When I pulled into the parking lot this morning, I saw a car covered with sacrilegious bumper stickers. It seemed obvious to tme that the owner ws craving attention. I'm sure he was also seeking to elicit anger from people of faith. The anger helps the atheist justify his atheism. And, all too often, the atheist gets exactly what he is looking for.
In fact just the other day, I heard a Christian refer to Michael Newdow as an "attention-craving SOB." It reminded me of the time I heard someone refer to Annie Laurie Gaylor as a "b--ch." I don't have the same reaction towards atheists, even when I see them attacking my basic religious freedoms. when I look into their eyes I see an emptiness that evokes pity. Maybe that's because I was once one of them.
I still remember the night I publicly declared my atheism. It was April 3rd, 1992. I was a long-haired musician, playing guitar at a bar called "The Gin" in Oxford Mississippi. The subject came up in a conversation during one of my breaks. An Ole Miss Law student, who had been an undergraduate with me at Mississippi State years before, asked me whether I was still dating my girlfriend Sally. Then he asked why I had broken up with my girlfriend two years before.
After I explained that my former girlfriend was too much of a fundamentalist while I was an atheist, his jaw nearly hit the ground. "Are you really an atheist?" he asked. He assured me he didn't mean to pry and that he was merely concerned. He didn't have to tell me that. His reaction gave him away. it was a reaction he could not have possibly faked.
That law student, whose name I have forgotten, made no effort to convert me on the spot. But he did plead with me to pick a up a copy of Mere Christianity. "I've heard it all before," I said. He told me I was wrong. He said that C.S. Lewis was the best apologist of the 20th century, but he didn't push the matter. The conversation ended abruptly. I never saw him again.
Years later, I read Mere Christianity and it did have a great effect upon me. but, recently, I was thinking about what really drove me to read the book. How could I have remembered the title of a book I heard only once? After all, it was many years before at the end of a long night of drinking in a bar in Mississippi.
The answer is simple. The advice was given to me by someone who sincerely considered the matter to be urgent. And that sense of urgency was conveyed without a trace of anger. It was just a matter of one human being communicating his concern for another without being pushy and holier-than-thou.
If a Christian really believes the things he professes to beleive, he wil go to great lengths to share it woth others. He would even crawl on his belly across a desert of broken glass if he thought he could reach an atheist.
When my relationship with my atheist girlfriend ended on April 4th, 1992, I thought it was the end of the world. I didn't know I had just taken my first step on the road to freedom. I certainly didn't believe in divine intervention. But I do now.
I don't think about those days as often as I should. But the next time I see Michael Newdow on TV, I will try to remember. and when I feel sadness, I will try to keep the faith that there is always hope.
Between faith and hope and something, the greatest of these things is something. As long as there are atheists among us, we cannot forget that greatest thing......
Mike S Adams
www.townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/printma20050124.shtml
In fact just the other day, I heard a Christian refer to Michael Newdow as an "attention-craving SOB." It reminded me of the time I heard someone refer to Annie Laurie Gaylor as a "b--ch." I don't have the same reaction towards atheists, even when I see them attacking my basic religious freedoms. when I look into their eyes I see an emptiness that evokes pity. Maybe that's because I was once one of them.
I still remember the night I publicly declared my atheism. It was April 3rd, 1992. I was a long-haired musician, playing guitar at a bar called "The Gin" in Oxford Mississippi. The subject came up in a conversation during one of my breaks. An Ole Miss Law student, who had been an undergraduate with me at Mississippi State years before, asked me whether I was still dating my girlfriend Sally. Then he asked why I had broken up with my girlfriend two years before.
After I explained that my former girlfriend was too much of a fundamentalist while I was an atheist, his jaw nearly hit the ground. "Are you really an atheist?" he asked. He assured me he didn't mean to pry and that he was merely concerned. He didn't have to tell me that. His reaction gave him away. it was a reaction he could not have possibly faked.
That law student, whose name I have forgotten, made no effort to convert me on the spot. But he did plead with me to pick a up a copy of Mere Christianity. "I've heard it all before," I said. He told me I was wrong. He said that C.S. Lewis was the best apologist of the 20th century, but he didn't push the matter. The conversation ended abruptly. I never saw him again.
Years later, I read Mere Christianity and it did have a great effect upon me. but, recently, I was thinking about what really drove me to read the book. How could I have remembered the title of a book I heard only once? After all, it was many years before at the end of a long night of drinking in a bar in Mississippi.
The answer is simple. The advice was given to me by someone who sincerely considered the matter to be urgent. And that sense of urgency was conveyed without a trace of anger. It was just a matter of one human being communicating his concern for another without being pushy and holier-than-thou.
If a Christian really believes the things he professes to beleive, he wil go to great lengths to share it woth others. He would even crawl on his belly across a desert of broken glass if he thought he could reach an atheist.
When my relationship with my atheist girlfriend ended on April 4th, 1992, I thought it was the end of the world. I didn't know I had just taken my first step on the road to freedom. I certainly didn't believe in divine intervention. But I do now.
I don't think about those days as often as I should. But the next time I see Michael Newdow on TV, I will try to remember. and when I feel sadness, I will try to keep the faith that there is always hope.
Between faith and hope and something, the greatest of these things is something. As long as there are atheists among us, we cannot forget that greatest thing......
Mike S Adams
www.townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/printma20050124.shtml
