The ten commandments popped up as part of my regular Bible reading this morning and Ex 20:5-6 struck me:<\/p>\n
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,\u00a0but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cWho\u201d, I thought to myself, \u201ccould possibly be stupid enough to hate God?\u201d Even though I now believe atheism to be illogical, I can empathise with being an atheist, since I once was one; being oblivious to God I can understand because even after I thought the idea of his existence was at least plausible, I didn\u2019t want to have much to do with him. But who could hate<\/em> God? If nothing else, a sense of self-preservation ought to keep one from such folly.<\/p>\n
Not so, however. The so-called new atheists don\u2019t so much disbelieve in God as loath him. Christopher Hitchens, shortly before his death, paraphrased the famous C. S. Lewis proposition: \u201cif Jesus isn\u2019t the Son of God, he is a hideous wicked imposter; his words were vane, empty and intended to deceive.\u201d Lewis concluded that Jesus, therefore, was the Son of God, Hitchens that he was\u2026.. \u00a0a hideous wicked imposter. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris et al echo similar sentiments.<\/p>\n
Blinkered fools!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ten commandments popped up as part of my regular Bible reading this morning and Ex 20:5-6 struck me: You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting … Continue reading