As militant atheism is growing some of its own stalwarts are beginning to have questions about the desirability of a world without religion and especially one without Christianity.  A number of atheists and agnostics going back to at least the time of the American Revolution have asked themselves what would a world without the constraints of Christian morality be like.  The most recent examples of religion free governments that come to mind are the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Cambodia under Pol Pot and Mao’s China .  The most obvious characteristics held in common by all of these atheist governments are mass murder, political repression, and economic poverty.  Atheists are generally not stupid or ignorant of history, many see that their own fate under an atheist regime could be quite unpleasant, for while they may share, with such governments, a disdain or even hatred for religion or God, these governments are usually quite hostile to other things that atheist often see as desirable.  Homosexuals, for example, were dealt with very harshly, including executions, in the above “atheist paradises.” 

 Some of this disagreement surfaced this September following the “Blasphemy Day” celebration held in Washington D.C., where atheism enthusiast engaged in a number of activities designed to ridicule, denigrate, and insult religion and religious believers especially Christians.  These activities included de-baptisms, desecration of communion hosts, offers to swap Bibles for pornography and an extensive display of blasphemous art.  Interestingly this “bold and  imaginative intellectual effort” somehow failed to include and depictions of Islamic materials,  a mere coincidence no doubt on the part of a group who views themselves as courageous advocates for true non-judgemental, relativist morality.

 The rift seen at this meeting was one primarily of style.  Some atheists found the tone of the activities objectionable and likely to be counter-productive.  However deeper streams of discontent are being voiced by some atheists.  For example,  sophomoric refutations for the existence of God currently abound in the atheist literature.  Many atheists seem to think they have hit upon an original thought when asking, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, seemingly unaware of the libraries full of books that provide answers to this 2000 year old question or the embarrassingly naive discovery by Oprah Winfrey that the Bible states the “I am a jealous God.” 

Atheists claim that the world is moving into a Post-Christian Era, however if they would bother to look at the broader literature in philosophy and history they would notice that the actual stronger trend in movement into a Post-Secular Era.

Source: “A Bitter Rift Divides Atheists”, by Barbara Hagerty, National Public Radio, October 19, 2009.

Matt 5:39 instructs us to turn the other cheek and Matt 5:43 instructs us to love our enemies.  Matt 19:26 also tells us “with God all things are possible.” On May 13, 1981 Ali Agca an Islamic radical shot Pope John Paul II three times in an assassination attempt. After his recovery the Pope visited Ali Agca in his prison cell, forgave, witnessed and prayed for him in a display of obedience to Matt 5:39-43. 

Now just as Matthew told us following God’s instructions in love and forgiveness, what most thought impossible has happened. In a statement that has stunned many, especially in the Islamic world, Ali Agca has announced his conversion to Christianity.  He has also expressed his desire to be baptized and to bear witness. He hopes to some day visit and pray at John Paul II’s grave. 

Source: “The World Over” EWTN TV 5/23/09.

1. Biblical Reliability (Archeology)

Israel Finkelstein is the medias favorite archaeologist. He has earned this position through his tireless efforts to discredit the Bible. He is widely regarded as the world’s leading Biblical Minimalist. Minimalists can generally be described as “scholars” who assert that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myths and political propaganda written centuries after the time period they claim to report. Despite the fact that dozens of Finkelstein’s claims have been shown by subsequent archaeological work to be wrong, the media still maintains him as their leading Biblical archaeological expert.

Among Finkelstein’s many assertions is the claim that the Edomite nation was a latter day creation of the Bible. The Bible records that Edomites were the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, and that Edom was a dedicated enemy of early Israel. In all, Edom is mentioned 99 times in the Bible. However Finkelstein in his book “The Bible Unearthed” states that, “Edom did not exist as a distinct political entity until a relatively late period….there were no real kings and no state of Edom before the late Eighth Century BCE.” According to him the Bible’s record of Edom existing during and before the time of David in the Tenth Century BC is pure fiction.

Unfortunately for Finkelstein he has once again been shown to be wrong. The March- April edition of “Archeology” reports the discovery of an Edomite copper processing center in operation in the Tenth Century BC. The “industrial” level of production of copper in Edom at this early date carries with it large implications. “This means that there was a complex society in the area, known then as Edom, when scholars thought it was unoccupied.” Once again the Bible has proven reliable and a critic is left with egg on his face. One can only hope that at some point Finkelstein and the Minimalists will begin to lose credibility with the media.

