Another day, another outburst from God-hater Catherine Deveny. The Age atheist is at it again, with yet another juvenile attack on God. Her arrogance and poisonous posturing are really becoming quite tedious and offensive. Consider her opening paragraph:
“Good Friday was spent sitting round with lapsed Catholics drinking wine, eating meat and using the Lord’s name in vain, punctuated by the odd person saying, ‘Don’t tell my parents.’ What a thrill to stare eternal damnation in the face with a chop in one hand, a glass of cask wine in the other and a mouth full of blasphemy while still being scared of your mum and dad. All the while not believing in God. We don’t believe in heaven any more, but as sure as hell something’s making this snag taste so good. It’s probably the confidence of our contradictions.”
And this is what passes for commentary in the Age nowadays? The rest of her article is no better. After a bit of pro-homosexual rambling, she gets back to her favourite topic: God-bashing. She opines: “My mate and I debriefed about the deep-rooted brainwashing of children by religion. No child is born religious, homophobic, racist or sexist. They are programmed. Children’s brains are malleable to promote the survival of the species.”
Here we have a mishmash of rationalist thought, from Locke’s tabula rasa (blank slate – we are born with an empty or clean slate, to be filled in by society as we develop) and Rousseau’s noble savage (we are born innocent but society later corrupts us).
Of course the Judeo-Christian view is radically different: we are born with a sinful nature. GK Chesterton once said that the doctrine of original sin is “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved”. Ask any parent for the empirical proof of this teaching.
No toddler has to be trained to say ‘me’ or ‘mine’. No toddler has to be taught how to grab toys out of the hands of playmates. The opposite is the case. The general drift to selfishness and greed has to be unlearned, as children are socialised and taught to not just think of their own desires and wants.
So Deveny would be much closer to the truth if she wrote, “No child is born irreligious, un-homophobic, un-racist or un-sexist”. But she gets worse, as she cites a neurologist who speaks of a “God spot”, and how evolutionary theorists posit that religion is hardwired into our brains.
Of course atheists, who are committed to materialism – the belief that matter is all there is – are forced to explain not just religion but all non-material things (love, justice, truth, beauty, etc.) in materialistic terms. They argue that God does not exist, and belief in God is irrational and a delusion. So how do we account for the fact that the overwhelming majority of mankind has always been religious?
Simple: they resort to the foolishness that ‘God genes’ exist, or that evolution has hardwired religion into us. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? In truth, it takes more faith to believe some of these wild speculative theories than it does to admit that the reason humans everywhere are theistic is because God exists.
As C.S. Lewis once said, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
But if we are to accept such silly atheist concoctions, then they must cut both ways. One must then speak of atheist genes and irreligious hardwiring. If theism is a product of random evolution, so too is atheism. Dawkins has been roundly critiqued, even by his own peers, for his theory of memes, yet all we get here is more of the same.
And if Ms Deveny wants to cite neuroscientists, why does she not refer to Mario Beauregard? He and Denyse O’Leary wrote The Spiritual Brain (HarperOne, 2007) arguing just the opposite case: that materialism cannot account for consciousness and religious experience, and that it is a reductionistic, flawed theory. The evidence seems to be that God created brains, instead of brains creating God.
Let me offer just one more quote from our God-hating columnist: “I’m with Richard Dawkins. Indoctrination of children into religion is child abuse. Children should have the right to be raised free from their parents’ superstitions, prejudice and mumbo jumbo. Let them make up their own mind when they’re adults. Instead, let us use our powers for good and brainwash our children with tolerance, acceptance, rational thought and unconditional love.”
So does she believe that when she rams her misotheism down the throats of her children, this will somehow not be indoctrination or child abuse? Why is indoctrination in atheism good, but religious instruction evil? And notice she is willing to use the word “brainwash”. Exactly. If she had her way, all children would be indoctrinated and brainwashed into the same materialism and atheism that she is so happy to spew, courtesy of the Age.
Ms Deveny thinks she is being so cute and so clever in blasting the deeply held faith of millions of Australians. And the Age is so happy to run with all this. I wait for the day when the Age will run equally poisonous tripe about Islam. But those Christians are such soft targets: no worries about fatwas being issued or bombs going off at the Age.
Yet one day the smirk will disappear from her face as she stands before her creator and judge. There will be no more cutesy comments and snide remarks then. Her head will hang in shame, and she will realise what a fool she has been (Psalm 14:1).
Then it will be God who does the laughing: “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters.’ The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.” (Psalm 2:1-4)
The worrying thing about this is the fact that the Age actually pays this woman to write such anti-Christian drivel. They seem to think it is their religious duty to regularly mock and ridicule the beliefs of many of its own readers. One day the editors of the Age will also stand before the judge of all the earth. It will not be a pretty sight.
Of course the real tragedy is this: today Jesus stands before all these God-haters with his outstretched, nail-pierced hands. But when he meets them in the next life, the offer of forgiveness will be withdrawn, and the proper and just course of judgment will begin. Either way we will all meet Jesus. Pray that people meet him now, not then.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-perfect-riposte-to-childhood-indoctrination-20090414-a67t.html
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