Today at the pier in Huntington Beach, California, where I live, a group of atheists are going to tear out pages from the Bible and pontificate on the absurdity of the scriptures they defile. Okay. They have a right to do that. However, in so doing, they set themselves up to be smarter than God in picking and choosing what is good in the Good Book from what they don't like. They are called the Backyard Skeptics and tout the slogan: Atheism is philanthropy without mythology, peace without superstition. They don't believe that prayer works or that religion adds anything except a sense of false hope. The Bible is wrong...or more importantly, irrelevant, so tearing it up in public is an exciting, even exhilarating, show of bravado in the cause for proving that God is our imaginary friend.
This was interesting to me in light of this week's psalm. To be an atheist is, I say again, an untenable position for you have to know everything there is to know - be a god yourself - to know there is no god. A-theism really means "without god." That they are. That they can profess and tear up the Bible all they want, throwing the pages in His face as they take each out of context, laughing at the words that speak of ancient rules and regulations. They will be handing out the Thomas Jefferson Bible...he tore out the pages he did not like from the New Testament, culling 1100 pages into 86. I am surprised there were that many he could find nothing offensive on. Once you start telling God what you will accept and what you will not, why not give it just one thing that He must do for you in order for you to let Him be God. Make God bow to you.
Funny, you know, there is just one thing that God has pared it all down to. He threw out the rules with their heavy burden, designed to show us that we cannot keep them. We want a system of tenets because that seems easier than following this holy, mighty, untamed God day to day in relationship, but that is what He wants. He never wanted the law. We did. So He came to fulfill it. So tear up the pages of the old law! Go ahead! Because the one thing He wants from us is to accept the sacrifice of His Only Son...That's it. The entire Bible is about that one thing. He did not do what was right toward us who want to tell Him, even today, what we will and will not accept from His hand. He did what was merciful. To make light of a God who does not have to answer one prayer of ours - ever - is the height of ignorance! He owes us nothing! He has already made the ultimate sacrifice for us, so if we have hope, it is because He gave it to us. We do not deserve it. If there is a God, He gets to decide what to do with us because He made us! That seems to be what these people are most upset about. If you make God a myth, you do not have to be accountable to Him.
I would not want to be standing and looking at the vastness of the ocean that I so love laughing at the creator God today. I would not want to be shaking my fist at the heavens and telling God He does not exist. To be unsure of it, I understand. To doubt. I get that. But to set myself up as one who is so smart that she knows there is no god and make it my personal mission to thwart the faith of others, that is an ominous position that would strike fear in me.
Oh, God, who does what is right, be merciful to us when we are foolish enough to believe You do not see us when we laugh at You. I know You will be at the pier today. Have mercy, please.
This was interesting to me in light of this week's psalm. To be an atheist is, I say again, an untenable position for you have to know everything there is to know - be a god yourself - to know there is no god. A-theism really means "without god." That they are. That they can profess and tear up the Bible all they want, throwing the pages in His face as they take each out of context, laughing at the words that speak of ancient rules and regulations. They will be handing out the Thomas Jefferson Bible...he tore out the pages he did not like from the New Testament, culling 1100 pages into 86. I am surprised there were that many he could find nothing offensive on. Once you start telling God what you will accept and what you will not, why not give it just one thing that He must do for you in order for you to let Him be God. Make God bow to you.
Funny, you know, there is just one thing that God has pared it all down to. He threw out the rules with their heavy burden, designed to show us that we cannot keep them. We want a system of tenets because that seems easier than following this holy, mighty, untamed God day to day in relationship, but that is what He wants. He never wanted the law. We did. So He came to fulfill it. So tear up the pages of the old law! Go ahead! Because the one thing He wants from us is to accept the sacrifice of His Only Son...That's it. The entire Bible is about that one thing. He did not do what was right toward us who want to tell Him, even today, what we will and will not accept from His hand. He did what was merciful. To make light of a God who does not have to answer one prayer of ours - ever - is the height of ignorance! He owes us nothing! He has already made the ultimate sacrifice for us, so if we have hope, it is because He gave it to us. We do not deserve it. If there is a God, He gets to decide what to do with us because He made us! That seems to be what these people are most upset about. If you make God a myth, you do not have to be accountable to Him.
I would not want to be standing and looking at the vastness of the ocean that I so love laughing at the creator God today. I would not want to be shaking my fist at the heavens and telling God He does not exist. To be unsure of it, I understand. To doubt. I get that. But to set myself up as one who is so smart that she knows there is no god and make it my personal mission to thwart the faith of others, that is an ominous position that would strike fear in me.
Oh, God, who does what is right, be merciful to us when we are foolish enough to believe You do not see us when we laugh at You. I know You will be at the pier today. Have mercy, please.
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