This comes as no surprise. The atheist is crippled by an intellectual insecurity. He must strive continually to convince others - and even himself - that God does not exist. But he is always haunted by the fear that he has not really banished the presence or power of the Divine Other. This canker of insecurity, which gnaws at his heart unceasingly, manifests itself in the incessant need to propagandize against belief in God.
For example Richard Dawkins, an atheist who authored "The God Delusion," devotes much if not most of his time attempting to convince others that belief in God is even dangerous This charge is most ironic since, as Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J., reminds us, "When man becomes his own absolute center, then God becomes his hell, because God sets limits to man's greatness. But once having attained autoerotic sovereignty, a monstrous metamorphosis takes place in atheist man. He begins to feed on his fellow men, for they now are his hell, threatening to rob him of his freedom. When God is rejected because he is seen as man's hell, then man, whom God loves, suffers the same fate and for the same reason. There is a frightening resemblance between the atheist humanist as a cell of society and a malignantly cancerous cell in the human body. Both cells have thrown off any service of subordination to the health of the communities in which they thrive. They act and grow according to their own uncontrolled ravenous appetites feeding parasitically on the whole organism. As runaway cells they invade and destroy every healthy cell in the body until they extinguish life and speed to completion the total disintegration of the unity of the body. Atheistic humanism is a psychic cancer. It shares two major characteristics with physical cancer. Both these human cancers arise from the arbitrary rebellion of a subordinate cell against the established social harmony of the whole. Secondly, both these cancerous rebellions are metastatic and messianic in their aggression to the death against organism and community." (The Gods of Atheism, pp. 463-464).
Gilbert Keith Chesterton reminded us that when man denies God he does not believe in nothing. Rather he will believe in anything. Moreover, he will not do nothing but as a fanatic he will do anything:
"There are men who will ruin themselves and ruin their civilization if they may ruin also this old fantastic tale. This is the last and most astounding fact about this faith; that its enemies will use any weapon against it, the sword that cuts their own fingers, and the firebrands that burn their own homes...He [the atheist fanatic who is crippled by his own insecurity] sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all." (Orthodoxy, pp. 238-239).
Atheistic fanatics have a long history of unmatched violence. Today, fanatical rhetoric from atheist fanatics has resulted in actual violence against the Church as well as calls for such violence.
God is not the delusion. The myth of the atheistic humanist who truly values reason is the real delusion.
An empty, aimless shell that is not cognizant of God will always be filled with hatred.
ReplyDeleteYou are right.
The left was chomping at the bit to label the shooter a far right extremist gun freak. Wonder what they are saying now that the truth is out, that this man was a leftist atheist? God have mercy. Prayers for the dead.
ReplyDeleteGood comments. The Leftist "mainstream media" won't explore the shooter's atheism. It's not convenient to their false narrative that guns are the problem or that the shooter is on the ideological right.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, as Catholic World News notes today (November 6th), the Pew Research Center reports that a majority of Americans (56%) say that it is not necessary to believe in God (i.e., to be an atheist) to have good moral values. A plurality (49%) of all Catholics believe such, and 57% of non-Hispanic Catholics!
ReplyDeleteStories on the Pew poll failed to note the significance of the phrasing of the question. When asked whether it is NECESSARY to believe in God in order to have good moral values, a person must logically say "No"; but this is not the same as asking "Do most atheists have good moral values?" If 1 in 100 atheists have good moral values, perhaps because of a Catholic upbringing (which happens), then the answer to Pew Research's question must be "No." (This would not be the case if we interpreted "moral values" to include how people act toward God, of course, because if one has a moral obligation to love God and observe the Sabbath, then an atheist can not possibly be completely moral.)
ReplyDeleteIt is clearly true that this particular militant atheist was immoral. Militant atheists in general act immorally in other ways, by harassing Christians, online or in person; by making insulting comments about God or the Bible; by using deceitful, fallacious, and illogical arguments for atheism; and of course by converting Christians to atheism, thereby condemning their souls to Hell. In order for an atheist to not act immorally toward others, he would have to always refrain from advocating atheism; then he would further have to practise Christian morality in every respect, which would include having the Catholic attitude toward homosexuality, fornication, abortion, and substance abuse. This is very rare among atheists.
An atheist might claim, "When I say that I am moral, I mean that I never harm other people." His statement is probably a lie. However, even if he is sincere, you still need to ask him some specific questions, because his idea of harm might not be a Catholic's idea. An atheist can typically think that aiding self-abuse that is pleasurable helps the person, and does not harm him, just because the person will feel happy; but the good Catholic will choose a person's interest over his happiness, and will never help a person to cause himself harm. Further, another reason why the pursuit of sinful pleasure can not morally be aided is because one is thereby helping the person to jeopardise his salvation. Another example: approval of abortion is much higher among atheists than among Christians, and abortion is the murder of babies.
Thus, in reality, it is unlikely that a given atheist would be completely moral. It is possible, but very unlikely. It must be extremely uncommon.