I have not been called a "jerk" since about the fifth grade. That is a term favored by kids whose vocabularies have not yet developed to the point of subtle communication so potty terms and other infantile attempts to insult are the fall back position. How is it then, that an old friend from high school recently used jerk to describe me because I believe in Jesus Christ?
There is a great article in today's Wall Street Journal that you can access online at the following address http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/ It is written by Sam Schulman and takes to task the so called "New Atheists" whose shallowness in thought and thoughtfulness is apparent. They are reduced to calling believers jerks. Rather than dealing with the real problems associated with their faith in no God the well educated but ignorant men simply attack us with thinly veiled anger and frustration.
My friend is what one would assume to be well educated. He is a lawyer but obviously missed some of the classes on critical thinking and the use of nuance in debate. I remember him as a good friend and, like the rest of us in adolescence, confused. However, he was not especially rude or haughty as he seems today. That must be the result of losing faith in God and depending only upon himself.
When we read the essays and books of this new class of haughty atheists we are reminded of college freshmen living together in a dorm having a discussion after attending their first class in philosophy where the prof asked such penetrating questions as, "Can God make a rock so big that He cannot lift it?" He would then use that verbal paradox to destroy the underdeveloped faith of the new students.
While finishing my B.S. at Southern Illinois University I had a roommate who was in this dilemma. One day at lunch he said in all seriousness, "What if we are not real? What is all this life is an illusion and we do not exist? That there is no God and we are deluding ourselves?" He was near tears as he sat depressed at the table unable to eat his mashed potatoes.
I reached across the table and pinched him rather hard on the arm and he screamed in pain while drawing back his hand. "Why did you do that?" he asked in surprise. "It was all a dream and did not really happen," I replied. He was dazed for a short time and then said, "Oh, I see. It is real." and started to eat his beef and gravy.
I am shocked that a lot of the most popular atheists are thinking at about the same level as this guy. They have little of the finesse of humility of the older sort who asked the same questions but answered with a depressed state that they just couldn't muster any faith but were sad about it. In fact, one dismisses the concern by many Christians who wonder if research on unborn babies is a slippery slope similar to what Hitler led his scientists down by saying, "Their concerns are obscene." His ability to understand and articulate the opposition's philosophical point of is breath taking.
So, if the opposition is reacting to God at such a visceral but intellectually dishonest level I don't think we have to worry about a revival of unfaith in the world. This is especially true when our side is producing multiplied millions of bright, committed well trained thinkers. Jerry Falwell, one of the men considerd to be a chief jerk among all of us jerks, has developed a university that has a world-class debate team. One that is superior even to tose at Harvard, Yale and NYU. The atheists should never underestimate a godly, Spirit-inspired mind.
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