So the movie reviewer comes on the air, and the first words out of his mouth: “I’m not a Christian, I’m not a believer…”
Maybe it’s the time I grew up in, or the neighborhood–but I can never get used to the casual, unashamed declaration of disbelief in God. Why the guy had to introduce his movie review (it was supposed to be a Christian-themed movie) with this non-faith statement, I don’t know. Did he expect us to stand up and cheer?
I don’t believe there are all that many more atheists now than there always were. It’s just that now they expect to be applauded for it. But the real question I have for them is, “If not God, then who or what do you believe in?” And if he answers, “Nothing,” I don’t believe him because nobody believes in nothing.
But what do professed unbelievers believe in? If they answer “The state,” we are incredulous–I mean, who’s that big a butterball? If they answer “Science,” we wonder, “What science? Yesterday’s, today’s, or tomorrow’s–they’re all different. One generation’s science is another’s superstitition.” And if they come up with “The innate goodness and ultimate perfectibility of man”–well, you don’t know whether to guffaw or sigh for pity.
Those things require much more faith than does belief in God. There isn’t enough faith available in the universe to get anyone but a fool to believe in any of them.
But somehow it got to be chic to claim non-belief in God, or at least non-belief in Christianity. If you believe in many gods at once, Hollywood will still love you almost as much as it would if you believed in no god at all.
This was not so of the America that I was born and raised in.
Are we a better nation for our embrace of non-belief?
Now there’s a notion to laugh at!