Part Three:  “Do Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics Rely on ‘Crutches’—or only Christians?”

The claim that non-religious people don’t need a crutch to get through life is totally out of sync with what we observe in the real world. There are crutches other than religion: drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, overeating, material possessions, abnormal sexual appetites, money, power . . . the list goes on and on. Moreover, many atheists use their disbelief in God as a crutch to enable them to lead a lifestyle they intuitively know is not in accord with God’s moral law (Rom. 2:14-15). Astrophysicists Hugh Ross gives an example of this:

         Several months ago I spoke at a prestigious American university to a group of about forty science professors. I presented much of the information that appears in the pages of this book (The Creator and the Cosmos; How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God). Afterward, I conversed with four physics professors and asked for their response.

        One of the four said he could not deny the truth of my message. The others nodded in agreement. I ask if they could see, then, the rationality of turning over their lives to Jesus Christ. Another of the four spoke up, saying, yes, they could see it, but they weren’t yet ready to be that rational.

         This statement was not a brush-off. Each man went on to name his reasons for resistance. One confessed his unwillingness to give up sexual immorality. The others spoke of deep wounds inflected long ago by people who called themselves Christians. What each of them needed and showed willingness to receive was compassion—not to mention further dialogue (p.153).

That Christians are weak because they rely on God is one of the most absurd excuses ever concocted to ridicule Christians. Nowhere in the annals of history can one find more courage in the face of adversity, more perseverance in the face of affliction, and more boldness in the face of persecution than what faithful Christians have displayed.  The apostle Paul wrote of his own suffering for Jesus:

“Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” (2 Cor. 11:24-27, NASB)

Christians are not weak people. In today’s increasingly secular society, where the Christian worldview is ridiculed and rejected without rational justification in movies, books, television, academia, and the media, where individual Christians are mocked for their faith when they talk about the Lord, it is much easier to be an unbeliever. Atheists or others who claim Christians are weak have never tried to live an active Christian life. ©

Next week’s blog will reveal the real reason atheists, agnostic, and skeptics reject God and rely on other crutches to get through life.

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