By Mark K. Lewis
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Recently I was having a conversation, over the Internet, with an agnostic from Missouri. During our conversation, he accused religious people of being "mean*spirited, hateful, judgmental." I asked him, "If everybody in this country would faithfully follow the teachings of Jesus, how many drug pushers would there be? How many cases of AIDS? How many battered wives? How many illegitimate children living in poverty?" He was honest enough to answer, None," to which I replied that such is the goal of the religious, though eternal salvation must be the ultimate aim.
The conversation was instructive in other ways and led me to ponder the question of why liberals hate religion. There is no doubt that the reasons vary among individuals, but it is important for us to realize that hatred of religion is inherent in the liberal philosophy simply because of what they view as the results of religion.
Over 200 years ago, the French philosopher, Voltaire, wrote:
Religion is the chief cause of all the sorrows of humanity. Everywhere it has only served to drive men to evil, and plunge them in brutal miseries...it makes for history an immense tableau of human follies.
An influential l9th century American, Benjamin Franklin Underwood, explained further:
To many liberals, Christianity appears an unmitigated evil; a superstition which although it had its origin in innocent ignorance and credulity, has been the greatest obstacle to human progress that mankind has had to encounter.
The atheist Robert Ingersoll said that the church had, for 1,000 years, "extinguished the torch of progress in the blood of Christ." Unfortunately, he did not know the difference between pure New Testament Christianity and the gross perversions and deviations of Catholicism and Protestantism.
Liberals' obvious hatred of (their understanding of) Christianity in our country today proceeds from their belief that Christianity has been a hindrance to progress and has resulted in much evil. Rather than liberals reading the New Testaments and trying to comprehend what the religion of Jesus Christ really is, they prefer to look back in history and recall cruelties, immoralities, and butcheries done by those who really have no close connection to the truth and label that Christianity.
This idea has had a tremendous effect in our country, indeed, it underlies the entire educational system. Dr. John Dewey, who is known as the father of modern American education, was no friend of Christianity. Indeed, he was a very good liberal:
The objection to supernaturalism is that it stands in the way of an effective realization of the sweep and depth of the implications of natural human relations. It stands in the way of using the means that are in our power to make radical changes in these relations.
In other words, Christianity is a hindrance to liberal ideas of progressive social relations. It must be removed. This is a cardinal tenet of liberalism today, and it is clear why there is no desire among the left to promote the Christian faith, why they defend abortion, homosexuality, pre* and extramarital sex, and almost every other vile crudity that pervades our country: men must be "free," and Christianity is the greatest obstacle to that freedom and does all sorts of evil to prevent people from being "free" In the liberal mind, "freedom" equals "progress," so, Christianity must be eliminated, or at least relegated to a non*influential role in society's affairs.
(Editor's Note: We thank brother Lewis for his fine piece. Reading it made me realize why liberals in the schools among us are so dead*set against the church and so determined to change it. Still, "man is not wiser than God" - H. A. (Buster) Dobbs.)
http://www.bible-infonet.org/ff/articles/apologetics/112_03_19.htm
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Recently I was having a conversation, over the Internet, with an agnostic from Missouri. During our conversation, he accused religious people of being "mean*spirited, hateful, judgmental." I asked him, "If everybody in this country would faithfully follow the teachings of Jesus, how many drug pushers would there be? How many cases of AIDS? How many battered wives? How many illegitimate children living in poverty?" He was honest enough to answer, None," to which I replied that such is the goal of the religious, though eternal salvation must be the ultimate aim.
The conversation was instructive in other ways and led me to ponder the question of why liberals hate religion. There is no doubt that the reasons vary among individuals, but it is important for us to realize that hatred of religion is inherent in the liberal philosophy simply because of what they view as the results of religion.
Over 200 years ago, the French philosopher, Voltaire, wrote:
Religion is the chief cause of all the sorrows of humanity. Everywhere it has only served to drive men to evil, and plunge them in brutal miseries...it makes for history an immense tableau of human follies.
An influential l9th century American, Benjamin Franklin Underwood, explained further:
To many liberals, Christianity appears an unmitigated evil; a superstition which although it had its origin in innocent ignorance and credulity, has been the greatest obstacle to human progress that mankind has had to encounter.
The atheist Robert Ingersoll said that the church had, for 1,000 years, "extinguished the torch of progress in the blood of Christ." Unfortunately, he did not know the difference between pure New Testament Christianity and the gross perversions and deviations of Catholicism and Protestantism.
Liberals' obvious hatred of (their understanding of) Christianity in our country today proceeds from their belief that Christianity has been a hindrance to progress and has resulted in much evil. Rather than liberals reading the New Testaments and trying to comprehend what the religion of Jesus Christ really is, they prefer to look back in history and recall cruelties, immoralities, and butcheries done by those who really have no close connection to the truth and label that Christianity.
This idea has had a tremendous effect in our country, indeed, it underlies the entire educational system. Dr. John Dewey, who is known as the father of modern American education, was no friend of Christianity. Indeed, he was a very good liberal:
The objection to supernaturalism is that it stands in the way of an effective realization of the sweep and depth of the implications of natural human relations. It stands in the way of using the means that are in our power to make radical changes in these relations.
In other words, Christianity is a hindrance to liberal ideas of progressive social relations. It must be removed. This is a cardinal tenet of liberalism today, and it is clear why there is no desire among the left to promote the Christian faith, why they defend abortion, homosexuality, pre* and extramarital sex, and almost every other vile crudity that pervades our country: men must be "free," and Christianity is the greatest obstacle to that freedom and does all sorts of evil to prevent people from being "free" In the liberal mind, "freedom" equals "progress," so, Christianity must be eliminated, or at least relegated to a non*influential role in society's affairs.
(Editor's Note: We thank brother Lewis for his fine piece. Reading it made me realize why liberals in the schools among us are so dead*set against the church and so determined to change it. Still, "man is not wiser than God" - H. A. (Buster) Dobbs.)
http://www.bible-infonet.org/ff/articles/apologetics/112_03_19.htm
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