The Incurable Disease of Atheism

I love books, and bookstores, being purveyors of such, are high on my list of places I like to visit. I go to one almost every week, since there is a Barnes and Noble conveniently situated adjacent to Abe's guitar lesson. However, when I went to Borders a while back, I saw something very disturbing. Now that I think back, I wish I had a camera, because it was nothing less than ludicrous in a shake-your-head, What's-this-world-coming-to? sort of way.

As you may know, at the end of Border's bookshelves they tell you what the shelf consists of, and generally include a few choice selections from the section, on little book-holders. Well, this time it went tragically wrong.

The Christian Living section is featured rather prominently in the Border's non-fiction pecking order, and enjoys pride of place between the fire escape, the kid's books, and the "Bargain Table." Just Kidding. Well, there were six featured books on the Christian living sections that day. They were, in no particular order, "God: the Failed Hypothesis" by Victim J. Strangler...excuse me, I mean Victor J. Stenger; The End of Faith by the ever-acerbic Sam Harris; Letter to a Christian Nation, also by Harris; The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins; God is not Great by the self-crowned king of this year's bumper crop of bestselling atheist writers; and one, lonesome Christian book, the name of which escapes me. Probably some sort of wishy-washy, new-age crap.

Isn't that disturbing? It makes me wonder just how far our civilization has slipped. When did Atheistic books become "Christian Living?" St. Peter is turning in his grave.

Atheistic books have flooded the Bestseller's lists this year, and that trend might very well continue. As a Christian, that worries me deeply. Atheism has become the very thing it seeks to abolish: a religion. With Evolution as its creed, Hitchens, Dawkins and the rest of the scurvy lot its high priests and teachers of the law, and Earth Mother Gaia and Al Gore as its deities, Atheism seeks to undermine the already-tenuous foundations of God-fearing Christianity that this country was built on, and to end worship of the God who created it and the rest of the universe.

I have seen several prominent debates between atheists and Christians lately. The first, and my favorite, was a debate in Newsweek magazine between megachurch pastor Rick Warren and neuroscientist and atheist Sam Harris, who holds the distinction of having written not merely one but TWO foul-mouthed screeds full of playground invective against his Creator. While Warren remained cool and collected, Harris almost lost it completely and made, in my opinion, some serious missteps. You can view it HERE.

The other debates were less notable, and both featured Imperial Wizard Hitchens. I was not impressed with THIS debate, which features Marvin Olasky, an Editor of WORLD Magazine. Frankly, both of them seemed a little off: Olasky, bleating and shrill, and Hitchens, nasty, confrontational and condescending. Perhaps that was because that debate was a video and not a transcript like the others. The third debate was between Hitchens and conservative author Dinesh D'Souza, who recently wrote a book called What's so great about Christianity. Very clever wordplay, in my opinion. I confess, I didn't go in-depth this time.

So, duty calls me elsewhere. However, I think we can agree that this new rash of Atheists is rather disturbing, but since Christianity has been facing such objections for the past two thousand years, I'm not unduly concerned. However, it makes me wonder, and not for the first time, just where the world is headed.