In this piece we will explore chapter seven of David Kupelian’s book, How Evil Works. Please find a link below where you can purchase the book from Amazon, should you desire to do so. Here are some of the highlights as found within this chapter regarding people’s rejection of God.
In America a large majority of people have begun to reject God, both the reality of His existence and/or His right as their Creator to be their Lord. For many people God is out, no longer in vogue, and Christianity is certainly not fashionable any longer. As we have seen this type of attitude increase in America we have seen the decline of America.
Kupelian address this issue by addressing atheism. At the time of the printing of his book in 2010, in his view atheism was undergoing a remarkable change. The group has gone, in the author’s view, from a group on the fringes of our society to a group that is increasingly vocal and unapologetic when it comes to mocking religion, coalescing into a political force and crying of discrimination against them at every turn. Just as homosexuality was once considered shameful by the larger culture, atheism was considered shameful. However, now both are becoming “hip, sophisticated, even a badge of honor” as the author puts it.
Here are some noteworthy facts the author discovered in his research.
· According to the American Religious Identification Survey, people who claim “no religion” were the only demographic group to expand in all fifty states. Can you imagine how much more that number has increased since that survey in 2009?
· In the United Kingdom atheism is so popular that over one hundred thousand Britons officially renounced their Christian faith by download “certificates of de-baptism” off the internet.
· Many atheists have adopted a euphemistic label, and now they know by the name “Brights.”
· According to the National Journal atheist are less willing to partake in what they deem violent conflicts of a religious nature such as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars/conflicts.
· Atheists have no ethical problem with euthanasia.
· As a collective group atheists believe pharmacist should not be allowed to refuse to fulfill chemical abortion prescriptions as a matter of conscience or religious faith.
· The majority hold the view that only evolution should be taught in schools, no “intelligent design” allowed.
· Many atheists believe all federal funding should be pulled from the Boy Scouts should they choose to teach that a good Scout has a “duty to God.”
· Some very influential atheists reportedly want to clone humans. Atheists are “emerging as an enthusiastic voice on behalf of scientific efforts to clone human beings, a technology with the potential to ‘conquer mortality.’” – Starobin
· Atheists expounding the evolutionary belief system follow the party line of belittling and ridiculing anyone who dares to criticize or question the “utterly unproven theory of macroevolution” – one species morphing into an entirely new species.
The author points out that many atheist authors believe God is not needed because man has a strong innate moral sense. The author Sam Harris makes that point by forcefully stating that ‘human beings are born with an ethical sense of right and wrong – regardless of whether or not they believe in God.’ I would say to that, who do they think created them with this inner conscious and this ethical sense of right and wrong – God of course!
Kupelian makes the point that at birth most people’s inborn sense of right and wrong operates just as God intended it to work. I would like to make the point that just as an organ or limb can become damaged a person’s conscious can become damaged, as they harden their hearts toward the promptings of God within their own conscious.
People love to blame those they deem “hypocrites” for their lack of faith in God. God is God, God is not the individuals who make up any particular religion, nor is God any particular person one might view as a hypocrite. Most noble Christian religious groups are made of up of imperfect people. If the atheist’s problem is truly with God, then there may not be any solution for them but if their problem is with religion and the imperfect people therein, perhaps the atheist deserves a big of slack. Perhaps they have seen the “anesthetizing shallowness and superficiality of far too much of the modern Christian church” as the author notes, and I fully agree. To me this is the greater concern, that this is the true problem, the real issue behind the abandonment of Christianity, and by association God. Decent people have been turned away from God by religious leaders who are phonies. However, keep in mind there is a difference between a phony Christian spiritual leader and an imperfect Christian spiritual leader who is struggling to be all God wants them to be. As the author, Kupelian states, “These may be tough words, but if we’re ever going to understand why so many people are turning not only to atheism, but to pagan and New Age religions and myriad other strange spiritual philosophies and practices, then we need to face the sad state of the modern church.”
The rock of the atheism can be found in the question of, ‘If there is a loving and all-powerful God, why does He allow people to suffer so horribly?’ As C.S. Lewis stated in his famous journal through grief titled, A Greif Observed, “these things are sent to try us” – God wasn’t “trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t.” Lewis goes on with a profound personal truth, “He [meaning God] always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize that fact was to knock it down…” C.S. Lewis had a quality that understood that the good things that happen to us should be considered truly good, and the bad things that happen to us should be considered good as well because they have redemptive value – God uses them to perfect us.
The miracle of character growth can take years, and it cannot take root in the garden of resentment. We must endure with patience and dignity. The acorn dies and becomes a giant oak tree; we too must die to pride and come alive to the change God is trying to bring about in us as we endure patiently all we suffer. We can storm through life like a bull charging at a concrete wall and get nowhere but injured or we can ride through life above the crowd on God’s shoulders being carried.
Hebrews 5:8–9 (NKJV) – Scripture regarding, and speaking of, Jesus
8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. 9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,
Pride can give us the delusion that we are the maters of our destiny. However, we are not our own god, and the true seekers of truth know this fact.
Some people love to deny God’s existence and His power or authority over their lives. However, let a crisis or disaster strike and many so called atheist and agnostics go searching for that God they have claimed does not exist.
In the next posting we will begin to review chapter eight of David Kupelian’s book, How Evil Works. That chapter deals with the cultural war on fathers, men, and manhood in America.
How Evil Works
Evil can be understood and overcome before it transforms our country entirely. Evil can be understood and overcome before it transforms someone you know or even you. Knowledge is power and without it we will perish. We need to be extremely knowledgeable when it comes to evil.
Hosea 4:6 (NKJV)
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also will reject you from being priest for Me;
Because you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
The Marketing of Evil
Evil is sold in our society just as anything else might be sold, through marketing. Satan has marketed his product through those willing and those ignorant to his schemes. Through his craftiness he has turned the minds of even Believers to think that tolerance of his evil is some form of love. In so doing he has transformed to a large degree the once Devout Church and transformed our society to an enormous degree. He has not accomplished this without his workers however, the willing, the sold out for their own gain, and the ignorant masses following blindly behind the majority.
Spiritual/Political Disclaimer:
This blog will not be for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It will not be in any way politically correct. It will make every effort to share the truth in love, [Ephesians 4:11-16], to a decaying and dying society and church. I share what I share not to hurt, harm, or offend any person[s] or group; I do it because Christ’s Standard and Truth is not being represented by enough of His Followers, and I do it out of love. I love enough to tell His Truth.
Ephesians 4:11-16 NKJV
11And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
God's Truth in Love 