2. Materialism’s Failure (Cognitive Studies)

Some Materialists have argued that people are born a blank slate upon which environment writes the personality, ergo, no free will. Therefore we are not responsible for our behavior because we have all been shaped by the environments we were raised in. Other Materialists argue that we are completely programmed genetically; therefore we have no free will and once again are not responsible for our actions. So the media treats the public to a stream of scientific claims which demonstrate one or the other, never bothering to note that these two causal agents are mutually exclusive.

In this vein the February issue of the “New Scientist” carried a major article entitled “Natural Born Believers”. The article notes that religious beliefs, as with language and music are a human universal, occurring in every culture on Earth. Studies are cited that demonstrate that children are born with an ability to conceive of God and are strongly pron to attribute design and purpose to the objects that constitute the world. They refer to this behavior as the brain’s inherent “Default to God”.

This finding should be no surprise to Christians. The Bible for example, tells us in Romans 2:15 “since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness…” A knowledge of God and morality being part of our natural born programing is no surprise. It seems to me that it is arguable that this discovery is strong evidence that humans are indeed the creation of a benevolent God.

However the authors of this article do not see God’s hand in this, they instead argue that this natural inborn belief in God must have originated through a random evolutionary process as a biological adaptation. They postulate an adaptive advantage for this natural tendency to believe in God.

Of course critics have pointed out that the appearance of any biological trait can be claimed to have had an adaptive advantage for some hypothetical ancient band of ancestors. Conveniently, such speculative claims are beyond scientific investigation. On a personal note I’d be curious to know how genetics could explain the fact that I personally was a strident, committed, orthodox, Marxist atheist until I was in my mid 30’s. Then with in the span of a couple of years became a committed Christian? What myriad of genetic adaptive advantages explains this phenomenon?

1. Setting the Record Straight - Islam Did not Save Western Science (Revisionist History)

Revisionist historians are working diligently at their task of creating an alternative history: one which suits their ideological and emotional fancies but does not always comport well with the record. For example, in recent years it has become a common place for revisionist historians and especially journalists to state that “Western science is deeply in debt to Islam.” They usually go on to claim that if it were not for the medieval Islamic scholars, the works of Aristotle, Plato and other great Greek Philosophers would have been lost to the modern world. Anthony Pagden’s new book “Worlds At War” is a good example of such claims.

The actual truth of the matter was much better explored by Nineteenth Century Historians such as the great Ernest Renan. Renan clearly showed that with the exception of Averrois all of the major “Islamic scholarly contributions” came from Last Remnant of Christian Persians who were either “converts” from Christianity or scholars raised in areas where there was a strong recent Christian history and a Christian ethos still persisted. (Who knows what a convert to Islam may actually be? It has often proved to simply be people at sword point who wanted to live.) And even in the case of Averrois working in Spain in the 1100’s, his works were later declared heretical by Islamists and ordered destroyed. They only survived because they had been translated into Latin and Hebrew by Jewish and Christian Scholars, actually reversing the direction of salvaging scholarly thought as claimed by modern revisionists.
Also the assertion that the works of the ancient Greeks only survived because of Arabic translations is an enormous distortion. It is true that some of the major works of Aristotle, such as the Organon had been translated into Latin but were lost in Western Roman lands during the “Dark Ages.” However, they were never lost in Greek translations in the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium). It was from these sources that the Arabs learned about Aristotle and Plato not the other way around. It is true that Western Scholars in some instances were first reintroduced to Plato and Aristotle by reading Arab translations of the Greek but the claim of revisionists that these works were “saved” by Islamic Scholars is simply not an accurate portrayal of what happened.

2. Shocking Contradictions Go Unrecognized by Darwinists (Darwinism Failure)

“Darwin Was Wrong: Cutting down the tree of life” read the cover of the January 24, 2009 issue of “The New Scientist.” Just one week later the cover of “National Geographic” read “What Darwin Didn’t Know.” While neither story is a repudiation of Darwinism they instead reveal the level of confusion and contradiction that Darwinists have learned to live with and pretend or some how manage not to notice.

For example the main thrust of the story in the “New Scientist” is that modern genetics has destroyed the Darwinist contention that all of the life forms on Earth are descended from one single original organism. “…the tree of life which Darwin used as an organizing principle and which has been a central tenant of biology ever since. Most biologists now accept that the tree is not a fact of nature - it is something we impose on nature…” However the “National Geographic” story is still pushing Darwin’s Tree of Life. It reports that, “When Darwin proposed his tree of life he was frankly guessing.” They however claim that modern genetic studies have proven Darwin’s descent from one common ancestor. “-modern Darwin’s don’t have to guess. They consult genetic scripture.”

The author of this article is correct about modern Biologists consulting genetics but unfortunately for this author that consultation of “genetic scripture” has shown that Darwin was wrong, not right. Perhaps what this author should have titled this “National Geographic” article “What I Don’t Know.”

