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Atheists Affirming Christianity?

In 2020, we commented on an interesting phenomenon, "Atheists Need Christianity," which was becoming a growing trend among well-known atheists. More and more were defending Christianity as culturally necessary for preserving a civil society. For Richard Dawkins, it was the chaos, pandemonium, and brutality he witnessed once Judeo-Christian morality and ethos had been removed. Historian and atheist Tom Holland published Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, arguing that had it not been for Christianity, there would not be a Western culture. Atheist Douglas Murray published The Strange Death of Europe and argued that without Christianity, there would not have been an Enlightenment. Holland attends church, he and Murray refer to themselves as Christian atheists, and recently, Richard Dawkins has begun doing the same. It appears Christianity Today has noticed and printed, "Some of Christianity's Biggest Skeptics are becoming Converts."

Tom Holland, an award-winning British author and ancient Greek and Roman historian. At some point in his studies, Holland recognized the difference in values held by the ancient world compared to those he held instinctively. He realized Christianity is the reason we take for granted that it is better to bear suffering than to cause it—and why we assume all human life is equal in value.

As an avowed atheist throughout his adult life, Holland shocked fellow academics in 2016 when he too penned an article in the New Statesman titled “Why I was wrong about Christianity.” And while he may not yet consider himself a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, he confessed he has lost faith in the secular narrative, returned to church, and “surrendered to the truth” of the stories in Scripture (such as the Exodus), whether they are ultimately historical or mythical.

More recently:    

Former New Atheist thinker Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a similar turn just last year. As a research fellow at Stanford University and a Muslim, Ali was once described by Christopher Hitchens as “the most important public intellectual probably to come out of Africa.” But in 2023, she professed in her essay “Why I am now a Christian” (apparently a play on Bertrand Russell’s famous 1927 essay) that her desire and search for a unifying basis for belief in the humanitarian values of life, equality, freedom, and dignity ultimately led her to the Christian faith.

“The only credible answer,” Ali said, “lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.” She appreciated not only its focus on the intellectual status of humanity but also its “compassion for the sinner and humility for the believer.” In answer to those looking for meaning and purpose in their lives, Ali was compelled to admit that “Christianity has it all.”

It seems sound apologetics in academia is challenging the thinking of atheists combined, I would suggest, with an up close and personal look at a world that has abandoned Christianity. Will these "Christian atheists" become Christians? We pray that will be the case but, in the meantime, they are arguing that Christianity is necessary for a civil society.

https://mailchi.mp/010ce6562334/the-real-history-of-israel-and-palestine-pt-1?e=169825fd77

For years there has been a neopaganism in the academic world called ecotheology. Viktor Ferkiss was a supporter of ecotheology, which, he said, “starts with the premise that the Universe is God.” As with other religions, many articles of this “faith” are held without any evidence to support them. This is especially true among evolutionists. On November 5, 1981, British Museum of Natural History Senior Paleontologist Colin Patterson gave an informal talk to the Systematics Discussion Group at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The most quoted part of his talk was as follows:

“For the last eighteen months or so, I’ve been kicking around non-evolutionary ideas. Now, one of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, let’s call it non-evolutionary, was [that] last year I had a sudden realization. For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and . . . it struck me that . . . there was not one thing I knew about it. That was quite a shock, to learn that one can be so misled for so long.

“Now I think many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years . . . you’ve experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that’s true of me, and I think it’s true of a good many of you in here.”

Religion in science? Of course. On July 5, 1997, “the project manager of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory renamed the Mars Pathfinder Lander in memory of Carl Sagan. He stated that he believed that Sagan was ‘up there’ watching the entire Mars landing [and] that he believed that Sagan had his hand in several of the project miracles. Miracles? There was not God to perform them, but somehow Sagan is managing to guide space like Obi Wan Kenobi guided Luke Skywalker? Faced with what it cannot explain without God, atheistic science has embraced pagan superstition!

Some fossil sharks grew very large.1 Researchers estimate Otodus megalodon, popularized by the Meg movies, was at least 46 feet long and possibly more than 66 feet. By way of comparison, the largest known extant great white shark is thought to be 20 feet in length. Sharks in the fossil genus Ptychodus, considered to be somewhat similar to today’s nurse and bullhead sharks, might have attained body lengths of 32 feet or more. And a Cretodus fossil shark from Italy is believed to have measured between 31 and 37 feet.

A fossil version of today’s bluntnose sixgill shark (Hexanchus griseus) was given the species name H. gigas (gigas means “giant”). Conventional paleontologists have acknowledged that size is the only convincing difference between the teeth of the fossil and living versions. Thus, H. gigas seems to have been a giant fossil version of the bluntnose sixgill.

Likewise, the extant snaggletooth shark Hemipristis elongata usually grows to less than eight feet long. However, the extinct snaggletooth Hemipristis serra is estimated to have had a length of almost 20 feet.

