Tuesday, January 1, 2013

ATHEISM-AGNOSTICISM-NO RELIGION...WHAT SHOULD YOU CONSIDER DOING ABOUT THEM?


Starting on my other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS on Nov 1...a 3 day series on HOW TO LESSEN ANXIETY.

                    click on the link below


 

 

A different sermon is begun on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. 

If you want to share this blog with a friend go to the bottom of these comments and click on TELL A FRIEND

       The sermons found on this blog are selected sermons preached by Rev. Wyrick during a ministry of over 50 years.  This syndicated columnist/minister thanks you for visiting.

TO GO TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read inspiring stories and comments to set you thinking. CLICK ON URL BELOW


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The fool hath said in his heart,

There is no God.”

They are corrupt,

they have done abominable works,

there is none that doeth good.

 

     If someone says they have no religion, it is not necessarily a stepping stone toward saying, “I have no God.”  But it certainly puts God on the back burner.

     And then there is that middle ground between having no religion and complete denial, the giant question mark called agnosticism which neither affirms or denies God.  

     Eugene Brussell describes an agnostic this way, “One who doesn’t know whether God exists, but is afraid to say so loudly in case God might hear him.    

The little boy had been taught that God had no place in his household.  So one day, having heard his atheistic father recount once again that everything in life was just mindless chance, the little boy looked up and asked, “Does God know we don’t believe in him?”

Believers do outnumber unbelievers, agnostics are still in the minority and those who say they have no religion are certainly not in the majority.    But this sermon is not directed at statistics.  It is directed toward those who in the darkness of the darkest night have said, “There is no light.  There is no God. And because I have said it, it is true.

There is no loneliness worse than that which comes from believing, “I am nothing more than flesh and bone and blood and I renounce any affirmation that claims I have a soul. 

Indeed, I remember the first time I spoke with a man who said that, and looking into his eyes I saw no joy, no triumph, only resignation.

It is not that a denial of God destroys Him, or that an acceptance of God replenishes Him.  God is and always shall be, despite what we affirm or do not affirm.  He is after all omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent and not subject to the whims of any man or woman.

So what is the advantage of believing in and worshiping and seeking a relationship with this Father God?  It is the same as when we have a good relationship with our earthly fathers, or have a lack thereof. 

     We humans were created for fellowship and we are diminished whenever we fail to establish such relationships.

I know this; I am a far, far happier man than I would be if I did not have a relationship with my

heavenly Father.  And I steadfastly believe the same could be said for those nonbelievers, even  though they fervently disagree with me.

And because the Devil is very busy fighting for as many souls as he can get, I do try to fight him

in word and deed…in everyone of the days God has given me. 

       And just in case you doubt the need to speak of our faith, and exhibit our faith every chance we get,

 may I share with you the following…

Back in 1945 when the United Nations was just being organized, its leaders decided to omit any mention of God in their charter.  The reason?  To appease atheistic Communists.  The atheists gained a giant foothold and they have not backed off.

Indeed, in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, near the Russian-Iranian border, there actually is  a University of Atheism.  It offers a six-month course to further the spread of scientific-atheistic knowledge.  And the graduates are expected to continue “the struggle against religion.

There is an aggressive mind set to atheism these days that no longer just tolerates believers. 

   It believes that religion should be attacked, challenged and refuted at every opportunity.  And many    are no longer just content to speak against God… their aim is to remove all reference to Him anywhere and anyway they can. 

The following example is but one of many

   Remember the prayer Kindergarten kids once prayed in our public schools -

We thank you for the flowers so sweet;

We thank you for the food we eat;

We thank you for the birds that sing;

We thank you, God, for everything.

 

Well, now it hasn’t been prayed since 1963 and I doubt if will ever be prayed in a school again. 

    They, the atheists, are very committed.  And they continue to win - time and time again.

Now not all atheists are aggressive.  There are closet atheists just as there are closet Christians.

    But there are a significant number who are articulate, and denigrate God on a regular

    basis.

It wasn’t always like this…this new found pride in denying God

Indeed, back in the early 1960’s when the American Atheists Organization held its first convention

    in Austin, Texas, only a dozen people  attended—and two of them ducked under the table when the press

    was admitted, and stayed there until the reporters left.     By the 1975 annual convention

    960 registered and NONE of them hid.  And Mrs. Madelyn Murray O’Hare, its organizer, said her

    organization at that time had a mailing list of 60,000.

The convention’s “Atheist of the Year” award went to Lloyd Thoren of Petersburg, Indiana, who

    operated a Dial-an-Atheist” service.

And then there is the University of North Carolina that broke a 130-year old tradition on graduation  day in 1972 by not handing out Bibles to graduating seniors along with their diplomas.

Bibles had been handed out with the diplomas at Chapel Hill since 1842, but that year the  

    institution’s Trustees Executive Committee voted to abolish the practice.

And again the unbelievers won.

   Notice I am calling attention to atheist victories years ago.  But unless you have been

    hiding in a hole…

    …you know that atheists continue to assault the fact that faith in God is part and parcel of how

    America was founded.  Our Founding Fathers unashamedly spoke of God in glowing terms…and

    incorporated that belief in the Almighty on coin and manuscript and everywhere else it seemed

    appropriate.

   But as a nation today, we have gone to such extremes to appease this small minority that some things  really don’t make sense.

       It is illegal to read the Bible in the public schools of Illinois, but a law requires the state to provide a  Bible for every convict!  