3. The “Father” of anthropogenic Global Warming “Embarrassed NASA” (Misuse of Science)

James Hansen is widely regarded as the man who first sounded the “alarm on global warming.” Hansen is the Chief Climate Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Hansen has made some of the most outlandish claims about the consequences of his alleged “man caused global warming.” Besides being Al Gores main science consultant on this issue he has also led the fight to silence critics and stifle discussion of alternative interpretations of the data. Over time Hansen has also been found to have fudge data, use the wrong data, misuse climate models and generally ignore or actively tried to suppress counter data. However none of this has tarnished is reputation with the “objective”,”main stream” media.

Now in a January 27, 2009 post on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works website, Hansen’s former boss at NASA, Dr. John Theon, has openly broken with him, stating that Hansen had “Embarrassed NASA” with his claims about global warming. Theon was Chief of several NASA Headquarters Programs including Hansen’s and was responsible for all NASA weather and climate research. Theon now says that the claims of man caused global warming are not supported by the data and that the models being used to project climate catastrophe are flawed. “Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”

Hansen also claimed that the “Bush Administration was trying to muzzle him.” Theon points out that this is absolutely not true. First of all NASA has a policy against making forecasts of mans effect on climate change because the science for it is not yet good enough to do this. However despite this policy and despite the fact that the current science is not up to the task Hansen still gave over 1400 interviews on the topic while he worked for NASA and was never sanctioned for this massive violation of agency policy.

Imagine the headlines if some group started tearing down the Great Pyramids at Giza or the Colusseum in Rome or the Great Wall of China! The world would be outraged. It would rightly be called a crime against humanity and a desecration of the world’s heritage. Indeed his type of reaction followed the Talibans destruction in 2001 of the 1700 year old Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan. These monumental statues were dynamited by Islamic fundamentalists for violating Sharia law. The Taliban was condemned around the world for this outrage against an archaeological monument that belonged to the world not just to Afghanistan.

Yet a far worse archaeological outrage against the world’s heritage has been taking place and the world media has been predictably silent on this one. Since 1999 the Islamic authorities in charge of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem under the claim of “construction” has been destroying the archaeological remains on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount currently has the Al-Aqsa Mosque sitting at its summit. This mosque previously was a Christian Church and before that the Roman Temple of Jupiter. However it originally was the site of the First and Second Temples of Solomon, the home of the Ark of the Covenant, Boaz Thrashing Floor and the place were Abraham took Isaac to make his sacrifice. The archaeological remains here go back to at least 2500 BC. This was where King Solomon and all of the following Kings of Judea worshipped. It is the Temple where Jesus and Paul and the other Apostles stood. It was the site of more history then can be imagined.

All construction on the site is supposed to be supervised by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), however in 1999 the Islamic religious trust known as the Waqf, which oversees the Al-Aqsa Mosque, began a construction project underneath the mosque. This has turned out to be a huge excavation covering 1600 square meters to a depth of 15 meters. The Waqf had over 200 dump truck loads of earth and archaeological remains removed and summarily dumped in a landfill. This was all done with no archaeological supervision. Later examination of this priceless material in the dump turned up a number of valuable finds. This massive excavation is also being carried out quite carelessly and consequently the eastern wall of the Temple mount is now bulging and in danger of collapse.

The thought of the information that has been lost to the world is staggering and saddening. Modern archaeological research on sites like the Temple Mount is performed with dental picks, half-inch fine haired brushes and microscopes. However once the dirt is moved, the data loss is almost complete. Also stories have been floating around for several years of major finds being made during this digging which were deliberately destroyed so that they would not fall into the hands of the Israelis. Such stories may or may not be true but sadly probably cannot be known for sure now.

The Israeli authorities permitted this atrocity to go on according to the Biblical Archaeological Review and other sources because they wanted to avoid the political consequences of intervening. If the IAA had attempted to stop the destruction there likely would have been riots accompanied by claims of religious persecution from the Muslims. The world’s media of course would have repeated this mantra thereby creating an international crisis for the Israelis at a particularly sensitive time. It was easier to just turn a blind eye to this because, “…the top priority of the State of Israel is quiet, not riots, even if the antiquities pay the price.”

Why This Is Important

This is a crime against science and against the world because it destroyed a unique archaeological resource, which would have added to knowledge of world prehistory and history. Christians and Jews are especially affected by this crime because it eliminated opportunities to find materials, which may have, provide independent verification for Biblical accounts or expanded the understanding on materials referenced in the Bible and other ancient texts. It also would undoubtedly have contributed to an understanding of this historical period.

