Billy Graham - Atheism Is A Fad Only Fools Follow
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Yes, atheism has been in the public eye more in recent years, largely because of a few atheists who’ve captured the public’s attention through their books. They aren’t large in number, but they do tend to be aggressive in promoting their ideas.
Why have they drawn so much attention? One reason, I believe, is because they know how to use the media very effectively. They also appeal to people who want to be free from God or any moral restraints. Like the philosophers of Paul’s day who were constantly looking for new ideas to debate, many people today eagerly latch on to the latest fad (see Acts 17:21). Atheism attracts their attention, at least for a while.
In reality, however, modern atheists have very little new to say. In fact, atheism has been around for thousands of years; even the Psalmist, writing hundreds of years before Christ, referred to them: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” (Psalm 14:1).
Don’t be misled by those who claim God doesn’t exist, because he does. And the ultimate reason we know it is because he came down from heaven and walked on this earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ was God in human flesh, and he proved it by rising from the dead.
Pope: Bones Found in Rome Tomb Belong to Apostle Paul
Pope Benedict XVI says bone fragments found in a tomb beneath the floor of Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside-The-Walls are probably remains of the Apostle Paul.
The pontiff announced Sunday that carbon dating tests run on the fragments, which were found inside a stone sarcophagus discovered beneath the floor of the basilica, confirm that they date from first or second century.
“This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul,” Benedict said, speaking Sunday at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside-The-Walls.
Christians have traditionally believed St. Paul was buried beneath the main altar of the basilica, which was built in the late fourth century. The 8-foot-long sarcophagus containing the bone fragments was discovered in 2002.
The pope’s announcement came on the eve of the Feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, a major feast day for the Roman Catholic Church.
Paul and Peter are regarded by the faithful as the greatest early Christian missionaries.
What the World Thinks of God - Poll Results
Britain is one of the most secular nations in the world, a new poll in 10 countries finds
Levels of religious belief and activity in the UK are far lower than in almost all other countries surveyed across the globe in a special poll undertaken for the BBC.
The ICM poll of 10,000 people in the USA, UK, Israel, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Mexico and Lebanon was carried out for What the World Thinks of God - BBC TWO, Thursday 26 February, 9.00pm.
It reveals that only 46% of respondents in the UK said they have always believed in God - 27% less than the average.
Only Russia (42%) and South Korea (28%) were lower.
Furthermore just 52% of UK respondents believed God (or a Higher Power) created the universe, compared to 85% in the USA, 83% in Mexico, 99% in Indonesia and 96% in Lebanon.
The highest levels of belief are found in the poorer nations of Nigeria (98%), India (92%) and Indonesia (97%).
However, the USA - the richest nation polled - has a very high level of belief.
Only 13% of those polled in America said they found it hard to believe in God (a Higher power) when there was so much suffering in the world.
Yet this compares to more than half (52%) of those polled in the UK - the highest of all the countries - and more than twice the average. The figures for Lebanon were 2% and Nigeria 12%.
The survey found that only 19% of those in the UK said they would die for their God/beliefs.
This compares to 37% in Israel, 90% of those polled in Indonesia and Nigeria, and 71% in the USA and Lebanon.
A staggering 78% of those polled in the USA claimed to have studied religious texts, by far the largest figure, followed by 51% in Nigeria and 42% in the UK. This compares to an average of 33%.
The poll also looked at the place of religion in the world.
Almost a third (29%) of people in the UK believe that the world would be a more peaceful place without beliefs in God but very few people in other countries agreed.
China Detains More House Church Leaders
Over a dozen Chinese house church leaders faced another day of detention Saturday, June 13, and some of them the prospect of years imprisonment, after security forces raided a house church in China’s Sichuan province, Christians said. There was also concern over the whereabouts of a prominent human rights lawyer after a Chinese official spoke about his alleged kidnapping by security forces.
Rights group China Aid Association (CAA), which has close contact with the reportedly persecuted Christians, told Worthy News that over 30 house church leaders were detained June 9, while gathering in a house church in Langzhong city of Sichuan province. “Thirteen leaders were given 15 days of administrative detention, and five of the leaders were placed under criminal detention. The other leaders were released,” CAA said.
It identified the 13 leaders who receiving 15 days of administrative detention as: Wang Fang, Ma Zhongqiong, Wang Huaying, Pang Kaizhen, Chen Deying, Hu Xiuying, Li Daxiu, Deng Shuhua, Chen Jingfang, Wang Yulan, Song Liangqing, Wang Shixiu and Li Shufeng. Five other pastors, Gao Guofu, Li Ming, Zhang Guofen, Gu Lianpeng and Yu Zhipeng received “criminal detention” a prelude to possible “three years of re-education through labor,” CAA said.
