The following email was sent to me in response to an article I wrote about Michael Newdow, the lawyer who has been trying to use the courts to remove “In God We Trust” from our nation’s currency and “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.
Dear Mr. DeMar, You wrote:
Following Newdow’s logic, equality means that America should be officially atheistic. Of course, Newdow would claim that taking “In God We Trust” off U.S. currency is not atheism; it’s neutrality. If God is not acknowledged by our government, then the government is atheistic. Atheism is defined as “no God” (a=no + theos=God).
By that logic, it seems to me that the roads, paper, desks, and all the other objects used by government (except, of course, things such as our money) are atheistic as well. After all, none of those things have “In God We Trust” on them.
So, too, I imagine are the shoes you wear, the toothpaste you use, and the children you bore (when they first arrived, at least). So, I just wanted to say that we Atheists (who embrace all of our fellow humans) are glad to have you among us.
Here was my response:
Newdow is not making your argument at all. He has taken an action to remove “In God We Trust,” not because he believes that it’s not necessary, but that it’s a fiction and governments should not be involved in promoting fiction. By this action, he claims to be “neutral.” He is not being neutral. That was my point, one you apparently missed even though it’s stated in the article.
Now to your argument. I am not one who believes that a stamp of “In God We Trust” is necessary to identify something as being the result of God’s action or proof of His ownership. That has never been the Christian position, even though some Christians work for some form of stamped identification. I understand their reasons in an age of self-professed secularism, but it’s not necessary. The operating assumption among Christians has always been “In the beginning God” (Gen. 1:1). Everything flows from this operating statement. The Bible does not set out to prove God’s existence. Nothing is possible without it. Without it nothing makes sense.
Even an atheist like you borrows from God’s creation in an attempt to deny God and His creation. In reality, you need God to deny Him. You wouldn’t have a mouth to speak or a first to shake if God did not exist. An atheist is like a child who sits on his father’s lap and slaps him in the face.
There is no accounting for the things of this world without first accounting for God. That’s why it is unnecessary to stamp “God” on everything. Everything is stamped with the operating assumption; that’s why something exists rather than nothing. The Psalmist said as much: “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Ps. 19:1–2). Paul said something similar when he addressed the Greek philosophers in Athens:
“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’” (Acts 17:24–28)
There are no shoes; there is no toothpaste; there are no offspring without God. The “stuff” used to make shoes and toothpaste was made by God. Evolutionists must believe in spontaneous generation to account for their worldview. One of the first principles of biology is that spontaneous generation does not occur. The ability of humans to “create” is analogous to God creating, except God does not need anything to create in the first place. There is no way to account for the creative elements used to make shoes and toothpaste or the non-physical attributes required to shape nondescript physical elements into something new if atheism is true. We would not be having this discussion if atheism were true. We would not be here.
Then there’s the larger problem of humans who bear children. Given the inability of atheists to account for the “stuff” of the cosmos, the information necessary for inanimate matter to form itself spontaneously into beings capable of reproducing, it’s hard for me to conceive that anyone can be an atheist. Atheists live off of theistic capital.
When atheists can account for the origin of the “stuff” of the cosmos, organized information to make the stuff work, moral precepts to guide its development, and reason to think through the grandeur of the created order, then they may be able to make their case. Of course, in doing so, they will use reason, one of the “things” they can’t account for given materialist assumptions. They can’t do any of these things without first accepting that they live in a world that they can’t explain how it got here and how it works.
In reality, it’s the atheist who must stamp the world with declarations that God does not exist in face of so much contrary evidence. Even the existence of evil is a prime indicator that God’s exists, because without Him, there is no such thing as evil. Anyway, thank you for writing. It gave me the opportunity to put my thoughts on this subject into words.