As I have noted in the past, one suggestion that really
bothers me is the one that asserts that evolutionists have all the brilliant
minds on their side while Creationists get the ones too weak-minded to make it
in academia. Darwinists act as if their team has all the jocks while we get the
rejects, the ones not picked to play
the game.
One of the weapons in their arsenal of demonizing our side
is the “comfort of religion” missile. The way this one works is by pointing to
our belief in God as a crutch—as something we lean on because we are too scared
to come to grips with the fact that we, and life, are meaningless.
So we are said to be holding onto our precious comfort of
religion like a child desperately contending that Santa Claus is real, even
though he is beginning to see evidence to the contrary. We lay our heads on our
collective pillow, and finally drift off to sleep comforting ourselves with our
religion.
As atheist philosopher Paul Kurtz put it, “Religious systems
of belief, thought, emotion, and attitude are products of the creative human
imagination. They traffic in fantasy and fiction, taking the promises of
long-forgotten historical figures and endowing them eternal cosmic
significance.”
Apparently when Kurts thinks of Jesus, he thinks
“long-forgotten historical figure.” Apparently Jesus’ millions of followers
over 2,000 years are not enough for Kurtz.
But beyond that, notice what Kurtz is claiming: that it is
our creative human imaginations that have created this belief system; it is our
defense mechanism for coping in this world.
To carry Kurtz’s point out, if we would just do away with
our make believe playtime, then we would finally come to terms with evolution
and atheism.
In his book Atheism,
the Case Against God, George H. Smith suggests, “If the choice must be made
between the comfort of religion and the truth of atheism, many people will
sacrifice the latter without hesitation.”
So we shrug off the truth of atheism in order to be comforted
by our imaginary religion. I have written many articles refuting the notion
that there is any truth to atheism/evolution, so I won’t do that here. But comfort of religion?
This idea would only sound good if Christians enjoyed
problem-free lives, or if the Bible painted God as a fluffy teddy bear. Did
Jesus have the comfort of religion in the Garden of Gethsemane or on the cross
of Calvary? Did Paul have the comfort of religion when he was shipwrecked,
beaten, snake bit, imprisoned, and beheaded? Did Peter have the comfort of
religion when he was crucified upside down? Or when the other apostles were all
killed for their faith?
Do the 165,000 Christians who are martyred worldwide each
year have the comfort of religion?
Do
the Chinese believers who have their tongues cut off for teaching the Bible
have the comfort of religion? Did the Bible translators who were burned at the
stake have the comfort of religion?
Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would be our Comforter,
but He did not promise us an easy, pain-free life. So what comfort are we
supposedly clinging to?
It appears to me it is the atheist that is clinging to
comfort as he soothes himself with his pseudo-science, assuring himself that
there is no God, Lord, or Judge.
I think the fact that so many people cling to God’s Word despite the persecution shows that
religion is not for the weak; rather, history is filled with accounts of people
bravely using their final words to appeal to their executioners to give their
hearts to the Lord.
If I were faced with choosing the comfort of religion or the
truth of atheism, I suppose I too would sacrifice the latter, but only because
there is no truth in atheism.