Sadly, it is also a shining example of the continued failure of the “objective” medias’ coverage of world events. If you want to be informed, do not depend on the major news sources.

Source:

“Israeli Authorities Acquiescence in Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities”, Biblical Archaeological Review, May/June, Vol 34, No. 3, p.22.

By Lawrence Vescera, Ph. D.

The beginning of the Dark Ages are usually dated to the deposition of the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 AD. It is widely held that following this event Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages by the combination of the Germanic invasions and the spread of Christianity. Many documentaries and books depict barbaric hordes of German Goths, Vandals and Other tribes descending on the Roman provinces in the 400 and 500’s AD and destroying the high culture of the Mediterranean Basin. This disaster was supposedly supplemented by the spread of a backward, superstition ridden Christianity. Early Christians are usually depicted as not only backward and superstitious but also devoted to ignorant, anti-intellectual blind faith and according to this received version of history the combination of these two cultural calamities plunged Europe into ten centuries of chaos which destroyed classical learning and economic prosperity.

This is the anti-Christian picture that was popularized by Edward Gibbon in 1776 with his publication of the very widely read “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” It was a theme picked up by many who followed and is still prominent today.

If you believe this scenario you should definitely read “Mohammed and Charlemagne” by Henri Pirenne, after you read this book you will realize that the above is an extremely inaccurate picture of what actually happened.

Pirenne was a leading medieval scholar of the early Twentieth Century. He published “Mohammed and Charlemagne” in 1937 long before the current chaos in the Middle East. His ideas were widely accepted among the academics of his time but unfortunately have been largely forgotten or ignored of late. The basic argument of the book is simple; the Fall of the Roman Empire is normally dated to 476 AD when the last Western Roman Emperor was deposed by the Odoacer the leader of Germanic Foederati. In the aftermath of this action German Tribes moved into Italy and other Roman provinces and established a series of Gothic Kingdoms.

The current view is that Europe then plunged directly into the Dark Ages. However when Pirenne examined everyday life inside the provinces of the former Roman Empire following the Germanic invasions he found that little changed. The aqueducts and sanitation systems continued to work, the schools remained open, taxes were collected, the road system was maintained, foreign trade was abundant, money was coined and the standard of living remained high. His detailed examination of the period’s records shows very clearly that life continued virtually unchanged for the next 250 years.

This is no surprise, as it must be remembered that the German invaders had no desire to destroy the Roman Empire, their objective was to live in it and enjoy the fruits of its higher standard of living. While the Germans did initially engage in taking of booty and pillage they nevertheless soon settled down and adopted the Roman way of life. They adopted Roman agricultural practices, Roman law, Christianity and in most areas Romance languages.

The Coming of the Dark Ages

However when we get to the early 700’s AD life begins to change drastically: coinage disappears, artisans are forced to give up their trades and go back to living on the land, books disappear, schools close, the roads and aqueducts and other infrastructure are no longer maintained and the standard of living throughout the Roman world begins to decline sharply.

What happened? The answer is quite simple. This was when the Islamic armies began their war against the West. Starting in the late 600’s AD these armies invaded Egypt, North Africa and the old Fertile Crescent area. With them they not only brought Islam they also brought practices, which resulted in economic catastrophe for the entire region from which it has never recovered even to this day.

Roman, Egyptian and Persian agricultural practices were destroyed in most of the conquered territories. As a result food production plummeted and ancient agribusiness was replaced by subsistence farming. Cities were abandoned as their inhabitants were forced back on to the land in order to avoid starvation. The Fertile Crescent area of Iraq and Iran suffered particularly harshly as the loss of the old technology, especially well planned irrigation works, resulted in the use of crude methods of irrigation, which led to the contamination of the Tigris – Euphrates Basin through salt percolation and turned it into the barren desert seen today.

The other economic killer was the Islamic destruction of the old overland trading system. In the ancient world there had been large scale foreign trade extending from China to Britain. The Islamic refusal to deal with the “Infidels” led to the decline of this trade and the destruction of the second most important component of the ancient economy: trade with India, China, Persia, Egypt and the other advanced economic centers of the ancient world. This trade did not recover until the Age of Exploration when Europeans discovered how to sail around the Islamic barrier to foreign trade.

Why is this Important?

The Dark Ages were an enormous setback for European civilization. Today most of the world believes that Christianity shares a great deal of the blame for causing this disaster, even going so far as to compare it unfavorably in a revisionist version of history which depicts Islam as the savior of ancient western knowledge.

This revisionist version of history is far from the truth, if you doubt it I challenge you to read “Mohammed and Charlemagne.”