I had a realization about atheists after hearing the debate between Daniel Dennett and Dinesh D’Sousa. Dr. Dennett compared religion to nurse crops. The purpose of a nurse crop is to give the choice crop a better chance of success, so you plant it alongside the intended crop, and once the nurse crop has done its thing, it is mowed and the intended crop can then grow to maturity. I am not sure that I have heard a major atheist degrade his faith so badly–or so publicly. Is saying that atheism has *required* religion in order to exist? (and didn’t Chesterton say something about that?) Furthermore, does one plant just one nurse crop, or one every year? Do atheists really require this much nursing? My guess is ‘yes’.

“There is something feeble, and a little contemptible, about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comforting myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought, and he therefore cannot carry his own reflections to any logical conclusion. Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.”

Malcolm Muggeridge wrote the following, in _Esquire_, Dec. 1970, p. 157:
“The liberal assault on Christianity has been undertaken with a fury and fervor which today, when the battle seems to have been conclusively won, is difficult to comprehend. I well remember to my surprise, in a television encounter with Bertrand Russell, at discovering in him an almost demented hatred of Christianity, to which he attributed all the horrors and misfortunes mankind has had to endure since the fall of the Roman Empire. As I attempted to confute this view, I found myself watching in fascination a red flush which rose steadily up his thin stringy neck and spread to his face. … The script of this strange encounter is still extant, and reveals the philosopher in a most unphilosophic mood, roaring and bellowing like any atheist orator at Hyde Park Corner.”

Mark, I would really like to see you debate Dawkins or one of these New Atheists on CE. Or maybe your opponent would insist on a neutral meeting place, which would be fine as long as the event was well-publicized to CE readers. I think it would be an incredible exposition and, if we’re lucky, may even win a few converts to the Gospel. Mark and Mary, can something like that be arranged?

Of course, it has long been obvious that atheism ‘has faith in its presumption and self-service that it has no faith in God’. And, there is nothing about actual science that argues for this ‘faith’ they possess; in facts, as time passes, science proves their faith is surely no one true faith. Consider the miraculous, about which even atheist-leaning evolutionists bow to the fact of miracles, even as they claim no shred of understanding. For, what true faith can argue against the miraculous with that unstudied New-Age-of-Enlightenment arrogance, for which read: stupidity? Then again, stupidity has always depended upon presumption and been at heart self-service. I ought to know: I have been stupid over and over again.