live and is God.  Reason for atheist is to tear down religion, to make everyone be like them, but yet they fight so hard to make themselves different from everyone else.  To me that is a cause without a cause, reason without logic is just hearsay.  But the reason rally did have one great outcome, the rally showed me that atheists want to believe in not believing.  So it tells me they want to believe in something, they just haven’t figured it out yet.

In conclusion, we all won’t know who is right or wrong until we pass away.  Without God, if I only have to look forward to the life given to me right now, then I am great with where I am at…no regrets.  With God, if only have to look forward to this life and the one to come after, then again I am great with where I am at…no regrets.  I am not looking forward to the promise of heaven, I am looking forward to the promise that my Savior and Creator will raise me from the dead so I can be with Him.  To look around and believe all this is by chance is unreasonable.  To put your faith in science, who has been wrong numerous times in the past, is foolish and unreasonable.  But to love and support one another is reasonable.  To live for Jesus because he died for you is honorable and perfectly reasonable.

Glory always be to Jesus!