       In other words; don’t worry, kids, if you can’t read the Bible in school, you’ll be able to  when you get to prison!

A question.  What causes a person to turn away from God? 

Is it a fear of faith? 

Is it a demand to understand every fact, facet and thought of God?  And if not able to understand,

    then declare a victory by saying, “I can’t prove God for myself…therefore he doesn’t exist.”

Of the atheist I would ask:  How got you to this point?   Was it the loss of a loved one?

    If the death of a loved one shouts there is not a loving God…then what did the life of that loved one who  did live shout?

If hate denies God’s goodness…what does love affirm?

       If what you have lost has made you sad and bitter…what about what you had before the loss?  Did

    that make you joyous and filled with thanksgiving?

How does that old cliché go?  It is better to have loved and lost, (however the loss took place) than 

    never to have loved at all.

I will never understand the mind of God or decisions He makes.  Sometimes it’s a miracle.

    Sometimes it’s allowing an individual to make a mess of his or her life.  Or sometimes, a mess of a  

    tragedy comes to call without being invited.

But if I could understand God’s mind, then my mind would be equal to His and that would be like a little child trying to completely understand his earthly father. 

I like the observation Abraham Lincoln once made, “I can see how it might be possible for a man to  look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens

    and say there is no God."

Or put it this way… for every garden there is a gardener.

So what can we do?  If you haven’t done so already, or recently, read the old, old story of Jesus and

    His love. 

Read it… and memorize it…and be so familiar with it that when it is appropriate…you can repeat it.

    quote a miracle …point out a parable…underline the fact of the resurrection…emphasize heavenly

    forgiveness for earthly sins…just be comfortable with the tenets of your faith.

Point out that for every ugly moment in life there is a moment of beauty, and for every curse

    there is a prayer. 

And what of love and brotherhood…these powerful emotions that rule our lives?  Is it really

    believable that they could have risen out of nothingness?

And the little seemingly inconsequential things of creation…could some mindless mechanical

    chemical eruption have developed chocolate and peppermint…a cockle-doodle-dooing rooster…a

    quacking duck…the sublime and the slaphappy…proving God does have a sense of humor.  Or His

    considering how in Fall it would be good to have leaves not just drop off the tree limbs but first change to

    red or gold.  And what about a simple thing such as a smile?  That wonderful facial expression which

    actually means the same thing no matter what language you speak.

And this oblate spheroid called earth we live on that is 93 million miles from the surface of the sun;

    why doesn’t it burn it to a crisp?  It doesn’t because it is tilted at a perfect 23 degree  

    angle.  Not 22 degrees.  Not 24.  And our protective ozone layer that makes it possible for earth to sustain

    life in the first place?  All that just happened by chance, rather than an orderly mind of God?  

And this equal global distribution of the rays of the sun that make it possible for the food chain to

    exist.  And the combination of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere we breathe every day just happens

    to be an exact mix that life needs to exist. 

Really?  All this just happened?  Mindless nothingness out there throwing nothingness into the air

    and out of this simple non directed act…came our Universe?

 It defies logic.  It certainly does not deify a human mind that argues otherwise.

I think not!

Pure and simple, it is a stretch to say that nothing created something - but that is the basic premise

    of atheism. A firm belief in unbelief.

The world famous Astronomer, Johannes Kepler, was troubled by one of his friends who continually

    denied the existence of God.  Time and time again he heard him say that the universe came into being

    purely by mechanical means.

So one day, Johannes set about constructing a beautiful model of our galaxy with the sun in the

    center and all the planets and their moons revolving around it. 

The next time his friend came into the Observatory and saw the beautiful model, he exclaimed with

    delight, “How beautiful it is.  Who made it?”

And Kepler casually answered.  “No one, it made itself. 

His friend persisted, “Come on now, tell me, who made it?”

To which Kepler finally answered, “Friend, you insist that this mere toy, a weak imitation of the real

    thing, could not make itself, yet I understand you believe that the great universe did make

    itself.”

Did a mindless universe create my own memory?  My own brain?  The thought processes that allow

    me to share with you at this moment and for you to understand?

Did the useful arise out of the useless with no direction but rather by some non-directional

    directions?

An American cutlery manufacturer wrote: “It takes a girl in our factory two days to learn how to put

    the 17 parts of a meat chopper together.”

       And then the cutlery manufacturer continued,  “It may be that these millions of worlds, all balanced

    so wonderfully in space—it may be they just happened: it may be, by millions of years of tumbling about,

    they finally arranged themselves.  

I don't know.  I am merely a plain manufacturer of cutlery.  But this I do know - that you can shake

    the 17 parts of a meat chopper around in a washtub for the next 17 millions of years, and you’ll never

    make a meat chopper.

Alister McGrath, a former atheist and now a Christian, writes, “I believe in Christianity as I believe

    the sun has risen… not simply because I see it… but because by it I see everything else.”

To put a scalpel to the soul and cut away the presence of God is a sad debilitating thing.  It is like

    turning ones back on a feast and then wondering with what to fill the emptiness that now exists. 

And in closing, remember these words of truth from Psalm 19-1.

“The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

    Not…”The Heavens declare the glory of nothingness and the sky above proclaims the handiwork of nothingness. “

 

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Recent articles Rev. Wyrick has written for this web site are:  


·         Here Comes Summer (July 2012)

·         Spring (May 2012)

·         Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (April 2012)

·         Wayward and Windy (April 2012)

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