The strongest faith of all
It occurs to me, is the faith practiced by Anti Theists. Your garden variety Christian can’t muster the faith in the Creator that an anti-theist can, because they have so much invested in G-d not being there.
It is an ongoing struggle for me. All I can do is pray for those who are so determined to destroy G-d, because I know they cannot. They can destroy belief, but belief is a tent without poles, it requires you to hold it up. They can destroy the physical institutions that the faithful call home, and they are certainly doing that. They will defend- are anxious to defend- anything that opposes any organized religion, no matter how ludicrous it is, no matter how it would ordinarily set off their reason alarms, because they have too much invested in damaging the thing they have the most faith in.
I don’t know why this is. I know in some circumstances it’s because the individual in question has had some particularly nasty experiences- been molested, been orphaned, been abused in some other way- and aren’t capable of making the connection with G-ds mercy and the things that humans do to one another- and of course, no connection is possible. Humans have free will, and that free will often leads them to do things that are harmful to one another. G-d cannot control that because it would put the lie to the whole free will thing.
The very best people are the people who come from that abuse and make the connection. When you have risen above that and decide that instead of becoming an instrument of G-ds destruction you become an instrument of His mercy, the power it gives you is amazing. I see, in my minds eye, the people who have done this, friends, mentors, family members, and I am staggered by the effect they have on the world. When, instead, I look at the people who have let their experiences poison them against G-d, they are small and usually pathetic. All you can do is pray. And hope that their actions in the face of their really overwhelming faith do not get called into account when they meet the Creator.
“I don’t know why this is.”
Just another test Og. “God will have war with Amalek generation to generation.” Amalek represents the human component of the fallen angel who is known by most as Satan, but in Hebrew is referred to as The Satan, meaning the accuser, the prosecutor. Satan is often played as an entrapper, but he can also be seen observing our own evil inclination and he then uses our guilty consciences to obtain a conviction
Amalek, because of his opposition to God, is conceptually worse than Satan. Satan as prosecutor is in service to God. Amalek too may indeed be in unwilling service to God because he provides an outside challenges to us, one that dares us to use his methods in order to defeat him. Scripture tells us that has always failed.
Perhaps it might be useful to think of the anti-theists as embracing their evil inclinations and trying to infect others with it. In that sense I think you are exactly correct. They are rabid proselytizers of their faith.
Am I correct that you went to Seminary instead of a public University, Og?
If so, therein lies the answer. In Seminary (and likely well before that, at home) you would have been taught that a belief in God underlies all the works of men’s minds.
In a public university, at least for most of the last century and up into the present one, students are taught that the power of the mind requires no assistance from religious beliefs, and perhaps these unfortunate students are even taught that religious belief systems degrade the thinking power of the human mind.
I was taught to think under both systems, and I came to believe in God because my mind just cannot comprehend that all the works I see were done solely by the hand and the guidance of Man. God guided the hands of Man,I am convinced.
It’s interesting to note, though, that for all the Public Universities’ enmity for and toward God, they have managed to substitute worldly belief systems for the religious belief systems, and those worldly belief systems actually work against the “free thinking” that the Ivory Towers say that they are inculcating. As proof, I offer the mind-numbing belief system known as Secular Progressivism.
“It takes a lot of faith to be an atheist.”
One obvious indicator of this is the movie “The Golden Compass”. The book that inspired it was meant to be an “atheist answer to C.S. Lewis”.
…and it contained an afterlife. WTF.
If I remember (or heard) correctly, Secular Humanism was ruled a religion from the Supreme Court.
Torcaso v. Watkins (367 U.S. 488).
Have a friend who’s like this; not enough for her to not believe, she has to shove it out in public, at every opportunity.
Another guy’s not quite that bad, but when he’s triggered, it’s kind of amazing the dislike- actual contempt at times- he feels compelled to throw out.