Posted in Salt and Light
Yahoo's "Most Popular" headlines frequently show up in my G-mail account. This is one I couldn't ignore: Atheists plan ad campaign on side of London buses. One of the ads, according to the article, states, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Uh, "probably"? That sounds more like an agnostic and it hasn't made celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins too happy, apparently. The best part of the article was the end.
The religious think tank Theos said it had donated $82 to the campaign, on the grounds that the ads were so bad they would probably attract people to religion.
"It tells people to 'stop worrying,' which is hardly going to be a great comfort for those who are concerned about losing jobs or homes in the recession," said Theos director Paul Woolley.
"Stunts like this demonstrate how militant atheists are often great adverts for Christianity."
Isn't that a classic? It reminds me of the comedy routine by Darren Streblow that I saw on Bananas a while back. He got on the topic of atheists getting together to encourage each other, maybe sing a song like, "Who gives us reason to live? No one, no one." Folks need hope like they need air.
Whenever you draw your meaning and purpose from the negative, in this case being atheist and saying there's no God, you depend on the positive to be set so you can deny it. It's like someone cooks a dinner and you define yourself by fasting. They refuse to believe that the food is real or that it's for them. But they don't get any meaning out of fasting other than they're not like the ones eating. Like Streblow says, imitating an atheist preacher, "We believe ...that you can't believe. Here's what we know ...we don't know."
Like a reflection of sound or light, atheism can only react to what's positively articulated by the source, namely theism. But rather than exist in a duality, I believe atheists are just another variety of not-God worshippers. There's only one source of truth and life in this universe, and it's God. Everything else is not-God, just like there's light and "not-light" (darkness). Darkness doesn't really exist; it's just what we use to describe not-light. Atheists don't really have cause to celebrate anything, especially if it's all a meaningless, purposeless existence. What a non-meaning, non-substantial non-faith!
I know there are folks out there that might say that I'm over-simplifying it. I probably am. My point is that there is order, structure and substance to this existence. A candle burns in a predictable chemical reaction everytime. That's structure and order, a law that exists. It says, combine oxygen and carbon at a specific temperature and you get light in a sustainable chain reaction. To have any law without the originator of that law in this existence is logically impossible.
To the First Cause, thank you for all of this. It wouldn't be the same without You.