The Bishop That Doesn’t Believe in God Still Bishop
Richard Holloway is a Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church. There seems to be on obvious problem — he doesn’t believe in God. In the Scottish Episcopal Church, that must not be a problem.
Bishop Holloway served for years as Bishop of Edinburgh and primate of the Scottish church. The Scottish Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican Communion — the Scottish sister church of the Church of England. During his years as Bishop of Edinburgh Holloway regularly offended the faithful, promoting one heresy or scandalous teaching after another.
In 2000 he took early retirement, but did not resign his ordination or consecration. He remains a bishop, even as he has become an agnostic.
The End of Evangelical Innocence In The Church
Today I’ll be in the studio with John MacArthur, taping an interview about the contemporary evangelical obsession with sex. “The Case Against the R-Rated Church” is the working title, but the interview is unscripted, so we’ll see where it goes.
Anyway, I was looking up facts and various news items on the subject and three things struck me.
One: This is a huge and widespread problem. The “Christian” districts of the World Wide Web are filled with places that aren’t safe for family viewing—everything from “Christian” sex shops to lurid advice columns.
Two: Modesty is all but gone from the evangelical movement. Not only have today’s evangelicals cast aside innocence as if it were something to be ashamed of; they are proud to have done so. They are keen to show a comfortable familiarity with the very things Scripture says it is shameful to speak of in public (Ephesians 5:12), and they would be embarrassed to be thought squeamish about such things.
Three: Sermons with graphic sexual themes and church-wide sex challenges are merely symptoms of a much bigger problem. In short, the church is fornicating with the world and intoxicated with the spirit of the age. Some of neo-evangelicalism’s favorite jargon—missional, contextualization, authenticity—has been tortured and misappropriated in order to justify and institutionalize gross worldliness.
via Pyromaniacs: The End of Evangelical Innocence.
Christians Risk Rejection And Discrimination
The first poll of Britain’s churchgoers, carried out for The Sunday Telegraph, found that thousands of them believe they are being turned down for promotion because of their faith.
One in five said that they had faced opposition at work because of their beliefs.
More than half of them revealed that they had suffered some form of persecution for being a Christian.
The findings suggest a growing hostility towards religion in this country, which has been highlighted by a series of clashes between churchgoers and their employers.
Church leaders, including the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, have urged Christians to “wake up” and defend their beliefs after the suspension of Caroline Petrie, a community nurse, for offering to pray for a patient.
Churchgoers are likely to be further concerned by new guidelines that warn that employees face dismissal if they share their faith with colleagues at work.
Employers have been given new advice in a campaign, funded by the Government’s equality watchdog, that says people who evangelise in the workplace are “highly likely” to be accused of harassment.
Atheists Roll Out New Advertising Campaign
Campaign Slogan - In The Beginning Man Created God
This provocative twist on the Bible’s opening line was plastered on the side of 25 Chicago buses this week as part of an advertising crusade by the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign.
The ads have been cruising between downtown and the city’s North and South sides, including the No. 56 Milwaukee route, since the beginning of the week and will run through June.
“The intent of the campaign is to stimulate discussion of religion and its place in our society,” said Charlie Sitzes, a spokesman for the Indiana group who with help from the American Humanist Association has collected more than $10,000 in private donations to buy the ad space in Indiana and Illinois.
The group brought its message to Chicago after a similar campaign in Indiana – to post the slogan “You can be good without God” – was rejected by transit authorities in Bloomington and stalled by officials in South Bend, who didn’t want the ads posted in time for President Barack Obama’s speech at Notre Dame.
Indiana’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation on the atheist group’s behalf. Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan has denounced his own transit system, saying he does not condone government censorship.
“It would appear that where there is more opposition to the message that maybe that would be the place where we needed dialogue more,” Sitzes said, maintaining that the slogan is a simple fact.
“All non-believers believe God is a creation of man,” he said. “We used to have thousands of gods. Now we’re down to one. We’re getting closer to the true number.”
Among the guidelines for determining if an advertisement can run on the CTA is a requirement that the ad be truthful and is “not directed at inciting imminent lawless action.”
via Atheists roll out ad campaign | The Seeker.
Americans Shopping For A Different Religion
William Lobdell has followed four different religions. Now he’s an atheist.
Raised Episcopalian, the 48-year-old Orange County, Calif. man switched to a non-denominational parish and then a Presbyterian one. After going through a year of Catholic conversion classes he eventually realized that he is “a reluctant atheist.”
