Zeloeistotheo says:

Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.”

The Fool: who and what is he? He is a man signified by the extinction of life within him. The Hebrew root for “fool” in this usage communicates a plant having lost all the life or sustenance making it useful or lovely. The fool is a man who has lost his wisdom and correct understanding of God and supernatural things communicated clearly to him by creation. Romans 1:19-20 unpacks it, “For what can be known about God is plain to all men, because God has shown it to them. For God’s invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So men are without excuse.”

God gives men up to a debased mind because they do not see fit to acknowledge Him as God. God does not remove men’s rational faculties, such would violate free will and as a result accountability. Rather God withholds his grace in men’s faculties. Men void of grace are not without reason, or even desiring it, but rather abusers of reason. Such is the Atheist.

Says in his heart: Why does he speak there? The thoughts of a man’s heart are to himself and to God alone. He says, “there is no God” not as an absolute claim or because of assurance, but heinously as an attempt to blot out the knowledge of divine accountability. He corrupts and meddles with his own heart to coerce it. Deity is plainly evident in creation. A man must strip God of his wisdom, goodness, tenderness, justice, and glory in his own heart, murder God in his heart, harden himself against God in his heart to call himself an atheist.

Gary, the dangerous infidel says:

Speaking of the atheist, #62 Zeloeistotheo wrote, “He says, ‘there is no God’ not as an absolute claim or because of assurance, but heinously as an attempt to blot out the knowledge of divine accountability.”

This arrogant attitude may be what irks me the most with many Christians. They (and you) imply that we nonbelievers really know of your god’s existence and authority, but deny it in a disingenuous attempt to avoid any responsibility attendant to an admission of that knowledge. Even with your incredible powers of belief, you simply cannot believe that we don’t have this innate, completely extrasensory knowledge of this thing you call “God.”

Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps we’ve read the stories of your god, and as an act of moral courage, we simply refuse to worship the demon who did the many evil things described in the Bible? You worship the god of torture, terror, and ethnic cleansing. Whatever happened to your conscience?

I consider my own conscience to be proof that I was not created in the image of the god described in the Bible. His erratic sense of justice and willingness to kill innocent people prove to me that your god did not create my conscience, and thus did not create me.

By the way, I love how you use Biblical references to prove how bad atheists are. Quoting from the Bible always resonates with nonbelievers

*****
And of course, julieb beat me to the punch on a few of my themes — cheers, julieb!

julieb says:

# 65 Glenn E. said, on April 8th, 2008 at 12:55 am said:

“Most of the science we know today, came from hinky notions like alchemy and astrology.”

This is just sad.

Science looks for evidence. Faith just makes claims. Educate yourself my friend.

bobbo says:

#68–Pat==the number “20″ sticks in my mind as the number of Volumes in Jeffersons Collected works. Came across that while touring his wonderful home and looking at his replicating pen machine.

I’m sure you’ve read all of “something”–but all of Jefferson?

As a complete – - – -reader – - how could you know Jefferson so intimately, and yet post only a very narrow unbalanced view of what this great man thought and wrote?

You might follow his example more, rather than your own.

bobbo says:

#71–pat==that is fascinating==so why did you truncate him so? Kind of dishonest to knowingly only quote half of the substance of what he said??

Or–indeed, not knowing the mind of the man, is it fair to quote him in any context except to show he talked out of both sides of his mouth?

I thought scholars were called to a higher duty than tourists such as myself.

I have a theory as to why freedom spouting founding fathers had slaves, but I haven’t figured out why the richest people in America, knowing how likely it was they would lose, put their fortunes and necks in the noose “for freedom.”

Any clues?

bobbo says:

#73–no clues huh?

julieb says:

So Pat, why do you hate America so much? You democracy haters are really something. You live it up and take full advantage of our secular gov’t yet at the same time work to destroy it and put theocracy in it’s place. I think you hate our freedom.

Peter iNova says:

Production values are low.

The preparer of this piece needs to work harder on conveying information over time and space. Running optical interference behind walls of text that stay on screen too briefly to be read equals poor communication.

God or no deity, if you wish to throw out a bunch of interesting, informative, perhaps controversial information, Job #1 is to do it clearly.

We give him/her a D-