What famous people are saying:

I think it's important for Christians to know what people are saying against us. There are a lot of voices out there that are criticizing Christians. But they are in a bigger sense, criticizing all religions, but they tend to single out Christianity since it's the dominant religion in our society.

Figures such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and George Carlin are all very outspoken in their disdain for religion. Both Dawkins and Hitchens have written best-selling books that try to convince people that atheism is right, while Maher and Carlin use comedy to try and prove why they think religion is so stupid. These guys are voices for a lot of people these days, and I think there's a lot of hostility right now towards conservative evangelicals in the U.S. I find it very interesting and troubling at the same time listening to these guys speak. There whole life seems centered around trying to disprove God, and we should be aware of it. Just as Paul argued with the philosophers of his day, we should also be able to give good reasons for the hope that is within us.

The thing I find very interesting, is that all of these men rehash the same arguments over and over again, and most of them are pretty weak arguments in my opinion, and they show a clear lack of true understanding of the Bible. For being so smart, these men have failed to properly analyze the data properly. As Christians, we should know the arguments being launched against us.

First, Dawkins and Hitchens try to pit science against religion. They are convinced that God has no place in the "age of reason and science." Even though anyone with a pair of eyes can attest to the majesty of God in creation, these men are convinced that all of this beautiful creation is the result of a pointless accident.

Many of them also have a catholic background, and it's clear that they hold a very big grudge. Both Carlin and Maher have said identical things, somewhere along the lines of, "I used to be Catholic until I reached the age of reason or logic." They all boil religion down to praying to a "space daddy." And they are very angry about what they think religion does to society. Maher goes so far as to say that every person who has a religion has mental problems. But I'd say these two men are more agnostics than atheists.

And one of the big things these men love to do is to take the Bible completely out of context. They love taking random verses out of the Bible and judging them in a totally out of context fashion. Maher complains about how violent the Bible is, and how it shouldn't be a moral guide, and yet, in the next breath, he'll admit that Jesus is the best role model of all time. He's not even consistent in his arguments.

They also all look at sin in the world, and blame God, instead of blaming humans, which they should do. They are right in assessing that the world is messed up, but their cause and solution to the problem is totally off-based.

These men are all very intelligent people, I can't deny that. And yet, their intelligence faulters in so many ways. They have complex and ironic arguments, but in the end, their foundation is clearly off, and everything they build it upon crumbles. I find that these people are only preaching to the choir. They love trapping jaded, angry agnostics into the same propoganda over and over again. I've heard a lot of what they say, and it's the same thing over and over again, and it's not well-thought out.

And all of these men have a god. It's first of all, themselves, and secondly, reason. The worship their own abilities to think. And yet, all of their energy and efforts fail to bring them any real joy or hope. They have no answers for the big questions of life. They only have complaints. They have no solutions, only questions. And they fail to recognize all of the glory of God that is right before their eyes.

My prayer is that some serious Christian thinkers would start becoming as big public figures as these other men are. My prayer is that God would take the scales off of their eyes, and show them their errors. My prayer is that loving Christians would show Jesus to these men, and that they would stop using their efforts to try and bring down the Kingdom, but instead, use it to glorify God.