Militant Atheists

I cannot say that I am an avid reader of the Daily Telegraph. In fact I would sit at a very different end of the political spectrum but I came across an article on the internet which I found interesting by Charles Moore who wrote in that newspaper, “Militant atheists: too clever for their own good”, He makes the observation that being clever appears to be high on the agenda of their creed. The main protagonists he cites are Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens (now deceased) and Professor A.C. Grayling who looks every part the philosopher complete with long sweeping hair and the pin-stripe suit used until recently to say ”Tory”. Despite their high I.Q. , and who would decry the value of intelligence, they seem to be acquiring one of the very attributes, they despise of Christians, namely intolerance and arrogance. Matthew Parris, who also writes for the same paper and is highly, articulate and effective at making his point has joined the fray. He wants faith and reason to part forever and for people to “chose your side”. I would not call myself irrational but neither would I say that reason is all that matters? If I said this I would be closing the door to the possibility of miracles. I cannot place God in a test tube and hold him up as exhibit “A”; God cannot be restricted. This is a crass way of investigating all the evidence. Surely the writer of the Telegraph article is right that they are really missing the point. The early church believers were not all that well educated but the impact they made was mighty-they were the ones who were ready to serve the community and lived lives of high moral value. Yes there are, today, Christians who say daft things and sometimes we worry too much about gaining power and prestige; we worry that the church is no longer holding the same sway as in previous generations. We are too quick to look for the glory of having the rich and famous and the powerful in our ranks but then so too are the non-believers. Nor is hypocrisy is not restricted to Christians; I dare to suggest that some who call themselves “atheist” do so because of their family upbringing and not because they have given the matter more than logical and reasoned thought, if even that. Life would be dull indeed if we were all like Mr Spock. The resurrection is not only the most historically provable claim of Christianity but it is the very bedrock of the faith which suggests that death on a cross, at the hands of men, is not only not the end but that the road travelled by God was not about the power of the world nor the power of the intellectual elite but a new hope for all men and women who occupy both the lecture theatre and the workshop, the rich and the power, and include all ethnic groups. I , for one, will not be rejected just because I am not one of the clever people.