A few days ago, Texas Governor Rick Perry called for the people of his state to take this weekend to pray for rain.
Andrew Leonard, writing for Salon.com, finds this quite amusing. After all, we know for a fact that we are in global warming, don’t we? And Texans in particular are such rubes, if one is to believe this paragraph:
[The proclamation] bring[s] us to an ironic crossroads, particularly insofar as God might be concerned. As befits the national headquarters of the energy industry, Texas has long been a flag bearer for climate skepticism, from the halls of Congress to the pages of public school textbooks. And just across the border in Oklahoma we have Sen. James Inhofe, perhaps the single most dedicated critic of climate science in the entire U. S. Congress. It's almost too classic -- let's ignore all the science that might help prepare us to confront the challenges of the future, and then, when disaster hits, we'll just do a rain dance! It's not like we're, uh, civilized or anything.
So I ask the good citizens of Texas to consider whether, as they bow their heads in prayer, they might not have it all backward. God isn't going to alleviate their misery. On the contrary, God is punishing them for their flagrant disregard of the human impact on his (or her) beauteous creation!
Mr. Leonard presents us with a stupendous display of intellectual arrogance: first, by asserting that “global warming” is a fact, not a theory; secondly, that he has some kind of inside knowledge of the nature of a God that he comes perilously close to making fun of; and thirdly, in thinking that people so unlike him could not possibly have an intellect. He laughs at religion, while he has the same kind of childlike faith in global warming that the Left charges the faithful of having in God – and very much like others on the Left have in evolution which, again, is only a theory, not a fact. **
Yes, I am taking offense – but beyond that, on Good Friday, it is deliciously ironic that he sounds so much like the crowds assembled in front of the Cross who jeered to Jesus, “He trusts in God, let God rescue him” (Matthew 27:43).
A God who has created the universe, given it life, and established it with the physical laws we have discovered through science is far too complex for human understanding – at least for those humans who are wise enough to understand the limitations of intellect. The faithful speak of God in human terms, because it is the only way most of us have to communicate God’s nature. *
I respect the right of anyone to be an atheist, and certainly, that decision can be made in good conscience; but I have to ask: What makes you so certain? What if you’re wrong, and you finally find yourself face to face with the God you denied? Is it worth the risk? What does your common sense tell you?
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish (Psalm 1).
One more thing. For fifteen years, I was pulled down by depression, and there were times that I would have committed suicide, but for indecision as to how to do it. Only by accepting God’s grace could I recover; and only by continuing to accept His grace can I write this blog and speak boldly in defense of human freedom. I find this Biblical truth to be literal: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Jesus was speaking about his teaching; but experience has shown me that the one who does not seek truth will be enslaved to those who would take advantage of their ignorance.
Make fun of such a power at your peril.
* “Most of us” because Buddhism and some other religions believe in a pure spiritual force which is not a God in the anthropomorphic sense that we envision Him in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).
** I define theory as an explanation for scientific observations. It cannot itself be a fact, because further observation may disprove it.
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