Years ago there was a book entitled Listening to Prozac . I don’t want to suggest by my title that I think Atheism is a mental illness that requires medication. I wouldn’t be so arrogant or dismissive as to think those who fundamentally disagree with me are wicked or insane or both,  though some prominent Atheists have said as much about Christianity. As I’ve mentioned a few times, for whatever reason, I have a soft spot for atheists. Today I want to look at an atheist who seems to have a soft spot for Christians. Jason Rosenhouse has written a book entitled Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolution Front Line. I won’t go into a critique of his ideas about the Creation/Evolution/ID debate in this post. We can save that for another time. What I am interested in his opening chapter entitled “My Problems with Religion.” I want you, dear reader, and I to do exactly what my title says. Honestly listen to this particular atheist and thoughtfully respond. In order  to do that, I’m going to attempt to summarize Rosenhouse’s chapter accurately and fairly. And then I’m going to stop. I’m going to ask you to do the same. I’ll save my critique until next week. Norman Geisler once said that atheists should be respected as the loyal opposition because they make us stronger and better.

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Leaders speak with an authority accorded to them by their position. When Barack Obama gave the Ohio State University Commencement Address, he did so as President of the United States. With the authority of that office behind him, it will be few students that would question his direction to reject cynical voices. What are those voices saying?

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As we in the United States move further and further away from a Judeo/Christian worldview and morality the easier it is to be anti-semetic. This is not really anything new for the Jewish population. All through history nations have practiced racism against Jews. I like Tevia’s question to God in “Fiddler on the Roof,” about being the chosen people. “Why don’t You choose somebody else for a while?” This is the one kind of bigotry which seems to be very acceptable among the politically correct today. This isn’t overtly stated but the cliche, “what you are doing speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you are saying,” comes in to play. There seems to be great concern in the United States by politicians, Liberal news media and those leaders within the “Emergent” movement of the church, that American citizens will commit more hate crimes against Muslims in retaliation to the acts of Islamic terrorists. I recently heard an interview about hate crimes and the guest claimed that about 13.4% of hate crimes are committed against Muslims whereas 65.4% of the hate crimes committed were anti-Jewish. In other words, there are approximately 5 times more likelihood of a hate crime against a Jew than a Muslim but that seems to be ignored by the Left. (These statistics are from the 2010 Hate Crime Statistics in the “Religious Bias” category). The PC crowd regularly expresses concern about the possible rise (not the actual rise) of Anti-Islamic attacks but it is rare if ever that we hear any concern about anti-Jewish attacks.

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If you have been watching the news over the last couple of weeks, you might not know that a very controversial trial is taking place in Philadelphia. Kermit Gosnell is accused of murder. Allegedly he murdered one of his patients in the process of doing a late term abortion under abominable sanitary conditions at his abortion clinic. She died from a drug overdose. He was charged with infanticide since he allegedly delivered late term babies and then snipped their spinal cords with scissors. As I was writing this post, it was reported that the charges of infanticide were dropped because the prosecution could not prove the babies were born alive. Gosnell’s abortion clinic has been called a house of horrors by anti-abortion advocates. I’m sorry I can’t give you more details about the conditions or Gosnell because there seems to be a sort of collective ignoring of the case by the media. As one blogger pointed out, there seems to be an asymmetry of the coverage of outrage between those who were so exorcised that the Susan G. Komen foundation withdrew support from some clinics who also did abortions and  the near non-outrage regarding Gosnell’s almost macabre nonchalance at infanticide (apparently he kept the severed feet of some of the fetus’ in a jar).

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If you have ever thought that Scientology may not be as bad as is being reported than you need to read the latest expose on Scientology entitled, Going Clear Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013, hardback, 430 pages, $28.95). The book is a page turner.

Author Lawrence Wright is a graduate of TulaneUniversity and the AmericanUniversity in Cairo and is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He has authored six other books and has won a Pulitzer Prize. He is also a screenwriter. He is a meticulous writer and lists 6 pages of sources for this new book.

In spite of Scientology’s claim of millions of members Wright says that there really are about 25,000 that call themselves Scientologists. He explains that there are 3 tiers in Scientology. The majority of Scientologists are just average run of the mill Scientologists. Then there are celebrity and Hollywood Scientologists. Tier 1 would love to mix and mingle with tier 2 but that rarely if ever happens. The third tier consists of what might be called “clergy” that run the church mainly from Florida and California. There are approximately 3,000 to 5,000 and they are called the Sea Organization or Sea Org. The name is a remnant from the time that founder Ron L. Hubbard ran the organization while on the high seas.

Wright explains what motivated him to write this book:

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The Jesus People USA (JPUSA) of Chicago is a Christian commune (or as they now prefer to say, “intentional community”) that was founded in 1972. For two decades it enjoyed a kind of “fair-haired child” status among evangelicals as a combination ’60s-nostalgia/alternative-lifestyle/urban/countercult ministry. It featured, among other things, traveling music and drama ministries, a thriving literature ministry, and a K-12 school for its children, all supported by various commune-operated businesses.

A 1983 independent documentary film titled “Uptown Christian Soldiers”¹ contained some of the earliest criticism of JPUSA (including ex-member testimony), but did little to tarnish its image in the evangelical community. In 1989 JPUSA became a congregation in the Evangelical Covenant Church denomination. Three years later, Christianity Today magazine devoted a six-page cover puff piece to the group.² JPUSA was hip and trendy when it wasn’t hip and trendy to be hip and trendy among American evangelicals.

But the tide would soon turn.

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It is difficult to watch or listen to the news, talk shows or pick up a newspaper or magazine that does not at least comment on the question of same-gender “marriage.” What has not to my knowledge been mentioned, even by conservatives who are speaking out against same-gender “marriage,” is the false premise which has been used to market this idea to the public. The essential claim is that gays are being denied their Constitutional right to marry. The appeal to Constitutional rights can really play well. It plays well among Liberals and Progressives because the claim gives it the air of credibility, especially because so few of them have any inkling of what the Constitution actually says. For that reason they may not even be aware that the essential claim is false.

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