Finally, the largest living thresher shark, Alopias vulpinus, can be between 10 and 20 feet long, and its teeth are 0.7 inches long. But teeth of the fossil thresher A. palatasi can measure 1.6 inches. Teeth from the fossil thresher shark “Alopias” Trigonotodus grandis have been described as “highly enlarged versions of thresher teeth.”1

Because shark vertebrae are composed of cartilage, fossil shark vertebrae generally do not preserve well and are relatively rare. However, the vertebrae are sometimes calcified. Scientists can count growth bands within such preserved vertebrae to estimate the shark’s age at the time of its death. These fossil age estimates are uncertain because some sharks show evidence of twice-yearly growth rings during at least parts of their lives, and the number of growth rings can vary in different vertebrae from the same shark. Nevertheless, researchers generally assume growth bands are annual as a first approximation.

Given this assumption, growth ring spacings within a Ptychodus vertebrae indicate it was still growing rapidly at 30 years of age. Likewise, growth rings in a megalodon vertebrae indicate it was still rapidly growing at 46 years old. Normally, growth rates slow down as creatures mature. That these sharks were still undergoing rapid, juvenile-like growth at these advanced ages suggests they were taking a long time to reach adulthood. Similarly, researchers estimate the fossil Cretodus shark from Italy would have taken 64 years to reach 95% of its adult body length. By way of comparison, one study of great white sharks indicated they do the same in about 33 years or less.2

Studies show that long-lived animals often have larger adult body sizes and take longer to mature than animals with shorter lifespans.3 Thus, the large adult body sizes and delayed maturation of fossil sharks are indirect evidence that at least some of these sharks lived longer than today’s sharks. This is consistent with patterns seen in fossilized Crassostrea oysters as well as predictions made by earlier creation researchers.3,4

Since humans in the pre-Flood and start of the post-Flood worlds also experienced much greater longevity (see Genesis 5 and 11), there could be a connection. Additional research may reveal much more and possibly better validate these patterns. These growth rate results should be very encouraging to Bible-believing Christians who accept the great ages of the pre-Flood patriarchs recorded in Genesis.

References

1. For details and sources for these ages and lengths, see Jake Hebert, “Giantism and Delayed Maturation in Fossil Sharks, Evidence for Extreme Longevity?” Creation Research Society Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2024): 267–283.
2. Lisa J. Natanson and Gregory B. Skomal, “Age and Growth of the White Shark, Carcharodon Carcharias, in the Western North Atlantic Ocean,” Marine and Freshwater Research 66, no. 5 (2014): 387–398.
3. Jake Hebert, Richard Overman, and Frank J. Sherwin, “Crassostrea Oyster Fossils Show Evidence of Extreme Longevity,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2024): 171–190.
4. Jake Hebert, “Living to 900?” Acts & Facts, January/February 2024, 17.

https://www.icr.org/article/fossil-sharks-signs-longevity/

When we ask how origins can be explained without God, the reply is that they can’t yet, but one day “science” will be able to do so. Unlike the great scientists of the past who believed in God and built the foundation for science upon that faith, many of today’s scientists worship the universe as all-knowing and without beginning or end. They have nothing else to trust. Robert Jastrow has said, “Astronomers are curiously upset by  . . . the proof that the universe had a beginning. Their reactions provide an interesting demonstration of the response of the scientific mind—supposedly a very objective mind—when evidence uncovered by science itself leads to a conflict with the articles of faith in their profession . . . there is a kind of religion in science. . . .”

An international seminar on mobilizing students for Palestine, streamed live on YouTube, featured a Hizbullah official Ali Al-Hajj Hassan, head of the Youth Section at Hizbullah's Cultural Mobilization Department, who called for establishing an inter-nation 'Palestine Force' of youth and students across Western and Islamic countries, including the U.S., UK, Germany, Italy, and Australia, who will lead protests in support of armed resistance in Gaza, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, and "carry the spirit of the mujahideen" in their respective countries. He emphasized the Al-Aqsa Flood war, which he said began on October 8, 2023, is a global war between "humanity and the monstrous West". The youth's role in this global war, he said, is crucial at this historic moment, adding: "Wherever we are present, we must influence young people."

Ali Al-Hajj Hassan also recently spoke about his efforts to mobilize pro-Palestinian activism among students on college campuses in the West in an interview on Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV. Other participants in the webinar included Houston-based human rights activist Mohsin Naqvi and Canadian human rights activist Firas Al-Najim of CD4HR.

The following is a transcript of the statements by Hizbullah official Ali El-Hajj Hassan, as translated into English in the original YouTube video.

The Al-Aqsa Flood Battle Is A Global War Between Humanity And The Monstrous West; Professors, University Students, And Academics Rose As Martyrs In This Battle

Ali El-Hajj Hassan: "In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. May peace and blessings be upon the most honorable of creation, Muhammad, and upon his good and pure family. Dear brother, host of this webinar, brother, Tagi Haider Youth leaders and representatives who are defenders of Palestine and Gaza. May peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you all on your contribution to this international webinar for students on the issue of Palestine.

