Shared Accountability and Militant Atheism

I have shared some thoughts in previously posted articles, and I think they bear repeating.

We've systematically removed God and prayer from our culture, embraced moral relativism, and loved ourselves more than others.  Today we see the culmination of these efforts brough to bear upon our culture and our world. We need to return to the values that made us great. This crisis won't be solved by Unitarians or New Age Mysticism; the only answer is Christ.

Who bears the responsibility for the spiritual swamp we are mired in today? The short answer is that we are all responsible for the current state of affairs. Still, if we look a little deeper, is there a particular mindset which perhaps bears a greater degree of culpability for us so thoroughly losing our way as a culture?

I suggest that no small degree of responsibility rests on the shoulders of those whose message of the anti-Gospel seeks converts to their cause. This is not so much associated with all atheists as the ones who are constantly "evangelizing" their faith. (The atheist who doesn't push his faith so vociferously can hardly be held accountable for those who choose to do so.)

That's right, I did say faith. If atheism is an absence of faith, then that absence in and of itself represents a form of faith. Yes, it may be a faith in essentialy nothing, but it remains a belief system that cannot be proven just as my personal belief in God cannot be scientifically proven: a supposition with regards to a particular state of affairs and the nature of reality itself.

Seeing atheism through the lens of faith is helpful in reacting to its siren call. For instance, the atheist that demands a school stop some long-held practice because it offends him, should be intellectually honest and realize that his request itself is framed upon his own faith. Whose faith should win? That's not my call, but I suggest those atheists who feel the need to get in our faces with provocative billboards or inflammatory rhetoric need to recognize their behavior for what it is. They wish to spread their faith in a similar way to the Christian's desire to evangelize the lost.  

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people - the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped - have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not, everything is permitted.

Diniesh D’Souza, “Atheism, Not Religion is the Real Force Behind the Mass Murders of History.” The Christian Science Monitor. (11-21-06 edition).