“I wish I believed,” said the former Los Angeles Times reporter and author of the memoir “Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America – And Found Unexpected Peace.” “I’d like to believe that someone is watching over me and protecting me, but I just don’t believe that.”
He may be an extreme example, but approximately half of Americans change religions at least once in their lives, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The forum recently released a report, “The U.S. Religious Landscape: Exploring Religion in America,” based on surveys of 35,000 people.
Pew found that Catholicism has seen the sharpest decrease in membership among all religions in the U.S. About 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics, according to the survey. The Archdiocese of Chicago declined to interview for this article.
via Americans ’shopping for religion’.
Churches Get Religion on Marketing
Number of Nonbelievers Is Rising, but Is Marketing the Solution or Problem?
Marketing may or may not have played a role in American’s increasingly fickle relationship with religion, but it’s certainly playing one today as organized religions scramble to get consumers’ attention.
Call it modern-day malaise or attention-deficit religion jumping, but the “nones” are on the rise as more as more people are labeling themselves as having no religion. Today, 15% of Americans say they are “unaffiliated,” up from 8% in 1990. It’s an even more pronounced change among young people — 46% of people ages 18 to 34 consider themselves to have “no religion,” according to the American Religious Identification Survey by the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture at Trinity College.
“To use consumer terminology, brand loyalty is way down,” said John Green, senior fellow with the Pew Forum and professor at the University of Akron.
Brand loyalty should not be confused with a lack of faith, however. That is, “nones” aren’t necessarily nonbelievers, just non-church goers. Sixty-two percent of 18- to 34-year-olds consider themselves spiritual, and another 43% have prayed in the last two months, according to a survey by Bohan Advertising/Marketing, the Barna Group and the United Methodist Church.
BBC Appoints Muslim To Oversee Religious Content
Earlier this week the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, appointed a Muslim as head of its religious programming department — a move being hailed as a “radical departure from broadcasting tradition.”
Aaqil Ahmed, former executive at Channel 4, is the new of Head of Religion and Ethics and Commissioning Editor for Religion TV, a position some call one of the most influential religious roles in the United Kingdom.
Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is concerned over the appointment of a Muslim, claiming it comes at a time when Christian leaders worry their faith is being marginalized and criticized by authorities. The Church of England notes that Muslims make up only three percent of the country’s population while nearly 70 percent claim to be Christian.
However, other religious leaders are taking a wait-and-see approach, calling Ahmed a “respected professional” and the most qualified person for the position. Some even claim that turning him down because of his faith, despite his credentials, would amount to discrimination.
Pope Stresses Deep Respect For Islam
Pope Benedict XVI underlined his “deep respect” for Islam on Friday in Jordan, on his first trip as pontiff to an Arab state, and stressed that religious freedom is a fundamental human right.
He also called the church a spiritual force that could contribute to progress in bringing about peace in the Middle East.
Speaking after a red carpet welcome from Abdullah II and Queen Rania at Queen Alia Airport as he began his eight-day tour of the Holy Land amid strict security, the pope said he came to Jordan “as a pilgrim.”
He said his visit “gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam.”
The pope also called religious freedom “a fundamental human right.”
“It is my fervent hope and prayer that respect for the inalienable rights and dignity of every man and woman will come to be increasingly affirmed and defended, not only throughout the Middle East, but in every part of the world,” he said.
Hawaii’s State Senate Approves Islam Day
Hawaii’s state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate “Islam Day” — over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn’t want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001.
The Senate’s two Republicans argued that a minority of Islamic extremists have killed many innocents in terrorist attacks.
“I recall radical Islamists around the world cheering the horrors of 9/11. That is the day all civilized people of all religions should remember,” said Republican Sen. Fred Hemmings to the applause of more than 100 people gathered in the Senate to oppose a separate issue — same-sex civil unions.
The resolution to proclaim Sept. 24, 2009, as Islam Day passed the Senate on a 22-3 vote. It had previously passed the House.
Obama To Be No-show At National Day of Prayer
President Obama is distancing himself from the National Day of Prayer by nixing a formal early morning service and not attending a large Catholic prayer breakfast the next morning.
All Mr. Obama will do for the National Day of Prayer, which is Thursday, is sign a proclamation honoring the day, which originated in 1952 when Congress set aside the first Thursday in May for the observance.
For the past eight years, President George W. Bush invited selected Christian and Jewish leaders to the White House East Room, where he typically would give a short speech and several leaders offered prayers.
Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the president is simply reverting back to pre-Bush administration practice.
