1 Timothy 1:12-14
And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that
he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;
Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious:
but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and
love which is in Christ Jesus.
Just unveiled, in the state of Florida, is a
monument erected by the American Atheists on the public grounds of courtyard. A few years ago, a Christian group erected a
large monument engraved with the 10 Commandments on the same grounds. The atheists’ monument, in the form of a
bench with quotations carved upon it, is meant not only to counteract the other
but also to show that freedom of religion is not just for Christians.
As a former atheist, I take great interest in this story. For, though I now see that I was in error in
stating that there was no such thing as God, at the time I did so in ignorant
unbelief. I was not angry at God or at
whatever forces may be behind life. I
was not a disgruntled human, unhappy with my lot. I was neither contemptuous nor mean toward
others who did believe in God. I claimed
no superiority over anyone, even though I believed I was right as an atheist
and that everyone else who believed in God was wrong. And I was not an evangelical practitioner of
atheism, zealously seeking to spread the gospel of no God. I simply became an atheist after I asked
myself a simple question: am I trying to find a way to believe in God and to practice
a religion out of fear? I then let
myself do something that was very easy – stop believing. There was no benevolent Creator, no merciful
Lord, prayers were useless and the afterlife was a fairytale. I got every religious and spiritual habit out
of my life and knew that there was nothing Beyond and nothing More. And I wasn’t afraid. And I wasn’t unhappy. So content was I with knowing that there is
nothing spiritual that I didn’t even feel the need to convert anyone.
This is not the place to tell how I could no longer
be an atheist and how I became a believing Catholic Christian. What I do want to write here is that I
respect atheists who are such because of serious thinking and committed
choice. What they may not want to hear
me say is that I respect their beliefs.
Beliefs, yes, for only a true blue agnostic can claim not to believe
anything – they get so hung up on not being able to prove something for certain
that they just go about their lives without choosing one way or the other. (And also, perhaps, people who claim to
belong to a religion but who don’t care to think about whether they believe it
not.) But, atheists actively choose. And that takes guts. That takes courage.
And so, I am glad that the American Atheists have
erected a monument in the public square alongside the 10 Commandments. (Which, by the way, are obviously not only
Christian, as millions of Jews will tell you.)
I am glad that they feel so strongly in their beliefs that they want to
share them with others – and that they are able to do so because of the First
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Being in the form of a bench with writing,
the designers are even inviting people outside of a government building to sit
for a while and read thoughts about God.
The quotations carved on the bench show how breaking of the 10
Commandments was punished in the Old Testament of the Bible, providing a great
(albeit unintentional) demonstration of the mercy that comes in the New Testament. (Yes, I’m smirking. Why do some atheists like to talk about God
so much?) And some of the other
quotations show how the founding fathers claimed no religious mission on their
part, that they wanted to make it clear that the government of the United
States would not be based on a divine right of rulers (it would be based on a
divine right of human beings, but that’s not on the monument) and would not provide
funds for the budgetary needs of any religion, like Great Britain did for the
Church of England. This is one of the
greatest things that the founders of our country did – to establish a national
government that would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof”[1]. And I’m glad of the choice made by the American
Atheists to enter into the public square and share their beliefs instead of
trying to make the public square barren with very little “free exercise”.
Having read several articles, however, I’m not
quite sure if this is the true intent of the organization. In fact, the key quotation that is most
visible on the bench is from the group’s founder and sounds thoroughly
anti-religion. The superior tone of the
quote was even noted by an atheist and blogger at NPR, Barbara J King. This vision of atheists as having superior
thoughts is even, it seems to me, embodied by the group’s own symbol: the
nucleus with a large letter A at the center.
I don’t know of any mainstream Christian symbols with a cross at the
center of a nucleus… A nucleus is a nucleus.
Shouldn’t atheists of all people know that? The group’s intent in erecting the monument
is, I believe, to tick off us ignorant Christians so that we will agree to
their original idea – an empty public square.
I’m sure there are some Christians and other religious people who will
be offended by the monument (especially by that quote by the American Atheists founder)
but the majority of us will see that this is what freedom of religion is all
about and why nations around the world can look to America on how people of
various cultures and religions can live peacefully in one place. There is nothing threatening to faith in this
monument.
It atheists really wanted to see this monument as
the 1st monument to atheism erected in United States on public
ground, then, perhaps, they should’ve done a lot more to extol the virtues of
atheism in the monument itself. Instead,
it inaccurately suggests that religious people are opponents of public works
and mercy under the law. And all that
they can say about the founders of our country is that they did not see the
founding of the US as the founding of a Christian Nation and that the
Constitution was not inspired by the gods.
What, are we supposed to be shocked by that and become instant atheists? Please.
Where is the information about the goodness and soundness of atheism
that will inspire a generation to embrace unbelief? I saw a picture of a man standing on top of
the monument and shouting out to the crowd.
I don’t know what he was saying.
But, from what I’ve learned about the zealous/activist atheists of today
and what I know of my own personal experience as a nonevangelical atheist, I
think this is a clearer monument to atheism: a pile of gray, stony arguments
topped by a shouting individual.
Meanwhile (getting back to my randomly given
Scripture quote) I thank the Lord for grace, for enabling me to be counted
among the faithful, and for the exceeding abundance of faith and love in Christ
Jesus. And I’m grateful to live in the
United States of America where I am free to seek the truth… the truth has set
me free.
Christina Chase
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