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| Leonard Pitts Jr. |
Leonard Pitts is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. He wrote about a vicious attack on a reporter in Egypt and commented that the victim was “deserving of our compassion, our empathy and our prayers.”
The “prayers” part elicited a vehement response from an atheist reader. Elements of her criticism included “Please stop the superstitious nonsense,” don't “keep the public naïve and stupid,” and “An atheist is absent of belief and willing to change their position when evidence is presented. When you mention prayer, you are acting as an evangelist promoting an irrational act.”
Strong words for someone who’s wrong on all counts.
Atheists rely on the scientific method for knowledge, which requires evidence that’s quantifiable and repeatable. It’s limited to natural phenomena and can’t prove whether God exists or not. Because it can’t, our rude friend should understand that she depends on faith in “no God” at least as much as believers do “in God.” Unlike skeptics, Christians have additional sources of knowledge that support their faith.
Spirituality lets us experience things that are out of the reach of science. Here’s an example: Christians know there’s a “God-sized hole in their hearts” that needs to be filled. It’s real, but can science determine its configuration, measure its size or describe the essence that fills it? Of course not. But because it can’t, the concept is beyond the grasp of skeptics.
This self-restricted “thinking” deprives them of answers. Let’s say the Big Bang Theory is correct. For skeptics the question of why it occurred resists sensible answers. Albert Einstein believed God is the creator while today’s skeptics say it “just happened.” But order doesn’t just happen: destructive accidents do. Skyscrapers, space shuttles and universes need planning.
There are two views. One is open-minded and sees God filling in the missing blanks left by science. The other closed-mindedly confines itself to a scientific paradigm that can’t answer the big questions. Skeptics need God’s answers but their stunted worldview requires them to ignore Him.
It’s as though atheists denied the existence of radio waves and then tried to figure out how a radio worked. It would be unexplainable – because they rejected the essential element up front – and they’d be left with implausible theories. If someone suggested invisible waves were necessary, they'd condescendingly be called “stupid,” “superstitious,” “naïve,” and “irrational.”
Pitts’s critic claims a willingness “to change (her) position when evidence is presented”- as long as it fits her preconceived notions. Skeptics may alter views within their limited framework, but their spiritual blinders consign them to an incomplete – and incorrect - view of reality.
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I never cease to be amazed that atheists, though a tiny minority, are so arrogant as to think they are right and the vast majority of all people who have ever lived are wrong. Stunning.
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