Best selling authors promote atheismIf you believe in God, you're in the majority opinion. You're also the target audience of best selling author Sam Harris. In his books, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, Harris presents himself as a man on a mission against God. If you believe in God, Harris invites you to consider atheism. "The atheist," according to Harris, "is merely a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (eighty-seven percent of the population) who claim to 'never doubt the existence of God' should be obliged to present evidence for his existence -- and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day."<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 
Harris (the popular publicist of atheism) is not alone on his mission. He merely follows the footsteps of Richard Dawkins, the academic guru and Ayatollah of atheism. In Dawkins' new book, The God Delusion, he shakes his tiny fist in the face of God. His book is full of so much venom and condescending ridicule that it is hard to take him seriously. His ranting against the bible is based on strongly held moral assumptions. Ironically, both Harris' and Dawkins' books are full of moral appraisals. And the reader is somehow obliged to see things through their moral grid. Of course, as might be expected, both authors beg the question of a basis for moral superiority. Or, more accurately, they avoid the question by changing the subject. Yet they write as if an absolute standard of goodness and duty exists. Both men also try to wiggle around the issue of whether a such standard is possible without God.
 But without God, all moral conclusions are merely subjective human opinions without any binding authority beyond what a culture attributes to them. And, at this point the question, "Who are you to impose your morality on another?" becomes fair game. Who is qualified to declare his opinion superior to another? And, on what basis would he do this? Why is peace better than war or love better than hate? If I say one is superior, does that make it right? If I get enough people to agree with me, does this make it true for all? Is it all a matter of what increases happiness and decreases suffering? If so, whose happiness? Reading Harris and Dawkins, I continually found myself asking. "Says whom?" Without God, all their statements about right and wrong are simply alternative choices without moral superiority. If Harris and Dawkins were logically consistent, they would suppress all notions of moral superiority-something neither one is willing to do.
 Further, if Harris and Dawkins followed their own logic, they would admit that evil is only an illusion. For there to be evil, there must also be some real, objective standard of right and wrong. But if the physical universe is all there is (as both men believe), there can be no such standard. How could arrangements of matter and energy make judgments about good and evil true? So, there are no real evils, just violations of human customs or conventions. How hard it would be to think of murderers as merely having bad manners.
 Finally, Harris, Dawkins and their fellow atheists must also admit that human beings are not importantly different from other animals. According to the atheist, humans are simply the result of blind chance operating on the primordial ooze, and differing from animals by only a few genes. Yet, the wonders of human achievement and the moral dignity we ascribe to human beings just do not fit with the claim that we are no different than the animals. They fit better with the scriptural conclusion that humans are creatures uniquely made in the image of the benevolent and righteous God. And these men assume a moral framework that attributes higher understandings of humanity. In fact, they consistently (and illogically) borrow the assumptions of theism to argue against it. They reject things in the bible considered by them inhumane and expect us to assume a basis for their moral conclusions. Worse yet, they use biblical categories of morality to reject the bible.
The bible these men reject speaks openly of both evil and benevolence. One does not need to upgrade her view of the world when reading scripture. No rose colored glasses are needed. Yet the scripture offers a larger and more satisfying frame of reference for understanding the complexities of the world. It reveals to us a world God prescribed (the goodness and innocence of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Eden); one he permitted (the violence and rebellion of Cain) and a world he will providentially make new (the new heavens and earth).
 
Steve CornellSenior pastor
Millersville Bible Church58 & 62 West Frederick StreetMillersville, PA. 17551717-872-4260 office