Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

• Genesis 1:1

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

• Romans 1:20

“… For Dawkins then qualified his statement into smithereens by stating that this ‘designer’ could never be a ‘divine’ designer. He did not say why that precise distinction must be made—nor what, by his standards, constituted divinity. But when pressed to say more about what sort of designer he had in mind, Dawkins reached backward to the groovy solution proposed thirty-five years earlier in Icarus, saying that perhaps it was extraterrestrial creatures who had done the designing. We are left to gather that unfortunately they had deposited their little designs here on Earth anonymously, like some untethered dog in the neighborhood. The idea of invented aliens giving us the gift of life from the heavens presented, he said, an ‘intriguing possibility.’
“That the world’s most famous atheist would invent his own creation myth, rather than accept the evidence of science, bespeaks a faith in something far beyond science, and must be seen as an unmistakable betrayal of the science and reason whose praises he had so loudly sung. But his statements went quite unchallenged by the atheist scientists who looked to him as a leader.”

• Eric Metaxas, Is Atheism Dead?

In the story told by Eric Metaxas, Richard Dawkins was backed into a corner during a debate.  He had to “create” some form of “Creator” without accepting that God had anything to do with it.  He came up with the idea, previously postulated and no well-liked, of an extraterrestrial giving life on earth a jump start.  It is odd.  In the 2008 documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Richard Dawkins and Ben Stein have a ‘friendly argument’ in a pub and Stein backs Dawkins into the same corner with the same result.  Then Stein said something about how we could argue for the rest of the evening about who created life on the alien planet, etc. etc.  They dropped the argument.  It is odd that while many secular documentaries with no evidence to back them up are called “documentaries,” but on Wikipedia, Ben Stein’s documentary is called “documentary-style propaganda,” although Ben Stein did his research and had clear evidence that views other than the atheist views are being suppressed in academia.

With denigrating Ben Stein’s documentary and the atheist scientists remaining loyal to their “leader” after their leader repeatedly threw them under the bus, we can see some sort of conspiracy at work.  It is obvious that if we speak outside the parameters of what is allowed, then you are not allowed to speak in certain forums.

In Eric Metaxas’ book, the only question that he does not address is why the answer to the question in the book title is “no.”  If there is over 400 pages in his book, all well-written and logically put together to drive a stake through the heart of atheism, why is atheism growing in the polls?

Are the polls not telling the truth?  It has happened often in recent years.  As a podcast host said recently, a poll had shown some “fact” to be true, but the poll had only canvased people with far-left viewpoints, making sure that they got the answers that they desired.  In another consolidation of “public opinion” research, it was discovered that almost all the research results violated the basic ground rules of achieving untainted opinions, and some other research reports used the results from the tainted surveys to blend in with their results.

But, when we look at the Christian churches, the pews are missing more and more people as time goes on.  Sometimes a hot new church, often avoiding the word “church,” springs up, but sadly the luster is gone soon.  They repackaged the message with huge glass walls and a contemporary band with ear-splitting volume, but the message that God loves us did not resonate.  People drifted away.

The world’s message is not much of a message.  Our existence, according to them, is an accident and we all come from some sort of scum that, today, we would scrape from our shoes and then wash and rewash our hands afterwards.

The true message is that a loving God made us for a purpose, a purpose to love Him and glorify Him forever.  After all, He is our Creator.  God created a well-tuned universe.  God created a well-tuned earth.  Through man’s sin and excess, we have screwed up that perfect balance, but God still loves His Creation and us, and He will in the long-run set things right for those that love Him and repent.

And the sad thing is that Metaxas could write a few more volumes of data that shows that there are mountains of evidence that shows our earth is created by an intelligent Creator.  And there is growing evidence beyond what the book mentions of the Biblical stories that have been corroborated by archeological evidence, including ancient fragments of the Bible that show that the message God sent us has not been tainted.

Yet, as more light shines, proving that the Bible is true and God is the Creator, those who choose to ignore it become blinded by the light.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.