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Words of a Fether

I am the way, the truth, and the life;
no one comes to the Father except through me. ~Jesus

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If The Shoe Fits

A recent news article reported that a man set fire to himself, a Christmas tree, and the revolutionary and American flags, while holding a sign that cursed “the religious establishment” and the local school system. He did this in protest of the school board’s decision to rename “winter” and “spring” breaks back to the original “Christmas” and “Easter” breaks.

Now we all know what the reaction of humanists/atheists would be had the man been a Christian who was protesting the opposite. They’d use it to condemn all religion and all believers as nut cases, and again launch into a “blame all evil on religion” rant.

But when the shoe’s on the other foot, what will happen? After all, it’s embarrassing for the anti-theistic religion crowd when one of their own does something “religious” like this.

Undoubtedly they will protest, “You can’t blame us all for one crackpot, who got that way because of religious oppression.” Yet these same people wouldn’t hesitate to blame all Christians for the actions of a few. Theistic religion would still get the blame, no matter who does something stupid to demonstrate religious fervor on an issue.

And there is no other explanation for anyone snapping over something like this, than a religious devotion to atheism. We have every right to blame the religion of atheism/humanism for this incident. Religion is religion, no matter what the specific beliefs are. “There is no God” is the same as “There is a God”. Both are assertions of an unprovable philosophy; both are defended with irrational devotion; both aggressively seek converts; both have lobbyists working for legal sanction of their views.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Torcaso vs Watkins, 81 S.Ct. 1681 (1961) contains the following statement:

“Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God, are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism”
Here are some quotes from The Safety Net Plan, Chapter 1— The Problem of Humanistic Education, p. 5-6, from Christian Liberty Academy:
Most dictionaries define humanism as a cult which substitutes faith in man for faith in God. It is this faith that the government schools are promoting.

John Dewey, the “father” of progressive education, signed the Humanist Manifesto, as did C. F. Potter, author of Humanism; A New Religion. In that book he writes: “Education is a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”

Leading secular humanist Paul Blanchard, writing in The Humanist, pronounced: “I think the most important factor leading us to a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average child now acquires a high school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history.”

Notice what those men said. Their attitude toward education was not as much about equipping children to face the world as it was about eliminating religion, especially Christianity, from American minds.

Humanism cannot be separated from atheism. Humanism is simply the natural result of atheism, what atheism is in practice. And these cannot be separated from naturalism, which asserts that there cannot be anything beyond nature, so all evidence must be interpreted with that bias. It pretends to be without bias, but this is simply not true.

Again, to assert one’s view is to make a philosophical/religious pronouncement, whether stated in the positive or the negative. And as assertions, both are under the burden of proof. Atheists cannot absolve themselves of having to prove what they assert.

Posted 2006-12-01 under religion, hypocrisy, double standard, atheism, shoe