"Today our understanding of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle, is that we are in a global war. In fact, this situation represents a global war against Palestine and its people, where all the arrogance and all the arrogant ones have gathered, and all the criminals of the world have gathered against Palestine and its people. This is a war between truth and falsehood, a war between humanity and the monstrous West and the criminal Zionists. It is a war between the arrogant against the oppressed, and between the oppressed and the oppressors. It is a war between the Palestinian resistance and the axis of resistance against the Americans, the Zionists and their helpers.

"In this war, we in the resistance are obligated by our religion, morals and values to be alongside our people in Palestine and our people in the Gaza Strip, and to be a support for the brave and heroic Palestinian resistance. Therefore, The Resistance took this position and took up arms in this battle and opened the battle with the Israeli enemy with pride for the sake of Palestine, its people, and its resistance.

https://www.memri.org/reports/head-youth-section-hizbullahs-cultural-mobilization-department-calls-forming-palestine-force

Quite apart from the values and hopes which the State of Israel enshrines — and the past injuries which it redeems — it twists reality to suggest that it is the democratic tendency of Israel which has interjected discord and dissension into the Near East. Even by the coldest calculations, the removal of Israel would not alter the basic crisis in the area. For, if there is any lesson which the melancholy events of the last two years and more taught us, it is that, though Arab states are generally united in opposition to Israel, their political unities do not rise above this negative position. The basic rivalries within the Arab world, the quarrels over boundaries, the tensions involved in lifting their economies from stagnation, the cross pressures of nationalism — all of these factors would still be there, even if there were no Israel.

—John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963, politician, President, quoted in Near East Report, 1958).

No, they insist, we don’t need God to explain anything; energy is self-existent, without beginning or end. But this premise violates the second law of thermodynamics, which states that energy continually entropies. Were it self-existent, without beginning, it would have been here forever and would have long since reached the state of complete entropy, which it obviously has not. Natural laws, too, they say, are self-existent. Neither lawgiver nor reason is needed. Intricate laws that govern the universe were apparently here before the universe or came into existence simultaneously with it. “This is simply the way things are,” says the atheist. but is such a claim rational?

The song remains the same. Massacre. Shouts of “Allahu Akbar”. And police searching for the motive. But at least this time there’s a happy ending courtesy of a personal trainer and his squat stick.

A knife-wielding assailant stabbed and killed a man in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam on Thursday night before he was overpowered by police and bystanders, police said.

Another person was injured in the incident, and the suspected attacker was hurt as he was subdued and arrested.

Witnesses told Dutch broadcaster NOS that the suspect shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is Greater than Non-Muslim Religions” in Arabic) during the attack.

Police did not confirm this and said they were investigating the motive behind the assault.

It’s a mystery. Just like the 300 other Muslim knife attacks across Europe accompanied by shouts of “Allah is Greater Than Your Religion.” But if the record holds, the motive will prove to be mental illness brought on by marijuana and lack of integration.

“The suspect was overpowered and arrested by bystanders and police officers”, a police statement said. Mostly one bystander.

De Telegraaf newspaper reported that a personal trainer who had been giving an outdoor class knocked the suspect unconscious with a squat stick that he had broken in two, and other bystanders threw chairs at him.

[The Trainer] Litecia ran over to calm the fight down. “When I got closer, I saw that he had very large knives, he was covered in blood and he was screaming. There were other people nearby who were trying to help the victim.”

Litecia went back to warn other people. “I told my client to go upstairs and get safe and call the police. And then I went to Remastered, because there was a party there with about 60, 70 older people. They were standing outside. I told them there was a guy coming and stabbing everyone, and they just looked at me.”

“When they realized it, they went in through just one door and that perpetrator went after him and I thought, oh, this is going to get worse.”

He went to see if his client was safe, but came back anyway. “You know, I see those employees there every day. I’ve been coming there for a year, I see everyone open and close. And I saw elderly people outside who were completely unaware of what was going on.”

Bystanders had cornered the attacker by now and were holding him back with chairs and tables. “I saw that they had him in a corner inside, but he wanted to get out. I was standing at the door and I thought: the only way is to just go down right there.

He was shouting all sorts of things, he was cursing, in Arabic I think. Also in my face. We looked into each other’s eyes and he was praying at that moment I think, to his god. But I saw nothing in his eyes, there was no life in them.

But the trainer makes a very important point.

He himself lost his younger brother in a stabbing fifteen years ago. “Since then, life has changed for all of us. It’s about self-protection, you know.” He draws strength from his faith in God. “I have a lot to lose,” he says emotionally. “I think God put me in this position yesterday, knowing that I would intervene.”

But the suspect also referred to God when he committed his actions. “That is not the same God,” says [the trainer]. “That is unfortunately also a side of this story. It is now going to be said that it is because of that God, but the God that I have met and that I follow, he is also on this side. It is one heart, all people, one head, all weapons.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/personal-trainer-defeats-allah-in-muslim-terror-attack/